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

One of the four-strand cords was obtained from Ramon and is the most beautiful and the most valuable of the lot. Ramon called my attention to the important fact that it was composed of four strands and that originally each had been stained a different color. These colors were probably yellow, blue, white, and black, although the only ones still discernible at this time are the yellow and the blue.

The three-strand cord was sent to me at Washington by my old friend, Al. Seiber, a scout who has been living among the Apache for twenty-five years. No explanation accompanied it and it was probably procured from the body of some dead warrior during one of the innumerable scouts and skirmishes which Seiber has had with this warlike race during his long term of service against them. The two strand cord was obtained by myself so long ago that the circumstances connected with it have escaped my memory. These cords, in their perfection, are decorated with beads and shells strung along at intervals, with pieces of the sacred green chalchihuitl, which has had such a mysterious ascendancy over the minds of the American Indians – Aztec, Peruvian, Quiche, as well as the more savage tribes, like the Apache and Navajo; with petrified wood, rock crystal, eagle down, claws of the hawk or eaglet, claws of the bear, rattle of the rattlesnake, buckskin bags of hoddentin, circles of buckskin in which are inclosed pieces of twigs and branches of trees which have been struck by lightning, small fragments of the abalone shell from the Pacific coast, and much other sacred paraphernalia of a similar kind.

That the use of these cords was reserved for the most sacred and important occasions, I soon learned; they were not to be seen on occasions of no moment, but the dances for war, medicine, and summoning the spirits at once brought them out, and every medicine-man of any consequence would appear with one hanging from his right shoulder over his left hip.

Only the chief medicine-men can make them, and after being made and before being assumed by the new owner they must be sprinkled, Ramon told me, with "heap hoddentin," a term meaning that there is a great deal of attendant ceremony of a religious character.

These cords will protect a man while on the warpath, and many of the Apache believe firmly that a bullet will have no effect upon the warrior wearing one of them. This is not their only virtue by any means; the wearer can tell who has stolen ponies or other property from him or from his friends, can help the crops, and cure the sick. If the circle attached to one of these cords (see Fig. 436) is placed upon the head it will at once relieve any ache, while the cross attached to another (see Fig. 439) prevents the wearer from going astray, no matter where he may be; in other words, it has some connection with cross-trails and the four cardinal points to which the Apache pay the strictest attention. The Apache assured me that these cords were not mnemonic and that the beads, feathers, knots, etc., attached to them were not for the purpose of recalling to mind some duty to be performed or prayer to be recited.

I was at first inclined to associate these cords with the quipus of the Peruvians, and also with the wampum of the aborigines of the Atlantic coast, and investigation only confirms this first suspicion. It is true that both the wampum and the quipu seem to have advanced from their primitive position as "medicine" and attained, ethnologically speaking, the higher plane of a medium for facilitating exchange or disseminating information, and for that reason their incorporation in this chapter might be objected to by the hypercritical; but a careful perusal of all the notes upon the subject can not fail to convince the reader that the use of just such medicine cords prevailed all over the world, under one form or another, and has survived to our own times.

First, let me say a word about rosaries, the invention of which has been attributed to St. Dominick, in Spain, and to St. Bridget, in Ireland. Neither of these saints had anything to do with the invention or introduction of the rosary, although each in his or her own province may have adapted to new and better uses a cord already in general service among all the peoples of Europe. The rosary, as such, was in general use in parts of the world long before the time of Christ. Again, the cords of the various religious orders were looked upon as medicine cords and employed in that manner by the ignorant peasantry.

In this chapter I will insert notes showing the use of such cords by other tribes, and follow with descriptions of the uses to which the cords of St. Francis and others were put, and with references to the rosaries of different races or different creeds; finally, I will remark upon the superstitions connected with cords, belts, and strings, knotted or unknotted, made of serpent skin, human skin, or human hair. The strangest thing about it all is that observers have, with scarcely an exception, contented themselves with noting the existence of such cords without making the slightest effort to determine why they were used.

There are certain cords with medicine bags attached to be seen in the figures of medicine-men in the drawings of the sacred altars given by Matthews in his account of the Navajo medicine-men.

Cushing also has noted the existence of such cords in Zuñi, and there is no doubt that some at least of the so-called "fishing lines" found in the Rio Verde cliff dwellings in Arizona were used for the same purposes.

Describing the tribes met on the Rio Colorado, in 1540-1541, Alarcon says: "Likewise on the brawne of their armes they weare a streit string, which they wind so often about that it becommeth as broad as one's hand."532 It must be remembered that the Indians thought that Alarcon was a god, that they offered sacrifice to him, and that they wore all the "medicine" they possessed.

In 1680, the Pueblos, under the leadership of Popé, of the pueblo of San Juan, were successful in their attempt to throw off the Spanish yoke. He made them believe that he was in league with the spirits, and "that they directed him to make a rope of the palm leaf and tie in it a number of knots to represent the number of days before the rebellion was to take place; that he must send this rope to all the Pueblos in the kingdom, when each should signify its approval of, and union with, the conspiracy by untying one of the knots."533

I suspect that this may have been an izze-kloth. We know nothing about this rebellion excepting what has been derived through Spanish sources; the conquerors despised the natives, and, with a very few notable exceptions among the Franciscans, made no effort to study their peculiarities. The discontent of the natives was aggravated by this fact; they saw their idols pulled down, their ceremonial chambers closed, their dances prohibited, and numbers of their people tried and executed for witchcraft.534 Fray Geronimo de Zarate Salmeron was a striking example of the good to be effected by missionaries who are not above studying their people; he acquired a complete mastery of the language of the pueblo of Jemez, "and preached to the inhabitants in their native tongue." He is represented as exercising great influence over the people of Jemez, Sia, Santa Ana, and Acoma. In this rebellion of 1680 the Pueblos expected to be joined by the Apache.535

The izze-kloth of the Apache seems to have had its prototype in the sacred string of beans with which Tecumseh's brother, the Shawnee prophet, traveled among the Indian tribes, inciting them to war. Every young warrior who agreed to go upon the warpath touched this "sacred string of beans" in token of his solemn pledge.536

Tanner says in the narrative of his captivity among the Ojibwa: "He [the medicine-man] then gave me a small hoop of wood to wear on my head like a cap. On one-half of this hoop was marked the figure of a snake, whose office, as the chief told me, was to take care of the water."537 The "small hoop of wood" of which Tanner speaks, to be worn on the head, seems to be analogous to the small hoop attached to the izze-kloth, to be worn or applied in cases of headache (Fig. 436). Reference to something very much like the izze-kloth is made by Harmon as in use among the Carriers of British North America. He says: "The lads, as soon as they come to the age of puberty, tie cords, wound with swan's-down, around each leg a little below the knee, which they wear during one year, and then they are considered as men."538 Catlin speaks of "mystery-beads" in use among the Mandan.539 "The negro suspends all about his person cords with most complicated knots."540

The female inhabitants of Alaska, Unalaska, and the Fox Islands were represented by the Russian explorers of 1768 (Captain Krenitzin) to "wear chequered strings around the arms and legs."541 These cords bear a striking resemblance to the "wresting cords" of the peasantry of Europe. Some of the Australians preserve the hair of a dead man. "It is spun into a cord and fastened around the head of a warrior."542 "A cord of opossum hair around the neck, the ends drooping down on the back and fastened to the belt," is one of the parts of the costume assumed by those attaining manhood in the initiation ceremonies of the Australians.543 Again, on pages 72 and 74, he calls it "the belt of manhood." "The use of amulets was common among the Greeks and Romans, whose amulets were principally formed of gems, crowns of pearls, necklaces of coral, shells, etc."544

When I first saw the medicine cords of the Apache, it occurred to me that perhaps in some way they might be an inheritance from the Franciscans, who, two centuries ago, had endeavored to plant missions among the Apache, and did succeed in doing something for the Navajo part of the tribe. I therefore examined the most convenient authorities and learned that the cord of S. François, like the cord of St. Augustine and the cord of St. Monica, was itself a medicine cord, representing a descent from a condition of thought perfectly parallel to that which has given birth to the izze-kloth. Thus Picart tells us: "On appelle Cordon de S. François la grosse corde qui sert de ceinture aux Religieux qui vivent sous la Regle de ce Saint… Cette corde ceint le corps du Moine, & pend à peu prés jusqu'aux pieds. Elle lui sert de discipline, & pour cet effet, elle est armée de distance en distance de fort gros nœuds… La Corde de S. François a souvent gueri les malades, facilité les accouchemens, fortifié la santé, procuré lignée & fait une infinité d'autres miracles édifians."545 This author says of the girdle of St. Augustine "Elle est de cuir," and adds that the Augustinians have a book which treats of the origin of their order, in which occur these words: "Il est probable que nos premiers Peres, qui vivoient sous la Loi de nature, étant habillés de peau devoient porter une Ceinture de même étoffe."546 This last assumption is perfectly plausible. For my part it has always seemed to me that monasticism is of very ancient origin, antedating Christianity and representing the most conservative element in the religious part of human nature. It clings obstinately to primitive ideas with which would naturally be associated primitive costume. The girdle of St. Monica had five knots. "The monks [of the Levant] use a girdle with twelve knots, to shew that they are followers of the twelve apostles."547 Among the "sovereign remedies for the headache" is mentioned "the belt of St. Guthlac."548 Buckle refers to the fact that English women in labor wore "blessed girdles." He thinks that they may have been Thomas Aquinas's girdles.549

And good Saynt Frances gyrdle,With the hamlet of a hyrdle,Are wholsom for the pyppe.550

Some older charms are to be found in Bale's Interlude concerning the Laws of Nature, Moses, and Christ, 4to, 1562. Idolatry says:

For lampes and for bottesTake me Saynt Wilfride's knottes.551

The "girdle of St. Bridget," mentioned by Mooney552 and by other writers, through which the sick were passed by their friends, was simply a "survival" of the "Cunni Diaboli" still to be found in the East Indies. This "girdle of St. Bridget" was made of straw and in the form of a collar.

The custom prevailing in Catholic countries of being buried in the habits of the monastic orders, of which we know that the cord was a prominent feature, especially in those of St. Francis or St. Dominick, is alluded to by Brand.553 This custom seems to have been founded upon a prior superstitious use of magical cords which were, till a comparatively recent period, buried with the dead. The Roman Catholic church anathematized those "qui s'imaginent faire plaisir aux morts ou leur mettant entre les mains, ou en jettant sur leurs fosses, ou dans leurs tombeaux de petites cordes nouées de plusieurs nœuds, & d'autres semblables, ce qui est expressement condamné par le Synode de Ferrare en 1612."554 Evidently the desire was to be buried with cords or amulets which in life they dared not wear.

We may infer that cords and other articles of monastic raiment can be traced back to a most remote ancestry by reading the views of Godfrey Higgins, in Anacalypsis, to the effect that there was a tradition maintained among the Carmelites that their order had been established by the prophet Elisha and that Jesus Christ himself had been one of its members. Massingberd, speaking of the first arrival of the Carmelites in England (about A. D. 1215), says: "They professed to be newly arrived in Italy, driven out by the Saracens from the Holy Land, where they had remained on Mount Carmel from the time of Elisha the prophet. They assert that 'the sons of the prophets' had continued on Mount Carmel as a poor brotherhood till the time of Christ, soon after which they were miraculously converted, and that the Virgin Mary joined their order and gave them a precious vestment called a scapular."555

ANALOGUES TO BE FOUND AMONG THE AZTECS, PERUVIANS, AND OTHERS

According to the different authorities cited below, it will be seen that the Aztec priests were in the habit of consulting Fate by casting upon the ground a handful of cords tied together; if the cords remained bunched together, the sign was that the patient was to die, but if they stretched out, then it was apparent that the patient was soon to stretch out his legs and recover. Mendieta says: "Tenian unos cordeles, hecho de ellos un manojo como llavero donde las mujeres traen colgadas las llaves, lanzábanlos en el suelo, y si quedaban revueltos, decian que era señal de muerte. Y si alguno ó algunos salian extendidos, teníanlo por señal de vida, diciendo: que ya comenzaba el enfermo á extender los piés y las manos."556 Diego Duran speaks of the Mexican priests casting lots with knotted cords, "con nudillos de hilo echaban suertes."557 When the army of Cortes advanced into the interior of Mexico, his soldiers found a forest of pine in which the trees were interlaced with certain cords and papers which the wizards had placed there, telling the Tlascaltecs that they would restrain the advance of the strangers and deprive them of all strength:

Hallaron un Pinar mui espeso, lleno de hilos i papeles, que enredaban los Arboles, i atravesaban el camino, de que mucho se rieron los Castellanos; i dixeron graciosos donaires, quando luego supieron que los Hechiceros havian dado à entender à los Tlascaltecas que con aquellos hilos, i papeles havian de tener à los Castellanos, i quitarles sus fuerças.558

Padre Sahagun speaks of the Aztec priests who cast lots with little cords knotted together: "Que hechan suertes con unas cordezuelas que atan unas con otros que llaman Mecatlapouhque."559 Some such method of divining by casting cords must have existed among the Lettons, as we are informed by Grimm.560 "Among the Lettons, the bride on her way to church, must throw a bunch of colored threads and a coin into every ditch and pond she sees."561

In the religious ceremonies of the Peruvians vague mention is made of "a very long cable," "woven in four colours, black, white, red, and yellow."562 The Inca wore a "llautu." "This was a red fringe in the fashion of a border, which he wore across his forehead from one temple to the other. The prince, who was heir apparent, wore a yellow fringe, which was smaller than that of his father."563 In another place, Garcilaso says: "It was of many colours, about a finger in width and a little less in thickness. They twisted this fringe three or four times around the head and let it hang after the manner of a garland."564 "The Ynca made them believe that they were granted by order of the Sun, according to the merits of each tribe, and for this reason they valued them exceedingly."565 The investiture was attended with imposing ceremonies. "When the Grounds of the Sun were to be tilled [by the Peruvians], the principal men went about the task wearing white cords stretched across the shoulders after the manner of ministers of the altar"566 is the vague description to be gathered from Herrera.

Knotted cords were in use among the Carib; "ce qui revient aux Quippos des Péruviens."567 The accompanying citation from Montfaucon would seem to show that among the Romans were to be found sacred baldrics in use by the war priests; such baldrics are to be seen also among the American aborigines, and correspond very closely to the medicine cords. Montfaucon describes the Saliens, who among the Romans were the priests of Mars, the god of war; these priests in the month of March had a festival which was probably nothing but a war dance, as that month would be most favorable in that climate for getting ready to attack their neighbors and enemies. He says that these Saliens "sont vêtus de robes de diverses couleurs, ceints de baudriers d'airain." These would seem to have been a sort of medicine cord with plates of brass affixed which would rattle when shaken by the dancer.568

Captain Cook found that the men of the tribes seen in Australia wore "bracelets of small cord, wound two or three times about the upper part of their arm."569

"Whilst their [the Congo natives'] children are young, these people bind them about with certain superstitious cords made by the wizards, who, likewise, teach them to utter a kind of spell while they are binding them."570 Father Merolla adds that sometimes as many as four of these cords are worn.

Bosman remarks upon the negroes of the Gold Coast as follows: "The child is no sooner born than the priest (here called Feticheer or Consoe) is sent for, who binds a parcel of ropes and coral and other trash about the head, body, arms, and legs of the infant; after which he exorcises, according to their accustomed manner, by which they believe it is armed against all sickness and ill accidents."571

In the picture of a native of Uzinza, Speke shows us a man wearing a cord from the right shoulder to the left hip.572

In the picture of Lunga Mândi's son, in Cameron's Across Africa,573 that young chief is represented as wearing a cord across his body from his right shoulder to the left side.

On the Lower Congo, at Stanley Pool, Stanley met a young chief: "From his shoulders depended a long cloth of check pattern, while over one shoulder was a belt, to which was attached a queer medley of small gourds containing snuff and various charms, which he called his Inkisi."574 This no doubt was a medicine cord. "According to the custom, which seems to belong to all Africa, as a sign of grief the Dinka wear a cord round the neck."575 "The Mateb, or baptismal cord, is de rigueur, and worn when nothing else is. It formed the only clothing of the young at Seramba, but was frequently added to with amulets, sure safeguards against sorcery."576 The Abyssinian Christians wear a blue cord as a sign of having been baptized, and "baptism and the blue cord are, in the Abyssinian mind, inseparable."577 "The cord,578 or mateb, without which nobody can be really said in Abyssinia to be respectable."579 It further resembles the Apache medicine cord, inasmuch as it is "a blue cord around the neck."580 The baptismal cords are made of "blue floss silk."581

THE MAGIC WIND KNOTTED CORDS OF THE LAPPS AND OTHERS

"The navigators of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries have related many wonderful stories about the magic of the Finns or Finno Lappes, who sold wind contained in a cord with three knots. If the first were untied, the wind became favourable, if the second, still more so, but, if the third were loosed, a tempest was the inevitable consequence."582 The selling of wind knots was ascribed not only to the Lapps and Finns, but to the inhabitants of Greenland also.583 "The northern shipmasters are such dupes to the delusions of these impostors that they often purchase of them a magic cord which contains a number of knots, by opening of which, according to the magician's directions, they expect to gain any wind they want."584 "They [Lapland witches] further confessed, that while they fastened three knots on a linen towel in the name of the devil, and had spit on them, &c., they called the name of him they doomed to destruction." They also claimed that, "by some fatal contrivance they could bring on men disorders," … as "by spitting three times on a knife and anointing the victims with that spittle."585

Scheffer describes the Laplanders as having a cord tied with knots for the raising of the wind; Brand says the same of the Finlanders, of Norway, of the priestesses of the island of Sena, on the coast of Gaul, in the time of the Emperor Claudius, the "witches" of the Isle of Man, etc.586

Macbeth, speaking to the witches, says:

Though you untie the winds, and let them fightAgainst the churches; though the yesty wavesConfound and swallow navigation up.587

ROSARIES AND OTHER MNEMONIC CORDS

The rosary being confessedly an aid to memory, it will be proper to include it in a chapter descriptive of the different forms of mnemonic cords which have been noticed in various parts of the world. The use of the rosary is not confined to Roman Catholics; it is in service among Mahometans, Tibetans, and Persians.588 Picart mentions "chaplets" among the Chinese and Japanese which very strongly suggest the izze-kloth.589

Father Grébillon, in his account of Tartary, alludes several times to the importance attached by the Chinese and Tartars to the privilege of being allowed to touch the "string of beads" worn by certain Lamas met on the journey, which corresponds very closely to the rosaries of the Roman Catholics.590

"Mr. Astle informs us that the first Chinese letters were knots on cords."591

Speaking of the ancient Japanese, the Chinese chronicles relate: "They have no writing, but merely cut certain marks upon wood and make knots in cord."592 In the very earliest myths of the Chinese we read of "knotted cords, which they used instead of characters, and to instruct their children."593 Malte-Brun calls attention to the fact that "the hieroglyphics and little cords in use amongst the ancient Chinese recall in a striking manner the figured writing of the Mexicans and the Quipos of Peru."594 "Each combination [of the quipu] had, however, a fixed ideographic value in a certain branch of knowledge, and thus the quipu differed essentially from the Catholic rosary, the Jewish phylactery, or the knotted strings of the natives of North America and Siberia, to all of which it has at times been compared."595

E. B. Tylor differs in opinion from Brinton. According to Tylor, "the quipu is a near relation of the rosary and the wampum-string."596

The use of knotted cords by natives of the Caroline Islands, as a means of preserving a record of time, is noted by Kotzebue in several places. For instance: "Kadu kept his journal by moons, for which he made a knot in a string."597

During the years of my service with the late Maj. Gen. Crook in the Southwest, I was surprised to discover that the Apache scouts kept records of the time of their absence on campaign. There were several methods in vogue, the best being that of colored beads, which were strung on a string, six white ones to represent the days of the week and one black or other color to stand for Sundays. This method gave rise to some confusion, because the Indians had been told that there were four weeks, or Sundays ("Domingos"), in each "Luna," or moon, and yet they soon found that their own method of determining time by the appearance of the crescent moon was much the more satisfactory. Among the Zuñi I have seen little tally sticks with the marks for the days and months incised on the narrow edges, and among the Apache another method of indicating the flight of time by marking on a piece of paper along a horizontal line a number of circles or of straight lines across the horizontal datum line to represent the full days which had passed, a heavy straight line for each Sunday, and a small crescent for the beginning of each month.