HRDLicK-A] PHYSIOLOGICAL AND MEDICAL OBSERVATIOISIS 231 



The Jicarillas, Mescaleros, and Taralmmare guard themselves with 

 much care against venereal contagion. The Jicarilla women, who 

 are threatened with deatli by the men of the tribe should they con- 

 tract a venereal disease, believe that all white men have such 

 diseases, and in consequence avoid them. 



Folk Medicine 



Independent of and not interfering with supernatural means of 

 healing there is much simple general knowledge of actual remedies. 

 There are numerous plants and modes of treatment, the use and 

 utility of which are known to all in a given locality, even to the older 

 children ; while others are known only by phratries or individuals. The 

 use of such means is empirical and by no means always eflfectual; 

 yet some are of service, and the mode of their employment is occa- 

 sionally quite rational. Separate tribes and even portions of one 

 tribe use different herbs and means; a few plants, however, as well 

 as various physical practices are apparently known over a wide ter- 

 ritory; but a few of the plants given as remedies are poisonous. The 

 parts utilized are mostly roots, least often seeds and flowers. In 

 most instances the medicine is taken in the form of a decoction, but 

 it is used also as an infusion; in the latter case, after being prepared 

 by chewing, it is applied externally as a salve or a poultice. The dose 

 given is generally ample and is not repeated, though to this rule there 

 are exceptions. In only a few tribes are several herbs mixed together 

 in one medicine. 



Other curative means employed by the tribes include sweating, 

 bandaging, splints, scarification, cauterizing, rubbing or kneading, 

 pressure (see under Labor) , clyster, and vesication. Some of the cur- 

 ative agents may have been introduced by whites, but no evidence 

 was obtained on this point. Many of the practices and remedies are 

 undoubtedly original with the Indians, and some are quite ancient. 



The curing of diseases among the Southern Ute is in the hands of 

 several native medicine-men and seems different in no important 

 respect from that among other tribes of the Southwest. The people 

 are more than commonly superstitious in all that pertains to disease. 

 At Navaho Springs the writer obtained and brought to the American 

 Museum of Natural History a fine old painted skin which used to be 

 the property of a Ute medicine-man and was believed never to have 

 failed when employed by him in curing the sick. After the death of 

 this man, however, the skin ''lost all its power" and was readily sold 

 by his wife. The piece is a well-tanned elk skin, covered dorsally 

 with the hair of the animal, while the ventral face bears an interesting 

 and artistic design in several colors (see pi. xxviii, a). 



The Jicarillas and particularly the White Mountain Apache have 

 numerous native remedies. The latter have at least six distinct 



