1897.] GUSHING — REMARKS ON SHAMANISM. 191 



which he will squeeze out in order that its form may so be fitted to 

 absorb the invisible form of the infesting maggot ; or else he will seek 

 for some insect which preys upon maggots, like certain wasps, and 

 will apply it to the infected place, using such aids as he can, by rub- 

 bing, scarifying, squeezing, sucking or blowing the diseased place, 

 until he succeeds in forcing out the pus or black blood or serum 

 and securing or snaring, as he supposes, the seed or occult creature 

 of the ill. Then he will hold up the crushed grub or wasp, merely to 

 show how successfully it has absorbed or fought and destroyed this 

 disease-causing worm, but with no more thought whatsoever of chi- 

 canery, than a surgeon among ourselves would have in exhibiting a 

 needle he had extracted from the hand or foot of his patient. 



Now I have gone a long way around the subject in hand, in order 

 to measurably substantiate my reasons for thinking that Dr. Morris 

 is correct in his hypothesis as to the sacred and symbolic character 

 and origin of the pentagonal dodecahedron which he has exhibited 

 and commented upon here to-night. A figure even as elaborate and 

 difficult of production in stone as is this, could readily have been 

 formed by Indian artisans. Its shape might have been suggested 

 in the process, perfectly familiar to them, of knapping a block or 

 cube of stone, and afterwards breaking away its angles by batter- 

 ing, to form a sphere ; or, better still, by the shapes of balls of 

 clay — naturally formed round in the hands — and used as by the 

 Zunis in their processes of name — divination just described ; or 

 again, by the shapes of pentagonal or other like — ever sacred — 

 crystals. The scratchings or figures observed upon the various 

 faces of this stone are quite such as might well have been drawn 

 to differentiate them as being related to one region or another, 

 and in all probability the figures thus scratched were further 

 marked with pigments symbolic of the difi'erent regions, when this 

 stone was used in such processes of divination. Close observation 

 of the more distinct lines of these figures on the faces of the stone, 

 shows that they were made by a flint point, not a metal instrument ; 

 for they are double, — that is within each one is a minute bead such 

 as would be produced by the fracturing of a fine point of flint or 

 other hard concoidal stone when drawn over the surface of another 

 stone like this, — and not simply V-shaped as would have been the 

 case had a metal instrument been used. 



Some question may arise in the minds of those who have listened 

 to Dr. Morris' paper, and to my comments thereon, as to the mean- 



