alike used with a frequency and hardihood that amazed and scandalized the
priest. [ 1 ] Nor was he better pleased with their postures, in which
they consulted nothing but their ease. Thus, of an evening when the
wigwam was heated to suffocation, the sorcerer, in the closest possible
approach to nudity, lay on his back, with his right knee planted upright
and his left leg crossed on it, discoursing volubly to the company, who,
on their part, listened in postures scarcely less remote from decency.

[ 1 "Aussi leur disois-je par fois, que si les pourceaux et les chiens
scauoient parler, ils tiendroient leur langage. . . . Les filles et les
ieunes femmes sont a l'exterieur tres honnestement couuertes, mais entre
elles leurs discours sont puants, comme des cloaques."--Relation, 1634,
32.--The social manners of remote tribes of the present time correspond
perfectly with Le Jeune's account of those of the Montagnais. ]

There was one point touching which Le Jeune and his Jesuit brethren had
as yet been unable to solve their doubts. Were the Indian sorcerers mere
impostors, or were they in actual league with the Devil? That the fiends
who possess this land of darkness make their power felt by action direct
and potential upon the persons of its wretched inhabitants there is,
argues Le Jeune, good reason to conclude; since it is a matter of grave
notoriety, that the fiends who infest Brazil are accustomed cruelly to
beat and otherwise torment the natives of that country, as many
travellers attest. "A Frenchman worthy of credit," pursues the Father,
"has told me that he has heard with his own ears the voice of the Demon
and the sound of the blows which he discharges upon these his miserable
slaves; and in reference to this a very remarkable fact has been reported
to me, namely, that, when a Catholic approaches, the Devil takes flight
and beats these wretches no longer, but that in presence of a Huguenot he
does not stop beating them."