14.  There is a set of men among them called Bohutis, who use many juggling tricks, pretend to talk with the dead and to know all the actions and secrets of the living, whom they cure when sick.  All their superstitions and fables are contained in old songs which these Bohutis rehearse, and which direct them in all things as the Moors are by the Coran.  When they sing these songs they play on an instrument named Maiohaven, like a calabash with a long neck, made of wood, strong, hollow, and thin, which makes so loud a noise as to be heard at the distance of a league and a half.

15.  Almost every person in Hispaniola has abundance of cemis; some have their fathers, mothers, and predecessors and kindred, some in stone and others in wood, some that speak, some that eat, some that cause things to grow, others that bring rain, and others that give winds.  When any one is sick, the Buhuitihu is brought, who must be dieted exactly in the same manner with the sick man.  That is both snuff up a certain powder named cobaba by the nose, which intoxicates them and makes them speak incoherently, which they say is talking with the cemis, who tell them the cause of the sickness.

16.  When the Buhuitihu goes to visit a sick person, he smears his face with soot or powdered charcoal.  He wraps up some small bones and a bit of flesh, which he conceals in his mouth.  The sick man is purged with cohaba.  The doctor sits down in the house, after turning out all children and others, so that only one or two remain with him and the sick person, who must all remain silent.  After many mumming tricks[2], the Buhuitihu lights a torch and begins a mystic song.  He then turns the sick man twice about, pinches his thighs and legs, descending by degrees to the feet, and draws hard as if pulling something away; then going to the door he says, “begone to the sea or the mountains, or whither thou wilt,” and giving a blast as if he blew something away, turns round clapping his hands together, which tremble as if with cold, and shuts his mouth.  After this he blows on his hands as if warming them, then draws in his breath as if sucking something, and sucks the sick mans neck, stomach, shoulders, jaws, breast, belly, and other parts of his body.  This done he coughs and makes wry faces as if he had swallowed something very bitter, and pulls from his mouth what he had before concealed there, stone, flesh, bone, or whatever that may have been.  If any thing eatable, he alleges that the sick man had eaten this which had occasioned his disorder, pretending, it had been put in by the cemi because he had not been sufficiently devout, and that he must build a temple to the cemi, or give him some offering.  If a stone, he desires it to be carefully preserved, wrapped up in cotton and deposited in a basket.  On solemn days when they provide much food, whether fish, flesh, or any other, they put it all first into the house of their cemi, that the idol may eat.