BOTH] 



THE MEDICINE-MAN 



333 



and holding its front well up. In this figure the base of the fore 

 legs is occupied by two clearly-bored holes, into which, evidently, 

 it had been the custom to fit strings by which to pull the little 

 object along on the ground, just as toys are usually drawn along 

 by small children." It seems to me far more reasonable, under the 

 circumstances, to suppose that this object was the doctor's chest- 

 ornament just referred to. There is absolutely no evidence of any 

 Guiana Indian toy being used in this manner, and it is ridiculous to 

 beheve that the vast amount of labornecessarily involved in carving 

 quartz and boring holes 

 through it, would be ex- 

 pended on a child's play- 

 thing. 



293. The office of the 

 medicine-man appears to 

 have been hereditary and 

 to have passed to the eldest 

 son (Ba, 316). If he has no 

 son the piai picks a friend 

 as his successor (Scli, i, 

 172), although the same 

 authority (Schomburgk) 

 elsewhere states that, under 

 these circumsta n c e s , he 

 chooses the craftiest among 

 thoboys(ScE,i,423-4). It 

 is likely that the secrets 

 and mysteries of the pro- 

 fession may also have been 

 imparted to outsiders for a consideration. I happen to have known 

 one of the fraternity who taught another his profession for the sum 

 down of eleven dollars together with the gift of his daughter. Im 

 Thiu-n (334) says: ''If there was no son to succeed the father, 

 the latter chose and trained some bo}- from the tribe — one ■with an 

 epileptic tendency being preferred. ... It has been said that epilep- 

 tic subjects are by preference chosen as piaimen, and are trained 

 to throw themselves at wall into convulsions." Perhaps this idea had 

 its origui ui the fact that tlirough the use of a narcotic powder, the 

 piais can throw themselves into a condition of wild ecstasy (ScR, 

 I, 423-4) : several such powders were known to some of the Guiana 

 Indians, as the Yupa (G, i, 181), etc. On the other hand I can find 

 no references in the literature to the choice of epileptic subjects; 

 furthermore, the unlikelihood is turned into impossibility, when it is 

 borne in mind that the victim of such a convulsion M'ould be uncon- 

 scious during its progress. 



FiQ. D. The piai's chest-ornament (Arawak), Monica River. 



