The Patagonians, and other southern savages, think the body of a sick person to be possessed of an evil demon. Their physicians carry about drums, with horrible forms depicted on them, which they strike by the sick man's bed, either to consult the demon concerning the nature of the disease, or to drive it from the body of their patient. If any one dies of a disease, the relations persecute the physician most terribly, as the author of his death. If a Cacique dies, they put all the physicians to death, that they may not fly elsewhere. Actuated by an irrational kind of pity, they bury the dying before they expire. Father Strobl pulled one man alive from the grave. The Guaycurùs call their physicians Nigienigis. A gourd filled with hard seeds, and a fan of dusky emu feathers are their chief insignia, and medical instruments, which they always carry in their hands that they may be known. I must not omit to speak of the physicians of the Chiquitos. A juggler physician, when he goes to visit the sick, fills his belly with the most exquisite dainties, chickens, hens, and partridges, that he may render his breath wholesomer and stronger to suck and blow the body of his patient. Whilst the physician feasts sumptuously, the sick man has insipid half-boiled maize given him to eat. If he dislikes this, no one will exhort the poor wretch to take food, so that more persons die of hunger than of the disease. At his first coming, the physician overwhelms the sick man with an hundred questions: "Where were you yesterday?" says he. "What roads did you tread? Did you overturn the jug, and spill the drink prepared from maize? What? Have you imprudently given the flesh of a tortoise, stag, or boar, to be devoured by dogs?" Should the sick man confess to having done any of these things, "It is well," replies the physician, "we have discovered the cause of your disorder. The soul of that beast having entered your body torments you even now, and is, alas! the origin of the pains you feel." The savage takes this for an oracle. The cure is immediately set about. The juggler sucks the afflicted part once, twice, and three times. Then muttering a doleful charm, he knocks the floor on which the sick man is lying, with a club, to frighten away the soul of that animal from his patient's body. A crueller method of curing was once customary amongst the Chiquitos. When a husband fell ill, they used to kill the wife, thinking her the cause of his sickness, and foolishly imagining that, when she was removed, he would be sure to recover. At other times they consulted their physicians, which of the female jugglers occasioned the disease. These men, actuated either by desire of vengeance or interested motives, named whomsoever they chose, and were not required to bring any proofs of the guilt of the accused. The sentence of a juggler was an oracle, and people assembled from all parts to put it in execution. Such were the Chiquitos before they were civilized by the Jesuits.