247 

 The Sun or Ounelpiya Medicine Disk. 



By Albert B. Reagan. 



Tills disk is used as a last resort in the Apache mediciue ceremonies. 

 It is drawn on a leveled, sanded spot of ground some sixteen feet in 

 diameter. The materials used in painting the figures are obtained as 

 follows: The green is ground up leaves; the red, ground up sandstone; 

 the yellow ground up limestone; the black, powdered charcoal. The 

 rings sepai'ating the concentric spaces are rainliow circles. The central 

 figure is the sun, and the squares associated with the siui are the medicine 

 blocks. The first and second concentric spaces from the central area 

 represent land; the space in which the frogs are swimming, water; and 

 the outer concentric space, the abode of the gods. 



This draAving is an Apache prayer in an elaborate form. In it tliey 

 have all the gods of the universe represented, and on the mercy of these 

 gods they throw the patient. As has been stated this is a last resort. 

 The gods can either make the sick one well or take him to themselves, 

 that is, to the Happy Hunting Ground. 



When this drawing is completed, Avhich is always at about four o'clock 

 in the afternoon of the same day in wliich it was commenced, the patient 

 is carried and placed on the central figure with face toward the evening- 

 sun. A medicine dancer wearing a ghost hat then enters the medicine 

 circle, and, carrying a bowl partly filled witn water in one hand, he takes 

 a pinch of dust from each of the representative figures and puts it into 

 the bowl. Having completed his dust-gathering, he proceeds to the sick 

 one and daulis him all over with the muddied water. This being com- 

 pleted, he sends a hissing breath through his hands, thus expelling sick 

 to the four quarters of the earth. He then leaves the medicine circle and 

 gallops off into obscurity. When he has departed the chief medicine man, 

 after sprinkling the patient with cattail flag pollen as he prays to the 

 gods, takes up the bowl of muddied water left by the ghost dancer, and 

 daubs the patient as the ghost dancer had daubed him before, while those 

 present chant a medicine song to the gods. When he has completed his 

 task, the oldest woman present takes the muddied bowl and continues the 

 daubing process. Her act completes the ceremony. The sick one is then 



