7 6 ETHNO-BOTANY OF THE COAHUILLA INDIANS 



Indian appreciates thoroughly the mystery of life and the reality of 

 the unseen. A large part of the training of an Indian and much of his 

 mature exertions is devoted to the cultivation of spiritual emotions. 

 The student of Indian society has come to understand that chieftain 

 ship in a tribe rested not alone upon skill, courage, and resourceful 

 ness, but also upon the reputed strength of a warrior s &quot;medicine.&quot; 



The discussion of the Indian shaman s position and practice forms 

 no part of our subject and is referred to, as is also the temescal, merely 

 to introduce our study of remedial plants and herbs. Suffice it to say, 

 that the medicine-men among the Coahuillas seem to form a special 

 class, having undergone a preparation and initiation that makes them 

 exorcists and men of influence for life. They are still common and 

 keep up their practices although most of the mountain Coahuillas are 

 nominally Roman Catholics. They operate on the sick in the manner 

 common throughout America, by prayers, barkings, coughing, biting 

 the flesh, and occasionally pretending by sucking to draw foreign sub 

 stances from the body. Their practices appear to be often successful, 

 relieving the patient s mind and assisting the restoration to health. 

 Father Boscana, who described the practices of medicine-men at San 

 Juan Capistrano, related that their cures were frequent and only to be 

 explained by witchcraft. 1 



55. The use of the sudatory or sweat-house, well known through 

 out California by the Aztec word &quot; temescal,&quot; was formerly very com 

 mon in the Southwest and California. For a considerable number of 

 complaints its effects were doubtless beneficial, and the general health 

 was probably improved by it as well. Foreigners have generally 

 marveled at and derided this institution, but except for injury done to 

 the eyes by smoke its effects are pleasant and comforting, and the cold 

 bath which invariably followed the sweat reduced the body to a normal 

 condition and to a healthy and vigorous organization could do no 

 injury. But the use of the temescal for the fearful, infectious plagues, 

 as small-pox, was, according to all accounts, very injurious. Resort to 

 it when affected by these diseases invariably resulted fatally. This 

 result may have served to discredit the practice, for it is no longer 

 customary in any but a few remote Indian villages. There is a temes 

 cal at Puerta la Cruz, near Warner s ranch, one at San Isidro, and 

 one in the Coyote canon. There is also an abandoned one near La 

 Mesa in the Cabeson valley, with a dry well at hand. Other than these 

 I know of none in use in southern California. Those at San Isidro 



1 Chinigchinich) p. 312. 



