And Let Me Tell You That In All Those Three Provinces That I Have Been
Speaking Of, To Wit Carajan,
Vochan, and Yachi, there is never a leech.
But when any one is ill they send for their magicians, that
Is to say the
Devil-conjurors and those who are the keepers of the idols. When these are
come the sick man tells what ails him, and then the conjurors
incontinently begin playing on their instruments and singing and dancing;
and the conjurors dance to such a pitch that at last one of them shall
fall to the ground lifeless, like a dead man. And then the devil entereth
into his body. And when his comrades see him in this plight they begin to
put questions to him about the sick man's ailment. And he will reply:
"Such or such a spirit hath been meddling with the man,[NOTE 9] for that
he hath angered the spirit and done it some despite." Then they say: "We
pray thee to pardon him, and to take of his blood or of his goods what
thou wilt in consideration of thus restoring him to health." And when they
have so prayed, the malignant spirit that is in the body of the prostrate
man will (mayhap) answer: "The sick man hath also done great despite unto
such another spirit, and that one is so ill-disposed that it will not
pardon him on any account;" - this at least is the answer they get, an the
patient be like to die.
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