NARCOTICS AXD STIMULANTS 433 



dances, but it is also employed by. the payes in 

 their divinations, and Bancroft's account of its use 

 in Guayana corresponds so nearly with what was 

 told to me on the Uaupes, that I cannot do better 

 than transcribe it here. 



" The medicine-men, called Peii's [Stectman says 

 Peiis or Pagayers], unite in themselves the sacer- 

 dotal and medicinal functions. One of the imple- 

 ments of the peii is a hollowed calabash (cuya) 

 through the centre of which an axis is passed 

 projecting about a foot on each side, the thick end 

 forming a handle, the thin end decorated with 

 feathers ; it is also carved and painted and per- 

 forated with small holes some lono-, some round 



o ' 



and several quartz pebbles and red-and-black beans 

 are put inside it, so that it forms a rattle. When 

 the peii is called to a patient, he begins his exorcism 

 at night, the lights being put out and he left 

 alone with the patient. He rattles his maraca by 

 turning it slowly round, singing at the same time a 

 supplication to the Yawahoo. This goes on for say 

 a couple of hours, when the peii is heard con- 

 versing with the Yawahoo at least there are two 

 distinct voices. Afterwards the peii makes a report 

 in an ambiguous style, on what will be the event of 

 the disorder. The exorcisms are repeated every 

 night until after a favourable turn, when the peii 

 pretends to extract the cause of the disorder by 

 sucking the part affected, after which he pulls out 

 of his mouth fish-bones, thorns, snake's teeth, or 

 some such substance, which he has before concealed 

 therein, but pretends to have been maliciously con- 

 veyed into the affected part by the Yawahoo. The 

 patient then fancies himself cured, and the influence 



VOL. II 2 F 



