The Medicine-Men of the Apache. (1892 N 09 / 1887-1888 (pages 443-604))

According to the myths of the Cingalese, their Brahmins once "fed on it [earth] for the space of 60,000 years."477

PREHISTORIC FOODS USED IN COVENANTS

It has been shown that the Apache, on several occasions, as when going out to meet strangers, entering into solemn agreements, etc., made use of the hoddentin. A similar use of food, generally prehistoric, can be noted in other regions of the world.

It was a kind of superstitious trial used among the Saxons to purge themselves of any accusation by taking a piece of barley bread and eating it with solemn oaths and execrations that it might prove poisonous or their last morsel if what they asserted or denied was not true.478 Those pieces of bread were first execrated by the priest, from which he infers that at a still earlier day sacramental bread may have been used for the same purpose.

At Rome, in the time of Cicero and Horace, a master who suspected that his slaves had robbed him conducted them before a priest. They were each obliged to eat a cake over which the priest had "pronounced some magical words (carmine infectum)."479

The people living on the coast of Coramandel have an ordeal consisting in the chewing of unboiled rice. No harm will attach to him who tells the truth, but the perjurer is threatened with condign punishment in this world and in that to come.480 Bread is bitten when the Ostaaks of Siberia take a solemn oath, such as one of fealty to the Czar.481

SACRED BREADS AND CAKES

Since the employment of hoddentin, or tule pollen, as a sacred commemorative food would seem to have been fairly demonstrated, before closing this section I wish to add a few paragraphs upon the very general existence of ritualistic farinaceous foods in all parts of the world. They can be detected most frequently in the ceremonial reversion to a grain or seed which has passed or is passing out of everyday use in some particular form given to the cake or bread or some circumstance of time, place, and mode of manufacture and consumption which stamps it as a "survival." So deeply impressed was Grimm482 with the wide horizon spreading around the consideration of this topic that he observed: "Our knowledge of heathen antiquities will gain both by the study of these drinking usages which have lasted into later times and also of the shapes given to baked meats, which either retained the actual forms of ancient idols or were accompanied by sacrificial observances. A history of German cakes and bread rolls might contain some unexpected disclosures… Even the shape of cakes is a reminiscence of the sacrifices of heathenism."

The first bread or cake to be mentioned in this part of the subject is the pancake, still so frequently used on the evening of Shrove Tuesday. In antiquity it can be traced back before the Reformation, before the Crusades were dreamed of, before the Barbarians had subverted Rome, before Rome itself had fairly taken shape.

There seems to have been a very decided religious significance in the preparation of pancakes on Shrove Tuesday. In Leicestershire, "On Shrove Tuesday a bell rings at noon, which is meant as a signal for the people to begin frying their pancakes."483

"The Norman Crispellæ (Du Cange) are evidently taken from the Fornacalia, on the 18th of February, in memory of the method of making bread, before the Goddess Fornax invented ovens."484

Under "Crispellæ," Du Cange says: "Rustici apud Normannos vocant Crespes, ova pauca mixta cum farina, et in sartagine frixa," and says that they are "ex herba, farina et oleo."485 These same Crispellæ are to be seen on the Rio Grande during Christmas week.

In the Greek Church and throughout Russia there is to the present time a "pancake feast" at Shrovetide.486

At one time a custom prevailed of going about from one friend's house to another, masked, and committing every conceivable prank. "Then the people feasted on blinnies – a pancake similar to the English crumpet."487

In the pancake we have most probably the earliest form of farinaceous food known to the nations which derived their civilization from the basin of the Mediterranean. Among these nations wheat has been in use from a time far beyond the remotest historical period, and to account for its introduction myth has been invoked; but this wheat was cooked without leaven, or was fried in a pan, after the style of the tortilla still used in Spanish-speaking countries, or of the pancake common among ourselves. Pliny488 says that there were no bakers known in Rome until nearly six hundred years after the foundation of the city, in the days of the war with Persia; but he perhaps meant the public bakers authorized by law. The use of wheat and the art of baking bread, as we understand it to-day, were practically unknown to the nations of northern Europe until within the recent historical period.489

Nothing would be more in consonance with the mode of reasoning of a primitive people than that, at certain designated festivals, there should be a recurrence to the earlier forms of food, a reversion to an earlier mode of life, as a sort of propitiation of the gods or goddesses who had cared for the nation in its infancy and to secure the continuance of their beneficent offices. Primitive man was never so certain of the power of the gods of the era of his own greatest development that he could rely upon it implicitly and exclusively and ignore the deities who had helped him to stand upon his feet. Hence, the recurrence to pancakes, to unleavened breads of all kinds, among various peoples. This view of the subject was made plain to me while among the Zuñi Indians. Mr. Frank H. Cushing showed me that the women, when baking the "loaves" of bread, were always careful to place in the adobe ovens a tortilla with each batch of the newer kind, and no doubt for the reason just given.

UNLEAVENED BREAD

The unleavened bread of the earliest period of Jewish history has come down to our own times in the Feast of Unleavened Bread, still observed by the Hebrews in all parts of the world, in the bread used in the eucharistic sacrifice by so large a portion of the Christian world, and apparently in some of the usages connected with the half-understood fast known as the "Ember Days." Brand quotes from an old work in regard to the Ember Days: "They were so called 'because that our elder fathers wolde on these days ete no brede but cakes made under ashes.'"490

The sacred cake or "draona" of the Parsi "is a small round pancake or wafer of unleavened bread, about the size of the palm of the hand. It is made of wheaten flour and water, with a little clarified butter, and is flexible."491 A variety of the "draona," called a "frasast," is marked with the finger nail and set aside for the guardian spirits of the departed.492

Cakes and salt were used in religious rites by the ancients. The Jews probably adopted their appropriation from the Egyptians.493 "During all the Passover week – 14th to 21st Nisan, i.e., during this week's moon – Shemites fast, only eating unleavened bread, and most diligently – not without reason – cleansing their houses." "And especially had all leavened matter to be removed, for the new leavener had now arisen, and prayers with curses were offered up against any portions which might have escaped observation. The law of their fierce Jahveh was that, whoever during all this festival tasted leavened bread, 'that soul should be cut off,' which Godwyn mollifies by urging that this only meant the offender should die without children; which was still a pretty considerable punishment for eating a piece of bread!"494

"The great day of Pentecost is the 6th of Sivan, or, say, the 22d of May, 1874. From the first barley two loaves were then made, 'the offering of which was the distinguishing rite of the day of Pentecost.'"495

On St. Bridget's Eve every farmer's wife in Ireland makes a cake, called bairinbreac; the neighbors are invited, the madder of ale and the pipe go round, and the evening concludes with mirth and festivity.496 Vallencey identifies this as the same kind of offering that was made to Ceres, and to "the queen of heaven, to whom the Jewish women burnt incense, poured out drink offerings, and made cakes for her with their own hands."497

THE HOT CROSS BUNS OF GOOD FRIDAY

The belief prevailed that these would not mold like ordinary bread.498

"In several counties [in England] a small loaf of bread is annually baked on the morning of Good Friday and then put by till the same anniversary in the ensuing year. This bread is not intended to be eaten, but to be used as a medicine, and the mode of administering it is by grating a small portion of it into water and forming a sort of panada. It is believed to be good for many disorders, but particularly for a diarrhœa, for which it is considered a sovereign remedy. Some years ago a cottager lamented that her poor neighbour must certainly die of this complaint, because she had already given her two doses of Good Friday bread without any benefit. No information could be obtained from the doctress respecting her nostrum, but that she had heard old folks say that it was a good thing and that she always made it."499

Brand quotes a writer in the Gentleman's Magazine who shows that they were "formerly, at least, unleavened," p. 156. They "are constantly marked with the form of the cross." "It is an old belief that the observance of the custom of eating buns on Good Friday protects the house from fire, and several other virtues are attributed to these buns," p. 156. "Hutchinson, in his History of Northumberland, following Bryant's Analysis, derives the Good Friday bun from the sacred cakes which were offered at the Arkite Temples, styled Boun, and presented every seventh day," p. 155. A very interesting dissertation upon these sacred cakes as used by the Greeks, Egyptians, and Jews in the time of their idolatry, is to be found in Brand's work, pp. 155-156.500

Practices analogous to those referred to are to be noted among the Pueblo Indians. They offer not only the kunque, but bread also in their sacrifices.

In the sacred rabbit hunt of the Zuñi, which occurs four times a year and is carried on for the purpose of procuring meat for the sacred eagles confined in cages, a great fire was made on the crest of a hill, into which were thrown piles of bread crusts and in the smoke of which the boomerangs or rabbit sticks were held while the hunter recited in an audible tone and with downcast head the prayers prescribed for the occasion. One of the early Spanish writers informs us that the women of the pueblo of Santo Domingo, on the Rio Grande, offered bread on bended knees to their idols and then preserved it for the remainder of the year, and the house which did not have a supply of such blessed bread was regarded as unfortunate and exposed to danger.501

A prehistoric farinaceous food of the Romans survives in our bridecake or wedding cake. It is well understood that among the Romans there were three kinds of marriage: that called "coemptio," that called "concubitu" or "usu," and the highest form of all, known as "confarratio," from the fact that bride and groom ate together of a kind of cake or bread made of the prehistoric flour, the "far." We have preserved the custom of having bridecake, which is still served with many superstitious ceremonies: "it must be cut by the bride herself; it must be broken in pieces (formerly these pieces were cast over the heads of the bridesmaids), and, after being passed through a wedding ring a certain number of times, it must be placed under the pillow of the anxious maiden to serve as a basis for her dreams."502

Exactly what this prehistoric food was it is now an impossibility to determine with exactness. Torquemada shows that long after the Romans had obtained the use of wheat they persisted in the sacrificial use of the "nola isla," "farro," and "escanda," forms of wild grain once roasted and ground and made into bread by their forefathers.503 A similar usage prevailed among the Greeks. Pliny speaks of "the bearded red wheat, named in Latin 'far,'" and tells us that rye was called "secale" or "farrago."504 The radical "far" is still to be found all over Europe in the word for flour, "farina," "farine," or "harina," while it is also possible that it may be detected in the ever-to-be-honored name of Farragut.505

In the eight marriage rites described by Baudhâyana, the initiatory oblation in the fourth (that in which the father gives his daughter away) consists of "parched grain." This rite is one of the four which are lawful for a Brahman. The parched grain to be used would seem to be either sesamum or barley, although this is not clear. Vasishtha says, chapter 27, concerning secret penances: "He who … uses barley (for his food) becomes pure."506

The pages of Brand507 are filled with references to various forms of cake which seem properly to be included under this chapter. In England there formerly prevailed the custom of preparing "soul cakes" for distribution among visitors to the family on that day and to bands of waifs or singers, who expected them as a dole for praying and singing in the interests of the souls of the dead friends and relatives of the family. On the island of St. Kilda the soul cake was "a large cake in the form of a triangle, furrowed round, and which was to be all eaten that night."508 In Lancashire and Hertfordshire the cake was made of oatmeal, but in many other parts it was a "seed cake"509 and in Warwickshire, "at the end of barley and bean seed time, there is a custom there to give the plowmen froise, a species of thick pancake."510 "All-soul cakes" were distributed at time of All Souls' Day.

In England and Scotland the old custom511 was to have a funeral feast, which all friends and relations were expected to attend. Wine, currant cake, meat, and other refreshments, varying according to the fortune of the family, were served liberally. The bread given out was called "arvil-bread." There is no special reason for believing that this could be called a hoddentin custom, except that the writer himself calls attention to the fact that in the earlier times the bread was in the form of "wafers."512

The Romans had a college of priests called the "Fratres Arvales," nine, or, as some say, twelve in number, to whose care were committed the sacrifices in honor of Ceres at the old limits of the city, to propitiate that goddess and induce her to bestow fertility upon the fields. These ceremonies, which are believed by the editor of Bohn's Strabo to survive in the Rogation Day processions of the Roman Catholic Church, recall the notes already taken upon the subject of the Arval bread of the Scotch.513 The sacrifices themselves were designated "Ambarva" and "Ambarvalia."

In Scotland and England it was customary for bands of singers to go from door to door on New Year's Eve, singing and receiving reward. In the latter country "cheese and oaten cakes, which are called farls, are distributed on this occasion among the cryers." In the former country "there was a custom of distributing sweet cakes and a particular kind of sugared bread."514

A fine kind of wheat bread called "wassail-bread" formed an important feature of the entertainment on New Year's Day in old England.515

Among love divinations may be reckoned the dumb cake, so called because it was to be made without speaking, and afterwards the parties were to go backward up the stairs to bed and put the cake under their pillows, when they were to dream of their lovers.516

References to the beal-tine ceremonies of Ireland and Scotland, in which oatmeal gruel figured as a dish, or cakes made of oatmeal and carraway seeds, may be found in Brand, Pop. Antiq., vol. 1, p. 226; in Blount, Tenures of Land and Customs of Manors, London, 1874, p. 131; and in Pennant's Tour in Scotland, in Pinkerton's Voyages, vol. 3, p. 49. In "A Charm for Bewitched Land" we find the mode of making a cake or loaf with holy water.

The mince pie and plum pudding of Christmas are evidently ancient preparations, and it is not unlikely that the shape of the former, which, prior to the Reformation, was that of a child's cradle, had a reminiscence of the sacrifice of babies at the time of the winter solstice. Grimm has taught that where human sacrifice had been abolished the figure of a coffin or a cradle was still used as a symbol.

There is a wide field of information to be gleaned in the investigation of the subject of bean foods at certain periods or festivals of the year, and upon this point I have some notes and memoranda, but, as my present remarks are limited to prehistoric farinaceous foods, I do not wish to add to the bulk of the present chapter.517

"Kostia – boiled rice and plums – is the only thing partaken of on Christmas Eve."518

GALENA

At times one may find in the "medicine" of the more prominent and influential of the chiefs and medicine-men of the Apache little sacks which, when opened, are found to contain pounded galena; this they tell me is a "great medicine," fully equal to hoddentin, but more difficult to obtain. It is used precisely as hoddentin is used; that is, both as a face paint and as a powder to be thrown to the sun or other elements to be propitiated. The Apache are reluctant to part with it, and from living Apache I have never obtained more than one small sack of it.

No one seems to understand the reason for its employment. Mr. William M. Beebe has suggested that perhaps the fact that galena always crystallizes in cubes, and that it would thus seem to have a mysterious connection with the cardinal points to which all nomadic peoples pay great attention as being invested with the power of keeping wanderers from going astray, would not be without influence upon the minds of the medicine-men, who are quick to detect and to profit by all false analogies. The conjecture appears to me to be a most plausible one, but I can submit it only as a conjecture, for no explanation of the kind was received from any of the Indians. All that I can say is that whenever procurable it was always used by the Apache on occasions of unusual importance and solemnity and presented as a round disk painted in the center of the forehead.

The significance of all these markings of the face among savage and half-civilized nations is a subject deserving of the most careful research; like the sectarial marks of the Hindus, all, or nearly all, the marks made upon the faces of American Indians have a meaning beyond the ornamental or the grotesque.

Galena was observed in use among the tribes seen by Cabeza de Vaca. "Ils nous donnèrent beaucoup de bourses, contenant des sachets de marcassites et d'antimoine en poudre." ("Taleguillas de margaxita y de alcohol molido.")519 This word "margaxita" means iron pyrites. The Encyclopædia Britannica says that the Peruvians used it for "amulets;" so also did the Apache. What Vaca took for antimony was pounded galena no doubt. He was by this time in or near the Rocky Mountains.520

On the northwest coast of America we read of the natives: "One, however, as he came near, took out from his bosom some iron or lead-colored micaceous earth and drew marks with it across his cheeks in the shape of two pears, stuffed his nostrils with grass, and thrust thin pieces of bone through the cartilage of his nose."521

It is more than probable that some of the face-painting with "black earth," "ground charcoal," etc., to which reference is made by the early writers, may have been galena, which substance makes a deep-black mark. The natives would be likely to make use of their most sacred powder upon first meeting with mysterious strangers like Vaca and his companions. So, when the expedition of La Salle reached the mouth of the Ohio, in 1680, the Indians are described as fasting and making superstitious sacrifices; among other things, they marked themselves with "black earth" and with "ground charcoal." "Se daban con Tierra Negra o Carbon molido."522

From an expression in Burton, I am led to suspect that the application of kohl or antimony to the eyes of Arabian beauty is not altogether for ornament. "There are many kinds of kohl used in medicine and magic."523

Corbusier says of the Apache-Yuma: "Galena and burnt mescal are used on their faces, the former to denote anger or as war paint, being spread all over the face, except the chin and nose, which are painted red."524

In Coleman's Mythology of the Hindus, London, 1832, page 165, may be found a brief chapter upon the subject of the sectarial marks of the Hindus. With these we may fairly compare the marks which the Apache, on ceremonial occasions, make upon cheeks and forehead. The adherents of the Brahminical sects, before entering a temple, must mark themselves upon the forehead with the tiluk. Among the Vishnuites, this is a longitudinal vermilion line. The Seevites use several parallel lines in saffron.525 Maurice adds that the Hindus place the tiluk upon their idols in twelve places.526 "Among the Kaffir the warriors are rendered invulnerable by means of a black cross on their foreheads and black stripes on the cheeks, both painted by the Inyanga, or fetich priest."527

A piece of galena weighing 7½ pounds was found in a mound near Naples, Illinois.528 Occasionally with the bones of the dead are noticed small cubes of galena; and in our collection is a ball of this ore, weighing a pound and two ounces, which was taken from a mound, and which probably did service, enveloped in raw hide, as some form of weapon.529 Galena was much prized by the former inhabitants of North America. "The frequent occurrence of galena on the altars of the sacrificial mounds proves, at any rate, that the ancient inhabitants attributed a peculiar value to it, deeming it worthy to be offered as a sacrificial gift."530 See also Squier and Davis.531

CHAPTER III

THE IZZE-KLOTH OR MEDICINE CORD OF THE APACHE

There is probably no more mysterious or interesting portion of the religious or "medicinal" equipment of the Apache Indian, whether he be medicine-man or simply a member of the laity, than the "izze-kloth" or medicine cord, illustrations of which accompany this text. Less, perhaps, is known concerning it than any other article upon which he relies in his distress.

I regret very much to say that I am unable to afford the slightest clew to the meaning of any of the parts or appendages of the cords which I have seen or which I have procured. Some excuse for this is to be found in the fact that the Apache look upon these cords as so sacred that strangers are not allowed to see them, much less handle them or talk about them. I made particular effort to cultivate the most friendly and, when possible, intimate relations with such of the Apache and other medicine-men as seemed to offer the best chance for obtaining information in regard to this and other matters, but I am compelled to say with no success at all.

I did advance so far in my schemes that Na-a-cha, a prominent medicine-man of the Tonto Apache, promised to let me have his cord, but as an eruption of hostility on the part of the tribe called me away from the San Carlos Agency, the opportunity was lost. Ramon, one of the principal medicine-men of the Chiricahua Apache, made me the same promise concerning the cord which he wore and which figures in these plates. It was, unfortunately, sent me by mail, and, although the best in the series and really one of the best I have ever been fortunate enough to see on either living or dead, it was not accompanied by a description of the symbolism of the different articles attached. Ramon also gave me the head-dress which he wore in the spirit or ghost dance, and explained everything thereon, and I am satisfied that he would also, while in the same frame of mind, have given me all the information in his power in regard to the sacred or medicine cord as well, had I been near him.

There are some things belonging to these cords which I understand from having had them explained at other times, but there are others about which I am in extreme doubt and ignorance. There are four specimens of medicine cords represented and it is worth while to observe that they were used as one, two, three, and four strand cords, but whether this fact means that they belonged to medicine-men or to warriors of different degrees I did not learn nor do I venture to conjecture.

The single-strand medicine cord with the thirteen olivella shells belonged to a Zuñi chief, one of the priests of the sacred order of the bow, upon whose wrist it was worn as a sign of his exalted rank in the tribe. I obtained it as a proof of his sincerest friendship and with injunctions to say nothing about it to his own people, but no explanation was made at the moment of the signification of the wristlet or cord itself or of the reason for using the olivella shells of that particular number or for placing them as they were placed.