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

Such as the reader can imagine the medicine-man to be from this description of his paraphernalia, such he has been since the white man first landed in America. Never desirous of winning proselytes to his own ideas, he has held on to those ideas with a tenacity never suspected until purposely investigated. The first of the Spanish writers seem to have employed the native terms for the medicine-men, and we come across them as cemis or zemis, bohiti, pachuaci, and others; but soon they were recognized as the emissaries of Satan and the preachers of witchcraft, and henceforth they appear in the documents as "hechicheros" and "brujos" almost exclusively. "Tienan los Apaches profetas ó adivinos que gozan de la mas alta estimacion. Esos adivinos pratican la medicina lamas rudimental, la aplicacion de algunas yerbas y esto acompañado de ceremonias y cantos supersticiosos."744 Pimentel seems to have derived his information from Cordero, a Spanish officer who had served against the Apache at various times between 1770 and 1795, and seemed to understand them well.

"There was no class of persons who so widely and deeply influenced the culture and shaped the destiny of the Indian tribes as their priests. In attempting to gain a true conception of the race's capacities and history there is no one element of their social life which demands closer attention than the power of these teachers… However much we may deplore the use they made of their skill, we must estimate it fairly and grant it its due weight in measuring the influence of the religious sentiment on the history of man."745

"Like Old Men of the Sea, they have clung to the neck of their nations, throttling all attempts at progress, binding them to the thraldom of superstition and profligacy, dragging them down to wretchedness and death. Christianity and civilization meet in them their most determined, most implacable foes."746

In spite of all the zeal and vigilance of the Spanish friars, supported by military power, the Indians of Bogotá clung to their idolatry. Padre Simon cites several instances and says tersely: "De manera que no lo hay del Indio que parece mas Cristiano y ladino, de que no tenga ídolos á quien adore, como nos lo dice cada dia la experiencia." (So that there is no Indian, no matter how well educated he may appear in our language and the Christian doctrine, who has not idols which he adores, as experience teaches us every day.)747

"The Indian doctor relied far more on magic than on natural remedies. Dreams, beating of the drum, songs, magic feasts and dances, and howling to frighten the female demon from the patient, were his ordinary methods of cure."748

In a very rare work by Padre José de Arriaga, published in Lima, 1621, it is shown that the Indians among whom this priest was sent on a special tour of investigation were still practicing their old idolatrous rites in secret. This work may be found quoted in Montesinos, Mémoires sur l'Ancien Pérou, in Ternaux-Compans, Voyages, vol. 17; the title of Arriaga's work is Extirpacion de la Idolatría de los Indios del Peru. Arriaga also states that the functions of the priesthood were exercised by both sexes.

It will only be after we have thoroughly routed the medicine-men from their intrenchments and made them an object of ridicule that we can hope to bend and train the mind of our Indian wards in the direction of civilization. In my own opinion, the reduction of the medicine-men will effect more for the savages than the giving of land in severalty or instruction in the schools at Carlisle and Hampton; rather, the latter should be conducted with this great object mainly in view: to let pupils insensibly absorb such knowledge as may soonest and most completely convince them of the impotency of the charlatans who hold the tribes in bondage.

Teach the scholars at Carlisle and Hampton some of the wonders of electricity, magnetism, chemistry, the spectroscope, magic lantern, ventriloquism, music, and then, when they return to their own people, each will despise the fraud of the medicine-men and be a focus of growing antagonism to their pretensions. Teach them to love their own people and not to despise them; but impress upon each one that he is to return as a missionary of civilization. Let them see that the world is free to the civilized, that law is liberty.

1

Narrative of Captivity, Cincinnati, 1871, p. 141.

2

Padre Boscana, Chinigchinich, in Robinson's California, p. 261.

3

Origine de tous les Cultes, vol. 2, pt. 2, pp. 87, 88.

4

Diego Duran, vol. 3, pp. 237, 238.

5

Higgins, Anacalypsia, lib. 2, p. 77.

6

Balboa, Hist. du Pérou, in Ternaux-Compans, Voy., vol. 15.

7

Ross, Fur Hunters, quoted by Spencer, Desc. Soc.

8

Max Müller, Science of Religion, p. 88.

9

Davis, Spanish Conq. of N. M., p. 98.

10

I Samuel, XII, 17, 18.

11

Cérémonies et Coûtumes, vol. 6, p. 75.

12

Everard im Thurn, Indians of Guiana, London, 1883, p. 334.

13

Tanner's Narrative, p. 390.

14

Diego Duran, lib. 3, cap. 3, p. 201.

15

Dorman, Primitive Superstitions, p. 384.

16

Spencer, Desc. Sociology.

17

Picart, Cérémonies et Coûtumes Religieuses, Amsterdam, 1735, vol. 6, p. 122.

18

Myths of the New World, p. 281.

19

Domenech, Deserts, vol. 2, p. 392.

20

Bancroft, Nat. Races, vol. 1, p. 777.

21

Hakluyt, Voyages, vol. 5, p. 462.

22

Brinton, Myths of the New World, p. 281.

23

Spencer, Ecclesiastical Institutions, cap. V.

24

Salverte, Philosophy of Magic, vol. 2, pp. 6-7.

25

Tylor, Primitive Culture, London, 1871, vol. 2, p. 377.

26

"St. Patrick, we are told, floated to Ireland on an altar stone. Among other wonderful things, he converted a marauder into a wolf and lighted a fire with icicles." – James A. Froude, Reminiscences of the High Church Revival. (Letter V.)

27

Demonology and Witchcraft, p. 184.

28

Jesuits in North America, pp. 34, 35.

29

Herrera, dec. 4, lib. 8, cap. 5, 159.

30

Ibid., dec. 3, lib. 4, p. 121.

31

Hist. de las Indias, p. 283.

32

American Antiquarian, November, 1886, p. 334.

33

Dorman, Primitive Superstitions, p. 380, quoting Herrera, dec. 3, p. 262.

34

Descriptive Sociology.

35

Admiral Smyth's translation in Hakluyt Society, London, 1857, vol. 21, p. 9.

36

American Indians, p. 26.

37

Gomara, Hist. de las Indias, p. 173.

38

"Estos mascan cierta yerba, y con el zumo rocian las soldados estando para dar batalla." Gomara, ibid., p. 179.

39

Herrera, dec. 2, lib. 10, p. 260.

40

Father Dobrizhoffer, quoted by Spencer, Eccles. Institutions, cap. 10, sec. 630.

41

Catlin, N. A. Indians, London, 1845, vol. 2, p. 232.

42

Gomara, op. cit., p. 173.

43

Spencer, Eccles. Institutions, cap. 10, pp. 780, 781, quoting Stubb's Constitutional History of England.

44

Ibid., sec. 630, p. 781, quoting Turner (Geo.), Nineteen Years in Polynesia.

45

Vol. 3, p. 176.

"In every part of the globe fragments of primitive languages are preserved in religious rites." Humboldt, Researches, London, 1814, vol. 1, p. 97.

"Et même Jean P. C., Prince de la Mirande, escrit que les mots barbares & non entendus ont plus de puissance en la Magie que ceux qui sont entendus." Picart, vol. 10, p. 45.

The medicine-men of Cumana (now the United States of Colombia, South America) cured their patients "con palabras muy revesadas y que aun el mismo médico no las entiende." Gomara, Hist. de las Indias, p. 208.

The Tlascaltecs had "oradores" who employed gibberish – "hablaban Gerigonça." Herrera, dec. 2, lib. 6, p. 163.

In Peru, if the fields were afflicted with drought, the priests, among other things, "chantaient un cantique dont le sens était inconnu du vulgaire." Balboa, Hist. du Pérou, p. 128, in Ternaux-Compans, vol. 15.

46

Assiniboine and Saskatchewan Exped., London, 1860, vol. 2, p. 155.

47

Cockayne, Leechdoms, vol. 1, p. xxx.

48

"The belief in the magic power of sacred words, whether religious formulas or the name of gods, was also acknowledged [i.e., in Egypt] and was the source of a frightful amount of superstition… The superstitious repetition of names (many of which perhaps never had any meaning at all) is particularly conspicuous in numerous documents much more recent than the Book of the Dead." – Hibbert, Lectures, 1879, pp. 192, 193.

49

Salverte, Philosophy of Magic, vol. 1, p. 134.

50

Kingsborough, lib. 2, vol. 7, p. 102.

51

Popular Antiquities, vol. 2, p. 70.

52

Ibid., p. 160.

53

Ibid., p. 217.

54

Ibid., p. 218.

55

Ibid., p. 219.

56

Ibid., pp. 214, 215.

57

Ibid., p. 216.

58

"When the Carriers are severely sick, they often think that they shall not recover, unless they divulge to a priest or magician, every crime which they may have committed, which has hitherto been kept secret." – Harmon's Journal, p. 300. The Carriers or Ta-kully are Tinneh.

59

For identical notions among the Arawaks of Guiana, Tupis of Brazil, Creeks, Patagonians, Kaffirs, Chiqnitos, and others, see the works of Schoolcraft, Herbert Spencer, Schultze, and others.

60

Extract from the Jesuit Falkner's account of Patagonia, in Voyages of the Adventure and Beagle, London, 1839, vol. 2, p. 163.

61

"Nul de ces médecins ne peut mourir si'ls ne lui enlevent les testicules." Brasseur de Bourbourg, Trans. of Fra Roman Pane, Des Antiquités des Indiens, Paris, 1864, p. 451.

62

Hist. Gen., dec. 1, lib. 3, p. 69.

63

Madden, Shrines and Sepulchres, vol. 1, p. 14.

64

Gayarre, Louisiana; its Colonial History, p. 355.

65

Spencer, Desc. Sociology.

66

Balboa, Hist. du Pérou, Ternaux-Compans, vol. 15.

67

Davis, Conq. of New Mexico, p. 86.

68

Crónica Seráfica y Apostolica, Espinosa, Mexico, 1746, p. 421.

69

Desc. Sociology.

70

Mendieta, Hist. Eclesiástica Indiana, p. 136.

71

Ibid., p. 136.

72

Hist. de las Indias, p. 179.

73

Herrera, dec. 2, lib. 10, p. 260.

74

Ibid., dec. 3, lib. 4, p. 121.

75

Ibid., dec. 4, lib. 9, cap. 7, p. 188.

76

Keating's translation, p. 352, quoted by Samuel Farmar Jarvis, Religion of the Indian Tribes, in Coll. New York Historical Soc., vol. 3, 1819, p. 262.

77

Smith, Araucanians, pp. 238, 239.

78

Richardson, Arctic Searching Expedition, vol. 1, p. 366.

79

Schultze, Fetichism, New York, 1885, p. 49.

80

Spencer, Desc. Sociology.

81

Ternaux-Compans, vol. 7, p. 110.

82

Schultze, Fetichism, New York, 1885, p. 49.

83

Smithsonian Report for 1867.

84

Long's Expedition, Philadelphia, 1823, p. 238.

85

Hist. of the American Indians, p. 238.

86

Schultze, Fetichism, New York, 1885, p. 52.

87

Hist. de las Indias, p. 232.

88

Ternaux-Compans, vol. 7, pp. 114, 115.

89

Notes from Gomara, Hist. de las Indias, pp. 172-173.

90

History of California, vol. 1, p. 97.

91

Ternaux-Compans, vol. 10, p. 85.

92

Herrera, dec. 4, lib. 9, cap. 8, p. 188.

93

Smith, Araucanians, p. 234.

94

Bancroft, Native Races, vol. 1, p. 779.

95

Alegre, Historia de la Compañía de Jesus en Nueva-España, vol. 1, p. 401.

96

Desc. Sociology.

97

Kraskenninikoff, History of Kamtchatka and the Kurilski Islands, Grieve's translation, p. 219.

98

Ibid., p. 220.

99

Contributions to North American Ethnology, vol. 5.

100

Smith, Araucanians, p. 233.

101

Dr. Edwin G. Meek, Toner Collection, Library of Congress.

102

Lieut. Pettit in Jour. U. S. Mil. Serv. Instit., 1886, pp. 336-337.

103

Smyth, Aborigines of Victoria, vol. 1, p. 155.

104

Dennys, Folk Lore of China, p. 57.

105

"Chinigchinich" in Robinson's California, pp. 271, 272.

106

The reader interested in this matter may find something bearing upon it in Diego Duran, lib. 1, cap. 36, p. 387; Torquemada, Mon. Indiana, lib. 9, cap. 3; Venegas, History of California, vol. 1, p. 105; Gomara, Conq. de Mexico, p. 443; Herrera, dec. 4, lib. 8, p. 158; Maximilian of Wied, p. 431, and others; The "pelucas" mentioned of the Orinoco tribes by Padre Gumilla would seem to be nothing more than feather head-dresses; p. 66.

107

Tribes and Languages of Costa Rica, Proc. Am. Philos. Soc., Philadelphia, 1875, p. 503.

108

Corbusier, in American Antiquarian, Sept., 1886, p. 279.

109

Source of the Nile, p. 567.

110

Vol. 2, p. 193.

111

Ensayo Cronologico, p. 139.

112

For the Shamans of Kodiak, see Lisiansky, Voyage, London, 1814, p. 208; for the Mexicans, Padre José Acosta, Paris, 1600, cap. 26, p. 256; Society Islands, Malte-Brun, Univ. Geography, vol. 3, lib. 58, p. 634, Boston, 1825. Sir Samuel Baker, The Albert N'yanza, vol. 1, p. 211.

113

Ternaux-Compans, vol. 9, p. 294.

114

Catlin, North American Indians, London. 1845, vol. 1, p. 55.

115

Ibid., p. 95.

116

Parkman, Jesuits in North America, p. lxxxiv.

117

Wanderings of an Artist in North America, p. 40.

118

Dec. 2, lib. 6, p. 161.

119

Purchas, lib. 9, cap. 12, sec. 4, p. 1555, edition of 1622.

120

Chinigchinich, p. 253.

121

Theal, Kaffir Folk-lore, pp. 209-210.

122

Clements R. Markham, Note on Garcilasso de la Vega, in Hakluyt Soc., vol. 41, p. 183, quoting Acosta, lib. 5, cap. 4.

123

Andrew Lang, Custom and Myth, New York, 1885, chapter entitled "The bull roarer," pp. 29-44.

124

John Fraser, The Aborigines of Australia; their Ethnic Position and Relations, pp. 161-162.

125

"When the rain-maker of the Lenni Lennape would exert his power, he retired to some secluded spot and drew upon the earth the figure of a cross (its arms toward the cardinal points?), placed upon it a piece of tobacco, a gourd, a bit of some red stuff, and commenced to cry aloud to the spirits of the rains." – Brinton, Myths of the New World, New York, 1868, p. 96 (after Loskiel).

126

Père Chrestien Le Clercq, Gaspesie, Paris, 1691, p. 170.

127

Ibid., cap. x, pp. 172-199.

128

Dec. 2, lib. 2, p. 48.

129

Ibid., p. 59.

130

Assinniboine and Saskatchewan Expedition, vol. 2, p. 123.

131

New York, 1819, pp. x, xxix, 47.

132

Forster, Voyage Round the World, vol. 1, pp. 219, 519.

133

Hawkesworth, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 161.

134

Ibid., p. 257.

135

Ibid., vol. 1, p. 113.

136

Forlong, Rivers of Life, vol. 1, pp. 541, 542.

137

Nat. Races, vol. 1, p. 380.

138

Kohl, Kitchi-gami, pp. 345, 346.

139

Tanner's Narrative, p. 372.

140

John de Laet, lib. 3, cap. 18, p. 90, quoting Capt. John Smith.

141

Le Jeune in Jesuit Relations, 1633, vol. 1, Quebec, 1858.

142

Third Voyage of David Peter De Vries to New Amsterdam, in Trans. N. Y. Hist. Soc., vol. 3, p. 91.

143

Charlevoix, New France, New York, 1866, vol. 4, p. 105.

144

Squier, Serpent Symbol, p. 197.

145

Coleman, Mythology of the Hindus, London, 1832, p. 63.

146

Vol. 3.

147

Speke, Source of the Nile, London, 1863, p. 500.

148

Ibid.

149

Stanley, Through the Dark Continent, vol. 1, p. 327.

150

Miles, Demigods and Dæmonia, in Jour. Ethnol. Soc., London, vol. 3, p. 28, 1854.

151

Smyth, Aborigines of Victoria, vol. 1, p. 30.

152

Ibid., p. 131.

153

Ibid., p. 348.

154

Peter Kolben, speaking of the Hottentots, in Knox, vol. 2, p. 394.

155

O-kee-pa, pp. 28-29.

156

Frazer, Totemism, Edinburgh, 1887, pp. 54, 55; after Maximilian.

157

Kelly, Narrative of Captivity, Cincinnati, 1871, p. 143.

158

Différens Cultes, vol. 1, p. 57.

159

Judges, I, 7.

160

Brand, Pop. Ant., London, 1882, vol. 3, p. 278.

161

American Anthropologist, Washington, D. C., January, 1888.

162

Kingsborough, vol. 8, p. 70. The Aztec believed that the woman who died in childbirth was equal to the warrior who died in battle and she went to the same heaven. The middle finger of the left hand is the finger used in the necklace of human fingers.

163

Sahagun, in Kingsborough, vol. 7, p. 147.

164

Pliny, Nat. Hist., lib. 28, cap. 20. Holland's translation.

165

Shakespeare, Macbeth, act 4, scene 1.

166

Pliny, Nat. Hist., lib. 28, cap. 11.

167

Tractatus de Fascinatione, Nuremberg, 1675, p. 681.

168

Teutonic Mythology, vol. 3, p. 1073.

169

Brand, Pop. Ant., vol. 3, p. 10.

170

Montfaucon, l'Antiquité expliquée, vol. 2, liv. 4, cap. 6, p. 249.

171

Vâsishtha, cap. 3, pars. 64-68, p. 25 (Sacred Books of the East, Oxford, 1882, Max Müller's edition).

172

Travels of Two Mohammedans through India and China, in Pinkerton's Voyages, vol. 7, p. 218.

173

Every-Day Book, vol. 2, col. 95.

174

"Traen los dientes al cuello (como sacamuelas) por bravosidad." – Gomara, Historia de las Indias, p. 201.

175

"Los Caberres y muchos Caribes, usan por gala muchas sartas de dientes y muelas de gente para dar á entender que son muy valientes por los despojos que alli ostentan ser de sus enemigos que mataron." – Gumilla, Orinoco, Madrid, 1741, p. 65.

176

Padre Fray Alonzo Fernandez, Historia Eclesiastica, Toledo, 1611, p. 17.

177

Ibid., p. 161.

178

Cérémonies et Coûtumes, Amsterdam, 1735, vol. 6, p. 114.

179

"Formada la cara como de Sol, con rayos de Nacar al rededor, y perfilada de lo mismo; y en la boca embutidos los dientes, que quitaron à los Españoles, que avian muerto." – Villaguitierre, Hist. de la Conquista de la Provincia de el Itza, Madrid, 1701, p. 500. (Itza seems to have been the country of the Lacandones.)

180

Edwards, speaking of the Carib, quoted by Spencer, Desc. Sociology. The same custom is ascribed to the Tupinambi of Brazil. Ibid, quoting from Southey.

181

Through the Dark Continent, vol. 2, p. 286.

182

Ibid., p. 288.

183

Ibid., p. 290.

184

Speke, Source of the Nile, London, 1863, p. 500.

185

Heart of Africa, vol. 2, p. 54.

186

Ibid., vol. 1, p. 285.

187

Sir Samuel Baker, The Albert N'yanza, Philadelphia, 1869, p. 154 et seq.

188

Burton, Mission to Gelele, vol. 1, p. 135 et seq.

189

Voyage Round the World, London, 1823, pp. 209, 210.

190

Kotzebue, Voyage, London, 1821, vol. 2, p. 202. See also Villaguitierre, cited above.

191

Capt. Cook's First Voyage, in Pinkerton's Voyages, London, 1812, vol. 11, pp. 513, 515.

192

Campbell, Voyage Round the World, N. Y., 1819, p. 153.

193

Frazer, Totemism, Edinburgh, 1887, p. 28.

194

Historia de Chile, Madrid, 1795, vol. 2, p. 80.

195

Spencer, Desc. Sociology.

196

Indian Myths, Boston, 1884, p. 256.

197

Tanner's Narrative, p. 122.

198

Kitchi-gami, p. 344.

199

Voyages, p. 323.

200

Kane, Wanderings of an Artist in North America, p. 399.

201

Native Races, vol. 1, p. 553.

202

Hawkins, quoted by Gatschet, Migration Legend of the Creeks, Philadelphia, 1884, vol. 1, p. 185.

203

Corbusier, in American Antiquarian, September, 1886, p. 279.

204

Everard F. im Thurn, Indians of Guiana, p. 218.

205

Crantz, History of Greenland, London, 1767, vol. 1, pp. 210-211.

206

Forster, Voyage Round the World, vol. 2, pp. 275, 288.

207

Hakluyt, Voyages, vol. 3, p. 508.

208

Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, vol. 2, p. 544.

209

Travels to discover the source of the Nile in the years 1768, etc., Dublin, 1791, vol. 3, p. 410.

210

Desc. Sociology.

211

Ibid., quoting Schoolcraft.

212

"Saca de su carcax algunos pies y unas de águila secos y endurecidos, con los cuales, comienza á sajarle desde los hombros hasta las muñecas." – Historia de la Compañía de Jesus en Nueva España, Mexico, 1842, vol. 2, pp. 218, 219.