440 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1952 



large extent, have influenced the White man's opinion of the Indian. 

 Similiarly the terms "music" and "singing" were applied to Indian 

 performances. These did not please the White man, and there is still 

 a reluctance to regard music as an important phase of Indian culture 

 worthy of our consideration. 



Early ethnologists attended the healing ceremonies of the Indians 

 but did not write of individual treatment by the Indian doctors. The 

 first ethnologist we shall quote is the Rev. Clay MacCauley, 2 who went 

 among the Seminoles in the winter of 1880-81. He attended the annual 

 Green Corn Dance and heard a "medicine song" which was sung as 

 a certain medicine was drunk ; the belief was that unless one drank of 

 it he would be sick at some time in the year. MacCauley's Seminole 

 informant refused to sing the song for him after the feast, saying that 

 he would "certainly meet with some harm" if he did so. This refusal 

 shows an early connection between music and health. MacCauley 

 stated clearly that he did not know what part incantation or sorcery 

 played in the healing of the sick. One of the most important papers by 

 early ethnologists is "The Mountain Chant : a Navajo Ceremony," 8 

 by Dr. Washington Matthews. The author selected the mountain 

 chant from among other Navajo ceremonies because he witnessed it 

 the most frequently. Like other great rites of the Navajo, it was of 9 

 days' duration. The shaman, or medicine man, who was master of 

 ceremonies, was known as the chanter, and the ceremony was "ostensi- 

 bly to cure the sick." The myth concerning the origin of the mountain 

 chant (Dsilyidje Qagal) relates that "many years ago . . . the Navajo 

 had a healing dance in the dark corral ; but it was imperfect, with few 

 songs and no kethawns or sacrificial sticks." Dr. Matthews describes 

 a ceremony that he attended on October 1, 1884, at a place on the 

 Navajo Reservation about 20 miles northwest of Fort Wingate, 

 N. Mex., and he presents descriptions and illustrations of the four won- 

 derful pictures on sand (dry paintings) that were used on that occa- 

 sion. The patient was a middle-aged woman and the treatment 

 included "prayer, song and rattling." No information concerning the 

 songs or the form of the rattle is presented. 



A remarkable study of the individual treatment of the sick, in con- 

 trast to the ceremonial, was made by James Mooney, 4 who collected 

 in 1887 and 1888 about 600 sacred formulas of the Cherokees. The 

 original manuscripts were transferred to the Bureau of American Eth- 

 nology. These manuscripts "were written by the shamans of the tribe, 

 for their own use, in the Cherokee characters invented by Skiwa/ya 



1 MacCauley, C, The Seminole Indians of Florida, 5ih Ann. Rep. Bur. Amer. Ethnol. 

 (1883-84), pp. 469-531, 1888. 



8 5th Ann. Rep. Bur. Amer. Ethnol. (1883-84), pp. 379-467, 1888. 



4 Mooney, J., The sacred formulas of the Cherokees, 7th Ann. Rep. Bur. Amer. Ethnol. 

 (1885-86), pp. 301-397, 1892. 



