580 MEDICINE-MEN OF THE APACHE. 



by a woman ; and if the patient is a woman, then these good services 

 being rendered by a man.&quot; 



A cord with nine knots in it, tied round the neck of a child suffering 

 from whooping cough, was esteemed a sovereign remedy in Worcester, 

 England, half a century ago. 



Again, references will be found to the superstitious use of &quot; liga 

 tures&quot; down to a comparatively recent period, and &quot; I remember it was 

 a custom in the north of England for boys that swam to wear an eel s 

 skin about their naked leg to prevent the cramp.&quot; 2 



THE MEDICINE HAT. 



The medicine hat of the old and blind Apache medicine-man, Nan- 

 ta do-tash, was an antique affair of buckskin, much begrimed with soot 

 and soiled by long use. Nevertheless, it gave life and strength to him 

 who wore it, enabled the owner to peer into the future, to tell who had 

 stolen ponies from other people, to foresee the approach of an enemy, 

 and to aid in the cure of the sick. This was its owner s own statement 

 in conversation with me, but it would seem that the power residing in 

 the helmet or hat was not very permanent, because when the old man 

 discovered from his wife that I had made a rude drawing of it he 

 became extremely excited and said that such a delineation would 

 destroy all the life of the hat. His fears were allayed by presents of 

 money and tobacco, as well as by some cakes and other food. As a 

 measure of precaution, he insisted upon sprinkling pinches of hoddentin 

 over myself, the hat, and the drawing of it, at the same time muttering 

 various half-articulate prayers. He returned a month afterwards and 

 demanded the sum of $30 for damage done to the hat by the drawing, 

 since which time it has ceased to &quot; work &quot; when needed. 



This same old man gave me an explanation of all the symbolism 

 depicted upon the hat and a great deal of valuable information in 

 regard to the profession of medicine-men, their specialization, the 

 prayers they recited, etc. The material of the hat, as already stated, 

 was buckskin. How that was obtained I can not assert positively, but 

 from an incident occurring under my personal observation in the Sierra 

 Madre in Mexico in 1883, where our Indian scouts and the medicine 

 men with them surrounded a nearly grown fawn and tried to capture 

 it alive, as well as from other circumstances too long to be here inserted, 

 I am of the opinion that the buckskin to be used for sacred purposes 

 among the Apache must, whenever possible, be that of a strangled 

 animal, as is the case, according to Dr. Matthews, among the Navajo. 



The body of Nan-ta-do-tash s cap (Fig. 434, p. 503) was unpainted, but 

 the figures upon it were in two colors, a brownish yellow and an earthy 

 blue, resembling a dirty Prussian blue. The ornamentation was of the 

 downy feathers and black-tipped plumes of the eagle, pieces of abalone 

 shell, and chalchihuitl, and a snake s rattle on the apex. 



1 Black, Folk-Medicine, p. 111. 

 &quot;Brand, Top. Ant., vol. 3, pp. 288, 324. 



