182              ORIGIN OF THE

THE   PONOMOOSI      OR   PROPHETS AMONG        THE
          KAMSCIHADALES, CORIAKS, &c.

  We are assured by Santini, Abernethy, and La Roche
that several tribes in the north-east parts of Asia have
their prophets whom they call Ponomoosi. This dece it-
ful order, they tell us, predict their fate in battle and
their success in the chase ; and this knowledae they pre-
tend to have received from their deities. They retire
into the forest, where they fast for several days. During
this time they beat a drum, cry, how], sings, and smoke.
This preparation is accompanied with so many furious
actions that one would take them for evil spirits.
  These fortune-tellers are visited at night by their re-
lations, who bring them intelligence of every thing that
happens in the villages during their absence. By these
means they are enabled, on their return from their dens,
to impose upon the credulous; because the first part of
their prophecy consists of giving an account of all those
who married, died, and returned from the chase since
they departed. They seldom fail in giving a correct
statement of these and other thingts, as their private in-
formants are equally interested in the success of their
prophecy, from an expectation of being remunerated.
  " The Pononmoosi of the Coriaks, says Abernethiy, are
an inferior order of priests, who declare the will of their
deities, and act as their interpreters; but in offering
sacrifices, the Ponomoosi are never their priests. Their
chief employment is to practise physic, in which they
are sometimes successful, and to foretell the consequence
of their wars and the chase. They practice physic on
principles founded on the knowledge of simples, on ex-
perience, and on circumstances, as they do in other
countries. To this knowledge they always loin a great
deal of superstition and impost tire."
The following account of a conjurer is given us by Cap-
tain Lyon. This is also another sort of impostors, no less