XLIV ANNUAL REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR 



belief and practice called shamanism is well known in many 

 parts of the world as a phase in religious evolution. Although 

 at first applied only to the practices observed among some 

 tribes of northern Asia, it has of late been generally used by 

 scholars to express the placation and control by magic and 

 fetichistic rites of spirits or daimons who are supposed to rule 

 all mankind and indeed the whole realm of nature. The 

 shaman is not only a practitioner of sorcery, able to drive off 

 the spirits which bring death, sickness, and misfortune, and to 

 invoke others which confer success and love, but he is a priest, 

 who by communion with the higher powers learns and after 

 wards teaches to others the articles of a creed. The term 

 shaman means all that Capt. Ikmrke intends to express by 

 &quot;medicine-man,&quot; while that awkward compound, invented by 

 early explorers in North America, must always mislead by 

 conveying some implication of therapeutics. 



Capt. Bourke, in twenty-two years of active service in the 

 United States Army, has directed his attention to the observa 

 tion and study of the Indian tribes of the Great Plains and of 

 the Southwest. During a considerable part of that time he 

 has enjoyed special facilities and opportunities as aid-de-camp 

 to Maj. Gen. Crook. His familiarity with the tribes in general 

 enables him to introduce many comparisons between the 

 Apache, who are the special subjects of his paper, and many 

 other tribes and to note parallels and contrasts in the practices 

 of all. The extensive reading which is indicated by his copious 

 list of authorities consulted has enabled him to supply anal 

 ogies from foreign lands and remote ages, so that his paper is 

 much more comprehensive than its title. 



Among the many topics suggestively treated are those of 

 the rhombus or bull roarer, the scratch stick, and the drinking 

 reed, all considered ceremonially; but in especial the discus 

 sions upon hoddentin and the izze-kloth present unsuspected 

 facts and permit curious inferences. 



Hoddentin is the pollen of the tide, which is a variety of the 

 cat-tail rush growing in all the ponds of the southwestern parts 

 of the United States. It is a yellow powder with which small 

 buckskin bags are filled and those bags then attached to the 



