192 
igi. 
. siugult, 
A JOURNEY TO THE 
conjurers. Sometimes five or fix of them give | 
their joint-afliftance ; but before they enter, they 
{trip themfelves quite naked, and as foon as they 
get into the honfe, the door being well clofed, 
they kneel round the fick perfon or perfons, and _ 
begin to fuck.and blow at the parts effected, and — 
then in a very fhort {pace of time fing and talk _ 
as if converfing with familiar {pirits, which they 
fay appear to them in the fhape of different beafts _ 
and birds of prey. When they have had fufficient 
conference with thofe neceffary agents, orfhadows, — 
as they termthem, they afk forthe hatchet, bay- — 
onet, or the like, which is always prepared by 
another perfon, with a long ftring faftened to it 
by the haft, for the convenience of hauling it up 
again after they have fwallowed it; for they — 
very wifely admit this to be a very neceflary’pre- 
caution, as hard and compact bodies, fuch as iron 
and fteel, would be very difficult to digeft, even 
by the men who are enabled to {wallow them. 
Befides, as thofe tools are in themfelves very ufe- _ 
ful, and not always to be procured, it would be 
very ungenerous in the conjurers to digeft them, 
when it is known that barely fwallowing them 
and hauling them up again is fully fuflicient to 
anfwer every purpofe that is expected from them. 
At the time when the forty and odd tents of 
Indians joined us, one mau was fo dangeroully ill, 
that it was thought neceflary the conjurers fhould 
ufe fome of thofe wonderful experiments for his 
recovery; one of them thereforeimmediately, con- | 
fented | 
