No.^Tir* ^^^' EASTERN CPIEROKEE GROUPS — KUPFERER 269 



he said, "I'll try to help her." In a week or so the infant began to get 

 better. 



As these latter two examples show, both mothers vised the hospital 

 facilities at first, but when they became dissatisfied with the result, 

 they tm-ned to native healers. Thus, another factor influencing choice 

 of therapy is related to a dissatisfaction with the kind of care the 

 hospital staff gives. That is, as the Indians perceive it, the care 

 may not be proper. This dissatisfaction is borne out in the following 

 case. A toddler pulled a pot of boiling corn and lye over herself. As 

 her mother tells it: 



The blisters did not come for a couple of hours. We took her to the hospital and 

 they bandaged her and I brought her back home. She cried all night. When I 

 took her back 3 days later, that nurse ripped the bandages off and the blood 

 poured out. I took her home; I could nurse her better than that. Lloyd, he 

 came up and doctored her, told me to leave the bandages off so the heat could get 

 out. It took about a month for the burns to heal. 



During the winter of 1959-60, an elderly woman was told she had 

 cancer. Her son asked the physicians to operate, but was told that it 

 was too late for surgery. The patient was quite sure that she didn't 

 have cancer, for she said, "I forgot to tell the doctor I hurt my body 

 when I fell last December. ... I decided to go to an Indian doctor; 

 she say, I'm bruised inside." Some weeks later she remarked that she 

 was getting stouter and said, "I don't suffer like I did." Others in 

 the community agree that Liza is better. "She couldn't even turn 

 over when she got home, now she walks good." Her Indian doctor is 

 treating her for kidney trouble. Liza said she would not go back to 

 the hospital because she has medicine of her own now. 



Another area in which there is some disapproval of hospital tech- 

 nique is in obstetrics. There were only five infants born at home dur- 

 ing my stay in the field. Many Conservative women are, however, 

 apprehensive about going to the hospital to have their babies. Lucy 

 made frequent oblique remarks about staying home to have her child, 

 although it was delivered at the hospital. Many mothers disapprove of 

 the kind of postnatal care given at the hospital. There is a fu"m 

 belief that postparturient mothers should not be given cold liquids and 

 that the placenta should not be burned; if the latter is done, the 

 mothers will not regain their strength. Some new mothers are 

 treated by native doctors upon their return from the hospital. During 

 my stay, two of the mothers whose infants were delivered at home 

 said they would not go to the hospital because babies die there. In 

 fact, one firmly beheves that a doctor killed a baby of hers. In 

 conjunction with this, she said, "White doctors can cure, but they can 

 kill too, if they want to." 



74T-014— &6^— 18 



