ketch of the ministers of these religions,
the servants in this temple.

Shamans, conjurers, sorcerers, medicine men, wizards, and many another
hard name have been given them, but I shall call them _priests_, for in
their poor way, as well as any other priesthood, they set up to be the
agents of the gods, and the interpreters of divinity. No tribe was so
devoid of religious sentiment as to be without them. Their power was
terrible, and their use of it unscrupulous. Neither men nor gods, death
nor life, the winds nor the waves, were beyond their control. Like Old
Men of the Sea, they have clung to the neck of their nations, throttling
all attempts at progress, binding them to the thraldom of superstition
and profligacy, dragging them down to wretchedness and death.
Christianity and civilization meet in them their most determined, most
implacable foes. But what is this but the story of priestcraft and
intolerance everywhere, which Old Spain can repeat as well as New Spain,
the white race as well as the red? Blind leaders of the blind, dupers
and duped fall into the ditch.

In their own languages they are variously called; by the Algonkins and
Dakotas, "those knowing divine things" and "dreamers of the gods"
(_manitousiou_, _wakanwacipi_); in Mexico, "masters or guardians of the
divine things" (_teopixqui_, _teotecuhtli_); in Cherokee, their title
means, "possessed of the divine fire" (_atsilung kelawhi_); in Iroquois,
"keepers of the faith" (_honundeunt_); in Quichua, "the learned"
(_amauta_); in Maya, "the listeners" (_cocome_). The popular term in
French and English of "medicine men" is not such a misnomer as might be
supposed. The noble science of medicine is connected with divinity not
only by the rudest savage but the profoundest philosopher, as has been
already adverted to. When sickness is looked upon as the effect of the
anger of a god, or as the malicious infliction of a sorcerer, it is
natural to seek help from those who assume to control the unseen world,
and influence the fiats of the Almighty. The recovery from disease is
the kindliest exhibition of divine power. Therefore the earliest canons
of medicine in India and Egypt are attributed to no less distinguished
authors than the gods Brahma and Thoth;[265-1] therefore the earliest
practitioners of the healing art are universally the ministers of
religion.

But, however creditable this origin is to medicine, its partnership with
theology was no particular a