When an epidemic is raging on the Gold Coast of West Africa, the
people will sometimes turn out, armed with clubs and torches, to
drive the evil spirits away. At a given signal the whole population
begin with frightful yells to beat in every corner of the houses,
then rush like mad into the streets waving torches and striking
frantically in the empty air. The uproar goes on till somebody
reports that the cowed and daunted demons have made good their
escape by a gate of the town or village; the people stream out after
them, pursue them for some distance into the forest, and warn them
never to return. The expulsion of the devils is followed by a
general massacre of all the cocks in the village or town, lest by
their unseasonable crowing they should betray to the banished demons
the direction they must take to return to their old homes. When
sickness was prevalent in a Huron village, and all other remedies
had been tried in vain, the Indians had recourse to the ceremony
called _Lonouyroya,_ "which is the principal invention and most
proper means, so they say, to expel from the town or village the
devils and evil spirits which cause, induce, and import all the
maladies and infirmities which they suffer in body and mind.
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