I do not believe that the Iroquois lives to-day who is not a believer in sorcery, or who would not in the night time quail at seeing a bright light the nature of which he did not understand.” [Illustration: UTE CRADLE, FRAME OF RODS COVERED WITH BUCKSKIN Carried on the back. In principle the majority of Amerind cradles are similar ] The functions and powers of the shamans or medicine-men have never been completely understood, but over the sick they carried on various incantations and administered decoctions of native vegetable and animal substances. Powell defines a shaman as “a person who has the power to control ghosts through magic.” They mortified their own flesh and the priests of Mexico would pierce their tongues and draw through the wound thus formed a long knotted cord, or twigs fastened together, or a cord set with some animal’s claws or teeth. Speaking of Mexico, Prescott says:[335] “In no country, not even in ancient Egypt, were the dreams of the astrologer more implicitly deferred to. On the birth of a child he was instantly summoned. The time of the event was accurately ascertained, and the family hung in trembling suspense as the minister of Heaven cast the horoscope of the infant and unrolled the dark volume of destiny. The influence of the priest was confessed by the Mexican in the first breath which he inhaled.” Other tribes were not behind. In some the shamans were hereditary, but it would seem that their selection and appointment were due to various regulations existing in the secret orders and also to a reputation for the possession of occult power. Some writers hold that the shamans are self appointed, but this does not seem to correspond with the intricacies of the Amerindian social organisation. Powell adopts the Algonquin name for them, _jossakeeds_, and describes them as the head men of the fraternities. Whatever he may do to obtain his supposed magical powers, it would appear reasonable to believe that so prominent a functionary as this shaman, or jossakeed, would require in the beginning to be a man of some distinction, or special initiation. In making such decoctions as he used the shaman boiled various plants together with a stone arrow-head, or similar article. Out of twenty plants used by the Cherokees, only seven are noted in the United States Dispensatory. “Five plants or 25 per cent.,” says Mooney, “are correctly used; 12 or 60 per cent. are presumably either worthless or incorrectly used, and three plants or 15 per cent. are so used that it is difficult to say whether they are of any benefit or not. Granting that two of these three produce good results as used by the Indians, we should have 35 per cent., or about one third of the whole, as the proportion actually possessing medical virtues, while the remaining two thirds are inert, if not positively injurious.” “For a disease caused by the rabbit the antidote must be a plant called ‘rabbit’s food,’ ‘rabbit’s