weather, and a plentiful store of agricultural productions. 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 object, 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 enchantments, and means are instantly taken to ascertain by whom the mischief may have been wrought. For this purpose, the nearest relative takes a quantity of the juice of fioripondium[1], and suddenly falls, intoxicated by the violence of the plant. He is placed in a fit posture to prevent suffocation, and on his coming to himself, at the end of three days, the Moharis who has the greatest resemblance 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 subject him to the same fate. When not any sorcerer occurs in the visions, the first Moharis they encounter has the misfortune to represent his image.
It cannot be denied, that the Moharises have, by practice and tradition, acquired a profound knowledge of many plants and poisons. with which they effect 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.—Linn.
them
