370
LIFE A N D V O Y A G E S
OF
[BOOK
VI
They gave success in hunting and fishing; they guided the waters of the mountains into safe channels, and led them down to wander through the plains, in gentle brooks and peaceful rivers; or, if incensed, they caused them to burst forth into rushing torrents and overwhelming floods, inundating and laying waste the val leys. The natives had their Butios, or priests, who pretended to hold communion with these Zemes.
They practised rigorous
fasts and ablutions, and inhaled the powder, or drank the infusion of a certain herb, which produced a temporary intoxication or delirium.
In the course of this process, they professed to have
trances and visions, and that the Zemes revealed to them future events, or instructed them in the treatment of maladies.
They
were, in general, great herbalists, and well acquainted with the medicinal properties of trees and vegetables.
They cured dis
eases through their knowledge of simples, but always with many mysterious rites and ceremonies, and supposed charms; chanting, and burning a light in the chamber of the patient, and pretending to exorcise the malady, to expel it from the mansion, and to send it to the sea or to the mountain.* Their bodies were painted or tattooed with figures of the Zemes, which were regarded with horror by the Spaniards, as so many representations of the devil; and the Butios, esteemed as saints by the natives, were abhorred by the former as necro mancers.
These Butios often assisted the caciques in practising
deceptions upon their subjects, speaking oracularly through the Zemes, by means of hollow tubes ; inspiriting the Indians to battle by predicting success, or dealing forth such promises or menaces as might suit the purposes of the chieftain. * Oviedo, Cronic, lib. v. cap. 1.