BOURKE. } CEREMONIAL USE OF DOWN OF BIRDS. 53 
tzite, malol-ixim, esto es: el que adivina por el sol, 6 por granos de 
maiz 6 chile.”! 
In Guazacualeo the medicine-women “hechaban suertes con granos de 
Frisoles, a manera de Dados, i hacian sus invocaciones, porque eran 
Hechiceros: i si el Dado decia bien, proseguian en la cura, diciendo 
que sanaria: i si mal, no bolvyian al enfermo.”? 
Herrera in the preceding paragraph recognizes the close similarity 
between this sacred ceremony of casting lots or divining, and the more 
orthodox method of gambling, pure and simple, which has in every case 
been derived from a sacred origin. 
‘Les Hachus [one class of Peruvian priests} consultaient Pavenir au 
moyen de grains de mais ou des excréments des animaux.” ® 
The Mexicans ‘para saber si los enfermos habian de morir, 6 sanar 
de la enfermedad que tenian, echaban un punado de maiz lo mas grueso 
que podian haber, y lanzabanlo siete 6 ocho veces, como lanzan los dados 
los que los juegan, y si algun grano quedaba enhiesto, decian que era 
seal de muerte.” 4 
Father Brebeuf relates that at the Huron feast of the dead, which 
occurred every 8 or 10 years and which he saw at Ossossane, “ a few 
grains of Indian corn were thrown by the women upon the sacred 
relies.” > 
THE DOWN OF BIRDS IN CEREMONIAL OBSERVANCES. 
No exhaustive and accurate examination of the subject of hoddentin 
could be made without bringing the investigator face to face with the 
curious analogue of “down” throwing and sprinkling which seemingly 
obtains with tribes which at some period of their history have been 
compelled to rely upon birds as a main component of their diet. LEx- 
amples of this are to be met with on both sides of the Pacifie as well 
as in remote Australia, and were the matter more fully examined there 
is no doubt that some other identifications might be made in very 
unexpected quarters. The down used by the Tehuktchi on oceasions 
of ceremony had a suggestion of religion about it.° ‘On leaving the 
shore, they sung and danced. One who stood at the head of the boat 
was employed in plucking out the feathers of a bird’s skin and blowing 
them in the air.” 
In Langsdorff’s Travels? we learn that some of the dancers of the 
Koluschan of Sitka have their heads powdered with the small down 
feathers of the white-headed eagle and ornamented with ermine; also, 
that the hair and bodies of the Indians at the mission of Saint Joseph, 
New California, were powdered with down feathers.® 
' Ximenez, Guatemala, p. 177. 
* Herrera, dec. 4, lib. 9, cap. 8, p. 188. 
* Balboa, Hist. du Pérou, in Ternaux-Compans, Voy., vol. 15, p. 29. 
4 Mendieta, Hist. Eclesidastica Ind., p. 110. 
*Henry Youle Hind, Assiniboine and Saskatchewan Exped., vol. 2, pp. 165, 166. 
* Lisiansky, Voyage Round the World, London, 1814, pp. 153, 221, 223. 
7 London, 1814, pt. 2. pl. mu, p. 115. 7 
*Ibid., pl. iv. pp. 194. 195. 
