HRPLicKA] PHYSIOLOGICAL AND MEDICAL OBSERVATIONS 249 



these doctors possess the power to reform even unruly children and 

 babies and make them behave afterwards. 



There are used in the tribe, nevertheless, certain vegetal remedies and 

 physical means to alleviate sickness. If the abdomen is '' rumpy ' ' after 

 childbirth it is thought to be full of blood ; in this case the woman lies 

 abdomen downward on hot sand, at the same time drinking hot 

 water, and "all comes out." 



Among the Yuma old invalids inhabit separate huts." Numerous 

 herbs and some physical means, especially rubbing and cauterization 

 with live coals, are used in curing. The hopelessly ill lie in the sun. 

 Details were not learned. Hefferman^ saw mud applied to a wound, 

 burning the skin with a live coal on the end of a stick, and admin- 

 istering an emulsion of pumpkin and watermelon seeds ; he also saw a 

 case where the patient's stomach was kneaded by the medicine-man's 

 knees. 



Among the less civilized Mexican Indians all that relates to diseases 

 and curing is substantially like what is met with in the tribes of New 

 Mexico and Arizona; but among those who live near the Mexicans 

 (and these are in tlie majoritj^ many views, methods, and remedies 

 have been adopted from the latter, and much of Indian origin has 

 been forgotten with time. 



Among the Opata Catholics prayer and offerings to saints, and reli- 

 gious amulets in curing have taken the place of the prayers and songs 

 of the shaman addressed to the deities, and of old fetishes. 



Sick persons among the Tuape Opata must not touch water except 

 to drink, and must not shave, cut or comb theu' hair, or taste any 

 fruit. To rub lard into the body is regarded as very beneficial. 



The Opata women, like the Papago, Apache, and others, attribute 

 a peculiar influence on the health of the new-born child to the anterior 

 cranial fontanel. This soft place on the infant's head is called mollera 

 or mojera, and is believed to be capable of ''falling down," thus mak- 

 ing the child ill. To cure an illness supposedly due to this cause a 

 woman takes the child on her knee, lets its head hang downward, and, 

 introducing her thumb into its mouth, presses strongly upward upon 

 the palate, sometimes with force enough to abrade it, thus "raising" 

 the mojera. At times even when an older child is ill an old woman 

 will suggest that its mojera needs "raising," whereupon the patient is 

 held by the heels and shaken up and down. 



Native remedial treatment is on the decline. In olden times the 

 people used many means which are now forgotten. The anonymous 

 Rudo Ensayo is replete with accounts of native medicinal herbs and 

 their uses. There were remedies for amenorrhea, difficult labor, 



a" The ignored, aged, and infirm construct small conical huts of willow twigs." Special agent Dr. 

 W. E. Ferrcbee, in the Report on Indians, Eleventh Census, 1890, 221, Washington, 18S4. 

 ^Medicine among the Yimias, California MedicalJournal, San Francisco, 1898, xvii, 135-140. 



