Then,
when his bones, one after another, were all washed ashore, his spirit,
which meanwhile had been learning the secrets of the invisible world,
would return to them, and, clothed in flesh, he would go back to his
tribe. At other times a vague and indescribable longing seizes a young
person, a morbid appetite possesses them, or they fall a prey to an
inappeasable and aimless restlessness, or a causeless melancholy. These
signs the old priests recognize as the expression of a personal spirit
of the higher order. They take charge of the youth, and educate him to
the mysteries of their craft. For months or years he is condemned to
entire seclusion, receiving no visits but from the brethren of his
order. At length he is initiated with ceremonies of more or less pomp
into the brotherhood, and from that time assumes that gravity of
demeanor, sententious style of expression, and general air of mystery
and importance, everywhere deemed so eminently becoming in a doctor and
a priest. A peculiarity of the Moxos was, that they thought none
designated for the office but such as had escaped from the claws of the
South American tiger, which, indeed, it is said they worshipped as a
god.
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