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We are therefore on sacred ground in this crumbling enclosure. But who knows that we are not on magic ground also? We might make an experiment; and though our Indian guide is not one of the great shamans, he might help us in an attempt at innocent jugglery.
Of all misfortune, witchcraft was the most appalling. With the intangible and unseen things only the shamans could cope, and neither man, woman, nor child could know, until the moment of ordeal, whether devils possessed their souls or not. And of all shamans, Klok-No-Ton, who dwelt in the next village, was the most terrible.
For no man knew of Kamo-tah, sick and groaning and hungry; and did I fight with Ivan, and die, then would my brother die, too. So it was, Oona, that thou sawest me beaten like a dog. "Then I heard the talk of the shamans and chiefs that the Russians had brought strange sicknesses upon the people, and killed our men, and stolen our women, and that the land must be made clean.
Let no one of you utter words, but all of you pray and do penance, keep open your ears, wide awake your eye, and closed your lips." With this the shamans filed out, one after the other. Their muffled steps were heard for a moment as they grated on the bare rock. One by one the other members of the council left the chamber in silence, each wending his way homeward with gloomy thoughts.
Aside from the sacrifices which are ordered by the shamans, the Koraks offer general oblations at least twice a year, to assure a good catch of fish and seal and a prosperous season. We frequently saw twenty or thirty dogs suspended by the necks on long poles over a single encampment.
And the shamans, sure always of an audience in Catanaugh, made much of him, and in many ways without his knowing it, used him as a tool. Now, it was at their bidding that he sat there motionless, except for his lips, which recited in a tone as regular and as loud as a tree-toad's the words of an incantation they had taught him.
Where this Son is found in Australia, I by no means regard him as a savage refraction from Christian teaching about a mediator, for Christian teaching, in fact, has not been accepted, least of all by the highly conservative sorcerers, or shamans, or wirreenuns of the tribes.
And they were without honor and respect, jeering the old-time customs and laughing in the faces of chief and shamans. "As I say, we were become a weak breed, we Whitefish. We sold our warm skins and furs for tobacco and whiskey and thin cotton things that left us shivering in the cold.
There were also Shamans of hunting, of medicine and priestcraft. It was while the Queres were on their way from Shipapu that the Delight-Makers were sent to keep the people cheerful. The white mud with which they daubed themselves is a symbol of light, and the corn leaves tied in their hair signify fruitfulness, for the corn needs cheering up also.
This ceremony was always performed by a certain group of medicine-men, called therefore Hakanyi Chayani, or Fire Shamans. The Hishtanyi Chayan was their official head, and he, with the four others belonging to the fire-eating crew, fasted rigorously for four days and nights.
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