The doctor may find that the person’s heart is on the wrong side, and prescribe a liberal allowance of tesvino to get it back to its proper place.  But generally the skill of the shaman is taxed more severely and he resorts to the more direct and powerful methods of magic.  A common occurrence is that of illness caused by maggots, which the shaman has to extract from the patient by means of a sucking-tube, a short piece of reed about three inches long, cut from a kind of reed different from that of the arrow-shaft.  He places it on the afflicted spot, and after sucking vigorously for a minute or so empties from his mouth into his hand or into a corn-leaf, what purports to be the maggots.  I never had an opportunity of examining closely the small white bits of something or other that he spit out, but they seemed to me to be tiny pieces of buckskin which the man had secreted in his mouth and which swelled up when saturated with saliva.  To the shaman they represent maggots; that is, the embodiment Of the disease, and all the people firmly believe that they are maggots.  The corn-leaf and its contents are buried; a cross is made on the ground over the spot and a ceremonial circuit run around it.  When resting between operations, the shaman places his sucking-tube into a bowl of water in which some herbs are soaking.

The mode of curing, however, varies.  A common way in use near Guachochic is to make the patient stand on all fours and bathe him well with water; then to place him on a blanket and carry him over a fire toward the cross and the four corners of the world.  When put down on the ground again he lies or kneels on the blanket, and the shaman places his tube against the afflicted part and begins to suck forcibly, while the rest of the people stand around with sticks, ready to kill the disease so as to prevent it from returning and doing harm to others.  Presently the shaman produces from his mouth a small stone, which he asserts was the cause of the disease.  While the people are furiously beating the air, he proceeds at once to bury it in the earth, or in the bottom of the river, into which he dives.  He may suck out as many as eight stones, but generally contents himself with four; and for treating a man in this way he receives four almuds of maize.

On one occasion, when I had taken a little cold, I asked a shaman friend whether he could cure me.  “Certainly I can,” was the confident reply.  He took from a little basket, in which he kept his hikuli or sacred cacti and probably similar valuables, three black stones and said that he would sell one of these to me; if I put it into warm water it would cure me.  This was not quite to my liking, as I wanted him to perform the magical feat of sucking maggots out of the skin.  He complied with my request, and told me to go ahead to my camp, whither he would follow me soon.  On his arrival I offered him some food, as my case was not urgent, but he declined, and proceeded to cure me.  A saddle blanket was spread