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The machis are a superstitious class, or pretenders to sorcery, and allege that all diseases proceed from witchcraft, and pretend therefore to cure them by supernatural means, for which reason they are employed in desperate cases, when the exertions of the ampives and vileus have proved ineffectual; They have likewise a kind of surgeons, called gutarve; who are skilful in replacing luxations, setting fractured bones, and curing wounds and ulcers.
I never saw one, but this animal is mentioned in the works of the Spanish missionaries, a source too much neglected by zoologists; for amidst much incorrectness and extravagance, they contain many curious local observations. Among the monkeys which we saw at the mission of the Atures, we found one new species, of the tribe of sais and sajous, which the Creoles vulgarly call machis.
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