150 THE MENOM1NI INDIANS Ieth.aito.14 



on a blanket near the physician. She, appeared to have much fever and a severe 

 oppression of the lungs, breathing with difficulty, and betraying symptoms of the 

 last stage of consumption. 



After singing for some time, the physician took one of the bones out of the basin. 

 The hone was hollow, and one end being applied to the breast of the patient, he put 

 the other into his mouth, in order to remove the disorder by suction. Having perse- 

 vered in this as long as he thought proper, he suddenly seemed to force the bone 

 into his mouth and swallow it. He now acted the part of one suffering severe 

 pain, but presently linding relief he made a long speech, and after this returned to 

 singing and to the accompaniment of his rattle. With the latter, during his song, 

 he struck his head, breast, sides, and back, at the same time straining as if to vomit 

 forth the bone. 



Relinquishing this attempt, he applied himself to suction a second time, and with 

 the second of the three bones; and this also he soon seemed to swallow. 



Upon its disappearance he begau to distort himself in the most frightful manner, 

 using every gesture which could convey the idea of pain. At length he succeeded, 

 or pretended to succeed, in throwing up one of the bones. This was handed about 

 to the spectators and strictly examined, but nothing remarkable could be discovered. 

 Upon this, he went back to his song and rattle, and after some time threw up the 

 second of the two bones. In the groove of this the physician, upon examination, 

 found and displayed to all present a small white substance resembling a piece of the 

 quill of a feather, it was passed round the company, from one to the other, and 

 declared by the physician to be the thing causing the disorder of his patient. 



The multitude believe that these physicians, whom the French call jongleurs, or 

 jugglers, can inflict as well as remove disorders. They believe that by drawing the 

 figure of any person in sand or ashes, or on clay, or by considering any object as the 

 figure of a person, and then pricking it with a sharp stick or other substance, or 

 doing in any other manner that which done to a living body would cause pain or 

 injury, the individual represented, or supposed to be represented, will suffer accord- 

 ingly. On the other hand, the mischief being done, ; nother physician, of equal 

 pretensions, can by suction remove it. Unfortunately, however, tho operations 

 which I have described were not successful in the instance referred to, for on the day 

 after they had taken place the girl died.' 



The office of "rainmaker" is also held by a conspicuous juggler, 

 when oue of sufficient ability is supposed to abide with the tribe. 

 When in times of great drought the chief demands rain for the benefit 

 of the crops and disappearing streams, the juggler is commanded to 

 cause the necessary rainfall; or, when too much rain has fallen, his 

 powers are likewise called into requisition to stay the storm. The 

 rainmaker is found in various tribes in which but little evidence of the 

 existence of other pretenders is met with, though reference is made by 

 Father Juan Bantista, in a work published at Mexico, as early as the 

 year 1600, 2 that— 



There are magicians who call themselves teciuhtlazque. and also by the term naua- 

 hualtin, who conjure the clouds when there is danger of hail, so that the crops may 

 not be injured. They can also make a stick look like a serpent, a mat like a centi- 

 pede, a piece of stone like a scorpion, and similar deceptions. Others of these 

 nanahualtin will transform themselves to all appearances (segun la aparenoia), into 

 a tiger, a dog, or a weasel. Others again will take the form of an owl. a cock, or a 



'Travels and Adventures (1760-1776), pp. 119-121. New Tork, 1809. 



'Quoted from Brinton's Nagualism, A Study in Native American Folk-Lore and History, in Troc. 

 Am. Philosoph. Soc., vol. xxxiii, p. 14, Philadelphia, 1894. 



