o cry, "This is what you have eaten in excess of your wants;
now you will get well because I have relieved you of that which you
ate." If the doctor perceives that the patient gets worse, he ascribes
this to the zemes, who, he declares, are angry because they have not
had a house constructed for them, or have not been treated with proper
respect, or have not received their share of the products of the
field. Should the sick man die, his relatives indulge in magical
incantations to make him declare whether he is the victim of fate or
of the carelessness of the doctor, who failed to fast properly or gave
the wrong remedy. If the man died through the fault of the doctor, the
relatives take vengeance on the latter. Whenever the women succeed in
obtaining the piece of meat which the bovites hold in their mouths,
they wrap it with great respect in cloths and carefully preserve it,
esteeming it to be a talisman of great efficacy in time of childbirth,
and honouring it as though it were a zemes.

The islanders pay homage to numerous zemes, each person having his
own. Some are made of wood, because it is amongst the trees and in the
darkness of night they have received the message of the gods. Others,
who have heard the voice amongst the rocks, make their zemes of stone;
while others, who heard the revelation while they were cultivating
their ages--that kind of cereal I have already mentioned,--make theirs
of roots.

Perhaps they think that these last watch over their bread-making.
It was thus that the ancients believed that the dryads, hamadryads,
satyrs, pans, nereids, watched over the fountains, forests, and
seas, attributing to each force in nature a presiding divinity. The
islanders of Hispaniola even believe that the zemes respond to their
wishes when they invoke them. When the caciques wish to consult the
zemes, concerning the result of a war, about the harvest, or their
health, they enter the houses sacred to them and there absorb the
intoxicating herb called _kohobba_, which is the same as that used by
the bovites to excite their frenzy. Almost immediately they believe
they see the room turn upside down, and men walking with their heads
downwards. This kohobba powder is so strong that those who take it
lose consciousness; when the stupefying action of the powder begins
to wane, the arms and hands become loose and the head droops. After
remaining for some time in this attitude, the cacique raises his head,
as though he