DOCTORS OR JUGGLERS.
I call these men _Doctors_, because it is the name given them by their
countrymen who have borrowed it from our language,[196] and they
are themselves very fond of this pompous title. They are a set of
professional impostors, who, availing themselves of the superstitious
prejudices of the people, acquire the name and reputation of men of
superior knowledge, and possessed of supernatural powers. As the
Indians in general believe in witchcraft, and ascribe, as I have
already said, to the arts of sorcerers many of the disorders with which
they are afflicted in the regular course of nature, this class of men
has risen among them, who pretend to be skilled in a certain occult
science, by means of which they are able not only to cure natural
diseases, but to counteract or destroy the enchantments of wizards or
witches, and expel evil spirits.
These men are physicians, like the others of whom I have spoken, and
like them are acquainted with the properties and virtues of plants,
barks, roots, and other remedies. They differ from them only by
their pretensions to a superior knowledge, and by the impudence with
which they impose upon the credulous. I am sorry that truth obliges
me to confess, that in their profession they rank above the honest
practitioners. They pretend that there are disorders which cannot be
cured by the ordinary remedies, and to the treatment of which the
talents of common physicians are inadequate. They say that when a
complaint has been brought on by witchcraft, more powerful remedies
must be applied, and measures must be taken to defeat the designs of
the person who bewitched the unfortunate patient. This can only be done
by removing or destroying the deleterious or deadening substance which
has been conveyed into them, or, if it is an evil spirit, to confine or
expel him, or banish him to a distant region from whence he may never
return.
When the juggler has succeeded in persuading his patient that his
disorder is such that no common physician has it in his power to
relieve, he will next endeavour to convince him of the necessity of
making him _very strong_, which means, giving him a _large fee_, which
he will say, is justly due to a man who, like himself, is able to
perform such difficult things. If the patient who applies, is rich, the
_Doctor_ will never fail, whatever the complaint may be, to ascribe it
to the powers of witchcraft, and recommend himself as the only person
capable of giving relief in such a hard and complicated case. The poor
patient, therefore, if he will have the benefit of the great man’s
advice and assistance, must immediately give him his _honorarium_,
which is commonly either a fine horse, or a good rifle-gun, a
considerable quantity of wampum, or goods to a handsome amount. When
this fee is well secured, and not before, the Doctor prepares for the
hard task that he has undertaken, with as much apparent labour as if
he was about to remove a mountain. He casts his eyes all round him to
attract notice, puts on grave and important looks, appears wrapt in
thought and meditation and enjoys for a while the admiration of the
spectators. At last he begins his operation. Attired in a frightful
dress, he approaches his patient, with a variety of contortions and
gestures, and performs by his side and over him all the antic tricks
that his imagination can suggest. He breathes on him, blows in his
mouth, and squirts some medicines which he has prepared in his face,
mouth and nose; he rattles his gourd filled with dry beans or pebbles,
pulls out and handles about a variety of sticks and bundles in which he
appears to be seeking for the proper remedy, all which is accompanied
with the most horrid gesticulations, by which he endeavours, as he
says, to frighten the spirit or the disorder away, and continues in
this manner until he is quite exhausted and out of breath, when he
retires to wait the issue.
The visits of the juggler are, if the patient requires it, repeated
from time to time; not, however, without his giving a fresh fee
previous to each visit. This continues until the property of the
patient is entirely exhausted, or until he resolves upon calling in
another doctor, with whom feeing must begin anew in the same manner
that it did with his predecessor.
When at length the art of the juggling tribe has after repeated trials
proved ineffectual, the patient is declared _incurable_. The doctors
will say, that he applied to them too late, that he did not exactly
follow their prescriptions, or sometimes, that he was bewitched by one
of the greatest masters of the science, and that unless a professor can
be found possessed of superior knowledge, he is doomed to die or linger
in pain beyond the power of relief.
Thus these jugglers carry on their deceit, and enrich themselves at the
expense of the credulous and foolish. I have known instances in which
they declared a patient perfectly cured and out of all danger, who
nevertheless died of his disorder a very few days afterwards, although
his doctors affirmed that the evil spirit or the effects of witchcraft
were entirely removed from him; on the other hand, I have seen cases
in which the patient recovered after being pronounced incurable and
condemned to die. In those cases, however, he had had the good sense to
apply to some of the honest physicians of one or the other sex, who had
relieved him by a successful application of their medicines.
The jugglers’ dress, when in the exercise of their functions, exhibits
a most frightful sight. I had no idea of the importance of these men,
until by accident I met with one, habited in his full costume. As I
was once walking through the street of a large Indian village on the
Muskingum, with the chief _Gelelemend_,[197] whom we call _Kill-buck_,
one of those monsters suddenly came out of the house next to me, at
whose sight I was so frightened, that I flew immediately to the other
side of the chief, who observing my agitation and the quick strides
I made, asked me what was the matter, and what I thought it was that
I saw before me. “By its outward appearance,” answered I, “I would
think it a bear, or some such ferocious animal, what is _inside_ I
do not know, but rather judge it to be the _Evil Spirit_.” My friend
Kill-buck smiled, and replied, “O! no, no; don’t believe that! it is a
man you well know, it is our _Doctor_.” “A Doctor!” said I, “what! a
human being to transform himself so as to be taken for a bear walking
on his hind legs, and with horns on his head? You will not, surely,
deceive me; if it is not a bear, it must be some other ferocious animal
that I have never seen before.” The juggler within the dress hearing
what passed between us, began to act over some of his curious pranks,
probably intending to divert me, as he saw I was looking at him with
great amazement, not unmixed with fear; but the more he went on with
his performance, the more I was at a loss to decide, whether he was
a human being or a bear; for he imitated that animal in the greatest
perfection, walking upright on his hind legs as I had often seen it do.
At last I renewed my questions to the chief, and begged him seriously
to tell me what that figure was, and he assured me that although
outside it had the appearance of a bear, yet inside there was a man,
and that it was our doctor going to visit one of his patients who was
bewitched. A dialogue then ensued between us, which I shall relate, as
well as I can recollect it, in its very words:
HECKEW. But why does he go dressed in that manner? Won’t his patient
be frightened to death on seeing him enter the house?
KILLB. No! indeed, no; it is the disorder, the evil spirit, that will
be frightened away; as to the sick man, he well knows that unless the
doctor has recourse to the most powerful means, he cannot be relieved,
but must fall a sacrifice to the wicked will of some evil person. And,
pray, don’t your doctors in obstinate and dubious cases, also recur to
powerful means in order to relieve their patients?
HECKEW. To my knowledge, there are no cases where witchcraft is
assigned as the cause of a disorder, of course our doctors have nothing
to do with that; and though they may sometimes have occasion to apply
powerful remedies in obstinate diseases, yet it is not done by dressing
themselves like wild beasts, to frighten, as you say, the disorder
away. Were our doctors to adopt this mode, they would soon be left
without patients and without bread; they would starve.
KILLB. Our doctors are the richest people among us, they have
everything they want; fine horses to ride, fine clothes to wear, plenty
of strings and belts of wampum, and silver arm and breast plates in
abundance.
HECKEW. And _our_ doctors have very fine horses and carriages, fine
houses, fine clothes, plenty of good provisions and wines, and plenty
of money besides! They are looked upon as gentlemen, and would not
suffer your doctor, dressed as he is, to come into their company.
KILLB. You must, my friend! consider that the cases are very different.
Had the white people sorcerers among them as the Indians have, they
would find it necessary to adopt our practice and apply our remedies in
the same manner that our doctors do. They would find it necessary to
take strong measures to counteract and destroy the dreadful effects of
witchcraft.
HECKEW. The sorcerers that you speak of exist only in your imagination;
rid yourselves of this, and you will hear no more of them.
The dress this juggler had on, consisted of an entire garment or
outside covering, made of one or more bear skins, as black as jet, so
well fitted and sewed together, that the man was not in any place
to be perceived. The whole head of the bear, including the mouth,
nose, teeth, ears, &c., appeared the same as when the animal was
living; so did the legs with long claws; to this were added a huge
pair of horns on the head, and behind a large bushy tail, moving as he
walked, as though it were on springs; but for these accompaniments,
the man, walking on all fours, might have been taken for a bear of an
extraordinary size. Underneath, where his hands were, holes had been
cut, though not visible to the eye, being covered with the long hair,
through which he held and managed his implements, and he saw through
two holes set with glass. The whole was a great curiosity, but not to
be looked at by everybody.
There are jugglers of another kind, in general old men and women, who
although not classed among doctors or physicians, yet get their living
by pretending to supernatural knowledge. Some pretend that they can
bring down rain in dry weather when wanted, others prepare ingredients,
which they sell to bad hunters, that they may have good luck, and
others make philters or love potions for such married persons as either
do not, or think they cannot love each other.
When one of these jugglers is applied to to bring down rain in a dry
season, he must in the first instance receive a fee. This fee is made
up by the women, who, as cultivators of the land are supposed to be
most interested, but the men will slily slip something in their hands
in aid of their collection, which consists of wampum beads, tobacco,
silver broaches, and a dressed deer skin to make shoes of. If the
juggler does not succeed in his experiment, he never is in want of an
excuse; either the winds are in opposition to one another, the dry wind
or air is too powerful for the moist or south wind, or he has not been
made _strong enough_, (that is sufficiently paid,) to compel the north
to give way to the south from whence the rain is to come, or lastly,
he wants time to invoke the great Spirit to aid him on the important
occasion.
In the summer of the year 1799, a most uncommon drouth happened in the
Muskingum country, so that every thing growing, even the grass and the
leaves of the trees, appeared perishing; an old man named _Chenos_,
who was born on the river Delaware, was applied to by the women to
bring down rain, and was well feed for the purpose. Having failed in
his first attempt, he was feed a second time, and it happened that one
morning, when my business obliged me to pass by the place where he
was at work, as I knew him very well, I asked him at once what he was
doing? “I am hired,” said he, “to do a very hard day’s work.”
Q. And, pray, what work?
A. Why, to bring down rain from the sky.
Q. Who hired you to do that?
A. The women of the village; don’t you see how much rain is wanted, and
that the corn and every thing else is perishing?
Q. But can you make it rain?
A. I can, and you shall be convinced of it this very day.
He had, by this time, encompassed a square of about five feet each
way, with stakes and barks so that it might resemble a pig pen of
about three feet in height, and now, with his face uplifted and turned
towards the north, he muttered something, then closely shutting up
with bark the opening which had been left on the north side, he turned
in the same manner, still muttering some words, towards the south, as
if invoking some superior being, and having cut through the bark on
the southwest corner, so as to make an opening of two feet, he said:
“now we shall have rain enough!” Hearing down the river the sound of
setting poles striking against a canoe, he enquired of me what it was?
I told him it was our Indians going up the river to make a bush net for
fishing. “Send them home again!” said he, “tell them that this will not
be a fit day for fishing!” I told him to let them come on and speak to
them himself, if he pleased. He did so, and as soon as they came near
him, he told them that they must by no means think of fishing that day,
for there should come a heavy rain which would wet them all through.
“No matter, Father!” answered they in a jocular manner, “give us only
rain and we will cheerfully bear the soaking.” They then passed on, and
I proceeded to _Goschachking_, the village to which I was going.[198]
I mentioned the circumstance to the chief of the place, and told him
that I thought it impossible that we should have rain while the sky
was so clear as it then was and had been for near five weeks together,
without its being previously announced by some signs or change in the
atmosphere. But the chief answered: “_Chenos_ knows very well what he
is about; he can at any time predict what the weather will be; he takes
his observations morning and evening from the river or something in
it.” On my return from this place after three o’clock in the afternoon,
the sky still continued the same until about four o’clock, when all at
once the horizon became overcast, and without any thunder or wind it
began to rain, and continued so for several hours together, until the
ground became thoroughly soaked.
I am of the opinion that this man, like others whom I have known, was
a strict observer of the weather, and that his prediction that day was
made in consequence of his having observed some signs in the sky or in
the water, which his experience had taught him to be the forerunners
of rain; yet the credulous multitude did not fail to ascribe it to his
supernatural power.
The ingredients for a bad hunter, to make him have good luck, are
tied up in a bit of cloth, and must be worn near his skin while he is
hunting. The preparations intended to create love between man and wife,
are to be slily conveyed to the frigid party by means of his victuals
or drink.