The great secret of these Jugglers consists in having a great _Oorakin_
full of water, from any river in which it was known there were
beaver-huts. Then he takes a certain number of circular turns round this
Oorakin, as it stands on the ground, pronouncing all the time with a low
voice, a kind of gibberish of broken words, unintelligible to the
assistants, and most probably so to himself, but which those, on whom he
means to impose, believe very efficacious. After this he draws near to
the bowl, and bending very low, or rather lying over it, looks at
himself in it as in a glass. If he sees the water in the least muddy, or
unsettled, he recovers his erect posture, and begins his rounds again,
till he finds the water as clear as he could wish it for his purpose,
and then he pronounces over it his magic words. If after having repeated
them twice or thrice, he does not find the question proposed to him
resolved by this inspection of the water, nor the wonders he wants
operated by it, he says with a loud voice and a grave tone, that the
_Manitoo_, or _Miewndoo_, (the great spirit) or genius, which, according
to them, has all knowledge of future events, would not declare himself
till every one of the assistants should have told him (the Juggler) in
the ear what were his actual thoughts, or greatest secret. [A Romish
missionary must, with a very bad grace, blame the Jugglers, for what
himself makes such a point of religion in his _auricular confession_.
Even the appellation of _Juggler_ is not amiss applicable to those of
their craft, considering all their tricks and mummery not a whit
superior to those of these poor savages, in the eyes of common-sense.
Who does not know, that the low-burlesque word of _Hocus-pocus_, is an
humorous corruption of their _Hoc est corpus meum_, by virtue of which,
they make a _God_ out of a vile wafer, and think it finely solved, by
calling it a _mystery_, which, by the way is but another name for
_nonsense_. Is there any thing amongst the savages half so absurd or so
impious?] To this purpose he gets up, laments, and bitterly inveighs