the liquor. His assistant holds
in one hand a bowl containing water mixed with the crushed leaves of
the maguey, and in the other some fresh maguey leaves. The tesvino,
as well as the green water, is liberally thrown upon the walls and
the floor of the church to lay the perturbed spirits.

How to cure smallpox is beyond the ken of the shamans, but they try
to keep off the dread enemy by making fences of thorny branches
of different trees across the paths leading to the houses; and
snake-skins, the tail of the grey fox, and other powerful protectors or
charms, are hung around the doors of their dwellings to frighten the
disease away. The same purpose is accomplished through the pungent
smell produced by burning in the house the horns of cows, sheep,
and goats.

The shamans also profess to produce springs by sowing water. They make
a hole one yard deep in the rocky ground. Water is brought in a gourd
and poured into it, together with half an almud of salt. The hole is
then covered up with earth, and after three years a spring forms.

High as the shamans stand in the estimation of the people, they are by
no means exempt from the instability of mundane conditions, and the
higher a man rises the less secure is his position. The power to see
everything, to guard against evil, and to cure illness issues from the
light of his heart, which was given him by Tata Dios. It enables him to
see Tata Dios himself, to talk to him, to travel through space at will,
for the shamans are as bright as the sun. But all this supposed great
power to do good may at any moment be turned to evil purposes. There
are indeed some shamans whose kindly, sweet-tempered manners and
gentle ways enable them to retain their good reputation to the end;
but few go through life who can keep themselves always above suspicion,
especially when they grow older; and innocent persons have on this
account been cruelly persecuted. Such a fate is all the more liable
to befall them on account of the recognised ability of a shaman to
both cure and produce disease.

No doubt the great quantity of stimulants taken by shamans in the
course of their career causes them to go periodically through a
state of excitement, which, combined with the enthusiasm which
they work themselves up to, gradually gives to these men, who
frequently are richly endowed with animal magnetism, a supernatural
appearance. Advancing years have their share in making such a man
look odd and uncanny