6s 2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



affording instruction to the most able of their white confreres; * and 

 to be a medicine-man at all demands that the individual be not only a 

 shrewd student of human nature capable of drawing deductions from 

 matters seemingly most trifling, but also an expert conjurer and 

 wizard. I have repeatedly known events in the far future to be pre- 

 dicted with scrupulous fidelity to details, exactly as they subsequently 

 occurred ; the movements of persons and individuals to be described 

 in minutiae who had never been seen, and were hundreds of miles 

 away, without a single error as to time, place, or act ; and I have wit- 

 nessed feats of legerdemain and necromancy that would appall a Hou- 

 din or a Heller, executed in broad daylight, without mystic aids or 

 surroundings. I have seen guns, manifestly in perfect order, fail to 

 execute their mission while in the hands of most expert marksmen, 

 merely through a look, a touch, a word, or a bit of incantation ; and 

 yet again restored by a like process.f But here, as may readily be 

 surmised, the trouble was not with the weapon, but with the man be- 

 hind it, whose will-power was not equal to the task of overcoming his 

 native and inherent superstition. Again, it has been my fortune to 

 witness feats so astounding that I dare not place them upon record lest 

 I be accused of romancing ; some, to be sure, susceptible of explanation 

 under physical and psychical laws ; others not so easily or satisfacto- 

 rily disposed of, except perhaps as tricks of the imagination, " optical 

 delusions," etc. ; and even as to these few would be willing to admit 

 that, of an audience numbering some scores, all could be successfully 

 deluded. 



Having already intimated that the Indian relies chiefly on incan- 

 tation and conjuration to produce specific effects, it is readily under- 

 stood that success is due to the impressions produced upon the great 

 nerve-centers. Just as the ancients esteemed the ear and nose the 

 highways and emunctories of the brain, the special senses of hearing 

 and smell become the foundation of all savage physiology, and con- 

 sequently are appealed to in the most emphatic and comprehensive 

 manner. Noise and odor are ever the prime factors in the armamen- 

 tarium therapeuticum of the medicine-man, and it is no exaggeration 



* The Indian recognizes the fact that clairvoyant and psychic power may be incul- 

 cated and developed de novo ; that it may be brought about by certain conditions that 

 stimulate, or disarrange and disorganize certain nerve-centers, and he consequently pre- 

 pares for more formal and eventful measures by fa-sting, long vigils, and other acts that 

 develop extreme nerve-sensibility. A white man I once knew always developed extraor- 

 dinary psychic and clairvoyant powers during or just subsequent to a prolonged alco- 

 holic debauch that had been accompanied by excessive sexual indulgence, and at no 

 other time ! 



f Horses and men have been known to lose control of their limbs through the 

 machinations, incantations, etc., of a medicine-man. One case known to me was that of 

 a famous Indian runner, who was deprived of all save ordinary use of his legs. Another 

 case was that of a stallion invaluable to its owner as a buffalo-hunter, which became prac- 

 tically useless until it passed into the hands of a hard-headed, non-superstitious Scot, 

 when it suddenly regained its powers ! 



