CHAPTER XXIX. 



Mojave M.D.'s Three Mistakes Polyandry A Westernised Yankee The 

 Tin Pot "A Gentleman and a Scholard." 



I MUST give two more peculiar institutions of the Mojaves, 

 and will then change the subject and leave them. 



Regal state (?), war, a superstitious observance, have been 

 already glanced at. Medicine now claims our attention. 



A strange regulation affects the prospects in life of the 

 Mojave M.D. The "medicine-man" of that tribe has, of 

 course, a certain amount of skill. He is a rough surgeon, 

 and is possessed of some remedial knowledge as a her- 

 balist ; but is more of a sorcerer and impostor than any- 

 thing else. When one of these professors is called in, his 

 first duty is to go through a divination ceremony, and he 

 has then, prior to prescribing, to state whether the patient 

 will recover or die. Should the latter alternative be an- 

 nounced, he receives no fee. Manifestly in such a case, a 

 doctor's aid is unnecessary; and it is not supposed that 

 a feeling of gratitude on the part of the doomed man, his 

 friends, or widow expectant, for the announcement of his 

 approaching dissolution can be sufficiently strong to justify 



