dent in an otherwise steady flow of sacrificial blood. This, like other aspects of ritualism, rapidly shrinks as we move outward but, far up among the Pawnee, we find offerings of animal and human blood and likewise among the Araucan and other Chaco tribes of the South. The Maya and Nahua priests offered their own blood upon blades of grass and also far up in the bison area devotees cut off bits of flesh or even fingers to offer the sun, and again the extinct Charrua of the Chaco are said to have offered up fingers in much the same way.
What we have then is a great center of rank growth in priestcraft with a ponderous system of blood sacrifice, the influence of which wanes as we move outward. The fact that the shaman lagged behind and shared but little in this elaboration would seem further basis for the assumption that the chief formative factors in priestcraft and ritualism are not found in shamanism. The shaman gets his power by an extraordinary experience. He usually seeks it in fasting and prayer; whence, if his tortured nervous system bring the desired illusion, he goes out among his fellows with the faith and confidence that convinces. While he has a great deal to learn from his fellow shamans, such learning is quite secondary and dispensable. The priest, on the other hand, may also fast and be fired with faith and zeal, but this is secondary to him, for he must master with infinite detail the arbitrary forms of rituals. In last analysis, the priest must be a man of intellect; the shaman may be a veritable idiot.
THE PERSONAL RELATION IN RITUALISM
While many anthropologists object to the view that all New World religion springs from the conceived relation between the shaman and the source of his power, it may be conceded that an analogous relation does hold for the masses. Thus, among many tribes, it is not merely the shaman who goes out to fast and pray, but practically every individual, at least once in his life, such a procedure being one of the essential equip-
