was
hopelessly puzzled; John kept his shilling, and laid it out on a much more
meritorious exhibition of animated sticks.[24]

Uguise gave Dr. Callaway an account of a female possessed person with
whom Mrs. Piper could not compete. Her spirit spoke, not from her mouth,
but from high in the roof. It gave forth a kind of questioning remarks
which were always correct. It then reported correctly a number of singular
circumstances, ordered some remedies for a diseased child, and offered to
return the fee, if ample satisfaction was not given.[25]

In China and Zululand, as in Mrs. Piper's case, the spirits are fond of
diagnosing and prescribing for absent patients.

A good example of savage possession is given in his travels by Captain
Jonathan Carver (1763).

Carver was waiting impatiently for the arrival of traders with provisions,
near the Thousand Lakes. A priest, or jossakeed, offered to interview the
Great Spirit, and obtain information. A large lodge was arranged, and the
covering drawn up (which is unusual), so that what went on within might be
observed. In the centre was a chest-shaped arrangement of stakes, so far
apart from each other 'that whatever lay within them was readily to be
discerned.' The tent was illuminated 'by a great number of torches.' The
priest came in, and was first wrapped in an elk's skin, as Highland seers
were wrapped in a black bull's hide. Forty yards of rope made of elk's
hide were then coiled about him, till he 'was wound up like an Egyptian
mummy.'

I have elsewhere shown[26] that this custom of binding with bonds the seer
who is to be inspired, existed in Graeco-Egyptian spiritualism, among
Samoyeds, Eskimo, Canadian Hareskin Indians, and among Australian blacks.

'The head, body, and limbs are wound round with stringy bark cords.'[27]
This is an extraordinary range of diffusion of a ceremony apparently
meaningless. Is the idea that, by loosing the bonds, the seer demonstrates
the agency of spirits, after the manner of the Davenport Brothers?[28] But
the Graeco-Egyptian medium did _not_ undo the swathings of linen, in which
he was rolled, _like a mummy_. They had to be unswathed for him, by
others.[29] Again, a dead body, among the Australians, is corded up tight,
as soon as the breath is out of it, if it is to be buried, or before being
exposed on a platform, if that is the custom.[30] Again, in the Highlands
second-sight was thus acquired: the would-be seer 'must run a Tedder
(te