NARCOTICS AND STIMULANTS 433 
dances, but it is also employed by the payes in 
their divinations, and Bancroft's account of its use 
in Guayana corresponds so nearly with what was 
told to me on the Uaupes, that I cannot do better 
than transcribe it here. 
"The medicine-men, called Peii's [Stedman says 
Peiis or Pagayers], unite in themselves the sacer- 
dotal and medicinal functions. One of the imple- 
ments of the peii is a hollowed calabash (cuya) 
through the centre of which an axis is passed 
projecting about a foot on each side, the thick end 
forming a handle, the thin end decorated with 
feathers ; it is also carved and painted and per- 
forated with small holes — some long, some round 
and several quartz pebbles and red-and-black beans 
are put inside it, so that it forms a rattle. When 
the peii is called to a patient, he begins his exorcism 
at night, the lights being put out and he left 
alone with the patient. He rattles his maraca by 
turning it slowly round, singing at the same time a 
supplication to the Yawahoo. This goes on for say 
a couple of hours, when the peii is heard con- 
versing with the Yawahoo — at least there are two 
distinct voices. Afterwards the peii makes a report 
in an ambiguous style, on what will be the event of 
the disorder. The exorcisms are repeated every 
night until after a favourable turn, when the peii 
pretends to extract the cause of the disorder by 
sucking the part affected, after which he pulls out 
of his mouth fish-bones, thorns, snake's teeth, or 
some such substance, which he has before concealed 
therein, but pretends to have been maliciously con- 
veyed into the affected part by the Yawahoo. The 
patient then fancies himself cured, and the influence 
VOL. II 2 F 
