CHARACTERS- 



663 



place which was to receive this 

 visitation, went two and two 

 through every house, Confessing 

 aloud all the offences which they 

 had committed against their hus- 

 bands, and demanding forgiveness 

 for them; and when the Payes 

 arrived they were received with 

 song and dance. They pretended 

 that a spirit which came to them 

 from the remotest parts of the 

 world, gave them power to make 

 the Maraca answer questions and 

 predict events. The house was 

 cleared, the women and children 

 excluded, and the men were then 

 told to produce their maracas, 

 adorned with red feathers, that 

 they might receive the faculty of 

 speech. The Payes sat at the 

 head of the room, and fixed their 

 own in the ground before them ; 

 near these the others were fixed, 

 and every man made a present to 

 the jugglers, that his might not 

 be forgotten. This essential part 

 of the business being performed, 

 they fumigated them with petun 

 through a long cane; the Paye 

 then took up one, put it to his 

 mouth, and bade it speak : a shrill 

 feeble voice then seemed to pro- 

 ceed from it, which the savages 

 believe to be the voice of the spi- 

 rit, and the jugglers bade them go 

 to war and conquer their enemies, 

 for the spirits who inhabit the ma- 

 racas delight to be satisfied with 

 the flesh of prisoners. Every one 

 then took up his oracle, called it 

 his dear son, and carefully re- 

 placed it. The savages, from the 

 Orinoco to the Plata, have no 

 other visible object of worship. 



On some occasions there is a 

 greater ceremony, at which Jean 

 De Lery happened once to be pre- 

 sent. He and two other French- 



men went early in the mormng to 

 a town of the Tupinambas, think- 

 ing to breakfast there. Theyfound 

 all the inhabitants, in number 

 about six hundred, collected in the 

 area: the men went into one 

 house, the women into another, 

 the boys into a third ; the Payes 

 ordered the women not to come 

 out, but carefully to listen to the 

 singing, and they put the French- 

 men with them. 'Presently a sound 

 was heard from the house into 

 which the men had retired ; they 

 were singing He-he-he-he, which 

 the women in like manner re- 

 peated : the singing was not in a 

 loud key at first, but they conti- 

 nued it a full quarter of an hour, 

 till it became one long and dread- 

 ful yell, jumping the whole while, 

 their breasts shaking, and foaming 

 at the mouth : some of them fell 

 down senseless, and De Lery be- 

 lieved they wereactuallypossessed. 

 The boys were making the same 

 hideous howling by themselves 

 and the three Frenchmen were, 

 as they well might be, in grievous 

 consternation, not knowing what 

 the devil might think proper to 

 do next. After a short pause of 

 silence, the men began to sing ia 

 the sweetest and most delightful 

 tones ; De Lery was so charmed, 

 that he resolved to go and look at 

 them; and though the women 

 endeavoured to prevent him, and 

 a Norman interpreter said that 

 during seven years which he had 

 passed among them he had never 

 dared be present, he, relying upon 

 his intimacy with some of the el- 

 ders, went out and made a hole 

 in the roof, through which he and 

 his companions beheld the cere- 

 mony. 

 The men were disposed in three 



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