KARSTBN] BLOOD KEVENGE, WAR, AND VICTORY FEASTS 9 



time later it may happen that one or more members of either family 

 fall ill with some of the diseases which the Jibaros ascribe to witch- 

 craft. Wlien trying to find out the author of the evil the head of 

 that family is most likely to attribute it to the malicious art of a 

 neighbor with whom he has had such a quarrel. If the patient dies 

 he has recourse to divination by means of the narcotic natenia^ which 

 generally leads to his suspicions against the neighbor being confirmed. 

 The family's sense of justice as well as the duty to the deceased now 

 require that revenge shall be taken, and the supposed wizard is as- 

 sassinated. This murder naturally awakes the desire for blood 

 revenge on the part of th* family thus outraged, and so a blood 

 feud is begun which, as is easily understood, has a tendency to 

 make itself permanent. 



Since supposed sorcery is nearly always the nearest cause of mur- 

 ders within the tribe, it is clear that the professional sorcerers or 

 medicine men are those members of Jibaro society which are most 

 frequently exposed to the revengeful attacks of their enemies. As a 

 matter of fact, in large Indian societies sorcerers are almost continu- 

 ally assassinated, or at least threatened with death, by their enemies. 

 When a medicine man has undertaken to cure a sick person and the 

 latter dies in spite of the treatment, the " doctor " is also generally 

 made responsible for the death, the relatives of the dead reasoning 

 that the medicine man, instead of curing the patient, on the contrary 

 used his art to kill him. The unsuccessful curer is therefore mur- 

 dered unless he escapes by flight. Since the Jibaros, on the whole, 

 do not recognize what we call a natural death but always attribute a 

 death to supernatural causes, any death among them tends to give 

 rise to a murder, the relatives of the deceased considering it as their 

 duty to take revenge upon the supposed author of the accident. 



It must, however, be remarked that among the Jibaros the pro- 

 fessional medicine men are not the only persons who know about 

 sorcery and witchcraft. Most old men, and especially the chiefs, are 

 more or less initiated in the art. 



The Jibaros make a distinction between evil caused by witchcraft 

 {tunchi) and disease (sungura). The illness of a patient is generally 

 attributed to witchcraft when it consists in violent pains in some part 

 of the body, especially when the pain is accompanied by swelling of 

 that part. Thus, for instance, headache, rheumatic pains, and colic 

 are ascribed to witchcraft. On the other hand, to the category " dis- 

 ease " {mngura) the Jibaros set down especially such illnesses as have 

 originally been brought to them by the whites and which are not par- 

 ticularly accompanied by pains, like dysentery, smallpox, and most 

 other fever diseases. Now, if somebody has " brought sickness," i. e., 

 contagion, to the house of another Jibaro so that some member of the 

 family falls ill and dies, that person is also exposed to the revenge of 

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