Manchester Memoirs, Vol. xlvi. (1902), No. 13. 7 



that a soothsayer in a frenzy took a red hot stone from 

 the fire and put it between his teeth, after which the Hps 

 and tongue were not burned. To fast (vi., 209) for as 

 many as 8 or 10 days, with intervals of howling, was also 

 a practice of Canadian sorcerers to make their " bodies and 

 minds free and light, and so prepared for dreaming."* The 

 pouring of cold water was, according to the Jesuit fathers, 

 intended to justify the diagnosis of the sorcerer. Some- 

 times such a practice has a different object. Just as when 

 a person is dead it is important to drive away the ghost, 

 so before they are dead the aim is to prevent the soul 

 from leaving the body. This can be done by making a 

 noise, so as to frighten the soul back and prevent the 

 patient from sleeping, when a soul so easily slips out of the 

 body. The dashing of cold water over a patient has the 

 same effect, and instances are given from China and Siam.f 

 In the Niger Delta, if the patient is insensible, pepper is 

 put into the nostrils and eyes, and the mouth propped open 

 with a stick. The whole crowd of relations and friends 

 yell out the patient's name, crying, " Hi ! don't you hear ? 

 Come back ! " 



Another instance of the treatment of sickness in the 

 case of a child is the following : — 



The greatest sorcerer they have among them, according to the Inter- 

 preter, who arrived shortly afterward, sang and blew upon the child to cure 

 him. They had made a little retreat where the child was. Two or three 

 times I tried to get near it, but was not permitted. The savages stopped me 

 every time, I waited until this fine doctor had treated his patient ; the 

 child, naked as one's hand, lay in a cradle of bark, upon pulverised rotten 

 wood. He was burning with a high fever ; and this charlatan to cure him, was 

 beating upon and whirling around an instrument full of little stones, made 

 exactly like a tambourine. With all this he howled immoderately. In a 

 word, he and his companion, in order to cure this little boy of a fever, made 

 enough noise to give one to a healthy man. The sorcerer approached the 

 patient, and blew all over the body, as I conjectured, for I could not see 



* Tylor, Piiiii. Culture., xi., 413. 



t Yxz.z&x,Journ. Anthrop. Inst., xv., 64. 



