A NATIVE DOCTOR AND HIS PATIENT
One evening I crossed the meadow and climbed the ridge on the north
side of the plain to the big rock, which commanded a broad view of the
circle camp, the billowy hills stretching away to the horizon, north,
south, east, and in the west the snowy peaks of the Rocky Mountains.
The sun was setting and the birds were calling. High over the mountains
the sky was like a golden sea with many tints, broken into bays and
inlets by cloud promontories, in purple and somber red.
The lodges of the big camp were a ghostly white in the fading twilight;
and soon became illuminated by bright inside fires, until the camp
looked like an enormous group of colored Japanese lanterns, the
flickering lights of many outside fires resembling fireflies in a
summer’s dusk.
From my lofty seat on the hill, I heard the clear notes of a young
brave singing a love song to his sweetheart, asking her to come forth
to meet him. He waited in a meadow just outside the camp, until she
came with her water pails; and they went together to the stream—the
common meeting place for Indian lovers.
Then, when the moon rose over the plains, the night-singers appeared.
They rode around the camp circle, singing to an accompaniment of
jingling bells, keeping time with the slow jog-trot of their horses and
giving shrill war-whoops at the end of each song.
From different lodges came the sound of drumming, where dances and
ceremonies were taking place. In one tepee the Brave Dog Society was
giving a dance, shaking their rattles and singing; in another, a band
of young men were singing and beating drums as a prayer for their Grass
Dance on the morrow. And from Mad Wolf’s lodge I heard the sound of
solemn chanting by many voices in unison, both men and women,
accompanied by rhythmical beating of rattles on the ground.
After dark I went down from the hill and entered the camp. But I soon
lost my way; the plain was level with no paths to guide. The big Indian
camp was over a mile in circumference and at night all the tepees
looked alike. Then I met Rattler, the doctor, and his wife, First
Strike, with drums and sacks of roots and herbs, on their way to visit
a patient. I joined them and they took me to the lodge of Stuyimi, an
old friend of mine who had been ill for many months.
We found the patient lying on a couch of robes and blankets. His wife
and two daughters were seated on another couch across the lodge.
Rattler and I took places at the back of the lodge, while his wife,
First Strike, joined the women. I was no sooner seated than a small
coyote puppy crawled from the blankets at my side. It had a long
pointed nose and bright eyes, and his coat was soft and fluffy. I put
forth my hand to stroke it. Like a flash it snapped viciously and
narrowly missed; then snarled and showed his fangs, until one of the
girls called him by name, “Apis” (Wolf), when he ran to her, hopping on
three legs and dragging his hind quarters, after the manner of coyotes,
and soon fell asleep in her arms.
They also had a pet dog named “Sa-sak-si” (Freckle Face). To show off
his tricks, one of the girls said: “Ai im skotos” (laugh at him); the
dog lifted his upper lip for a smile and wagged his tail. Then she
called: “Iks katsit” (watch it), and the dog sat glaring at the door.
All this time the women were talking and gossiping and eating dried
meat and service berries, while old Rattler waited in silence; he
wanted to begin his doctoring. He was a large man, over six feet in
height, with massive head and long gray hair, which fell in waves over
his broad shoulders. He was genial and good-natured. Every one liked
Rattler. He feigned an air of confidence in his own wisdom and power,
which helped him with his patients and added greatly to his success as
a doctor.
Finally, as a hint to the women, he took the cover from his medicine
drum and began to warm it over the fire. It was painted yellow to
represent a clear sky at sunset, with a red ball in the center for the
sun. Then he signed for his wife to make ready; she left the other
women and put four round stones to heat in the fire.
Never had I been allowed to see an Indian doctor at work; spectators
were believed to weaken his power; even the members of a patient’s
family were expected to withdraw. I started to go with the others, when
Rattler signed for me to remain. He asked me to join with him in the
songs; it would give him greater power and would help him in his
doctoring. I agreed to sing, on condition that he would allow me to
bring my cameras next day, and make pictures of him doctoring his
patient. Rattler hesitated; it was a strange request, and his wife,
too, was afraid it might bring bad luck to their patient. But the sick
man interceded in my behalf; he wanted me to take the pictures, that I
might be able to show them to the white men in civilization. He
persuaded Rattler; and thus it happened that I saw the doctoring of a
patient and secured a set of pictures.
Now an Indian has the same confidence in the native doctor that a child
of civilization has in the family physician. Susceptible to mental
impressions, the Indian has faith in the methods of his doctor. The
doctor inspires in his patient a feeling of confidence and hope of
recovery, which acts favorably upon the body. The weird songs,
incantations and drumming of the medicine man, are often more effective
for the Indian than the skilled white doctor whom he does not trust.
With the medicine men, suggestion had a great power for healing. Some
of them practiced in good faith; others were frauds and quacks, in
about the same proportion as in civilized communities. Many of them
were inspired and had faith in their art. They relieved suffering and
held positions of influence in their tribe. Thus modern science had its
origin in the blind gropings of primitive doctors and medicine men.
Rattler and his wife stripped the patient to his waist. He lay on a
couch, with his head against the back-rest. The woman doctored first,
while Rattler and I sat together at the back of the lodge to help by
our singing.
She took some roots and herbs from an old sack and brewed them over the
fire for a hot drink. She burned sweet pine as incense, holding both
hands in the rising smoke and praying to her helper, the Buffalo
Spirit, that he would give her power to heal. She kneeled by the
patient’s side, holding her hands in the sweet smoke and laying them on
his body and feeling him gently with her fingers; she said the trouble
was in his chest, and was bad on the left side. Then she took a hot
stone from the fire, and placing it in a kettle of water, prayed:
“Sun, pity and help me.
Listen, Sun, to what I say.
Help this sick man, that he may live to old age.
Take heed and pity him, for the sake of wife and children.
May they live long.
May they all be happy and see many snows.”
Then Rattler signed that it was time for us to sing. He raised his
medicine drum and beat slowly and rhythmically. Holding his head back
and with eyes closed, he began to sing, while I joined with him. In the
meantime, his wife was going through dancing motions on her knees,
moving her body in time with the beating of the drum and joining with
us in a chant.
Her power to heal came through the medium of a dream. A buffalo bull
appeared and said: “You will profit from my body. Behold! I give these
herbs whereby you can heal the sick.”
In her doctoring, First Strike imitated the actions of her
dream-buffalo, the way she saw it doctoring another buffalo. She
covered herself with a buffalo robe and knelt beside the patient. She
pawed the ground, hooked with her head, and imitated the sounds of a
buffalo. Then she breathed on a piece of buffalo-skin to give it power;
she held it towards the patient, swaying her body in time with the
beating of the drum. She laid the buffalo-skin on a hot stone and then
placed it quickly on the left side of the sick man, the place where the
trouble lay. She put her hands into the root medicine; she touched a
hot stone with the wet tips of her fingers and, with a quick movement,
placed them on the body of her patient. In this way she made hot
applications on both sides of his body, using three hot stones, one
after the other.
When First Strike had finished her doctoring, Rattler made ready. With
his massive figure and benign countenance, his long gray hair in waves
over his shoulders, he was an imposing doctor, one to inspire
confidence in a sick person. Rattler did not make use of herbs or
roots. In his dream an eagle had bestowed upon him power to heal,
directing him how to proceed and showing him the motions to use.
First, Rattler beat loudly on his medicine drum. He signed to me to
join him in a song and swayed his body in time with the drumming. Then
he used an eagle wing, imitating the flying of an eagle; he beat the
wing against the body of his patient—the way he saw the eagle do in his
dream. He sprayed yellow paint through the hollow wing-bones of eagles,
first over his arms and breast, then over his entire body, and prayed:
“Listen! I beseech you, the power in my dream.
Help me cure this sick man.
Do not deceive me.
You said this was the way to doctor.
Here is the wing; I use it right.
Sun, help me, pity me.
Help me cure this sick person.”
But Stuyimi did not recover. One night he called to his wife that the
ghost of his dead father was outside the lodge, and said:
“Listen! He says he has been waiting for me and it is time for me to go
with him to the Sand Hills.”
After that the sick man kept seeing the ghost all the time. He said it
did not go away; and he died that same night.
For burial they dressed him in his best clothes—a suit of soft-tanned
deerskin, with leggings and moccasins to match. They wrapped the body
in a robe and placed it on the summit of a high ridge—his favorite
place to sit and dream.
The Blackfoot believed that the spirit went eastward to the Sand Hills,
a barren country on the plains. It was inhabited by the ghosts of
people and animals, which exist together as in this life.
They placed their dead upon scaffolds in trees, on the summit of a
hill, or in a death lodge hidden away among the trees. The dead were
clothed according to their station in life, believing they went to the
Sand Hills in their burial clothes. Often the things a person valued
most were left beside the grave. Sometimes the best horses of a chief
were killed, that they might go with him to the Spirit Land.
In mourning they denied and tortured themselves to excite the pity of
the Great Spirit, to show their indifference to pain and to manifest
their high regard for the dead. During the time of mourning, which
lasted several months, they went daily at sunset and sunrise to a
lonely hill, to weep and cut themselves with arrow-points and knives.
As a sign of deep mourning, they cut off a finger, generally the first
joint of the small finger. Sometimes they made the tepee smaller to
bring discomfort to all the family. When a prominent chief died, his
family would place their lodge at a distance from the others. Parents
who lost a son led his saddle horse through the camp and made public
lamentations. People in mourning wore old clothes; they gave up
painting themselves and all ornaments. They kept away from public
gatherings, dances, and religious ceremonies. Sometimes they wore
neither moccasins nor leggings; they cut off the manes of their saddle
horses, but they had a superstition against the cutting of their
horses’ tails.
No Chief, a prominent man, mourned so deeply at the death of his
brother that he journeyed several hundred miles to the place where he
was killed and brought the body home. After that he carried the
skeleton in a rawhide case wherever he went, and had it buried beside
him when he died.
It was customary for a man and his wife to give their sacred bundles
into the care of another couple who were expected to make new clothes
and give ceremonies for the couple in mourning. Finally friends of the
mourners came and tried to make them forget their sorrow, and to
persuade them to return to their ordinary life.