584 MEDICINE-MEN OF THE APACHE. 



facing the east; then the south side, facing the north, and back to the 

 original position. While at each position, each of the medicine-men in 

 successioii, after making all the passes and gestures described, seized 

 the cradle in his hands, pressed it to his breast, and afterwards lifted it 

 up to the sky, next to the earth, and lastly to the four cardinal points, 

 all the time prancing, whistling, and snorting, the mother and her squaw 

 friends adding to the dismal din by piercing shrieks and ululations. 



That ended the ceremonies for that night so far as the baby person 

 ally was concerned, but the medicine-men retired down to the parade 

 and resumed their saltation, swinging, bending, and spinning with such 

 violence that they resembled, in a faint way perhaps, the Dervishes of 

 the Bast. The understanding was that the dance had to be kept up as 

 long as there was any fuel unconsumed of the large pile provided; any 

 other course would entail bad luck. It was continued for four nights, 

 the colors and the symbols upon the bodies varying from night to night. 

 Among the inodes of exorcism enumerated by Burton, we find &quot;cutting 

 the air with swords.&quot; Picart speaks of the &quot; Heches ou les baguettes 

 dont les Arabes Idolatres se servoient pour deviner par le sort.&quot; He 

 says that the diviner &quot; teuoit a la main&quot; these arrows, which certainly 

 suggest the swords or wands of the Apache medicine-men in the spirit 

 dance. 2 



There were four medicine-men, three of whom were dancing and in 

 conference with the spirits, and the fourth of whom was general superin 

 tendent of the whole dance, and the authority to whom the first three 

 reported the result of their interviews with the ghostly powers. 



The mask and headdress of the first of the dancers, who seemed to 

 be the leading one, was so elaborate that in the hurry and meager light 

 supplied by the flickering fires it could not be portrayed. It was very 

 much like that of number threej_ but so fully covered with the plumage 

 of the eagle, hawk, andTapparently, the owl, that it was difficult to as 

 sert this positively. Each of these medicine-men had pieces of red flan 

 nel tied to his elbows and a stick about four feet long in each hand. 

 Number one s mask was spotted black and white and shaped in front 

 like the snout of a mountain lion. His back was painted with large 

 arrowheads in brown and white, which recalled the protecting arrows 

 tightly bound to the backs of Zufii fetiches. Number two had on his 

 back a figure in white ending between the shoulders in a cross. Num 

 ber three s back was simply Avhitened with clay. 



All these headdresses were made of slats of the Spanish bayonet, un- 

 painted, excepting that on number two was a figure in black, which 

 could not be made out, and that the horizontal crosspieces on number 

 three were painted blue. 



The dominos or masks were of blackened buckskin, for the two 

 fastened around the neck by garters or sashes; the neckpiece of num 

 ber three was painted red ; the eyes seemed to be glass knobs or brass 



1 Anatomy of Melancholy. London, 1827, vol. 1, p. 1137. 



1 Picart, Ceremonies et C ofttuines, etc., Amsterdam, 1729, vol. 5, p. 50. 



