244 BUREAU Of AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 34 



When an apparently healthy man or woman dies it is generally 

 believed that some medicine-man has caused the death through his 

 magic, that the victim may have been called away by a dead person, 

 or otherwise bewitched. 



The women beat the whirlwind with sticks, so that it goes away 

 from their houses. If it overturns anything, they must not touch the 

 object until they have sprinkled ashes over it; failure to observe 

 this precaution might cause them to become deformed. If they find 

 a flattened or twisted branch in a bush, they think it is due to the 

 whirlwind; such a branch possesses power to cure those touching 

 objects overturned by the whirlwind, before ashes had been sprinkled 

 on them. The Pima believe that anyone eating beans from a mes-= 

 quite tree struck by lightning would have sores on the skin (herpes 

 zoster?), beginning in the region of the liver. Sometimes the sores 

 are said to extend from the liver over the left shoulder and down 

 the back again. A remedy for these sores is a piece of wood that 

 has been split from a tree by lightning or simply a piece of wood 

 from a tree thus struck; this is soaked in water and the patient drinks 

 the infusion. Another remedy is to sing the ''lightning songs." 



The badger, the Pima believe, is capable of causing disease. It 

 makes the neck swell. The affection is easily cured by warming a 

 badger's tail and tying it over the part aftected. There are also 

 badger songs that will cure the sickness. 



Owl's feather is used in curing a person who steadily loses flesh 

 and feels ill. The cause of such illness is supposed to be a dream 

 about long-dead relatives. A medicine-man is called, who generally 

 perceives at once that the patient dreamed of dead people. Some- 

 times a medicine-man is called who does not treat illness of that 

 particular kind, in which case he sends the patient to the proper 

 specialist. 



There are a number of vegetal remedies used in the tribe. 



The Papago bring and sell to the Pima every year a little peyote. 

 The Pima eat it in small quantities, but probably not for medicinal 

 purposes only. 



The root of the a-a-dji-naf (' 'slender-cactus:" Opuntia leptocauHs), 

 ground up and boiled, is given as a tea in children's diarrhea when 

 the excretions are whitish in color. 



The gum of the greasewood is employed in ordinary, but especially 

 in bloody, diarrhea. The gum is boiled and the patient drinks the 

 tea. 



81iir-ko-lii, the ordinary greasewood (Covillea tridentata), is used 

 by the Pima as well as by the Maricopa as medicine. In stomach 

 troubles the branches are boiled and the decoction is drunk hot. In 

 cases of pains in the chest, and even in other parts of the body, the 



