“But there is another office which Carver, Bartram and others have confounded with the priesthood, which exists among all the Indian tribes, and concerning which there is no diversity in the statements of travellers. To this class of men the French missionaries gave the name of _Jongleurs_, whence the English have derived that of jugglers or conjurers. To use the definition of Charlevoix, they are those servants of their God, whose duty it is to announce their wishes, and to be their interpreters to men: or, in the language of Volney, those ‘whose trade it is, to expound dreams, and to negotiate between the _Manitto_ and the votary.’ ‘The Jongleurs of Canada,’ says Charlevoix, ‘boast that by means of the good spirits whom they consult, they learn what is passing in most remote countries, and what is to come to pass at the most remote period of time; that they discover the origin and nature of the most secret disorders, and obtain the hidden method of curing them; that they discern the course to be pursued in the most intricate affairs; that they learn to explain the obscurest dreams, to give success to the most difficult negociations, and to render the gods propitious to warriors and hunters.’ ‘I have heard,’ he adds, ‘from persons of the most undoubted judgment and veracity, that when these imposters shut themselves up in their sweating stones, which is one of their most common preparations for the performance of their sleight of hand, they differ in no respect from the descriptions given by the poets, of the priestesses of Apollo, when seated on the Delphic Tripod. They have been seen to fall into convulsions, to assume tones of voice, and to perform actions, which were seemingly superior to human strength, and which inspired with an unconquerable terror even the most prejudiced spectators.’ Their predictions were sometimes so surprisingly verified, that Charlevoix seems firmly to have believed that they had a real intercourse with the father of lies.[65] “This account of the Jongleurs of Canada, is confirmed by Mr. Heckewelder, in his late work on the Indian tribes. ‘They are a set,’ he observes, ‘of professional impostors, who availing themselves of the superstitious prejudices of the people, acquire the name and reputation of men of superior knowledge, and possessed of supernatural powers. As the Indians in general believe in witchcraft, and ascribe to the arts of sorcerers many of the disorders with which they are afflicted in the regular course of nature, this class of men has arisen among them, who pretend to be skilled in a certain occult science, by means of which they are able, not only to cure natural diseases, but to counteract or destroy the enchantments of wizards or witches, and expel evil spirits.’[66]