thought to make the bad man clean. The people may chastise a man
suspected of sorcery, to frighten him from doing further mischief. A
sick person also is supposed to improve when the sorcerer who made
him ill is punished; but if accidents and misfortune continue to
happen, the accused man may be killed. Such extreme measures have
been resorted to even in recent years, though rarely.

The magical powers of a sorcerer are appalling. When a Tarahumare walks
with a sorcerer in the forest and they meet a bear, the sorcerer may
say: "Don't kill him; it is I; don't do him any harm!" or if an owl
screeches at night, the sorcerer may say: "Don't you hear me? It is
I who am calling."

The sorcerer dies a terrible death. Many dogs bark and run away and
come back; they look like fire, but they are not; they are the evil
thoughts of the sorcerer. The river, too, makes a greater noise
as it flows, as if somebody were dipping up water and pouring it
out again. Uncanny, weird noises come from every part of the house,
and all the people in it are much frightened. Hardly anyone goes to
talk to the dying man, and no one bids him good-bye. The Christian
Tarahumares do not bury him in the churchyard with other people, but
alone in a remote cave, and they bury all his things with him--his
machete his axe, and heavy things that other people never take along,
but which the sorcerer, because he is very powerful, can carry with
him when he goes to heaven.

As we have seen, the medical education of the shamans is extremely
limited. Their rational _materia medica_ is confined to the hikuli
cactus and a few roots and plants. Aside from this they have a cure
for snakebites which is really remarkable. The injured man kills the
reptile, cuts out its liver and gall, and smears the latter over the
wound; he may also eat a piece of the liver, but it must be taken from
the animal that inflicted the injury; then he will be well again in
three days. If people die of snake-bites, it is because the reptile
escaped. The gall of a rattlesnake has a sickening smell; even my
dogs were repulsed by it when I once killed a four-foot rattler. The
method may be considered as in accord with the modern theory that
the bile of many animals contains strong antitoxins.

However, there is nothing new under the sun. In the Talmud we find
recommended as a cure for hydrophobia to eat the liver of the dog
that bites one; and in the Apocrypha we read that Tobias was cured