NO. II MUSIC OF TULE INDIANS OF PANAMA DENSMORE 1/ 



I go to look for medicine in the cool places where the rivers start, 



I see the medicine that ] want ; it is a vine high up in a tree, 



It will be strong, like the way it clings to the tree. 



The fruit is blue clusters, cool like bunches of raindrops — 



Cool as the rain falling gently. 



O medicine, you must make the little children cool and you must not let them 



be sick again, 

 You must cool the houses of the sick children. 

 You will be used to bathe their little bodies. 

 O medicine, your name is nugli, nugli, niigli, 

 (I say it three times to make it strong.) 



The thunder always falls from you, the lightning falls from you. 

 When they are far away they come to you and burn like a fire. 

 The thunder rolls, the rain falls, and the rivers overflow. 

 Rain clouds fall from you, that is why you are always cool. 

 Rain clouds come to your vines and tie up to them, 

 Rain comes to the nugli, nugli, nugli. 

 When you come to the child's house you must be cool and make everything 



cool like a cool rain. 

 You will go into the child's body and make him cool inside so he will get well, 



and you will make him strong. 

 You will not be alone when you come into the child's house. 

 A strong man-spirit watches to see the medicine work, and two spirit-girls 



will bathe the child. 

 The girl knows the child is sick by looking at it. 

 She is coming down the river to see the child. 



When she enters the room it grows cool, even the clothing of the people is cool. 

 The man brings a cool fan, 

 The girl is bathing the child, you will bathe the child's body. 



The last line is sung three times " to make it stronger." The singer 

 then addresses a second sort of medicine saying, " You come from 

 far tip, where the river begins." This medicine is called igiliwa ina, 

 and the song, if given in full, would repeat the preceding portion 

 substituting this for the name of the first medicine. The song then 

 mentions a third medicine called inakaryaka tuba in a similar man- 

 ner. All three are vines and they were combined in a medicine that 

 was used for children both externally and internally. 



Songs were sung during the treatment of the sick, only one of 

 these being recorded. The statement that " the Tule have doctors 

 for snake bite as well as for headache " suggests that their doctors 

 are specialists, as among the Indians of North America, but the 

 writer's notes do not contain a definite statement to that effect. 



