FEWKES] RELIGION HI 



their breath, and, having siiekeil it several times, they persuade tlie patient tliat liv 

 that means they have got out all the venom which lay in his l)ody and caused liini 

 to languish. 



^Iedicixk Practices" 



Among the Borinquefio.s as among all primitive peoples the priests 

 had developed a theory of eurative medicine in which the doctrine of 

 signatures pla3'ed an important role. The cure of the sick was supposed 

 to be accomplished by the magic power of the tutelary god which the 

 hoi) believed they could control for the good of the patients.; these 

 primitive medicine men also believed themselves able, through sorcery, 

 to inflict sickness on those whom the^* wished to harm. In addition to 

 the use of magic, these priests were acquainted with a rich phai-ma- 

 copceia of herbs which were used empirically. A knowledge of these 

 herbs was not, as in other primitive medicine practices, confined to the 

 priests. Pane gives the following account of the treatment of the 

 sick by the Ijiihuitihiu or doctors, which is corroborated by Benzoni 

 (p. 82). According to these authorities the herb most employed was 

 tobacco,* or at times merely the smoke was used. 



When they go to visit any sick body, before they set out from their house, they 

 take the soot off a pot, or pounded charcoal, and black all their face, to make the 

 sick man believe what they please concerning his distemper. Then they take some 

 small bones, and a little flesh, and wrapping them all up in something that they may 

 not drop, put them in their mouth, the sick man being before purged with the 

 powder aforesaid. When the physician is come into the sick man's house he sits 

 down and all persons are silent, and if there are any children they put them out, 

 that they may not hinder the BuhuUihu in performing his office; nor does there 

 remain in the house any but one or two of the chief persons. Being thus liy them- 

 selves, they take some of the herb 6r(tii'a . . . broad, and another herb, wrapped up in 

 the web of an onion half a quarter long; one of the Gioia's, and the other they hold, 

 and drawing it in their hands they bruise it into a paste, and then put it in their 

 mouths to vomit what they have eaten, that it may not hurt them; then presently 

 begin their song, and lighting a torch, take the juice. This done, having staid a 

 little, the Buhuitihu rises up, and goes toward the sick man, who sits all alone in the 

 middle of the house, as has been said, and turns him twice about, as he thinks fit; 

 then stands before him, takes him by the legs, and feels his thighs, descending by 

 degrees to his feet; then draws hard, as if he would pull something off; then he goes 

 to the door, shuts it, and says, be gone to the mountain, or to the sea, or whither 

 thou wilt; and giving a blast, as if he blowed something away, turns about, claps 

 his hands together, shuts his mouth, his hands quake as if he were cold, he blows 

 on his hands, and then draws in his blast as if sucking the marrow of a bone, sucks 

 the sick man's neck, stomach, shoulders, jaws, breast, belly, and several other parts 

 of his body. This done they begin to cough, and make faces, as if they had eaten 

 some bitter thing, and the doctor pulls out that we said he put into his mouth at 

 home, or by the way, whether stone, flesh, or bone, as above. If it is anvthing 

 eatable, he says to the sick man, take notice you have eaten something that has 



a Restricted to curing sickness. In ceremonies for rain or growth of crops the term "medicine" is 

 also used, and in both applications we tind the same theory of magical influence. 



!> H. Ling Roth. Aborigines of Hispaniola. Jnurnal of thr Anthropological Inslilule of Great Ilritnin 

 and Ireland, xvi, 247-286, 1887. 



