These various considerations prove beyond a doubt that the power of the priesthood did by no means rest…
- Date of account
- Revised nineteenth-century edition
- Source
- The Myths of the New World A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America
- Reference
- The Myths of the New World A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America · selected passage 47
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English comparative scholarship drawing on Indigenous American sources
- Translation
- Daniel G. Brinton
- Record updated
- 2026-08-24
Record summary
These various considerations prove beyond a doubt that the power of the priesthood did by no means rest exclusively on deception
Published source text
Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.
Source passage
Source text · mention onlyThese various considerations prove beyond a doubt that the power of the priesthood did by no means rest exclusively on deception. They indorse and explain the assertions of converted natives, that their power as prophets was something real, and entirely inexplicable to themselves. And they make it easily understood how those missionaries failed who attempted to persuade them that all this boasted power was false. More correct views than these ought to have been suggested by the facts themselves, for it is indisputable that these magicians did not hesitate at times to test their strength on each other. In these strange duels _a l'outrance_, one would be seated opposite his antagonist, surrounded with the mysterious emblems of his craft, and call upon his gods one after another to strike his enemy dead. Sometimes one, "gathering his medicine," as it was termed, feeling within himself that hidden force of will which makes itself acknowledged even without words, would rise in his might, and in a loud and severe voice command his opponent to die!
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis material belongs to a folklore tradition. Story type, collector, community, transmission and literary editing matter when comparing it with other sources.
Modern context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyLattice compares motifs and reported features without assuming that a traditional being is a biological species or that similar stories document one external cause.
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