276 



INDIAN AND OTHER 



weather, and a plentiful store of agricultural produdlions. Any 

 such result having been casually verified on a single occasion, 

 suffices to confirm the Indians in their faith, although they 

 may have been cheated a thousand times. Fully persuaded 

 that they cannot resist the influence of the piripiri, as soon as 

 they know that they have been solicited by its means, they fix 

 their eyes on the impassioned obje6l, and discover a thousand 

 amiable traits, either real or fanciful, which indifference had 

 before concealed from their view. 



But the principal power, efficacy, and, it may be said, 

 misfortune, of the Mohanes, consist in the cure of the sick. 

 Every malady is ascribed to their enchantrhents, and means 

 are instantly taken to ascertain by whom the mischief may have 

 been vi^rought. For this purpose, the nearest relative takes a 

 quantity of the juice of foripondium*, and suddenly falls, in- 

 toxicated by the violence of the plant. He is placed in a fit 

 posture to prevent suffiDcation, and on his coming to himself, 

 at the end of three days, the Moharis who has the greatest re- 

 'Semblance to the sorcerer he saw in his visions, is to undertake 

 the cure, or if, in the interim, the sick man has perished, it 

 is customary to subjedl him to the same fate. When not any 

 sorcerer occurs in the visions, the first Moharis they encoun- 

 ter has the misfortune to represent his image. 



It cannot be denied, that the Moharises have, by pracSlice 

 and tradition, acquired a profound knowledge of many plants 

 and poisons, with which they effe6t surprizing cures on the 

 one hand, and do much mischief on the other ; but the mania 

 of ascribing the whole to a preternatural virtue, occasions 



* Datura arborea. — Lim. 



them 



