338 



The Aborigines oj Brazil. 





may take occasion to remark, that I have never seen a fatal 

 case of this dangerous accident among the Indians ; while 

 two other cases, one of a white man, the other of a mulatto, 

 in which the help of an Indian doctor could not be procured, 

 terminated fatally. If the treatment just recorded may shew 

 some slight traces of animal magnetism, their other pro- 

 cesses bear much rather the character of exorcisms.* Their 

 priest-doctor falls upon the patients bed with fearful contor- 

 tions of face, or if the patient be in a hammock, upon the 

 ground, and spurts out all kinds of exorcisms to drive out 

 the evil principle. In this stage the following processes are 

 particularly applicable. Spitting on the patient ; fumigating 

 him with the large cigars, f which the Indians use at most of 

 their feasts and carousals; covering the patient with strong 

 smelling herbs, and smearing him with blood. The substan- 

 ces, which the Paje uses for such purposes, vary much in 

 different tribes. I have already mentioned that supernatural 

 powers are ascribed to certain animals ; but hairs also, and 

 the ashes of bones, &c. are among the strange preparations 

 which the Paje employs. 



If we consider the dreamy life which the Indian almost al- 

 ways lives, and from which nothing but the effects of the vio- 

 lent passions arouse him, — if we think of his superstitious dread 

 of the unknown powers of nature, his fear of spirits, and his 

 deep-rooted inclination to feign what man does not possess, 

 namely, mastery over some unknown higher power in nature,— 

 we may be able to understand the light in which the doctor 

 is regarded by his patient. But the doctor is a self-deceived 



* Analogous processes are common in this country : and barbers often prevent 

 the returns of intermittent fever by such manipulations ; (though, it was reserved 

 for the judicial wisdom of a Bengal civilian recently to pronounce, that they can 

 kidnap children by mesmerism.) Some customs of the Burmese in sickness are 

 exorcismal. — TV. 



f The Brazilian Indians use very large cigars, often a foot and a half long, and 

 two inches thick. Cigars are called Tamot by the Chayraas. This word is the 

 probable root of Tabacus, 



