They were superstitious in the extreme, and the credulous dupes and tools of a few artful men, who are to be found in every tribe, and in reality direct all its concerns by pretending to foretell the future, and to divine the cause of every evil. They are called _machis_, or wizards, and there is no tribe without them, and which does not implicitly submit to their decisions and advice. Their word is law, and the Cacique even, equally with the rest, submits to it. The commissioners themselves were nearly made the victims of the malice of some of these wretches, who probably anticipated a share of the plunder, if they could have induced their countrymen to destroy them. The old Cacique, named Pichiloncoy, already mentioned as living near the toldos of Lincon, and whose life was of great consequence to his tribe, fell seriously ill, and, according to custom, the machis were assembled to pronounce on the nature of his complaint, and to denounce those whose evil machinations or influence could have reduced him to such a state, for in all such cases some one must be responsible, and, once denounced, his life is seldom spared if the patient dies. In this case the machis unanimously ascribed the old Cacique's illness to the presence of the Christians, who, they declared, had brought the Gualichù, or evil spirit, with them, probably deriving the notion from the report spread by their guides respecting the supernatural powers of the instruments they were known occasionally to consult. If the old man had not fortunately recovered it might have gone hard with them, for their lives would certainly have been in great peril. As Garcia observes, it would have been a pretty ending of their embassy to have been sacrificed to the manes of old Pichiloncoy by the mad machis.