M'Keevor's Voyage to Hudson's Bay. 59 



the conjuror, who i stripped quite naked. In very hopeless 

 cases they call for consultation ; in this case the assistants also 

 enter quite naked. Having closed the door of the tent very 

 accurately, they then arrange themselves about the unfortu- 

 nate patient, and begin to suck and blow at the parts affected,* 

 and in a short time to sing and talk, as if conversing with far 

 miliar spirits, which they pretend appear to them in the shape 

 of different animals. After a long conference with those invi- 

 sible agents, they then call for the instrument which they are 

 to swallow. They very prudently have a long- string attached 

 to this knife, bayonet, or whatever else it may be, for the pur^ 

 pose of drawing it up again. ' After having practiced this de- 

 ception several times, they again commence sucking the part 

 affected. After this the surating process is commenced ; for 

 this purpose the tent is closed as accurately as possible on all 

 sides. Red-hot stones are then thrown into a vessel of water, 

 and in a short time the whole tent is filled with steam, which, 

 acting on the surface of the skin, soon produces a copious 

 sweat. This being continued until a feeling of weakness is 

 induced, the cure is then said to be completed ; and certainly 

 it must be allowed, especially where the complaint is of a 

 rheumatic description, that this is not tinfrequently the case. 

 Mr. Hearne, in the interesting work already so often alluded 

 to, gives the following very curious instances of which he was 

 himself an eye-witness. " At the time when the forty and odd 

 tents of Indians joined us, one man was so dangerously ill 

 that it was thought necessary the conjurors should use some of 

 tfieir wonderful experiments for his recovery; one of them, 

 therefore, immediately consented to swallow a broad bayonet. 

 Accordingly a conjuring-house was erected, into which the 

 patient \vas conveyed, and he was soon followed by the conju- 

 ror, who, after a long preparatory discourse, and the neces- 

 sary conference with the familiar spirits, advanced to the door 

 and asked for the bayonet, which was then ready prepared by 

 having a string fastened to it, and a short piece of wood tied 

 to the other end of the string to prevent him swallowing it f 



_ . . 



* For some inward complaints, such as griping in the intestines, &c., it 

 is very common to see those jugglers blowing into the rectum until their 

 eyes are almost starting out of their head. The accumulation of so large a 

 quantity of wind is, at times, apt to occasion some extraordinary emotions, 

 which are not easily suppressed by a sick person ; and, as there is no vent 

 for it but the channel through which it was conveyed thither, it sometimes 

 occasions an odd scene between the doctor and his patient, which I once 

 Avantonly called an engagement ; but for which I was afterwards exceed- 

 ingly sorry, as it highly offended several of the Indians, particularly the 

 juggler and sick person. Heanie't Voyage up Coppermine River. 



12 



