HRDLicKA] PHYSIOLOGICAL AND MEDICAL OBSERVATIONS 241 



of herbs, which soon acts as an emetic. The vomiting is supposed 

 to clean tlie body spiritually as well as physically." 



At times the headmen make a special ceremony, the purpose of 

 which is a wholesale prevention or cure of diseases. 



The splinters from ti-ees struck by lightning have, among the Ilopi, 

 a reputation for great ethcacy in the treatment of fractures; they are 

 not used as splints but as fetishes. 



A peculiar method of treatment, which Doctor Fewkes saw, was a 

 tight bandaging of a sore limb with a rope. At times, it is said, 

 even the body may be thus wound about. The reason or object of 

 this treatment was not learned. (Compare notes on the Mescaleros, 

 in tliis chapter.) 



Two antidotes for snake bite were heard of among the tribe: A 

 secret decoction of a number of herbs, which is drunk,'' and the appli- 

 cation to the wound of the ventral surface of the disemboweled snake. 



The Zufii also have numerous herbs and roots which they use as 

 remedies. Many of these were collected, and will eventually be 

 described, by Mrs. Stevenson. 



All persons among the Zuni recovering from critical illnesses are 

 said to be adopted into the medicine order. Those who have been 

 struck by lightning and have survived are believed to have special 

 powers for setting fractures. 



There are practised in the tribe rubbing and also wound healing '' 

 and tooth pulling. Fractures are treated with splints. Pifion gum 

 is much in favor in treatment of wounds, being applied to the sur- 

 face or put within. 



Among the Papago the treatment is the same as among other 

 tribes, mostly by incantations, partly by herbs. Open wounds are 

 always treated with powders, gum, or decoctions, which chiefly in- 

 duce suppuration, and healing by granulation. In fracture there 

 may be applied to the injured limb some supposedly healing sub- 

 stances, but it is also tightly bound up in sticks corresponding to the 

 splints used by the civilized practitioner. Cauterization is used in 

 the tribe in acute or localized pains. A bit of cotton or a little cot- 

 tony parasitic ball from the Lycium andersoni is burnetl on the skin 

 over the sore spot.'' 



In acute indigestion the Papago boil for a little while some of the 

 red earth taken from beneath the fire; after being strained a little 



a See descriptions of the ceremony by Stephen, Fewkes, and Hough. 



6 See also Report on Indians, Eleventh Census, 1890, 198, Washington, 1894. 



c Interesting cases of this have been described liy F. H. Gushing in A Case of Primitiye Surgery, Sci- 

 ence, June 25, 1S97, and by Mrs. M.C. Stevenson, TwenUj-third Annvml Report of the Bureau of American 

 Ethnology. Other treatment is also descrilsed by Mrs. Stevenson. 



. "In acute local pain they [the Papago] sometimes put a piece of cotton on the flesh and burn it there, 

 repeating the process on a new spot at a little distance." C. W. Wood, special agent, in Report on 

 Indians, Eleventh Census, 1890, 146, Washington, 1894. 



3452— Bull. 34—08 16 



