MEDICINE-MEN OV THE APACHE. 



This confession, grunting that it really existed, could well be com 

 pared to the warpath secret, which imposed upon all the warriors 

 engaged the duty of making a clean breast of all delinquencies and 

 secured them immunity from punishment for the same, even if they had 

 been offenses against some of the other warriors present. 



The Sioux and others had a custom of &quot; striking the post&quot; in their 

 dances, especially the sun dance, and there was then an obligation upon 

 the striker to tell the truth. |I was told that the medicine-men were wont 

 to strike with a club the stalagmites in the sacred oaves of the Apache, 

 but what else they did I was not able to ascertain. 1 



Under the title of &quot;hoddentin will be found fhe~&quot;statement made by 

 one of the Apache as to the means employed to secure the presence 

 of a medicine-man at the bedside of the sick. I give it for what it is 

 worth, merely stating that Kohl, in his Kitchi-Gami, if I remember cor 

 rectly, refers to something of the same kind where the medicine-man is 

 represented as being obliged to respond to every summons made unless 

 he can catch the messenger within a given distance and kick him. 



There is very little discrepancy of statement as to what would hap 

 pen to a medicine-man in case of failure to cure; but many conflicting 

 stories have been in circulation as to the number of patients he would 

 be allowed to kill before incurring risk of punishment. My own con 

 clusions are that there is no truth whatever in the numbers alleged, 

 either three or seven, but that a medicine-man would be in danger, 

 under certain circumstances, if he let only one patient die on his hands. 

 These circumstances would be the verdict of the spirit doctors that he 

 was culpably negligent or ignorant. He could evade death at the hands 

 of the patient s kinsfolk only by night or by demonstrating that a witch 

 had been at the bottom of the mischief. 1 



Medicine-men, called &quot;wizards&quot; by Falkner, sometimes were killed 

 by the Patagonians, when unsuccessful in their treatment, and were 

 also obliged to wear women s clothing. They were selected in youth 

 for supposed qualifications, especially if epileptic. 2 



In Hispaniola we are told that when a man died his friends resorted 

 to necromancy to learn whether he had died through the neglect of the 

 attending medicine-man to observe the prescribed fasts. If they found 

 the medicine-man guilty, they killed him and broke all his bones. In 

 spite of this the medicine-man often returned to life and had to be 

 killed again, and mutilated by castration and otherwise. 3 



Herrera repeats the story about a patient who died and whose rela 

 tives felt dissatisfied with the medicine-man : 



Para saber si la muerte file por su culpa, tomabau el eiimo de cierta lerva, i cor- 

 taban las vfias del muerto, i los cabellos de encima de la frente, i los liacian polvos, 



1 For identical notions among tin; Arawaks of Guiana, Tupis of Brazil, Creeks, Patagonians, Kaffirs, 

 Chiijiiitos, and others, see the works of Schoolcraft, Herbert Spencer, Srhultzc, and others. 



a Extract from the Jesuit Falkner s account of Patagonia, in Voyages of the Adventure and Ileayle, 

 London, 1839, vol. 2, \&amp;gt;. 163. 



3 &quot;Nul de ces m6dechks no pent monrir ai ls nelui enlevent les tcsticules. 1 Brasseur do Bourbourg, 

 Trans, of Fra Roman Pane, DCS Antiquitcs des Indiens, Paris, 1864, p. 451. 



