CULTURE OF PEOPLE OF SOUTHEASTERN PANAMA 85 



Jiggers {Pulex penetrans) infest the dust about the village and 

 burrow under the skin at the toe nails causing a great deal of suf- 

 fering among men and animals. Dried leaves that have been stored 

 for future use; roots that have been boiled and then squeezed or 

 mashed ; exudations and the sap of various trees ; bark that has been 

 peeled from trees and boiled or soaked and the resultant liquid 

 drained; all these are means whereby a remedy more or less effica- 

 cious is derived. 



Conjurers and magic. — An effective magical agent that is of a 

 symbolic nature is to pour water over pan's pipes and then compel 

 the patient to drink the water so that his breath may become un- 

 obstructed, like a current of air passing through the reeds. Various 

 kinds of songs are sung by the lele for the sick patient and also 

 while on a herb gathering expedition. Dancing may also prove an 

 effective magical aid. 



The conjurer formerly played an important role in the life of 

 the San Bias coast tribes, as vividly described by Wafer 13 in 1699 

 in the following passage : 



We presently inquired of these Indians, when they expected any ships. 

 They told us they knew not, but would inquire ; and therefore they sent for 

 one of their conjurers, who immediately went to work to raise the Devil, 

 to inquire of him at what time a ship would arrive here. We were in the 

 house with them, and they first began to work with making a partition with 

 hammocks, that the conjurers might be by themselves. They continued at 

 the same time at their exercise, and we could hear them make most hideous 

 yellings and shrieks, imitating the voices of all their kind of birds and beasts. 

 With their own noise they joined that of several stones struck together, 

 and of Conch-shells, and of a sorry sort of drums made of hollow bamboos, 

 which they beat upon ; making a jarring noise also with strings fastened to 

 the larger bones of beasts, and every now and then they would make a 

 dreadful exclamation and clattering all of a sudden, would as suddenly make 

 a pause and a profound silence. But finding that after a considerable time 

 no answer was made them, they concluded that was because we were in 

 the house, and so turned us out, and went to work again. . . . Then they 

 fell once more to their conjuring, and after a little time, they came out 

 with their answer, but all in a muck-sweat, so that they first went down to 

 the river and washed themselves and then came and delivered the oracle to us. 



In their journey up the Chucunaque River after leaving Yavisa, 

 as related by R. O. Marsh in World's Work, 1925 (p. 487), the 

 members of the Marsh-Darien expedition were subjected to con- 

 tinual surveillance. 



Every night our ears were filled with weird forest cries from upstream and 

 below — whistlings that we mistook for bird-calls until we observed that 

 they came in mathematical combinations which clearly proved their human 

 origin and that they were signals between unseen observers. In the morning, 

 we would find their footprints on the river banks, and we would also find 



13 A New Voyage and Description of the Indians of America, p. 60. 



