490 MEDICINE-MEN OF THE APACHE. 



THK SCRATCH STICK. 



When Gen. Crook s expedition against the Chiricahua Apache 

 reached the heart of the Sierra Madre, Mexico, in 1883, it was my good 

 fortune to find on the ground in Geronimo s rancheria two insignificant 

 looking articles of personal equipment, to which I learned the Apache 

 attached the greatest importance. One of these was a very small piece / 

 of hard wood, cedar, or pine, about two and ighalf to three inches long \ 

 and half a finger in thickness, and the other a small section of the cane \ 

 indigenous to the Southwest and of about the same dimensions. The 

 first was the ^scratch, stick and the second the drinking reed. 



The rule enjoined among the Apache is that for the firsT four times 

 one of their young men goes out on the warpath he must refrain from 

 scratching his head with his fingers or letting water touch his lips. 

 How to keep this vow and at the same time avoid unnecessary personal 

 discomfort and suffering is the story told by these petty fragments from 

 the Apache s ritual. He does not scratch his head with his fingers; he 

 makes use of this scratch stick. He will not let water touch his lips, 

 but sucks it into his throat through this tiny tube. A long leather cord 

 attached both stick and reed to the warrior s belt and to each other. 

 This was all the information 1 was able to obtain of a definite character. 

 Whether these things had to be prepared by the medicine-men or by 

 the young warrior himself; with what ceremonial, if any, they had to 

 be manufactured, and under what circumstances of time and place, I 

 was unable to ascertain to my own satisfaction, and therefore will 

 not extend my remarks or burden the student s patience with inco 

 herent statements from sources not absolutely reliable. That the use 

 of the scratch stick and the drinking reed was once very general in 

 America and elsewhere, and that it was not altogether dissociated from 

 ritualistic or ceremonial ideas, may oe gathered from the citations 

 appended. 



In her chapter entitled Preparatory ceremony of the young war 

 rior&quot; Mrs. Emerson says: &quot;He does not touch his ears or head with 

 his hand,&quot; explaining in a footnote, &quot;the head was sometimes made a 

 sacrificial offering to the sun.&quot; 1 Tanner relates that the young Ojibwa 

 warrior for the &quot;three first times&quot; that he accompanies a war party 

 &quot;must never scratch his head or any other part of his body with his 

 fingers, but if he is compelled to scratch he must use a small stick. 2 

 Kohl states that the Ojibwa, while on the warpath, &quot; will never sit down 

 in the shade of a tree or scratch their heads ; at least, not with their 

 fingers. The warriors, however, are permitted to scratch themselves 

 with a piece of wood or a comb.&quot; 3 Mackenzie states regarding the 

 Indians whom he met on the Columbia, in 52 38 , N. lat., &quot;instead of a 



1 Indiau Myths, Boston, 1884, p. 250. 

 &quot;Tanner s Narrative, p. 122. 

 3 Kitchi-Kami, p. 1(44. 



