250 BUEEAXJ OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 34 



wounds, fractures, etc. The peyote was well known to the Opata, as 

 well as to the Yaqui. Treatment by incantation and sucking was 

 also practised. 



Old Opata women cure with such herbs as the peppermint, rosa de 

 castilla, etc. Camomile, red lead, and metallic mercury are pro- 

 cured from the dealers and used quite indiscriminately. Doctor 

 Alderman knew of a child who was given a decoction of a mixture of 

 native herbs, which resulted in death a few minutes later. Some of 

 the old women's mixtures are said to contain twenty or more ingre- 

 dients, as barks, thorns, roots, leaves, flowers, seeds, nuts, grass, and 

 domestic supplies, as coffee, rice, salt, sugar, tea, pepper, and egg- 

 shells. These are sometimes boiled in water, milk, wine, or vinegar. 

 Such concoctions are given even to babies. 



For snake bites the people employ a lactescent cathartic plant 

 called golondrina. Scalds and burns are sometimes treated by the 

 application of dog excrement. 



In flooding, the Opata women set fire to mescal wine, into which, 

 when warm, is dipped a piece of muslin ; this is introduced as far 

 as possible into the vagina. This treatment is sometimes, though not 

 generally, eftectual. 



Among the Tarahumare the ancient methods and means of curing 

 are as yet fully preserved.*^ The curing of diseases and injuries is 

 carried on by native medicine-men, who, at the same time, represent 

 intermediaries between the people and deities. The treatment is 

 partly medicinal and partly suggestive and metaphysical. There are 

 limited attempts at surgery. Medicinal plants are known generally 

 and are often employed without consulting a medicine-man. Certain 

 roots are used for disorders of the stomach. For malaria the Tarahu- 

 mare employ tascafe sabino; for dolores costales ("pains in the chest "), 

 polo mulato, or Icopalkin; for syphilis, chiilikaka or chuhucTiic, both 

 externally and internally; and for many diseases the peyote. They 

 have no very reliable remedy for stopping the flow of blood. In frac- 

 tures they use peyote; they also cut off the heads of a number of small 

 lizards {gartichas) and, after opening their bodies, bind as many as 

 possible over the fractured part. The larger open wounds also are 

 treated with peyote. In this manner, the writer was told, the Tara- 

 humare cured a serious arrow wound in one of the medicine-men. In 

 syphilis they use a small animal known, after the Mexicans, as escula- 

 pion, and the tarantula, cooking one or both of these and smearing 

 the patient's body with the decoction. In a case of orchitis attended 

 by much swelling the medicine-man applied chewed peyote, and a 

 speedy cure resulted after one application. In some diseases the odor 

 of the tascate sabino is wafted to the patient. 



a See also Hartman, The Indians of New Mexico, Congris Internatioiial des Americanistes, Stockholm, 

 1897; and C. Lumholtz, Unknown Mexico, New York, 1902. 



