CHAPTER I. The medicine-men, their modes of treating

disease, their superstitions, paraphernalia, etc. 451

Medicine-women 468

Remedies and modes of treatment 471

Hair and wigs 474

Mudheads 475

Scalp shirts 476

The rhombus, or bull roarer 476

The cross 479

Necklaces of human fingers 480

Necklaces of human teeth 487

The scratch stick 490

The drinking reed 493

CHAPTER II. Hoddentin, the pollen of the tule, the

sacrificial powder of the Apache; with remarks upon

sacred powders and offerings in general 499

The "kunque" of the Zuñi and others 507

Use of the pollen by the Israelites and Egyptians 517

Hoddentin a prehistoric food 518

Hoddentin the yiauhtli of the Aztecs 521

"Bledos" of ancient writers--its meaning 522

Tzoalli 523

General use of the powder among Indians 528

Analogues of hoddentin 530

The down of birds in ceremonial observances 533

Hair powder 535

Dust from churches--its use 537

Clay-eating 537

Prehistoric foods used in covenants 540

Sacred breads and cakes 541

Unleavened bread 543

The hot cross buns of Good Friday 544

Galena 548

CHAPTER III. The izze-kloth or medicine cord of the

Apache 550

Analogues to be found among the Aztecs, Peruvians,

and others 558

The magic wind-knotted cords of the Lapps and others 560

Rosaries and other mnemonic cords 561

The sacred cords of the Parsis and Brahmans 563

Use of cords and knots and girdles in parturition 570

"Medidas," "measuring cords," "wresting threads," etc. 572

Unclassified superstitions upon this subject 575

The medicine hat 580

The spirit or ghost dance headdress 585

Amulets and talismans 587

The "tzi-daltai" 587

Chalchihuitl 588

Phylacteries 591

Bibliography 596

ILLUSTRATIONS.

PLATE Page.

III. Scalp shirt of Little Big Man 476

IV. Necklace of human fingers 480

V. Apache medicine hat used in ghost or spirit dance 586

VI. Apache medicine shirt 588

VII. Apache medicine shirt 590

VIII. Apache medicine shirt 592

FIG.

429. Medicine arrow used by Apache and Pueblo women 468

430. Rhombus of the Apache 477

431. Rhombus of the Apache 478

432. The scratch stick and drinking reed 494

433. Bag containing hoddentin 500

434. Nan-ta-do-tash's medicine hat 503

435. Single-strand medicine cord (Zuñi) 550

436. Four-strand medicine cord (Apache) 551

437. Three-strand medicine cord (Apache) 552

438. Two-strand medicine cord 553

439. Four-strand medicine cord (Apache) 554

440. Apache war bonnet 581

441. Ghost dance headdress 582

442. Apache kan or gods (Drawn by Apache) 586

443. Tzi-daltai amulets (Apache) 587

444. Tzi-daltai amulet (Apache) 588

445. Tzi-daltai amulet (Apache) 589

446. Tzi-daltai amulet (Apache) 589

447. Phylacteries 592

448. Apache medicine sash 593

LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL.

WASHINGTON, D. C., _February 27, 1891_.

SIR: Herewith I have the honor to submit a paper upon the

paraphernalia of the medicine-men of the Apache and other tribes.

Analogues have been pointed out, wherever possible, especially in the

case of the hoddentin and the izze-kloth, which have never to my

knowledge previously received treatment.

Accompanying the paper is a bibliography of the principal works cited.

I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

JOHN G. BOURKE,

_Captain, Third Cavalry, U. S. Army_.

Hon. J. W. POWELL,

_Director Bureau of Ethnology_.

THE MEDICINE-MEN OF THE APACHE.

BY JOHN G. BOURKE.

CHAPTER I.

THE MEDICINE-MEN, THEIR MODES OF TREATING DISEASE, THEIR

SUPERSTITIONS, PARAPHERNALIA, ETC.

The Caucasian population of the United States has been in intimate

contact with the aborigines for a period of not less than two hundred

and fifty years. In certain sections, as in Florida and New Mexico,

this contact has been for a still greater period; but claiming no

earlier date than the settlement of New England, it will be seen that

the white race has been slow to learn or the red man has been skillful

in withholding knowledge which, if imparted, would have lessened

friction and done much to preserve and assimilate a race that, in

spite of some serious defects of character, will for all time to come

be looked upon as "the noble savage."

Recent deplorable occurrences in the country of the Dakotas have

emphasized our ignorance and made clear to the minds of all thinking

people that, notwithstanding the acceptance by the native tribes of

many of the improvements in living introduced by civilization, the

savage has remained a savage, and is still under the control of an

influence antagonistic to the rapid absorption of new ideas and the

adoption of new customs.

This influence is the "medicine-man."

Who, and what are the medicine-men (or medicine-women), of the

American Indians? What powers do they possess in time of peace or war?

How is this power obtained, how renewed, how exercised? What is the

character of the remedies employed? Are they pharmaceutical, as we

employ the term, or are they the superstitious efforts of empirics and

charlatans, seeking to deceive and to misguide by pretended

consultations with spiritual powers and by reliance upon mysterious

and occult influences?

Such a discussion will be attempted in this paper, which will be

restricted to a description of the personality of the medicine-men,

the regalia worn, and the powers possessed and claimed. To go

farther, and enter into a treatment of the religious ideas, the

superstitions, omens, and prayers of these spiritual leaders, would be

to open a road without end.

As the subject of the paraphernalia of the medicine-men has never, to

my knowledge, been comprehensively treated by any writer, I venture to

submit what I have learned during the twenty-two years of my

acquaintance with our savage tribes, and the studies and conclusions

to which my observations have led. While treating in the main of the

medicine-men of the Apache, I do not intend to omit any point of

importance noted among other tribes or peoples.

First, in regard to the organization of the medicine-men of the

Apache, it should be premised that most of my observations were made

while the tribe was still actively engaged in hostilities with the

whites, and they cannot be regarded as, and are not claimed to be,

conclusive upon all points. The Apache are not so surely divided into

medicine lodges or secret societies as is the case with the Ojibwa, as

shown by Dr. W. J. Hoffman; the Siouan tribes, as related by Mr. J.

Owen Dorsey; the Zuñi, according to Mr. F. H. Cushing; the Tusayan, as

shown by myself, and other tribes described by other authorities.

The Navajo, who are the full brothers of the Apache, seem to have well

defined divisions among their medicine-men, as demonstrated by Dr.

Washington Matthews, U. S. Army; and I myself have seen great medicine

lodges, which must have contained at least a dozen Apache

medicine-men, engaged in some of their incantations. I have also been

taken to several of the sacred caves, in which solemn religious dances

and other ceremonies were conducted under the same superintendence,

but never have I witnessed among the Apache any rite of religious

significance in which more than four or five, or at the most six, of

the medicine-men took part.

The difficulty of making an accurate determination was increased by

the nomadic character of the Apache, who would always prefer to live

in small villages containing only a few brush shelters, and not

needing the care of more than one or two of their "doctors." These

people show an unusual secretiveness and taciturnity in all that

relates to their inner selves, and, living as they do in a region

filled with caves and secluded nooks, on cliffs, and in deep canyons,

have not been compelled to celebrate their sacred offices in

"estufas," or "plazas," open to the inspection of the profane, as has

been the case with so many of the Pueblo tribes.

Diligent and persistent inquiry of medicine-men whose confidence I had

succeeded in gaining, convinced me that any young man can become a

"doctor" ("diyi" in the Apache language, which is translated "sabio"

by the Mexican captives). It is necessary to convince his friends that

he "has the gift," as one of my informants expressed it; that is, he

must show that he is a dreamer of dreams, given to long fasts and

vigils, able to interpret omens in a satisfactory manner, and do other

things of that general nature to demonstrate the possession of an

intense spirituality. Then he will begin to withdraw, at least

temporarily, from the society of his fellows and devote himself to

long absences, especially by night, in the "high places" which were

interdicted to the Israelites. Such sacred fanes, perched in dangerous

and hidden retreats, can be, or until lately could be, found in many

parts in our remote western territory. In my own experiences I have

found them not only in the country of the Apache, but two-thirds of

the way up the vertical face of the dizzy precipice of Tâaiyalana,

close to Zuñi, where there is a shrine much resorted to by the young

men who seek to divine the result of a contemplated enterprise by

shooting arrows into a long cleft in the smooth surface of the

sandstone; I have seen them in the Wolf Mountains, Montana; in the Big

Horn range, Wyoming; on the lofty sides of Cloud Peak, and elsewhere.

Maj. W.S. Stanton, Corps of Engineers, U. S. Army, ascended the Cloud

Peak twice, and, reaching the summit on the second attempt, he found

that beyond the position first attained and seeming then to be the

limit of possible ascent, some wandering Indian had climbed and made

his "medicine."

While it is regarded as a surer mode of learning how to be a

medicine-man to seek the tuition of some one who has already gained

power and influence as such, and pay him liberally in presents of all

kinds for a course of instruction lasting a year or longer, I could

learn of nothing to prohibit a man from assuming the rôle of a prophet

or healer of the sick, if so disposed, beyond the dread of punishment

for failure to cure or alleviate sickness or infirmity. Neither is

there such a thing as settled dogma among these medicine-men. Each

follows the dictates of his own inclinations, consulting such spirits

and powers as are most amenable to his supplications and charms; but

no two seem to rely upon identically the same influences. Even in the

spirit dance, which is possibly the most solemn function in which the

Apache medicine-men can engage, the head-dresses and kilts adhered

closely enough to the one pattern, but the symbolism employed by each

medicine-man was entirely different from that adopted by his

neighbors.

Schultze, Perrin du Lac, Adair, and others allude to "houses of

mercy," the "right of asylum" in certain lodges and buildings, or even

whole villages, to which if the pursued of the tribe or even an enemy

could obtain admission his life was secure. Frank Gruard and others

who have lived for years among the Sioux, the Cheyenne, and other

tribes of the plains have assured me that the same right of asylum

obtains among them for the fugitive who takes shelter in the medicine

lodge or the council lodge, and almost parallel notions prevail among

the Apache. I have heard that the first American who came into one of

their villages, tired and hungry, was not molested in the slightest

degree.

It is stated by Kelly[1] that all warriors who go through the sun

dance of the Sioux rank thereafter as medicine-men. This statement

seems to me to be overdrawn. Nothing of the kind was learned by me at

the sun dance of the Sioux which I noted in 1881, and in any event the

remark would scarcely apply to the medicine-men of the Apache, who

have nothing clearly identifiable with the sun dance, and who do not

cut, gash, or in any manner mutilate themselves, as did the principal

participants in the sun dance, or as was done in still earlier ages by

the galli (the priests of Cybele) or the priests of Mexico.

Herodotus tells us that the priests of Egypt, or rather the doctors,

who were at one time identified with them, were separated into

classes; some cured the eyes, some the ears, others the head or the

belly. Such a differentiation is to be observed among the Apache,

Mohave, and other tribes; there are some doctors who enjoy great fame

as the bringers of rain, some who claim special power over snakes, and

some who profess to consult the spirits only, and do not treat the

sick except when no other practitioner may be available. Among the

Mohave, the relatives of a dead man will consult one of these

spirit-doctors and get him to interview the ghosts who respond to his

call and learn from them whether the patient died from ignorance or

neglect on the part of the doctor who had charge of the case. If the

spirits assert that he did, then the culprit doctor must either flee

for his life or throw the onus of the crime upon some witch. This

differentiation is not carried so far that a medicine-man, no matter

what his class, would decline a large fee.

The right of sanctuary was conceded to all criminals who sought

shelter in the vanquech or temple of Chinigchinich.[2]

The castration of the galli, or priests of Cybele, is described by

Dupuis.[3]

Diego Duran asserts that the Mexican priests "se endian por medio los

miembros viriles y se hacian mil cosas para volverse impotentes por no

ofender á sus Dioses."[4]

The hierophants at Athens drank of the hemlock to render themselves

impotent, that when they came to the pontificate they might cease to

be men.[5]

One class of the Peruvian priests, the Huachus, made auguries from

grains of corn or the excrement of animals.[6]

Balboa tells us[6] that the Peruvian priesthood was divided into

classes, each with its appropriate functions--the Guacos made the

idols for the temples, or rather, they made the idols speak; the

others were necromancers and spoke only with the dead; the Huecheoc

divined by means of tobacco and coco; the Caviocac became drunk before

they attempted to divine, and after them came the Rumatinguis and the

Huachus already mentioned.

The Oregon tribes have spirit doctors and medicine doctors.[7]

The Chinese historians relate that the shamans of the Huns possessed

the power "to bring down snow, hail, rain, and wind."[8]

In all nations in the infancy of growth, social or mental, the power

to coax from reluctant clouds the fructifying rain has been regarded

with highest approval and will always be found confided to the most

important hierophants or devolving upon some of the most prominent

deities; almighty Jove was a deified rain-maker or cloud-compeller.

Rain-makers flourished in Europe down to the time of Charlemagne, who

prohibited these "tempestiarii" from plying their trade.

One of the first requests made of Vaca and his comrades by the people

living in fixed habitations near the Rio Grande was "to tell the sky

to rain," and also to pray for it.[9]

The prophet Samuel has been alluded to as a rain-maker.[10]

There does not seem to have been any inheritance of priestly functions

among the Apache or any setting apart of a particular clan or family

for the priestly duties.

Francis Parkman is quoted as describing a certain family among the

Miami who were reserved for the sacred ritualistic cannibalism

perpetrated by that tribe upon captives taken in war. Such families

devoted more or less completely to sacred uses are to be noted among

the Hebrews (in the line of Levi) and others; but they do not occur in

the tribes of the Southwest.

One of the ceremonies connected with the initiation, as with every

exercise of spiritual functions by the medicine-man, is the

"ta-a-chi," or sweat-bath, in which, if he be physically able, the

patient must participate.

The Apache do not, to my knowledge, indulge in any poisonous

intoxicants during their medicine ceremonies; but in this they differ

to a perceptible degree from other tribes of America. The "black

drink" of the Creeks and the "wisoccan" of the Virginians may be cited

as cases in point; and the Walapai of Arizona, the near neighbors of

the Apache, make use of the juice, or a decoction of the leaves,

roots, and flowers of the _Datura stramonium_ to induce frenzy and

exhilaration. The laurel grows wild on all the mountain tops of Sonora

and Arizona, and the Apache credit it with the power of setting men

crazy, but they deny that they have ever made use of it in their

medicine or religion. Picart[11] speaks of the drink (wisoccan) which

took away the brains of the young men undergoing initiation as

medicine-men among the tribes of Virginia, but he does not say what

this "wisoccan" was.

In Guiana,[12] the candidate for the office of medicine-man must,

among other ordeals, "drink fearfully large drafts of tobacco juice,

mixed with water." The medicine-men of Guiana are called peaiman.

I have never seen tobacco juice drank by medicine-men or others, but I

remember seeing Shunca-Luta (Sorrel Horse), a medicine-man of the

Dakota, chewing and swallowing a piece of tobacco and then going into

what seemed to be a trance, all the while emitting deep grunts or

groans. When he revived he insisted that those sounds had been made by

a spirit which he kept down in his stomach. He also pretended to

extract the quid of tobacco from underneath his ribs, and was full of

petty tricks of legerdemain and other means of mystifying women and

children.

All medicine-men claim the power of swallowing spear heads or arrows

and fire, and there are at times many really wonderful things done by

them which have the effect of strengthening their hold upon the

people.

The medicine-men of the Ojibwa thrust arrows and similar instruments

down their throats. They also allow themselves to be shot at with

marked bullets.[13]

While I was among the Tusayan, in 1881, I learned of a young boy,

quite a child, who was looked up to by the other Indians, and on

special occasions made his appearance decked out in much native finery

of beads and gewgaws, but the exact nature of his duties and supposed

responsibilities could not be ascertained.

Diego Duran[14] thought that the priesthood among the Mexicans was to

a great extent hereditary, much like the right of primogeniture among

the people of Spain. Speaking of the five assistants who held down the

human victim at the moment of sacrifice, he says:

Los nombres de los cinco eran Chachalmeca, que en nuestra

Lengua quiere tanto decir como Levita ó ministro de cosa

divina ó sagrada. Era esta dignidad entre ellos muy suprema y

en mucha tenida, la cual se heredaba de hijos á padres como

cosa de mayorazgo, sucediendo los hijos á los Padres en

aquella sangrienta Dignidad endemoniada y cruel.

Concerning the medicine-men of Peru, Dorman[15] says:

The priestly office among the Peruvians appears to have been

hereditary; some attained it by election; a man struck by

lightning was considered as chosen by heaven; also those who

became suddenly insane. Mr. Southey says that among the Moxos

of Brazil, who worshiped the tiger, a man who was rescued

from but marked by the claws of the animal, was set apart for

the priesthood, and none other.

I shall have occasion to introduce a medicine-woman of the Apache,

Tze-go-juni, or "Pretty-mouth," whose claims to preeminence among her

people would seem to have had no better foundation than her escape

from lightning stroke and from the bites of a mountain lion, which had

seized her during the night and had not killed her.

I remember the case of an old Navajo medicine-man who was killed by

lightning. The whole tribe participated in the singing, drumming, and

dancing incident to so important an event, but no white men were

allowed to be present. My information was derived from the dead man's

young nephew, while I was among that tribe.

Among the Arawak of South America there are hereditary conjurers who

profess to find out the enemy who by the agency of an evil spirit has

killed the deceased.[16]

Picart says of the medicine-men of the tribes along Rio de la Plata:

"Pour être Prêtre ou Médecin parmi eux, il faut avoir jeûné longtems &

souvent. Il faut avoir combatu plusieurs fois contre les bêtes

Sauvages, principalement contre les Tigres, & tout au moins en avoir

été mordu ou égratigné. Après cela on peut obtenir l'Ordre, de

Prêtrise; car le Tigre est chez eux un animal presque divin."[17]

The medicine-men of the Apache are not confined to one gens or clan,

as among the Shawnee and Cherokee, according to Brinton,[18] neither

do they believe, as the Cherokee do, according to the same authority,

that the seventh son is a natural-born prophet with the gift of

healing by touch, but upon this latter point I must be discreet, as I

have never known an Apache seventh son.

The Cherokee still preserve the custom of consecrating a family of

their tribe to the priesthood, as the family of Levi was consecrated

among the Jews.[19]

The neophytes of the isthmus of Darien were boys from ten to twelve

years "selected for the natural inclination or the peculiar aptitude

and intelligence which they displayed for the service."[20]

Peter Martyr says of the Chiribchis of South America: "Out of the

multitude of children they chuse some of 10 or 12 yeeres old, whom

they know by conjecture to be naturally inclined to that service."[21]

The peculiarity of the Moxos was that they thought none designated for

the office of medicine-man but such as had escaped from the claws of

the South American tiger which, indeed, it is said they worshiped as a

god.[22]

Contrary to what Spencer says, the chiefs of the tribes of the

Southwest, at least, are not ipso facto medicine-men; but among the

Tonto Apache the brother of the head chief, Cha-ut-lip-un, was the

great medicine-man, and generally the medicine-men are related closely

to the prominent chiefs, which would seem to imply either a formal

deputation of priestly functions from the chiefs to relatives, or what

may be practically the same thing, the exercise of family influence to

bring about a recognition of the necromantic powers of some aspirant;

but among the Apache there is no priest caste; the same man may be

priest, warrior, etc.[23]

"The juice of the Datura seed is employed by the Portuguese women of

Goa: they mix it, says Linschott, in the liquor drank by their

husbands, who fall, for twenty-four hours at least, into a stupor

accompanied by continued laughing; but so deep is the sleep that

nothing passing before them affects them; and when they recover their

senses, they have no recollection of what has taken place."[24]

"The Darien Indians used the seeds of the _Datura sanguinea_ to bring

on in children prophetic delirium, in which they revealed hidden

treasure. In Peru the priests who talked with the 'huaca' or fetishes

used to throw themselves into an ecstatic condition by a narcotic

drink called 'tonca,' made from the same plant."[25]

The medicine-men of the Walapai, according to Charlie Spencer, who

married one of their women and lived among them for years, were in the

habit of casting bullets in molds which contained a small piece of

paper. They would allow these bullets to be fired at them, and of

course the missile would split in two parts and do no injury. Again,

they would roll a ball of sinew and attach one end to a small twig,

which was inserted between the teeth. They would then swallow the ball

of sinew, excepting the end thus attached to the teeth, and after the

heat and moisture of the stomach had softened and expanded the sinew

they would begin to draw it out yard after yard, saying to the

frightened squaws that they had no need of intestines and were going

to pull them all out. Others among the Apache have claimed the power

to shoot off guns without touching the triggers or going near the

weapons; to be able to kill or otherwise harm their enemies at a

distance of 100 miles. In nearly every boast made there is some sort

of a saving clause, to the effect that no witchcraft must be made or

the spell will not work, no women should be near in a delicate state

from any cause, etc.

Mickey Free has assured me that he has seen an Apache medicine-man

light a pipe without doing anything but hold his hands up toward the

sun. This story is credible enough if we could aver that the

medicine-man was supplied, as I suspect he was, with a burning glass.

That the medicine-man has the faculty of transforming himself into a

coyote and other animals at pleasure and then resuming the human form

is as implicitly believed in by the American Indians as it was by our

own forefathers in Europe. This former prevalence of lycanthropy all

over Europe can be indicated in no more forcible manner than by

stating that until the reign of Louis XIV, in France, the fact of

being a were-wolf was a crime upon which one could be arraigned before

a court; but with the discontinuance of the crime the were-wolves

themselves seem to have retired from business.[26] In Abyssinia, at

the present day, blacksmiths are considered to be were-wolves,

according to Winstanley. The Apache look upon blacksmiths as being

allied to the spirits and call them "pesh-chidin"--the witch, spirit,

or ghost, of the iron. The priestly powers conceded to the blacksmith

of Gretna Green need no allusion here.

According to Sir Walter Scott,[27] trials for lycanthropy were

abolished in France by an edict of Louis XIV.

Parkman[28] describes, from the Relations of Pére Le Jeune, how the

Algonkin medicine-man announced that he was going to kill a rival

medicine-man who lived at Gaspé, 100 leagues distant.

The Abipones of Paraguay, according to Father Dobrizhoffer, "credit

their medicine-men with power to inflict disease and death, to cure

all disorders, to make known distant and future events; to cause rain,

hail, and tempest; to call up the shades of the dead and consult them

concerning hidden matters; to put on the form of a tiger; to handle

every kind of serpent without danger, etc.; which powers they imagine

are not obtained by art, but imparted to certain persons by their

grandfather, the devil."

The medicine-men of Honduras claimed the power of turning themselves

into lions and tigers and of wandering in the mountains.[29]

"Grandes Hechiceros i Bruxos, porque se hacian Perros, Puercos i

Ximios."[30]

Gomara also calls attention to the fact that the medicine-men,

"hechiceros" and "brujos," as he calls them, of the Nicaraguans,

possessed the power of lycanthropy; "segun ellos mismos decian, se

hacen perros, puercos y gimias."[31]

Great as are the powers claimed by the medicine-men, it is admitted

that baleful influences may be at work to counteract and nullify them.

As has already been shown, among these are the efforts of witches, the

presence of women who are sometimes supposed to be so "antimedicinal,"

if such a term may be applied, that the mere stepping over a warrior's

gun will destroy its value.

There may be other medicine-men at work with countercharms, and there

may be certain neglects on the part of the person applying for aid

which will invalidate all that the medicine-man can do for him. For

example, while the "hoop-me-koff" was raging among the Mohave the

fathers of families afflicted with it were forbidden to touch coffee

or salt, and were directed to bathe themselves in the current of the

Colorado. But the whooping cough ran its course in spite of all that

the medicine-men could do to check its progress. When the Walapai

were about to engage in a great hunt continence was enjoined upon the

warriors for a certain period.

Besides all these accidental impairments of the vigor of the

medicine-men, there seems to be a gradual decadence of their abilities

which can be rejuvenated only by rubbing the back against a sacred

stone projecting from the ground in the country of the Walapai, not

many miles from the present town of Kingman, on the Atlantic and

Pacific Railroad. Another stone of the same kind was formerly used for

the same purpose by the medicine-men of the pueblos of Laguna and

Acoma, as I have been informed by them. I am unable to state whether

or not such recuperative properties were ever ascribed to the medicine

stone at the Sioux agency near Standing Rock, S. Dak., or to the great

stone around which the medicine-men of Tusayan marched in solemn

procession in their snake dance, but I can say that in the face of the

latter, each time that I saw it (at different dates between 1874 and

1881), there was a niche which was filled with votive offerings.

Regnard, a traveler in Lapland, makes the statement that when the

shamans of that country began to lose their teeth they retired from

practice. There is nothing of this kind to be noted among the Apache

or other tribes of North America with which I am in any degree

familiar. On the contrary, some of the most influential of those whom

I have known have been old and decrepit men, with thin, gray hair and

teeth gone or loose in their heads. In a description given by

Corbusier of a great "medicine" ceremony of the Apache-Yuma at Camp

Verde, it is stated that the principal officer was a "toothless,

gray-haired man."[32]

Among many savage or barbarous peoples of the world albinos have been

reserved for the priestly office. There are many well marked examples

of albinism among the Pueblos of New Mexico and Arizona, especially

among the Zuñi and Tusayan; but in no case did I learn that the

individuals thus distinguished were accredited with power not

ascribable to them under ordinary circumstances. Among the Cheyenne I

saw one family, all of whose members had the crown lock white. They

were not medicine-men, neither were any of the members of the single

albino family among the Navajo in 1881.

It is a well known fact that among the Romans epilepsy was looked upon

as a disease sent direct from the gods, and that it was designated the

"sacred disease"--morbus sacer. Mahomet is believed to have been an

epileptic. The nations of the East regard epileptics and the insane as

inspired from on high.

Our native tribes do not exactly believe that the mildly insane are

gifted with medical or spiritual powers; but they regard them with a

feeling of superstitious awe, akin to reverence. I have personally

known several cases of this kind, though not within late years, and am

not able to say whether or not the education of the younger generation

in our schools has as yet exercised an influence in eradicating this

sentiment.

Strange to say, I was unable to find any observance of lucky or

unlucky days among the Apache. The Romans in the period of their

greatest enlightenment had their days, both "fasti" and "nefasti."

Neither was I able to determine the selection of auspicious days for

marriage; indeed, it was stated that the medicine-men had nothing to

do with marriage. Among the Zapotecs the wedding day was fixed by the

priests.[33] In this the Apache again stands above the Roman who would

not marry in the month dedicated to the goddess Maia (May), because

human sacrifice used to be offered in that month. This superstition

survived in Europe until a comparatively recent period. According to

Picart the Hebrew rabbis designated the days upon which weddings

should take place.

Herbert Spencer[34] says that the medicine-men of the Arawaks claimed

the "jus primæ noctis." There is no such privilege claimed or conceded

among the North American tribes, to my knowledge, and the Arawaks

would seem to be alone among the natives of the whole continent in

this respect.

In the town of Cumaná, in Amaracapanna, apparently close to

Carthagena, in the present republic of Colombia, South America, the

medicine-men, according to Girolamo Benzoni, exercised the "jus primæ

noctis."[35]

To recover stolen or lost property, especially ponies, is one of the

principal tasks imposed upon the medicine-men. They rely greatly upon

the aid of pieces of crystal in effecting this. I made a friend of an

Apache medicine-man by presenting him with a large crystal of

denticulated spar, much larger than the one of whose mystical

properties he had just been boasting to me. I can not say how this

property of the crystal is manifested. Na-a-cha, the medicine-man

alluded to, could give no explanation, except that by looking into it

he could see everything he wanted to see.

The name of an American Indian is a sacred thing, not to be divulged

by the owner himself without due consideration. One may ask a warrior

of any tribe to give his name and the question will be met with either

a point-blank refusal or the more diplomatic evasion that he can not

understand what is wanted of him. The moment a friend approaches, the

warrior first interrogated will whisper what is wanted, and the friend

can tell the name, receiving a reciprocation of the courtesy from the

other. The giving of names to children is a solemn matter, and one in

which the medicine-men should always be consulted. Among the Plains

tribes the children were formerly named at the moment of piercing

their ears, which should occur at the first sun dance after their

birth, or rather as near their first year as possible. The wailing of

the children at the sun dance as their ears were slit will always be

to me a most distressing memory.

The warriors of the Plains tribes used to assume agnomens or battle

names, and I have known some of them who had enjoyed as many as four

or five; but the Apache name once conferred seems to remain through

life, except in the case of the medicine-men, who, I have always

suspected, change their names upon assuming their profession, much as

a professor of learning in China is said to do.

The names of mothers-in-law are never mentioned and it would be highly

improper to ask for them by name; neither are the names of the dead,

at least not for a long period of time. But it often happens that the

child will bear the name of its grandfather or some other relative who

was a distinguished warrior.

All charms, idols, talismans, medicine hats, and other sacred regalia

should be made, or at least blessed, by the medicine-men. They assume

charge of all ceremonial feasts and dances--such as the nubile dance,

which occurs when any maiden attains marriageable age, and war dances

preceding battle. Nearly all preparations for the warpath are under

their control, and when on the trail of the enemy their power is

almost supreme. Not a night passes but that the medicine-men get into

the "ta-a-chi," or sweat bath, if such a thing be possible, and there

remain for some minutes, singing and making "medicine" for the good of

the party. After dark they sit around the fire and sing and talk with

the spirits and predict the results of the campaign. I have alluded

quite fully to these points in a previous work.

When a man is taken sick the medicine-men are in the zenith of their

glory. One or two will assume charge of the case, and the clansmen and

friends of the patient are called upon to supply the fire and help out

in the chorus. On such occasions the Apache use no music except a drum

or a rawhide. The drum is nearly always improvised from an iron camp

kettle, partially filled with water and covered with a piece of cloth,

well soaped and drawn as tight as possible. The drumstick does not

terminate in a ball, as with us, but is curved into a circle, and the

stroke is not perpendicular to the surface, but is often given from

one side to the other. The American Indian's theory of disease is the

theory of the Chaldean, the Assyrian, the Hebrew, the Greek, the

Roman--all bodily disorders and ailments are attributed to the

maleficence of spirits who must be expelled or placated. Where there

is only one person sick, the exercises consist of singing and drumming

exclusively, but dancing is added in all cases when an epidemic is

raging in the tribe. The medicine-men lead off in the singing, to

which the assistants reply with a refrain which at times has appeared

to me to be antiphonal. Then the chorus is swelled by the voices of

the women and larger children and rises and falls with monotonous

cadence. Prayers are recited, several of which have been repeated to

me and transcribed; but very frequently the words are ejaculatory and

confined to such expressions as "ugashe" (go away), and again there is

to be noted the same mumbling of incoherent phrases which has been

the stock in trade of medicine-men in all ages and places. This use of

gibberish was admitted by the medicine-men, who claimed that the words

employed and known only to themselves (each individual seemed to have

his own vocabulary) were mysteriously effective in dispelling sickness

of any kind. Gibberish was believed to be more potential in magic than

was language which the practitioner or his dupes could comprehend. In

Saxon Leechdoms, compiled by Cockayne, will be seen a text of

gibberish to be recited by those wishing to stanch the flow of blood.

(See p. 464.)

In the following citations it will be observed that Adair and Catlin

were grievously in error in their respective statements. Adair denies

that Indians on the warpath or elsewhere depend upon their "augurs"

for instruction and guidance.[36] Gomara is authority for the

statement that the natives of Hispaniola never made war without

consulting their medicine-men--"no sin respuesta de los ídolos ó sin

la de los sacerdotes, que adevinan."[37]

The medicine-men of Chicora (our present South Carolina) sprinkled the

warriors with the juice of a certain herb as they were about to engage

in battle.[38]

In Chicora "Mascaban los Sacerdotes una Ierva, i con el çumo de ella

rociaban los Soldados, quando querian dar batalla, que era

bendecirlos."[39]

"Among the Abipones [of Paraguay] the medicine-man teaches them the

place, time, and manner proper for attacking wild beasts or the

enemy."[40]

"The North American Indians are nowhere idolaters."[41]

Idols were always carried to war by the natives of Hispaniola: "Atanse

á la frente ídolos chiquitos cuando quieren pelear."[42]

"Among the primitive Germans * * * the maintenance of discipline in

the field as in the council was left in great measure to the priests;

they took the auguries and gave the signal for onset."[43]

"In New Caledonia * * * the priests go to battle, but sit in the

distance, _fasting_ and praying for victory."[44]

Our hunting songs and war songs may be a survival of the incantations

of Celtic or Teutonic medicine-men.

The adoption or retention of obsolete phraseology as a hieratic

language which has been noted among many nations of the highest

comparative development is a manifestation of the same mental process.

Gibberish was so invariable an accompaniment of the sacred antics of

the medicine-men of Mexico that Fray Diego Duran warns his readers

that if they see any Indian dancing and singing, "ó diciendo algunas

palabras que no son inteligibles, pues es de saber que aquellos

representaban Dioses."[45]

Henry Youle Hind says:

The Dakotahs have a common and a sacred language. The

conjurer, the war prophet, and the dreamer employ a language

in which words are borrowed from other Indian tongues and

dialects; they make much use of descriptive expressions, and

use words apart from the ordinary signification. The Ojibways

abbreviate their sentences and employ many elliptical forms

of expression, so much so that half-breeds, quite familiar

with the colloquial language, fail to comprehend a

medicine-man when in the full flow of excited oratory.[46]

"Blood may be stanched by the words sicycuma, cucuma, ucuma, cuma,

uma, ma, a."[47] There are numbers of these gibberish formulæ given,

but one is sufficient.

"The third part of the magic[48] of the Chaldeans belonged entirely to

that description of charlatanism which consists in the use of

gestures, postures, and mysterious speeches, as byplay, and which

formed an accompaniment to the proceedings of the thaumaturgist well

calculated to mislead."[49]

Sahagun[50] calls attention to the fact that the Aztec hymns were in

language known only to the initiated.

It must be conceded that the monotonous intonation of the medicine-men

is not without good results, especially in such ailments as can be

benefited by the sleep which such singing induces. On the same

principle that petulant babies are lulled to slumber by the crooning

of their nurses, the sick will frequently be composed to a sound and

beneficial slumber, from which they awake refreshed and ameliorated. I

can recall, among many other cases, those of Chaundezi ("Long Ear,"

or "Mule") and Chemihuevi-Sal, both chiefs of the Apache, who

recovered under the treatment of their own medicine-men after our

surgeons had abandoned the case. This recovery could be attributed

only to the sedative effects of the chanting.

Music of a gentle, monotonous kind has been prescribed in the medical

treatment of Romans, Greeks, and even of comparatively modern

Europeans. John Mason Goode, in his translation of Lucretius' De

Natura Rerum, mentions among others Galen, Theophrastus, and Aulus

Gellius. An anonymous writer in the Press of Philadelphia, Pa., under

date of December 23, 1888, takes the ground that its use should be

resumed.

The noise made by medicine-men around the couch of the sick is no

better, no worse, than the clangor of bells in Europe. Bells, we are

told, were rung on every possible occasion. Brand is full of quaint

information on this head. According to him they were rung in Spain

when women were in labor,[51] at weddings,[52] to dispel thunder,

drive away bad spirits, and frustrate the deviltry of witches;[53]

throughout Europe on the arrival of emperors, kings, the higher

nobility, bishops, etc.,[54] to ease pain of the dead,[55] were

solemnly baptized, receiving names,[56] and became the objects of

superstition, various powers being ascribed to them.[57]

Adair, who was gifted with an excellent imagination, alludes to the

possession of an "ark" by the medicine-men of the Creeks and other

tribes of the Mississippi country, among whom he lived for so many

years as a trader. The Apache have no such things; but I did see a

sacred bundle or package, which I was allowed to feel, but not to

open, and which I learned contained some of the lightning-riven twigs

upon which they place such dependence. This was carried by a young

medicine-man, scarcely out of his teens, during Gen. Crook's

expedition into the Sierra Madre, Mexico, in 1883, in pursuit of the

hostile Chiricahua Apache. Maj. Frank North also told me that the

Pawnee had a sacred package which contained, among other objects of

veneration, the skin of an albino buffalo calf.

There are allusions by several authorities to the necessity of

confession by the patient before the efforts of the medicine-men can

prove efficacious.[58]

This confession, granting that it really existed, could well be

compared to the warpath secret, which imposed upon all the warriors

engaged the duty of making a clean breast of all delinquencies and

secured them immunity from punishment for the same, even if they had

been offenses against some of the other warriors present.

The Sioux and others had a custom of "striking the post" in their

dances, especially the sun dance, and there was then an obligation

upon the striker to tell the truth. I was told that the medicine-men

were wont to strike with a club the stalagmites in the sacred caves of

the Apache, but what else they did I was not able to ascertain.

Under the title of "hoddentin" will be found the statement made by one

of the Apache as to the means employed to secure the presence of a

medicine-man at the bedside of the sick. I give it for what it is

worth, merely stating that Kohl, in his Kitchi-Gami, if I remember

correctly, refers to something of the same kind where the medicine-man

is represented as being obliged to respond to every summons made

unless he can catch the messenger within a given distance and kick

him.

There is very little discrepancy of statement as to what would happen

to a medicine-man in case of failure to cure; but many conflicting

stories have been in circulation as to the number of patients he would

be allowed to kill before incurring risk of punishment. My own

conclusions are that there is no truth whatever in the numbers

alleged, either three or seven, but that a medicine-man would be in

danger, under certain circumstances, if he let only one patient die on

his hands. These circumstances would be the verdict of the spirit

doctors that he was culpably negligent or ignorant. He could evade

death at the hands of the patient's kinsfolk only by flight or by

demonstrating that a witch had been at the bottom of the mischief.[59]

Medicine-men, called "wizards" by Falkner, sometimes were killed by

the Patagonians, when unsuccessful in their treatment, and were also

obliged to wear women's clothing. They were selected in youth for

supposed qualifications, especially if epileptic.[60]

In Hispaniola we are told that when a man died his friends resorted to

necromancy to learn whether he had died through the neglect of the

attending medicine-man to observe the prescribed fasts. If they found

the medicine-man guilty, they killed him and broke all his bones. In

spite of this the medicine-man often returned to life and had to be

killed again, and mutilated by castration and otherwise.[61]

Herrera repeats the story about a patient who died and whose relatives

felt dissatisfied with the medicine-man:

Para saber si la muerte fue por su culpa, tomaban el çumo de

cierta Ierva, i cortaban las vñas del muerto, i los cabellos

de encima de la frente, i los hacian polvos, i mezclados con

el çumo, se lo daban à beber al muerto por la boca, i las

narices, i luego le preguntaban muchas veces, si el Medico

guardò dieta, hasta que hablando el demonio, respondia tan

claro, como si fuera vivo, i decia, que el Medico no hiço

dieta, i luego le bolvian à la sepultura.

Then the relatives attacked the medicine-man: "I le daban tantos

palos, que le quebraban los braços, i las piernas, i à otros sacaban

los ojos, i los cortaban sus miembros genitales."[62]

Alexander the Great expressed his sorrow at the death of his friend

Hephæstion by crucifying the poor physicians who had attended the

deceased.[63]

The medicine-men of the Natchez were put to death when they failed to

cure.[64]

The Apache attach as much importance to the necessity of "laying the

manes" of their dead as the Romans did. They have not localized the

site of the future world as the Mohave have, but believe that the dead

remain for a few days or nights in the neighborhood of the place where

they departed from this life, and that they try to communicate with

their living friends through the voice of the owl. If a relative hears

this sound by night, or, as often happens, he imagines that he has

seen the ghost itself, he hurries to the nearest medicine-man, relates

his story, and carries out to the smallest detail the prescription of

feast, singing, dancing, and other means of keeping the spirit in good

humor on the journey which it will now undertake to the "house of

spirits," the "chidin-bi-kungua." Nearly all medicine-men claim the

power of going there at will, and not a few who are not medicine-men

claim the same faculty.

The medicine-men of the Apache are paid by each patient or by his

friends at the time they are consulted. There is no such thing as a

maintenance fund, no system of tithes, nor any other burden for their

support, although I can recall having seen while among the Zuñi one of

the medicine-men who was making cane holders for the tobacco to be

smoked at a coming festival, and whose fields were attended and his

herds guarded by the other members of the tribe.

Among the Eskimo "the priest receives fees beforehand."[65]

"Tous ces sorciers ne réfusaient leurs secours à personne, pourvu

qu'on les payait."[66]

"Among other customs was that of those who came to be cured, giving

their bow and arrows, shoes, and beads to the Indians who accompanied

Vaca and his companions."[67] (But we must remember that Vaca and his

comrades traveled across the continent as medicine-men.)

"Las sementeras que hacen los Assenais son tambien de comunidad y

comienzan la primera en la casa de su Chemisi que es su sacerdote

principal y el que cuida de la Casa del Fuego."[68] The Asinai

extended as far east as the present city of Natchitoches

(Nacogdoches).

Spencer quotes Bernan and Hilhouse to the effect that the poor among

the Arawaks of South America (Guiana) have no names because they can

not pay the medicine-men.[69]

As a general rule, the medicine-men do not attend to their own

families, neither do they assist in cases of childbirth unless

specially needed. To both these rules there are exceptions

innumerable. While I was at San Carlos Agency, Surgeon Davis was sent

for to help in a case of uterine inertia, and I myself have been asked

in the pueblo of Nambé, New Mexico, to give advice in a case of

puerperal fever.

The medicine-men are accused of administering poisons to their

enemies. Among the Navajo I was told that they would put finely

pounded glass in food.

MEDICINE-WOMEN.

[Illustration: FIG. 429.--Medicine arrow used by Apache and Pueblo

women.]

There are medicine-women as well as medicine-men among the Apache,

with two of whom I was personally acquainted. One named "Captain Jack"

was well advanced in years and physically quite feeble, but bright in

intellect and said to be well versed in the lore of her people. She

was fond of instructing her grandchildren, whom she supported, in the

prayers and invocations to the gods worshiped by her fathers, and I

have several times listened carefully and unobserved to these

recitations and determined that the prayers were the same as those

which had already been given to myself as those of the tribe. The

other was named Tze-go-juni, a Chiricahua, and a woman with a most

romantic history. She had passed five years in captivity among the

Mexicans in Sonora and had learned to speak Spanish with facility. A

mountain lion had severely mangled her in the shoulder and knee, and

once she had been struck by lightning; so that whether by reason of

superior attainments or by an appeal to the superstitious reverence of

her comrades, she wielded considerable influence. These medicine-women

devote their attention principally to obstetrics, and have many

peculiar stories to relate concerning pre-natal influences and matters

of that sort. Tze-go-juni wore at her neck the stone amulet, shaped

like a spear, which is figured in the illustrations of this paper. The

material was the silex from the top of a mountain, taken from a ledge

at the foot of a tree which had been struck by lightning. The fact

that siliceous rock will emit sparks when struck by another hard body

appeals to the reasoning powers of the savage as a proof that the fire

must have been originally deposited therein by the bolt of lightning.

A tiny piece of this arrow or lance was broken off and ground into

the finest powder, and then administered in water to women during time

of gestation. I have found the same kind of arrows in use among the

women of Laguna and other pueblos. This matter will receive more

extended treatment in my coming monograph on "Stone Worship."

Mendieta is authority for the statement that the Mexicans had both

medicine-men and medicine-women. The former attended to the sick men

and the latter to the sick women. "Á las mujeres siempre las curaban

otras mujeres, y á los hombres otros hombres."[70] Some of the

medicine-women seem to have made an illicit use of the knowledge they

had acquired, in which case both the medicine-woman and the woman

concerned were put to death. "La mujer preñada que tomaba con que

abortar y echar la criatura, ella y la física que le habia dado con

que la lanzase, ambas morian."[71]

Gomara asserts that they were to be found among the Indians of Chicora

(South Carolina).[72] He calls them "viejas" (old women).

"Los Medicos eran Mugeres viejas, i no havia otras."[73] In Nicaragua,

"Las Viejas curaban los Enfermos."[74]

There were medicine-women in Goazacoalco: "Tienen Medicos para curar

las enfermedades, i los mas eran Mugeres, grandes Herbolarias, que

hacian todas las curas con Iervas."[75]

Bernal Diaz, in 1568, speaks of having, on a certain occasion, at the

summit of a high mountain, found "an Indian woman, very fat, and

having with her a dog of that species, which they breed in order to

eat, and which do not bark. This Indian was a witch; she was in the

act of sacrificing the dog, which is a signal of hostility."[76]

"The office of medicine-man though generally usurped by males does not

appertain to them exclusively, and at the time of our visit the one

most extensively known was a black (or meztizo) woman, who had

acquired the most unbounded influence by shrewdness, joined to a

hideous personal appearance, and a certain mystery with which she was

invested."[77] Creeks have medicine-women as well as medicine-men. The

Eskimo have medicine-men and medicine-women.[78] The medicine-men and

women of the Dakota "can cause ghosts to appear on occasion."[79]

Speaking of the Chippewa, Spencer says: "Women may practice

soothsaying, but the higher religious functions are performed only by

men."[80]

The medicine-men of the Apache do not assume to live upon food

different from that used by the laity. There are such things as sacred

feasts among the tribes of North America--as, for example, the feast

of stewed puppy at the sun dance of the Sioux--but in these all people

share.

In the mortuary ceremonies of the medicine-men there is a difference

of degree, but not of kind. The Mohave, however, believe that the

medicine-men go to a heaven of their own. They also believe vaguely in

four different lives after this one.

Cabeza de Vaca says that the Floridians buried their ordinary dead,

but burned their medicine-men, whose incinerated bones they preserved

and drank in water.[81] "After they [the medicine-men and women of the

Dakota] have four times run their career in human shape they are

annihilated."[82] Schultze says that the medicine-men of the Sioux and

the medicine-women also, after death "may be transformed into wild

beasts."[82]

Surgeon Smart shows that among other offices entrusted to the

medicine-men of the Apache was the reception of distinguished

strangers.[83] Long asserts that the medicine-men of the Otoe, Omaha,

and others along the Missouri pretended to be able to converse with

the fetus in utero and predict the sex.[84] Nothing of that kind has

ever come under my notice. Adair says that the medicine-men of the

Cherokee would not allow snakes to be killed.[85] The Apache will not

let snakes be killed within the limits of the camp by one of their own

people, but they will not only allow a stranger to kill them, but

request him to do so. They made this request of me on three occasions.

Several of the most influential medicine-men whom I have known were

blind, among others old Na-ta-do-tash, whose medicine hat figures in

these pages. Whether this blindness was the result of old age or due

to the frenzy of dancing until exhausted in all seasons I am unable to

conjecture. Schultze says of the shamans of Siberia: "This artificial

frenzy has such a serious effect upon the body, and more particularly

the eyes, that many of the shamans become blind; a circumstance which

enhances the esteem in which they are held."[86] Some of the

medicine-men of Peru went blind from overexertion in their dances,

although Gomara assigns as a reason that it was from fear of the demon

with whom they talked. "Y aun algunos se quiebran los ojos para

semejante hablar [i.e., talk with the devil]; y creo que lo hacian de

miedo, porque todos ellos se atapan los ojos cuando hablan con

el."[87]

Dunbar tells us that the medicine-men of the Pawnee swallowed arrows

and knives, and had also the trick of apparently killing a man and

bringing him back to life. The same power was claimed by the

medicine-men of the Zuñi, and the story told me by old Pedro Pino of

the young men whom they used to kill and restore to life, will be

found in "The Snake Dance of the Moquis."

REMEDIES AND MODES OF TREATMENT.

The materia medica of the Apache is at best limited and comprehends

scarcely anything more than roots, leaves, and other vegetable matter.

In gathering these remedies they resort to no superstitious ceremonies

that I have been able to detect, although I have not often seen them

collecting. They prefer incantation to pharmacy at all times, although

the squaws of the Walapai living near old Camp Beale Springs in 1873,

were extremely fond of castor oil, for which they would beg each day.

The main reliance for nearly all disorders is the sweat bath, which is

generally conducive of sound repose. All Indians know the benefit to

be derived from relieving an overloaded stomach, and resort to the

titillation of the fauces with a feather to induce nausea. I have seen

the Zuñi take great drafts of lukewarm water and then practice the

above as a remedy in dyspepsia.

When a pain has become localized and deep seated, the medicine-men

resort to suction of the part affected, and raise blisters in that

way. I was once asked by the Walapai chief, Sequanya, to look at his

back and sides. He was covered with cicatrices due to such treatment,

the medicine-men thinking thus to alleviate the progressive paralysis

from which he had been long a sufferer, and from which he shortly

afterwards died. After a long march, I have seen Indians of different

bands expose the small of the back uncovered to the fierce heat of a

pile of embers to produce a rubefacient effect and stimulate what is

known as a weak back. They drink freely of hot teas or infusions of

herbs and grasses for the cure of chills. They are all dextrous in the

manufacture of splints out of willow twigs, and seem to meet with much

success in their treatment of gunshot wounds, which they do not dress

as often as white practitioners, alleging that the latter, by so

frequently removing the bandages, unduly irritate the wounds. I have

known them to apply moxa, and I remember to have seen two deep scars

upon the left hand of the great Apache chief Cochise, due to this

cause.

It should not be forgotten that the world owes a large debt to the

medicine-men of America, who first discovered the virtues of coca,

sarsaparilla, jalap, cinchona, and guiacum. They understand the

administration of enemata, and have an apparatus made of the paunch of

a sheep and the hollow leg bone.

Scarification is quite common, and is used for a singular purpose. The

Apache scouts when tired were in the habit of sitting down and lashing

their legs with bunches of nettles until the blood flowed. This,

according to their belief, relieved the exhaustion.

The medicine-men of the Floridians, according to Vaca, sucked and blew

on the patient, and put hot stones on his abdomen to take away pain;

they also scarified, and they seemed to have used moxas. "Ils

cautérisent aussi avec le feu."[88]

The medicine-men of Hispaniola cured by suction, and when they had

extracted a stone or other alleged cause of sickness it was preserved

as a sacred relic, especially by the women, who looked upon it as of

great aid in parturition.[89] Venegas speaks of a tube called the

"chacuaco," formed out of a very hard black stone, used by the

medicine-men of California in sucking such parts of the patient's body

as were grievously afflicted with pains. In these tubes they sometimes

placed lighted tobacco and blew down upon the part affected after the

manner of a moxa, I suppose.[90]

The men of Panuco were so addicted to drunkenness that we are told:

"Lorsqu'ils sont fatigués de boire leur vin par la bouche, ils se

couchent, élèvent les jambes en l'air, et s'en font introduire dans le

fondement au moyen d'une canule, taut que le corps peut en

contenir."[91] The administration of wine in this manner may have been

as a medicine, and the Aztecs of Panuco may have known that nutriment

could be assimilated in this way. It shows at least that the Aztecs

were acquainted with enemata.

"Quando la enfermedad les parecia que tenia necesidad de evacuacion,

usaban del aiuda ò clister [clyster], con cocimientos de Iervas, i

polvos, en Agua, i tomandola en la boca, con yn canuto de hueso de

pierna de Garça, la hechaban, i obraba copiosamente: i en esto pudo

esta Gente ser industriada de la Cigueña, que con su largo pico se

cura, como escriven los Naturales."[92] Smith says that the

medicine-men of the Araucanians "are well acquainted with the proper

use of emetics, cathartics, and sudorifics. For the purpose of

injection they make use of a bladder, as is still commonly practiced

among the Chilenos."[93] Oviedo says of the medicine-men: "Conoçian

muchas hiervas de que usaban y eran apropiadas á diversas

enfermedades."[94] One of the most curious remedies presented in

Bancroft's first volume is the use of a poultice of mashed poison-ivy

leaves as a remedy for ringworm by the Indians of Lower California.

The Indians of Topia (in the Sierra Madre, near Sinaloa), were in the

habit of scarifying their tired legs and aching temples.[95] The

Arawaks, of Guiana, also scarified, according to Spencer.[96] The

inhabitants of Kamchatka use enemata much in the same way as the

Navajo and Apache do.[97] They also use moxa made of a fungus.[98]

It has never been my good fortune to notice an example of trephining

among our savage tribes, although I have seen a good many wounded,

some of them in the head. Trephining has been practiced by the

aborigines of America, and the whole subject as noted among the

primitive peoples of all parts of the globe has been treated in a

monograph by Dr. Robert Fletcher, U. S. Army.[99]

Dr. Fordyce Grinnell, who was for some years attached to the Wichita

Agency as resident physician, has published the results of his

observations in a monograph, entitled "The healing art as practiced by

the Indians of the Plains," in which he says: "Wet cupping is resorted

to quite frequently. The surface is scarified by a sharp stone or

knife, and a buffalo horn is used as the cupping glass. Cauterizing

with red-hot irons is not infrequently employed." A cautery of

"burning pith" was used by the Araucanians.[100]

"It may be safely affirmed that a majority of the nation [Choctaw]

prefer to receive the attentions of a white physician when one can be

obtained. * * * When the doctor is called to his patient he commences

operations by excluding all white men and all who disbelieve in the

efficacy of his incantations."[101] "The [Apache] scouts seem to

prefer their own medicine-men when seriously ill, and believe the

weird singing and praying around the couch is more effective than the

medicine dealt out by our camp 'sawbones.'"[102] The promptness with

which the American Indian recovers from severe wounds has been

commented upon by many authorities. From my personal observation I

could, were it necessary, adduce many examples. The natives of

Australia seem to be endowed with the same recuperative powers.[103]

After all other means have failed the medicine-men of the Southwest

devote themselves to making altars in the sand and clay near the couch

of the dying, because, as Antonio Besias explained, this act was all

the same as extreme unction. They portray the figures of various

animals, and then take a pinch of the dust or ashes from each one and

rub upon the person of the sick man as well as upon themselves.

Similar altars or tracings were made by the medicine-men of Guatemala

when they were casting the horoscope of a child and seeking to

determine what was to be its medicine in life. This matter of sand

altars has been fully treated by Matthews in the report of the Bureau

of Ethnology for 1883-'84, and there are several representations to be

found in my Snake Dance of the Moquis. "Writing on sand" is a mode of

divination among the Chinese.[104] Padre Boscana represents the

"puplem" or medicine-men of the Indians of California as making or

sketching "a most uncouth and ridiculous figure of an animal on the

ground," and presumably of sands, clays, and other such

materials.[105]

HAIR AND WIGS.

The medicine-men of the Apache were, at least while young, extremely

careful of their hair, and I have often seen those who were very

properly proud of their long and glossy chevelure. Particularly do I

recall to mind the "doctor" at San Carlos in 1885, who would never

allow his flowing black tresses to be touched. But they do not roach

their hair, as I have seen the Pawnee do; they do not add false hair

to their own, as I have seen among the Crow of Montana and the Mohave

of the Rio Colorado; they do not apply plasters of mud as do their

neighbors the Yuma, Cocopa, Mohave and Pima, and in such a manner as

to convince spectators that the intent was ceremonial; and they do not

use wigs in their dances. Wigs made of black wool may still be found

occasionally among the Pueblos, but the Apache do not use them, and

there is no reference to such a thing in their myths.

It is to be understood that these paragraphs are not treating upon the

superstitions concerning the human hair, as such, but simply of the

employment of wigs, which would seem in former days among some of the

tribes of the Southwest to have been made of human hair presented by

patients who had recovered from sickness or by mourners whose

relatives had died.[106] Wigs with masks attached were worn by the

Costa Ricans, according to Gabb.[107]

Some of the Apache-Yuma men wear long rolls of matted hair behind,

which are the thickness of a finger, and two feet or more in length,

and composed of old hair mixed with that growing on the head, or are

in the form of a wig, made of hair that has been cut off when mourning

the dead, to be worn on occasions of ceremony.[108]

Observations of the same kind have been made by Speke upon the customs

of the people of Africa in his Nile,[109] concerning the Kidi people

at the head of the Nile; by Cook, in Hawkesworth's Voyages,[110]

speaking of Tahiti, and by Barcia,[111] speaking of Greenland. Sir

Samuel Baker describes the peculiar wigs worn by the tribes on Lake

Albert Nyanza, formed of the owner's hair and contributions from all

sources plastered with clay into a stiff mass.[112]

Melchior Diaz reported that the people of Cibola "élèvent dans leurs

maisons des animaux velus, grands comme des chiens d'Espagne. Ils les

tondent, ils en font des perruques de couleurs." This report was sent

by the Viceroy Mendoza to the Emperor Charles V. Exactly what these

domesticated animals were, it would be hard to say; they may possibly

have been Rocky Mountain sheep,[113] though Mr. Cushing, who has

studied the question somewhat extensively, is of the opinion that they

may have been a variety of the llama.

The Assinaboine used to wear false hair, and also had the custom of

dividing their hair into "joints" of an inch or more, marked by a sort

of paste of red earth and glue;[114] The Mandan did the same.[115] In

this they both resemble the Mohave of the Rio Colorado. "The

Algonquins believed also in a malignant Maniton. * * * She wore a robe

made of the hair of her victims, for she was the cause of death."[116]

The Apache, until within the last twenty years, plucked out the

eyelashes and often the eyebrows, but only a few of them still persist

in the practice. Kane says that the Winnebagoes "have the custom of

pulling out their eyebrows."[117] Herrera says that among the signs by

which the Tlascaltecs recognized their gods when they saw them in

visions, were "vianle sin cejas, i sin pestañas."[118]

MUDHEADS.

Reference has been made to a ceremonial plastering of mud upon the

heads of Indians. When General Crook was returning from his expedition

into the Sierra Madre, Mexico, in 1883, in which expedition a few of

the enemy had been killed, the scouts upon reaching the San Bernardino

River made a free use of the sweat bath, with much singing and other

formulas, the whole being part of the lustration which all warriors

must undergo as soon as possible after being engaged in battle. The

Apache proper did not apply mud to their heads, but the Apache-Yuma

did.

Capt. Grossman, U. S. Army,[119] says of the Pima method of

purification after killing an Apache, that the isolation of the

warrior lasts for sixteen days, during which period no one speaks to

him, not even the old woman who brings him his food. The first day he

touches neither food nor drink, and he eats sparingly for the whole

time, touching neither meat nor salt; he bathes frequently in the

Gila River and nearly the whole time keeps his head covered with a

plaster of mud and mesquite.

"The boyes [of the Massagueyes] of seven or eight yeeres weare clay

fastned on the hayre of the head, and still renewed with new clay,

weighing sometimes five or six pounds. Nor may they be free hereof

till in warre or lawfull fight hee hath killed a man."[120]

According to Padre Geronimo Boscana, the traditions of the Indians of

California show that they "fed upon a kind of clay."[121] But this

clay was often plastered upon their heads "as a kind of ornament."

These were the Indians of San Juan Capistrano, who strongly resembled

the Mohave. After all, the "mudheads" of the Mohave are no worse than

those people in India who still bedaub their heads with "the holy mud

of the Ganges." Up to this time the mud has been the "blue mud" of the

Colorado and other rivers, but when we find Herbert Spencer mentioning

that the heads of the Comanche are "besmeared with a dull red clay" we

may suspect that we have stumbled upon an analogue of the custom of

the Aztec priests, who bedaubed their heads with the coagulating

lifeblood of their human victims. We know that there has been such a

substitution practiced among the Indians of the Pueblo of Jemez, who

apply red ocher to the mouth of the stone mountain lion, in whose

honor human blood was once freely shed. The practice of so many of the

Plains tribes of painting the median line of the head with vermilion

seems to be traceable back to a similar custom.

SCALP SHIRTS.

The shirt depicted on Pl. III, made of buckskin and trimmed with human

scalps, would seem to belong to the same category with the mantles

made of votive hair, mentioned as being in use among the California

tribe a little more than a century ago. It was presented to me by

Little Big Man, who led me to believe that it had once belonged to the

great chief of the Sioux, Crazy Horse, or had at least been worn by

him. Of its symbolism I am unable to find the explanation. The colors

yellow and blue would seem to represent the earth and water or sky,

the feathers attached would refer to the birds, and the round circle

on the breast is undoubtedly the sun. There is a cocoon affixed to one

shoulder, the significance of which I do not know.

[Illustration: SCALP SHIRT OF "LITTLE BIG MAN" (SIOUX). Plate III.]

THE RHOMBUS, OR BULL ROARER.

The rhombus was first seen by me at the snake dance of the Tusayan, in

the village of Walpi, Ariz., in the month of August, 1881. Previous to

that date I had heard of it vaguely, but had never been able to see it

in actual use. The medicine-men twirled it rapidly, and with a uniform

motion, about the head and from front to rear, and succeeded in

faithfully imitating the sound of a gust of rain-laden wind. As

explained to me by one of the medicine-men, by making this sound they

compelled the wind and rain to come to the aid of the crops. At a

later date I found it in use among the Apache, and for the same

purpose. The season near the San Carlos Agency during the year 1884

had been unusually dry, and the crops were parched. The medicine-men

arranged a procession, two of the features of which were the rhombus

and a long handled cross, upon which various figures were depicted. Of

the latter, I will speak at another time.

[Illustration: FIG. 430.--Rhombus of the Apache.]

Again, while examining certain ruins in the Verde Valley, in central

Arizona, I found that the "Cliff Dwellers," as it has become customary

to call the prehistoric inhabitants, had employed the same weapon of

persuasion in their intercourse with their gods. I found the rhombus

also among the Rio Grande Pueblo tribes and the Zuñi. Dr. Washington

Matthews has described it as existing among the Navajo and Maj. J. W.

Powell has observed it in use among the Utes of Nevada and Utah. As

will be shown, its use in all parts of the world seems to have been as

general as that of any sacred implement known to primitive man, not

even excepting the sacred cords or rosaries discussed in this paper.

Three forms of the rhombus have come under my own observation, each

and all apparently connected in symbolism with the lightning. The

first terminates in a triangular point, and the general shape is

either that of a long, narrow, parallelogram, capped with an

equilateral triangle, or else the whole figure is that of a slender

isosceles triangle. Where the former shape was used, as at the Tusayan

snake dance, the tracing of a snake or lightning in blue or yellow

followed down the length of the rhombus and terminated in the small

triangle, which did duty as the snake's head. The second pattern was

found by Dr. Matthews among the Navajo, and by myself in the old cliff

dwellings. The one which I found was somewhat decayed, and the

extremity of the triangle was broken off. There was no vestige of

painting left. The second form was serrated on both edges to simulate

the form of the snake or lightning. The third form, in use among the

Apache, is an oblong of 7 or 8 inches in length, one and a quarter

inches in width by a quarter in thickness. One extremity, that through

which the cord passes, is rounded to rudely represent a human head,

and the whole bears a close resemblance to the drawings of schoolboys

which are intended for the human figure. The Apache explained that the

lines on the front side of the rhombus were the entrails and those on

the rear side the hair of their wind god. The hair is of several

colors, and represents the lightning. I did not ascertain positively

that such was the case, but was led to believe that the rhombus of the

Apache was made by the medicine-men from wood, generally pine or fir,

which had been struck by lightning on the mountain tops. Such wood is

held in the highest estimation among them, and is used for the

manufacture of amulets of especial efficacy. The Apache name for the

rhombus is tzi-ditindi, the "sounding wood." The identification of the

rhombus or "bull roarer" of the ancient Greeks with that used by the

Tusayan in their snake dance was first made by E. B. Tylor in the

Saturday Review in a criticism upon "The Snake Dance of the Moquis of

Arizona."

[Illustration: FIG. 431.--Rhombus of the Apache.]

The Kaffirs have the rhombus among their playthings:

The nodiwu is a piece of wood about 6 or 8 inches long, and

an inch and a half or 2 inches wide, and an eighth or a

quarter of an inch thick in the middle. Towards the edges it

is beveled off, so that the surface is convex, or consists of

two inclined planes. At one end it has a thong attached to it

by which it is whirled rapidly round. * * * There is a kind

of superstition connected with the nodiwu, that playing with

it invites a gale of wind. Men will, on this account, often

prevent boys from using it when they desire calm weather for

any purpose. This superstition is identical with that which

prevents many sailors from whistling at sea.[122]

Of the Peruvians we are informed that "their belief was that there was

a man in the sky with a sling and a stick, and that in his power were

the rain, the hail, the thunder, and all else that appertains to the

regions of the air, where clouds are formed."[123]

The sacred twirler of the snake dance is found in Greece, America,

Africa and New Zealand. It survives as a toy in England and the United

States.[124] The same peculiar instrument has been noticed in the

religious ceremonials of the Australians, especially in the initiatory

rites of the "bora." It is called the "tirricoty."[125] The twirling

of the tzi-ditindi in medicine or prayer corresponds to the revolution

of the prayer wheel of the Lamas.

THE CROSS.

The sign of the cross appears in many places in Apache symbolism. The

general subject of the connection of the cross with the religion of

the aborigines of the American continent has been so fully traversed

by previous authors that I do not care to add much more to the subject

beyond saying that my own observation has assured me that it is

related to the cardinal points and the four winds, and is painted by

warriors upon their moccasins upon going into a strange district in

the hope of keeping them from getting on a wrong trail.

In October, 1884, I saw a procession of Apache men and women, led by

the medicine-men bearing two crosses, made as follows: The vertical

arm was 4 feet 10 inches long, and the transverse between 10 and 12

inches, and each was made of slats about 1½ inches wide, which looked

as if they had been long in use. They were decorated with blue polka

dots upon the unpainted surface. A blue snake meandered down the

longer arm. There was a circle of small willow twigs at top; next

below that, a small zinc-cased mirror, a bell, and eagle feathers.

Nosey, the Apache whom I induced to bring it to me after the ceremony,

said that they carried it in honor of Guzanutli to induce her to send

rain, at that time much needed for their crops. It is quite likely

that this particular case represents a composite idea; that the

original beliefs of the Apache have been modified to some extent by

the crude ideas of the Mexican captives among them, who still remember

much that was taught them in the churches of the hamlets in northern

Mexico, from which they were kidnapped years ago; but, on the other

hand, it is to be remembered that the cross has always formed a part

of the Apache symbolism; that the snake does not belong to the

Christian faith, and that it has never been allowed to appear upon the

cross since the time of the Gnostics in the second and third

centuries. Therefore, we must regard that as a Pagan symbol, and so

must we regard the circle of willow twigs, which is exactly the same

as the circle we have seen attached to the sacred cords for the cure

of headache.[126]

The cross was found in full vogue as a religious emblem among the

aborigines all over America. Father Le Clercq[127] speaks of its very

general employment by the Gaspesians: "Ils ont parmi eux, tout

infideles qu'ils soient, la Croix en singuliere veneration, qu'ils la

portent figurée sur leurs habits & sur leur chair; qu'ils la tiennent

à la main dans tous leurs voïages, soit par mer, soit par terre; &

qu'enfin ils la posent au dehors & au dedans de leurs Cabannes, comme

la marque d'honneur qui les distingue des autres Nations du Canada."

He narrates[128] that the Gaspé tradition or myth was, that the whole

tribe being ravaged by a plague, the medicine-men had recourse to the

Sun, who ordered them to make use of the cross in every extremity.

Herrera relates that the followers of Hernandez de Cordoba found at

Cape Catoche "unos Adoratorios ... i Cruces pintadas que les causò

gran admiracion."[129] He also says that Juan de Grijalva on the

island of Cozumel found a number of oratories and temples, but one in

particular was made in the form of a square tower, with four openings.

Inside this tower was a cross made of lime, which the natives

reverenced as the god of the rain; "una Cruz de Cal, de tres varas en

alto, à la qual tenian por el Dios de la lluvia."[130]

NECKLACES OF HUMAN FINGERS.

The necklace of human fingers, an illustration of which accompanies

this text (Pl. IV), belonged to the foremost of the medicine-men of a

brave tribe--the Cheyenne of Montana and Wyoming. They were the

backbone of the hostility to the whites, and during the long and

arduous campaign conducted against them by the late Maj. Gen. George

Crook, which terminated so successfully in the surrender of 4,500 of

the allied Sioux and Cheyenne, at Red Cloud and Spotted Tail agencies,

in the early spring of 1877, it was a noted fact that wherever a band

of the Cheyenne was to be found there the fighting was most

desperate. It is a matter now well established that the Cheyenne are

an offshoot of the Algonquian family, speaking a dialect closely

resembling that of the Cree, of British America.

[Illustration: NECKLACE OF HUMAN FINGERS. Plate IV.]