Witchcraft in Early North America - Alison Games [72]
not told your Reverence that Tonneraouanont, one of the famous Sorcerers of the country, having heard that we were sick, came to see us. To hear him talk, he was a personage of merit and influence, although in appearance he was a very insignificant object. He was a little hunchback, extremely misshapen, a piece of a robe over his shoulders,—that is, some old beaver skins, greasy and patched. This is one of the Oracles of the whole country, who has this Winter made entire villages bend to his decrees. He had come at that time to blow upon some sick people of our village. . . . Now in order to make our mouths water, and to sell his Antidote at a better price, “I am not” (said he) of the common run of men; I am, as it were, a Demon; therefore I have never been sick. In the three or four times that the country has been afflicted with a contagion, I did not trouble myself at all about it; I never feared the disease, for I have remedies to preserve me. Hence, if thou wilt give me something, I undertake in a few days to set all thy invalids upon their feet.” The Father Superior, in order to get all the amusement he could out of it, asked him what he wanted. “Thou wilt give me,” said he, “ten glass beads, and one extra for each patient.” The Father answered him that, as for the number, he need not trouble himself about it, that it was a matter of no consequence; that the efficacy of his remedies did not depend upon that; furthermore, that he would be always beginning over again, seeing that the number of patients continued to increase from day to day,—so that he firmly believed that we would satisfy him. Thereupon he told us that he would show us the roots that must be used; but that, to expedite matters, he would, if we desired it, go to work himself, that he would pray, and have a special sweat,—in a word, perform all his usual charlatanries,—and that in three days our sick people would be cured. He made a very plausible speech. The Father satisfied him, or rather instructed him thereupon; he gave the sorcerer to understand that we could not approve this sort of remedy, that the prayer he offered availed nothing, and was only a compact with the devil, considering that he had no knowledge of, or belief in, the true God, to whom alone it is permitted to address vows and prayers; that as far as natural remedies were concerned, we would willingly employ them, and that he would oblige us by teaching us some of them. He did not insist further upon his sweat, and named to us two roots,—very efficacious, he said, against fevers,—and instructed us in the method of using them. But we hardly took the trouble to observe their effects,—we are not accustomed to these remedies, and besides, two or three days later, we saw all our patients nearly out of danger. But your Reverence should, at this point, be thoroughly acquainted with the genealogy of this person, according to the version of it that he himself has given. You will hear of his death at the proper time. Here is what he said about it, as it was reported to us by one Tonkhratacouan. “I am a Demon; I formerly lived under the ground in the house of the Demons, when the fancy seized me to become a man; and this is how it happened. Having heard one day, from this subterranean abode, the voices and cries of some children who were guarding the crops, and chasing the animals and birds away, I resolved to go out. I was no sooner upon the earth than I encountered a woman; I craftily entered her womb, and there assumed a little body. I had with me a she-devil, who did the same thing. As soon as we were about the size of an ear of corn, this woman wished to be delivered of her fruit, knowing that she had not conceived by human means, and fearing that this ocki [spirit] might bring her some misfortune. So she found means of hastening her time. Now it seems to me that in the meantime, being ashamed to see myself followed by a girl, and fearing that she might afterwards be taken for my wife, I beat her so hard that I left her for dead; in fact, she came dead into the world. This woman, being delivered,