We have been all too sadly convinced, that almost all the Salvages in general have no notion of a God, and that they are not able to comprehend the most ordinary Arguments on that Subject; others will have a Spirit that commands, say they, in the Air. Some among ’em look upon the Skie as a kind of Divinity; others as an _Otkon_ or _Manitou_, either Good or Evil. These People admit of some sort of Genius in all things; they all believe there is a Master of Life, as they call him, but hereof they make various applications; some of them have a lean Raven, which they carry always along with them, and which they say is the Master of their Life; others have an Owl, and some again a Bone, a Sea-Shell, or some such thing; There is no Nation among ’em which has not a sort of Juglers or Conjuerers, which some look upon to be Wizards, but in my Opinion there is no Great reason to believe ’em such, or to think that their Practice favours any thing of a Communication with the Devil. These Impostors cause themselves to be reverenced as Prophets which fore-tell Futurity. They will needs be look’d upon to have an unlimited Power. They boast of being able to make it Wet or Dry; to cause a Calm or a Storm; to render Land Fruitful or Barren; and, in a Word to make Hunters Fortunate or Unfortunate. They also pretend to Physick, and to apply Medicines, but which are such, for the most part as have little Virtue at all in ’em, especially to Cure that Distemper which they pretend to. It is impossible to imagine, the horrible Howlings and strange Contortions that those Jugglers make of their Bodies, when they are disposing themselves to Conjure, or raise their Enchantments. [Footnote 4: London, 1689, p. 59, et. seq.] Marquette, who visited the Miami, Mascontin and Kickapoo Indians in 1673, after referring to the Indian herbalist, mentions also the ceremony of the “calumet dance,” as follows: They have Physicians amongst them, towards whom they are very liberal when they are sick, thinking that the Operation of the Remedies they take, is proportional to the Presents they make unto those who have prescrib’d them. In connection with this, reference is made by Marquette to a certain class of individuals among the Illinois and Dakota, who were compelled to wear women’s clothes, and who were debarred many privileges, but were permitted to “assist at all the Superstitions of their _Juglers_, and their solemn Dances in honor of the _Calumet_, in which they may sing, but it is not lawful for them to dance. They are call’d to their Councils, and nothing is determin’d without their Advice; for, because of their extraordinary way of Living, they are look’d upon as _Manitous_, or at least for great and incomparable Genius’s.”