Page:Journal of American Folklore vol. 12.djvu/396

 64 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

life to the dead. Priestesses also are found who take part in the dances, and appear possessed by the demon.

M. Perregaux's account throws light not only on African but also on ancient European oracles.

Yaqui Witchcraft. — In "The Land of Sunshine" (Los Angeles) for July, 1899, in an account of a visit to the Yaqui Indians by V. Granville, mention is made of the manner in which a widow, for the sake of the sup- port of herself and her children, deliberately becomes a witch by profes- sion : —

" That witchcraft and idol worship are not yet dead among the Yaquis I soon discovered while wandering among the people of the small villages along the river. At an Indian hut I was shown a ' bruja,' or witch doll, by an unusually intelligent Yaqui woman, the mother of seven children, whose husband had been put to death, she averred, on the accusation of having the ' evil eye.' The doll was ten inches long, made of black cloth and stuffed with wool. It was stuck full of the sharp thorns of the maguey plant, and it was believed that the enemies of the family suffered excruci- ating pain so long as the thorns remained in the doll. The story that the mother told me was pathetic. She said, in excellent Spanish : • My hus- band was a good man, a miner at the placer diggings on the Rio Aros. He was away from home most of the time, and came to see us only two or three times a year. I lived at the village with the little ones, so that they could go to the padre to learn to read. It cost almost all my husband earned at the mines to buy us food and clothes and pay the padre. But there were those in the village who were jealous of me and the little ones because we had more than they, and the reason was that we drank no tequila, and they, our enemies, spent all their money for drink. One day when my husband came to see us and brought money, old Pedro and some of the other men came and asked him to join them at the cantina, where other miners were drinking and spending the money that should have gone to the wives and little ones. My Diego refused to go, and the men went out and one of them fell down on the ground and declared that he was hurt in his head, and that my Diego and I and all the little ones had the evil eye ; that we were all as the people that they used to burn as witches. And that night, when Diego went to the corral after dark to look after the burros and cow, some men seized him and dragged him to the river, where they tied rocks to him and threw him into the river to drown. And when I and the little ones tried to save him, the men beat us and drove us back to the house. After that they made us leave our house in the village and come here, half a mile away. And then it was that I made the bruja to protect us, and the people are now afraid of us, and each one in the village gives us so much of his corn and frijoles not to name the bruja for him ; for when it is named for any one and the thorns stuck in, the person suffers great pain and soon dies. They killed my Diego, and they must support his wife and little ones, so I scare them all the time with the witch doll.'

" I wished to purchase the witch doll, but nothing would tempt her to part with it, as she said it would bring me bad luck."

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