The medicine-man of the South American Indian tribes has been described as “the counterpart of the shaman type.” There would seem to be hardly need for any qualification—he is a shaman. The word has attained a certain vogue, with too frequent lax usage, so that merely finding the name “shimano” in connection with any of these Indians—especially when it is found in the pages of an American writer—does not warrant this assertion. But a short study of the exhaustive paper on Shamanism and the Shaman in the Royal Anthropological Institute Journal will show that point for point the methods and procedure of the Witoto, the Boro, and kindred tribes tally with that of the shamans of Siberian peoples. That is to say he is a doctor and a wizard, not a priest. He claims to deal with spirits by magical processes, to exorcise, outwit, and circumvent, not to officiate in any sacred office as the minister, the vicar, of a deity. He is a hypnotist and a conjuror. But he is more than a mere charlatan. He is the poison-maker for the tribe, and possesses, as a rule, especially among the Andoke and Karahone, a considerable knowledge of drugs, both curative and lethal. The curare poison is a treasured secret of the medicine-men. Its recipe is religiously guarded by them, and the deadly preparation is made with both ceremony and privacy.