The Wampanoag practice of sweat bathing was thought to have both
therapeutic and preventive benefits. First the sweat house was heated
by putting a great number of hot stones inside. Then the naked
bathers entered and the door was stopped up. The bathers sat inside,
smoking their pipes for as long as they could bear the heat—perhaps
an hour or so. The sweat bath was then terminated by a dash outside
and a plunge into the cold water of a nearby lake or stream. Sweat
bathing was said to cleanse and refresh the body and thus be good
for general health. It was also used to cure diseases, sometimes in
combination with other types of remedies.[493]
Herbal remedies were used for their therapeutic effect on both
diseases and wounds.[494] The Wampanoags are said to have had
great skill in the use of such remedies.[495] The Wampanoag theory
of herbal remedies was that each symptom had a specific herbal
cure.[496] For example, the cure for toothache was “... a certaine
root dried, not much unlike our ginger”.[497] A different herb would
be used to relieve stomach aches, and so on.
Wounds and diseases were also cured by magical means. Curing by magic
seems to have been used in cases where the suspected cause of the
illness was also magical. This malevolent magic was usually manifest
in the form of an “evil spirit” put into the ailing person’s body
to cause him pain. Healing by magic was the special province of the
_powow_.[498]
When a person was quite ill, all his friends and relatives would
crowd into his wigwam and gather around him. If someone could not be
there in person, he sent a representative.[499] This audience joined
in the powow’s chanting at certain points during the ritual.[500]
Wood gives the following description of magical curing procedure:
... after violent expressions of many a hideous bellowing and
growning, he makes a stop, and then all the auditors with one voice
utter a short Canto; which done, the Pow-wow still proceeds in his
invocations sometimes roaring like a Beare, other times groaning
like a dying horse, foaming at the mouth like a chased boar,
smiting on his naked brest and thighs with such violence, as if he
were madde. Thus will hee continue sometimes halfe a day, spending
his lungs, sweating out his fat, and tormenting his body in this
diabolicall worship....[501]
Next the powow would suck on the afflicted part of the patient’s
body and, being an expert at sleight of hand, pretend to remove an
object—a small stone, or twig or the like—from the body and display
it for all to see. This object, it was claimed, was the “evil spirit”
that was the cause of the trouble. Sometimes it was thought that the
powow from some other group had brought on the illness in the first
place.[502]
Both men and women engaged in curing activities.[503] It may have
been that there was a division between the use of herbal and magical
cures, with magically caused illness and magical cures being the
province of male powows, and functional illness being cured by
specific herbal formulas which were non-magical in their effect and
which were the province of women skilled in this art. This was true
of some other Northeastern Algonquian groups. Where such a division
occurred, there was little or no infringement of one group on the
methods that were the property of the other. When symptoms did not
respond to the normal herbal treatment, or when they were recognized
to be supernatural in origin from the start, magical cures were
resorted to.[504] Curers were paid well for their efforts, and those
who were successful became wealthy and influential members of the
community.[505]
If a patient recovered, his friends and relatives would send corn and
other sorts of gifts to him, and at a certain time a feast (called
_commoco_) would be held in honor of the recovery.[506] Sometimes
in asking the supernatural to remove a sickness it was necessary to
provide gifts as a sacrifice.[507] This seems to have been a practice
resorted to in particularly grave situations. In one instance, when
several people had died in an epidemic, the entire village gathered
to perform a curing ritual to drive out the sickness. The wealthier
people danced and gave away great quantities of wealth to the poor;
ultimately a messenger was sent to intercede in person with the
supernatural.[508] Epidemics were greatly feared, and in the case
of a known contagious disease, the usual practice of friends and
relatives coming to visit the sick was not carried out. In such
instances often the entire village would be abandoned.[509]