l allowance of tesvino to get it back to its
proper place. But generally the skill of the shaman is taxed more
severely and he resorts to the more direct and powerful methods of
magic. A common occurrence is that of illness caused by maggots, which
the shaman has to extract from the patient by means of a sucking-tube,
a short piece of reed about three inches long, cut from a kind of reed
different from that of the arrow-shaft. He places it on the afflicted
spot, and after sucking vigorously for a minute or so empties from
his mouth into his hand or into a corn-leaf, what purports to be the
maggots. I never had an opportunity of examining closely the small
white bits of something or other that he spit out, but they seemed
to me to be tiny pieces of buckskin which the man had secreted in his
mouth and which swelled up when saturated with saliva. To the shaman
they represent maggots; that is, the embodiment Of the disease, and
all the people firmly believe that they are maggots. The corn-leaf
and its contents are buried; a cross is made on the ground over the
spot and a ceremonial circuit run around it. When resting between
operations, the shaman places his sucking-tube into a bowl of water
in which some herbs are soaking.

The mode of curing, however, varies. A common way in use near
Guachochic is to make the patient stand on all fours and bathe him
well with water; then to place him on a blanket and carry him over
a fire toward the cross and the four corners of the world. When put
down on the ground again he lies or kneels on the blanket, and the
shaman places his tube against the afflicted part and begins to suck
forcibly, while the rest of the people stand around with sticks, ready
to kill the disease so as to prevent it from returning and doing harm
to others. Presently the shaman produces from his mouth a small stone,
which he asserts was the cause of the disease. While the people are
furiously beating the air, he proceeds at once to bury it in the earth,
or in the bottom of the river, into which he dives. He may suck out
as many as eight stones, but generally contents himself with four;
and for treating a man in this way he receives four almuds of maize.

On one occasion, when I had taken a little cold, I asked a shaman
friend whether he could cure me. "Certainly I can," was the confident
reply. He took from a little basket, in which he kept his hikuli
or sacred cacti and probably similar valuables, three black sto