her to strike his enemy dead. Sometimes one,
"gathering his medicine," as it was termed, feeling within himself that
hidden force of will which makes itself acknowledged even without words,
would rise in his might, and in a loud and severe voice command his
opponent to die! Straightway the latter would drop dead, or yielding in
craven fear to a superior volition, forsake the implements of his art,
and with an awful terror at his heart, creep to his lodge, refuse all
nourishment, and presently perish. Still more terrible was the tyranny
they exerted on the superstitious minds of the masses. Let an Indian
once be possessed of the idea that he is bewitched, and he will probably
reject all food, and sink under the phantoms of his own fancy.

How deep the superstitious veneration of these men has struck its roots
in the soul of the Indian, it is difficult for civilized minds to
conceive. Their power is currently supposed to be without any bounds,
"extending to the raising of the dead and the control of all laws of
nature."[277-1] The grave offers no escape from their omnipotent arms.
The Sacs and Foxes, Algonkin tribes, think that the soul cannot leave
the corpse until set free by the medicine men at their great annual
feast;[277-2] and the Puelches of Buenos Ayres guard a profound silence
as they pass by the tomb of some redoubted necromancer, lest they should
disturb his repose, and suffer from his malignant skill.[278-1]

While thus investigating their real and supposed power over the physical
and mental world, their strictly priestly functions, as performers of
the rites of religion, have not been touched upon. Among the ruder
tribes these, indeed, were of the most rudimentary character.
Sacrifices, chiefly in the form of feasts, where every one crammed to
his utmost, dances, often winding up with the wildest scenes of
licentiousness, the repetition of long and monotonous chants, the making
of the new fire, these are the ceremonies that satisfy the religious
wants of savages. The priest finds a further sphere for his activity in
manufacturing and consecrating amulets to keep off ill luck, in
interpreting dreams, and especially in lifting the veil of the future.
In Peru, for example, they were divided into classes, who made the
various means of divination specialties. Some caused the idols to speak,
others derived their foreknowledge from words spoken by the dead, others
predicted by leaves of tobacco or the grains and ju