Besides the embodied power in nature there was power not altogether differentiated from it, which was unembodied, or indistinctly conceived as embodied. This power could be invoked by the use of charms and the repetition of certain formulæ. “By a word” wonderful things could be accomplished; “by a word” the entire world could be compressed into such a small space that the medicine man who was master of the word could encircle it in four steps. It was power of this kind which was imparted to medicines, yet the source of this power was after all the anthropomorphic powers, which, at the very beginning of things, declared what the diseases were to be and also appointed the remedies to be employed in curing them. But when the doctor had prepared these remedies and placed them in a pot in front of him, they were not efficacious until he had repeated the prescribed formulæ, or prayers, four times, while breathing into the medicine through a hollow cane. In this way the spirit that made the medicine powerful passed into it through the breath of life in the doctor.