320 " MAKING MEDICINE. 



different heights, and the whole is then covered 

 with leather, when it presents a shape like the 

 frustum of a sugar-loaf. The top is open, and to 

 the upper hoop is stitched a blanket, which falls 

 down as a funnel : this is to admit the spiiits 

 which are evoked, but I could not learn what were 

 their attributes, except that there is one which 

 seems to have power over the rest, is an evil 

 being, and puts an end to the proceedings by 

 appearing without summons and driving off the 

 other creatures of air. The medicine-man goes into 

 the tent before the skin covering is finally sewn on, 

 and begins to sing away at a great rate, the house 

 at the same time shaking with violence, so much 

 so as sometimes to fall down ; this, it is supposed, is 

 done by the spirits, and certainly the conjurors must 

 be very expert : in some instances they have per- 

 mitted themselves to be bound hand and foot, 

 wrapped in a net and thus thrown into the tent, which 

 has immediately began to shake, and in a very brief 

 space the net and bonds were ejected from the tent 

 without a knot having been untied. Por their enemies 

 they are said to possess terrible medicines, the effect 

 of one being to distort the features to one side — 

 probably paralysis by poison — of another, to render the 

 skin perfectly blue, like the result of nitrate of silver. 



