548 MEDICINE-MEN OF THE APACHE. 



At times one may find in the &quot; medicine&quot; of the more prominent and 

 influential of the chiefs and medicine-men of the Apache little sacks 

 which, when opened, are found to contain pounded galena; this they 

 tell me is a &quot; great medicine,&quot; fully equal to hoddentin, but more ditti- 

 cult to obtain. It is used precisely as hoddeutiu is used ; that is, both 

 as a face paint and as a powder to be thrown to the sun or other ele 

 ments to be propitiated. The Apache are reluctant to part with it, 

 and from living Apache I have never obtained more than one small 

 ickofit.. 



No one seems to understand the reason for its employment. Mr. 

 William M. Beebe has suggested that perhaps the fact that galena 

 always crystallizes in cubes, and that it would thus seem to have a 

 mysterious connection with the cardinal points to which all. nomadic 

 peoples pay great attention as being invested with the power of keep 

 ing wanderers from going astray, would not be without influence upon 

 the minds of the medicine-men, who are quick to detect and to profit by 

 all false analogies. The conjecture appears to me to be a most plausi 

 ble one, but I can submit it only as a conjecture, for no explanation of the 

 kind was received from any of the Indians. All that I can say is that 

 whenever procurable it was always used by the Apache on occasions 

 of unusual importance and solemnity and presented as a round disk 

 painted in the center of the forehead. 



The significance of all these markings of the face among savage and 

 half-civilized nations is a subject deserving of the most careful research ; 

 like the sectarial marks of the Hindus, all, or nearly all, the marks 

 made upon the faces of American Indians have a meaning beyond the 

 ornamental or the grotesque. 



Galena was observed in use among the tribes seen by Oabeza de Vaca. 

 &quot; Us nous dounerent beaucoup de bourses, contenant des sachets de mar- 

 cassites et d antimome en poudre.&quot; (&quot;Taleguillas de margaxita y de 

 alcohol molido.&quot;) 1 This word &quot; margaxita &quot; means ironpyjrites. The 

 Encyclopaedia Britannica says that the Peruvians used it for &quot;amulets;&quot; 

 so also did the Apache. What Vaca took for antimony was pounded 

 galena no doubt. He was by this time in or near the Itocky Mountains. 2 



On the northwest coast of America we read of the natives : &quot;One, 

 &quot;however, as he came near, took out from his bosom some iron or lead- 

 colored micaceous earth and drew marks with it across his cheeks in 

 the shape of two pears, stuffed his nostrils with grass, and thrust thin 

 pieces of bone through the cartilage of his nose.&quot; :l 



It is more than probable that some of the face-painting with &quot;black 

 earth,&quot; &quot;ground charcoal,&quot; etc., to which reference is made by the early 

 writers, may have been galena, which substance makes a deep-black 



1 Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, in Ternaux-Compana. Voy., vol. 7, p. 220. 



a Sec also I&amp;gt;avi8, Conquest of New Mexico, p. !&amp;gt;U. 



3 \Vi]li;tm Coxe, Russian Discoveries between Asia and America, London, 1803, p. 57, quoting Stelltir. 



