At the time of the settlement of California by the whites, every
Indian tribe had its professional doctors or medicine men, who
also acted as religious leaders. They were the confidential
counselors of the chiefs and head-men of the tribes, and had
great influence and control over the people. They claimed to be
spiritual mediums, and to have communication with the departed
spirits of some of their old and most revered chieftains and dear
friends, now in a much more happy condition than when here in
earthly life. They were thought to be endowed with supernatural
powers, not only in curing all diseases (except those due to old
age), but also in making a well person sick at their pleasure,
even at a distance; but when their sorcery failed to work on
their white enemies and exterminate them, they lost the
confidence of their followers to a large extent.
With the invasion of the white settlers came forced changes in
their old customs and manner of living, and a new variety of
epidemic and other diseases. When a doctor failed to cure these
diseases, and several deaths occurred in quick succession in a
camp, they believed the doctor was under the control of some evil
spirit, and killed him.
After the Indians were given their freedom from the reservations
in 1855, the old ones, subdued and broken-hearted, sickened and
died very fast, and most of the men doctors were killed off in a
few years. There are none known who now attempt to act in that
capacity.
There are still some women doctors who continue to practice the
magic art, but as there are now but very few Indians, there is
not so much sickness, and very few deaths in a year, so that the
doctors very rarely forfeit their lives by many of their patients
dying in quick succession.
Their most common mode of treatment in cases of sickness was to
scarify the painful locality with the sharp edge of a piece of
obsidian, and suck out the blood with the mouth. In cases of
headache, the forehead was operated on; in a case of colic the
abdomen was treated in the same way, as were also all painful
swellings on any part of the body.
The grand object of the doctor was to make the patient and
family firmly believe that his course of treatment was removing
the cause of the sickness. To aid in strengthening this belief,
after diagnosing the case, and before commencing operations, he
would quietly retire for a short time, ostensibly to get under
the influence of the divine healing spirit, but in reality to
fill his mouth with several small articles, such as bits of wood
or stone; he was then ready to commence treatment. After sucking
and spitting pure blood a few times, he began to spit out with
the blood, one after another, the things he had in his mouth, at
the sight of which all the attendants would join in a chorus of
grunts of astonishment, and the doctor would pretend to be very
much nauseated. In most ordinary cases two or three treatments
effected a cure.
The doctors also made use of certain rare medicinal plants in
treating some diseases. The Indian women have great faith in
charms made of the pungent roots of some rare plants from the
high mountain ranges, which they wear on strings around their
necks, or on a string of beads, to protect them from sickness.
In cases of malignant sores or ulcers on any part of the body,
the doctors treated them by applying dirt or earth, and in warm
weather would excavate a place in the ground and put the patient
in it, either in a sitting or recumbent position, as the nature
of the case required, and cover the affected part with earth for
several hours, daily. Sometimes, by this mode of treatment,
wonderful cures were made.
In all cases, if a doctor failed to cure a disease, and the
patient died, he was obliged to refund to the relatives any fee
which he had received for his services.