Listen! Ha! I am a great ada´wehi, I never fail in anything. I
surpass all others--I am a great ada´wehi. Ha! It is a mere screech
owl that has frightened him. Ha! now I have put it away in the laurel
thickets. There I compel it to remain.
Listen! Ha! I am a great ada´wehi, I never fail in anything. I
surpass all others--I am a great ada´wehi. Ha! It is a mere hooting
owl that has frightened him. Undoubtedly that has frightened him. Ha!
At once I have put it away in the spruce thickets. Ha! There I compel
it to remain.
Listen! Ha! I am a great ada´wehi, I never fail in anything. I
surpass all others--I am a great ada´wehi. Ha! It is only a rabbit
that has frightened him. Undoubtedly that has frightened him. Ha!
Instantly I have put it away on the mountain ridge. Ha! There in the
broom sage I compel it to remain.
Listen! Ha! I am a great ada´wehi, I never fail in anything. I
surpass all others--I am a great ada´wehi. Ha! It is only a mountain
sprite that has frightened him. Undoubtedly that has frightened him.
Ha! Instantly I have put it away on the bluff. Ha! There I compel it
to remain.
(Prescription)--Now this is to treat infants if they are affected by
crying and nervous fright. (Then) it is said that something is causing
something to eat them. To treat them one may blow water on them for
four nights. Doctor them just before dark. Be sure not to carry them
about outside the house.
_Explanation._
The Cherokee name for this disease is Guⁿwani´gistâĭ´, which
signifies that “something is causing something to eat,” or gnaw the
vitals of the patient. The disease attacks only infants of tender age
and the symptoms are nervousness and troubled sleep, from which the
child wakes suddenly crying as if frightened. The civilized doctor
would regard these as symptoms of the presence of worms, but although
the Cherokee name might seem to indicate the same belief, the real
theory is very different.
Cherokee mothers sometimes hush crying children, by telling them that
the screech owl is listening out in the woods or that the De´tsata--a
malicious little dwarf who lives in caves in the river bluffs--will
come and get them. This quiets the child for the time and is so far
successful, but the animals, or the De´tsata, take offense at being
spoken of in this way, and visit their displeasure upon the _children
born to the mother afterward_. This they do by sending an animal into
the body of the child to gnaw its vitals. The disease is very common
and there are several specialists who devote their attention to
it, using various formulas and prescriptions. It is also called
ătawi´nĕhĭ, signifying that it is caused by the “dwellers in the
forest,” i.e., the wild game and birds, and some doctors declare that
it is caused by the revengeful comrades of the animals, especially
birds, killed by the father of the child, the animals tracking the
slayer to his home by the blood drops on the leaves. The next formula
will throw more light upon this theory.
In this formula the doctor, who is certainly not overburdened with
modesty, starts out by asserting that he is a great ada´wehi, who
never fails and who surpasses all others. He then declares that the
disease is caused by a mere screech owl, which he at once banishes
to the laurel thicket. In the succeeding paragraphs he reiterates his
former boasting, but asserts in turn that the trouble is caused by a
mere hooting owl, a rabbit, or even by the De´tsata, whose greatest
exploit is hiding the arrows of the boys, for which the youthful
hunters do not hesitate to rate him soundly. These various
mischief-makers the doctor banishes to their proper haunts, the
hooting owl to the spruce thicket, the rabbit to the broom sage on the
mountain side, and the De´tsata to the bluffs along the river bank.
Some doctors use herb decoctions, which are blown upon the body of the
child, but in this formula the only remedy prescribed is water, which
must be blown upon the body of the little sufferer just before dark
for four nights. The regular method is to blow once each at the end of
the first, second, and third paragraphs and four times at the end of
the fourth or last. In diseases of this kind, which are not supposed
to be of a local character, the doctor blows first upon the back of
the head, then upon the left shoulder, next upon the right shoulder,
and finally upon the breast, the patient being generally sitting, or
propped up in bed, facing the east. The child must not be taken out
of doors during the four days, because should a bird chance to fly
overhead so that its shadow would fall upon the infant, it would _fan
the disease back_ into the body of the little one.