Indians, like most coloured races, are abject cowards in pain or disease. They will bear torture stoically enough when deliberately inflicted, but should they suffer from any, to them, mysterious reason, in their ignorance of natural causes they at once ascribe their affliction to witchcraft. To this possibly may be due the hapless manner in which they will lay them down to die, and actually succeed in doing so by auto-suggestion.

To the Indian in common with other peoples of the lower cultures, moreover, there is no such thing as death from natural causes. It is the result either of poison administered in secret by an enemy, or magical evil wrought by him or at his instigation, and the crashing of the thunder is the magic noise that accompanies the fatal result. If a possible enemy is known or suspected, or if, after divination, the medicineman can identify the culprit, it becomes the duty of the relatives to avenge the deceased, who has, according to Indian logic, been murdered.

Without doubt a very large number of deaths are due to poison. Removal by poison is practised to a great extent by the Karahone, who have, as has been said, much scientific knowledge of poisons and their effects.