470 MEDICINE-MEN OF THE APACHE. 



/ Tlic medicine-men of the Apacne do not assume to live upon food 



| different from that used by the laity. There are such things as sacred 



v. feasts among the tribes of North America as, for example, the, feast 



of stewed puppy at the sun dance of the Sioux but in these all people 



share. 



In themortuary ceremonies of the medicine-men there is a difference 

 of degree, but not of kind. The Mohave, however, believe that the 

 medicine-men go to a heaven of their own. They also believe vaguely 

 in four different lives after this one. 



Cabeza de Vaca says that the Floridians buried their ordinary dead, 

 but burned their medicine-men, whose incinerated bones they preserved 

 and drank in water. &quot;After they [the medicine-men and women of 

 the Dakota] have four times run their career in human shape they are 

 &quot;annihilated.&quot; 2 Schultze says that the medicine-men of the Sioux and 

 the medicine-women also, after death &quot;maybe transformed into wild 

 beasts.&quot; 2 



Surgeon Smart shows that among other offices entrusted to the med 

 icine-men of the Apache was the reception of distinguished strangers. 3 

 Long asserts that the medicine-men of the Otoe, Omaha, and others 

 along the Missouri pretended to be able to converse with the fetus in 

 utero and predict the sex. 4 Nothing of that kind has ever come tinder 

 my notice. Adair says that the medicine-men of the Cherokee would 

 not allow snakes to be killed. 5 The Apache will not let snakes be killed 

 within the limits of the camp by one. of their own people, but they will 

 not only allow a stranger to kill them, but request him to do so. They 

 made this request of me on three occasions. 



Several of the most influential medicine-men whom I have known 

 were blind, among others old Xa-ta-do-tash, whose medicine hat fig 

 ures in these pages. Whether this blindness was the result of old 

 age or due to the frenzy of dancing until exhausted in all seasons I am 

 unable to conjecture. Schultze says of the shamans of Siberia: &quot;This 

 artificial frenzy has such a serious effect upon the body, and more par 

 ticularly the eyes, that many of the shamans become blind; a circum 

 stance which enhances the esteem in which they are held.&quot; 6 Some of 

 the medicine-men of Peru went blind from overexertion in their dances, 

 although Gomara assigns as a reason that it was from fear of the demon 

 with whom they talked. &quot;Y ami algunos se quiebran los ojos para 

 semejante liablar [i. e., talk with the devil] ; y creo que lo hacian de 

 miedo, porque todos ellos se atapan los ojos cuando hablan con el.&quot; 7 



Dunbar tells us that the medicine-men of the Pawnee swallowed 

 arrows and knives, and had also the trick of apparently killing a man 



1 Ternaux-Compans, vol. 7, p. 110. 

 Schultze, Fetichisui, New York, 1885, ]&amp;gt;. 4. 

 Smithsonian Report for 1867. 

 Long s Expedition, Philadelphia, 182;), p. l&amp;gt;:!8. 

 Hist, of the American Indians, p. 238. 

 Svliultze, Fetichism, New York, 1885, p. 52. 

 Hisl. de las Indias, p. 232. 



