3\2 



The Aborigines of Brazil, 



practices. The Indian sick accordingly, when once given 

 over to the Paje, are no longer nursed by their own families; 

 indeed are often not even allowed to be visited by them. 



This strange idea of the power of the doctor over his patient 

 is confirmed by the belief that every disease is caused by some 

 dark, hostile power or by sorcery. However obvious the 

 causes of an ailment may be, the patient and his friends never 

 ascribe it to them, but to some personally unfriendly power. 

 The patient is looked on as bewitched ; and if he has any 

 known enemies, they are immediately considered to be to 

 blame for the illness. If no enemy is known, then suspicion 

 falls on some individual who may have happened to incur the 

 dislike of the patient or of his friends. This individual is not 

 unfrequently made away with secretly, or openly killed, for 

 the purpose of counteracting the malignant influence. 



The deaths of the doctors themselves, and after them of 

 old women having the reputation of witchcraft, are oftenest 

 sought for the purpose of curing the patient. Among the Paia- 

 quas on the Paraguay, the Paje in whose hands a patient dies, 

 pays the forfeit of his life.* The Chiquitos sometimes put to 

 death the wife of a man who has been long ill, thinking that 

 she has been the cause of his illness. Among the Abipones 

 too the belief is universal, that every disease is the consequence 

 of the black art of another party. If the patient dies, the Paje 

 tears out his heart and tongue, boils them, and gives them to 

 the house-dog to eat, being satisfied that this will occasion the 

 death of the person who caused the malady. In doing so, 

 he acts on the belief that the enemy of the dead man had 

 made his dog eat some game killed by himself. Missionaries 

 have told me of innumerable instances, in which the long-con- 

 tinued illness especially of a man of importance, has caused 

 a whole round of most revolting murders. Thus does the 

 mind of the Indian sink into these dark abysses of hate and 

 superstition. 



* Surely we are not to credit this. — TV. 



