es of it, and sometimes they officiate for one another. When
this artist is in the act of conjuration, or of _pauwawing_, as they
term it, he always appears with an air of haste, or else in some
convulsive posture, that seems to strain all the faculties, like the
Sybils, when they appeared to be under the power of inspiration. At
these times, he has a black bird with expanded wings fastened to his
ear, differing in nothing but color, from Mahomet's pigeon. He has no
clothing but a small skin before, and a pocket at his girdle, as in tab.
4, book 3.

The Indians never go about any considerable enterprise, without first
consulting their priests and conjurers, for the most ingenious amongst
them are brought up to those functions, and by that means become better
instructed in their histories, than the rest of the people. They
likewise engross to themselves all the knowledge of nature, which is
handed to them by tradition from their forefathers; by which means they
are able to make a truer judgment of things, and consequently are more
capable of advising those that consult them upon all occasions. These
reverend gentlemen are not so entirely given up to their religious
austerities, but they sometimes take their pleasure (as well as the
laity) in fishing, fowling and hunting.

Sec. 39. The Indians have posts fixed round their _Quioccassan_, which have
men's faces carved upon them, and are painted. They are likewise set up
round some of their other celebrated places, and make a circle for them
to dance about on certain solemn occasions. They very often set up
pyramidal stones and pillars, which they color with puccoon, and other
sorts of paint, and which they adorn with peak, roenoke, &c. To these
they pay all outward signs of worship and devotion, not as to God, but
as they are hieroglyphics of the permanency and immutability of the
Deity; because these, both for figure and substance, are of all
sublunary bodies, the least subject to decay or change; they also, for
the same reason, keep baskets of stones in their cabins. Upon this
account too, they offer sacrifice to running streams, which by the
perpetuity of their motion, typify the eternity of God.

They erect altars wherever they have any remarkable occasion, and
because their principal devotion consists in sacrifice, they have a
profound respect for these altars. They have one particular altar, to
which, for some mystical reason, many of their nations pay an
extraordi