y disappear. These
ghosts frequently appear by night to the living, and very often on the
public highways; but if the traveller is not frightened, the spectre
vanishes. If, on the contrary, he allows himself to be frightened, the
terror inspired by the apparition is such that many of the islanders
completely lose their heads and self-possession. When the Spaniards
asked who ever had infected them with this mass of ridiculous beliefs,
the natives replied that they received them from their ancestors, and
that they have been preserved from time immemorial in poems which only
the sons of chiefs are allowed to learn. These poems are learnt by
heart, for they have no writing; and on feast days the sons of chiefs
sing them to the people, in the form of sacred chants.[24] Their only
musical instrument is a concave sonorous piece of wood which is beaten
like a drum.

[Note 24: Commonly called in the native tongue _arreytos_. Some
specimens exist. Brasseur de Bourbourg in his _Grammaire Quiche_ gives
the _Rabinal Achi_.]

It is the augurs, called bovites, who encourage these superstitions.
These men, who are persistent liars, act as doctors for the ignorant
people, which gives them a great prestige, for it is believed that the
zemes converse with them and reveal the future to them.

If a sick man recovers the bovites persuade him that he owes his
restoration to the intervention of the zemes. When they undertake to
cure a chief, the bovites begin by fasting and taking a purge. There
is an intoxicating herb which they pound up and drink, after which
they are seized with fury like the maenads, and declare that the zemes
confide secrets to them. They visit the sick man, carrying in their
mouth a bone, a little stone, a stick, or a piece of meat. After
expelling every one save two or three persons designated by the sick
person, the bovite begins by making wild gestures and passing his
hands over the face, lips, and nose, and breathing on the forehead,
temples, and neck, and drawing in the sick man's breath. Thus he
pretends to seek the fever in the veins of the sufferer. Afterwards he
rubs the shoulders, the hips, and the legs, and opens the hands; if
the hands are clenched he pulls them wide open, exposing the palm,
shaking them vigorously, after which he affirms that he has driven off
the sickness and that the patient is out of danger. Finally he removes
the piece of meat he was carrying in his mouth like a juggler, and
begins t