224 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 34 



ter are adept in jugglery. The medicine-men are called on in many 

 contingencies by individuals, and even by the tribe, and the duties of 

 some are those of the priest rather than of the healer. A few among 

 them are trusted implicitly, but the majority are chiefly feared. 

 They exercise a profound influence for good or evil in the tribes, 

 but they themselves occasionally suffer. Of CQurse they do not 

 always cure. Failures in the case of children are readily excused. 

 Single failures with adults may also be satisfactorily explained on 

 the ground, for example, that the bad heart of the patient was re- 

 sponsible for the- trouble, but if a number of patients die succes- 

 sively the career of the medicine-man concerned generally comes to 

 an end. He is believed to have lost his curative powers, or even 

 to have become a wizard, and, to prevent his doing further harm, 

 the tribe may kill him. Wliile the killing of a medicine-man under 

 •such circumstances has never been witnessed by whites, so far as 

 known to the writer, the evidence given by the natives themselves 

 must be regarded as conclusive. '^ 



The writer was shown the skeleton of a Pima medicine-man (with 

 which were associated some of his paraphernalia for curing) executed 

 by his tribe more than thirty years ago. About the year 1900, 

 according to information obtained among the Yuma, a medicine-man 

 in that tribe was condemned to death, and soon afterward dis- 

 appeared.'' 



Medicine-women 



In addition to medicine-men, there are also in numerous tribes 

 one or more medicine-women. A few of these practise in the same 

 manner as the men, but the majority serve chiefly as midwives and 

 herbalists in much the same manner as do corresponding practi- 

 tioners among the less civilized whites. They are not addicted to 

 the tricker}^ of the men, but aid in confinements for a fee, and 

 give simple remedies, mostly herbs. Some of the medicine-women 

 met by the writer were shrewd and experienced, and their methods 

 were qui'te rational and effectual. 



Tribal Details 



Medicine-men and a few medicine-women are still found among the 

 Apache, particularly on the White Mountain reservation; there are 

 also women especially skillful in confinements, and others who sell 

 medicinal herbs and roots. The medicine-men and medicine-women 

 proper are called by the Apache ty-yin, which means '^ wonderful" 

 (see pi. xxvii, a). Their reputed knowledge and their songs are 



"Mrs. Stevenson states that she saved a Zuni in(>dipine-man from hanging, which was to have been 

 inflicted on him for supposed witchcraft. 



(lAbout 1890 four Yuma were tried and fomul guilty of killing a medicine-man who had lost four patients 

 (W. T. Ueflennan, Medicine Among the Yuinas, California Medical Journal, SanFrancisco, 1890, xvii, 

 13(5-137). 



