NORTHERN OCEAN 211 



poles, into the ground at right angles, so as to form a square 1771. 

 of four, five, six, or seven feet, as may be required. The "^'^ ' 

 tops of the poles are tied together, and all is close covered 

 with a tent-cloth or other skin, exactly in the shape of a small 

 square tent, except that there is no vacancy left at the top to 

 admit the light. In the middle of this house, or tent, the 

 patient is laid, and is soon followed by the conjurer, or 

 conjurers. Sometimes five or six of them give their joint- 

 assistance ; but before they enter, they strip themselves quite 

 naked, and as soon as they get into the house, the door being 

 well closed, they kneel round the sick person or persons, and 

 begin to suck [192] and blow at the parts affected, and then in 

 a very short space of time sing and talk as if conversing with 

 familiar spirits, which they say appear to them in the shape 

 of different beasts and birds of prey. When they have had 

 sufficient conference with those necessary agents, or shadows, 

 as they term them, they ask for the hatchet, bayonet, or the 

 like, which is always prepared by another person, with a long 

 string fastened to it by the haft, for the convenience of haul- 

 ing it up again after they have swallowed it ; for they very 

 wisely admit this to be a very necessary precaution, as hard 

 and compact bodies, such as iron and steel, would be very 

 difficult to digest, even by the men who are enabled to swallow 

 them. Besides, as those tools are in themselves very useful, 

 and not always to be procured, it would be very ungenerous 

 in the conjurers to digest them, when it is known that barely 

 swallowing them and hauling them up again is fully sufficient 

 to answer every purpose that is expected from them. 



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 conjurers should use some of those wonder- 

 ful experiments for his recovery ; one of them therefore 

 immediately consented to swallow a broad bayonet. Accord- 

 ingly, a conjuring-house was erected in the manner above 

 described, into which the patient was conveyed, and he was 



