S WANTON] INDIANS OF THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES 755 



It is probable that Peter Martyr's informants were actually des- 

 cribing the activities of a class of doctors within a tribe or tribes, not 

 a tribe consisting of doctors. We should also be skeptical of the neu- 

 tral position they are alleged to have taken, since no such thing was 

 found in this part of North America. Anointing with medicine 

 before battle was, however, common. Mention is made elsewhere of the 

 oration performed by a medicine man over the deceased about as des- 

 cribed nearly two centuries later by Lawson. Perhaps the following 

 is an example of native jugglery : 



Another fraud of the priests is as follows : When the chief is at death's door 

 and about to give up his soul they send away all witnesses, and then surrounding 

 his bed they perform some secret jugglery which makes him appear to vomit 

 sparks and ashes. It looks like sparks jumping from a bright fire, or those 

 sulphured papers which people throw into the air to amuse themselves. These 

 sparks, rushing through the air and quickly disappearing, look like those 

 shooting stars which people call leaping wild goats. The moment the dying 

 man expires a cloud of those sparks shoots up 3 cubits high with a noise and 

 quickly vanishes. They hail this flame as the dead man's soul, bidding it a last 

 farewell and accompanying its flight with their wailings, tears, and funeral cries, 

 absolutely convinced that it has taken its flight to heaven. Lamenting and 

 weeping they escort the body to the tomb. (Anghierra, 1912, pp. 263-266.) 



Naturally, a tale recorded early in the sixteenth century by super- 

 stitious Spaniards from superstitious Indians would be dismissed as 

 a mere creation of the undisciplined imagination. But in 1711, nearly 

 two hundred years later, De Graffenried, leader of the Swiss colony 

 at Newbern, thus describes an occurrence of which he was an 

 eyewitness during a Tuscarora burial : 



After the tomb was covered, I noticed something which passes imagination, 

 and which I should not believe had I not seen it with my own eyes. From the 

 tomb arose a little flaming fire, like a big candle-light, which went up straight 

 in the air, and noiselessly — went straight over the cabin of the deceased's 

 widow, and thence further across a big swamp above l^/^ mile broad until it 

 finally vanished from sight in the woods. At that sight, I gave way to my 

 surprise, and asked what it meant, but the Indians laughed at me, as if I ought 

 to have known that this was no rarity among them, they refused however, to 

 tell me what it was. All that I could ascertain, was that they thought a great 

 deal of it, — that this light is a favourable omen, which makes them think the 

 deceased a happy soul, — during [the burial rites] they deem it a most unpro- 

 pitious sign when a black smoke ascends from the tomb. This flying flame, yet, 

 could not be artiflcial, on account of the great distance ; it could be some physical 

 phenomenon, like sulphurous vapors, — but this great uniformity in its appearance 

 surpasses nature. (De Graffenried, 1886, p. 984.) 



Although De Graffenried was not devoid himself of what we 

 should now call superstition, it seems quite certain from his experi- 

 ence that a conjuring trick is involved known to the medicine men 

 of that particular section. It may be added that the Spanish ex- 

 plorers of Chicora were informed of magical means used in forcing 

 the growth of bodies of princes of the family of the chief Datha to 



