to frighten the female demon from his patient, were his ordinary methods
of cure.

The prophet, or diviner, had various means of reading the secrets of
futurity, such as the flight of birds, and the movements of water and
fire. There was a peculiar practice of divination very general in the
Algonquin family of tribes, among some of whom it still subsists.
A small, conical lodge was made by planting poles in a circle, lashing
the tops together at the height of about seven feet from the ground,
and closely covering them with hides. The prophet crawled in, and closed
the aperture after him. He then beat his drum and sang his magic songs
to summon the spirits, whose weak, shrill voices were soon heard, mingled
with his lugubrious chanting, while at intervals the juggler paused to
interpret their communications to the attentive crowd seated on the
ground without. During the whole scene, the lodge swayed to and fro with
a violence which has astonished many a civilized beholder, and which some
of the Jesuits explain by the ready solution of a genuine diabolic
intervention.

[ This practice was first observed by Champlain. (See "Pioneers of
France in the New World." ) From his time to the present, numerous
writers have remarked upon it. Le Jeune, in the Relation of 1637,
treats it at some length. The lodge was sometimes of a cylindrical,
instead of a conical form. ]

The sorcerers, medicine-men, and diviners did not usually exercise the
function of priests. Each man sacrificed for himself to the powers he
wished to propitiate, whether his guardian spirit, the spirits of animals,
or the other beings of his belief. The most common offering was tobacco,
thrown into the fire or water; scraps of meat were sometimes burned to