RO'l 



434 NOTES OF A BOTANIST CHAP. 



of imagination helps his recovery. If the patient 

 dies, the peii attributes it either to the implacable 

 Yawahoo or to the influence of some inimical peii." 

 (An Essay on the History of Guayana, by Dr. 

 Edward Bancroft, 1769, p. 310.) 



Lonor before Bancroft's time the use of the 



o 



maraca and of tobacco by Brazilian payes was 

 described by Thevet, as follows : "' Existimant enim, 

 cum hunc fructum (quern Maraka et Tamaraka 

 nuncupant) manibus pertractant, crepitantemque 

 ob Mayzi grana injecta audiunt, cum suo se Toupan, 

 id est, Deo sermones conferre atque ab eo quodam 

 responsa accipere, sic a suis Paygi (divinatorum 

 genus est, qui suffitu herbae Petun, et quibusdam 

 obmurmurationibus illorum Tamaraka divinam 

 facultatem attribuunt tribuere perhibent) persuasi." 



The accounts given by the early missionaries of 

 the doings of the payes are seldom full or reliable. 

 Those pious men regarded them as the great 

 obstacle to the reception of the Christian faith by 

 the natives, and always wrote of them with a 

 certain impatience and disgust, under the belief (no 

 doubt sincere) that the payes had direct dealings 

 with the devil. But the cure of disease by suction 

 is alluded to by missionaries in every part of South 

 America. In the Lettres Edifiantes et Curiciises, 

 consisting of selections from the correspondence of 

 missionaries in various heathen countries, published 

 with the sanction of the holy see, there is this 

 note about the medicine-men of the Moxos Indians: 

 " L'unique soulagement qu'ils se procurent dans 



Tlicvi-Uis, as (|iiiiicil liy Chusius, in Aivniatiii/i ct Siinfliciitin aliquot . . . 

 Historia. Auctore Garcia ab Horto, Medico Lusitanico. Ed. Ciusio. 

 Ant\ ri pi i , 1579. 



