762 THE GHOST-DANCE RELIGION [eth.axx.h 



argument he accompanied the messengers to the sick woman's house. 

 As he entered, the chief doctor stepped up to him and looking intently 

 into his face, said, "I can see your heart within your body, and it is 

 black with evil things. You are not fit to live. You are making this 

 woman sick, but we shall take out the badness from her body." With 

 the cloths and lighted candles the two doctors then approached the sick 

 woman and commanded her to arise, which she did, although she had 

 been supposed to be too weak to stand. Waving the cloths iu front of 

 her with a gentle fanning motion, and blowing upon her at the same 

 time, they proceeded to drive the disease out of her body, beginning 

 at the feet and working upward until, as they approached the head the 

 principal doctor changed the movement to a rapid fanning and corre- 

 sponding blowing, while the assistant stood ready with his cloth to 

 seize the disease when it should be driven out. All this time the medi- 

 cine-man standing a few feet away was shaking and quivering like one 

 in a fit, and the trembling became more violent and spasmodic as the 

 doctors increased the speed of their motions. Finally the leader brought 

 his hands together over the woman's head, where, just as the disease 

 attempted to escape, it was seized and imprisoned in the cloth held by 

 his assistant. Then, going up to the medicineman, with a few rapid 

 passes they fanned the disease into his body and he fell down dead. 

 The woman recovered, and with her sister has recently come up to the 

 Yakima country as an apostle of the new religion, preaching the doc- 

 trines and performing the wonders which she has been taught by the 

 Nisqually doctors. 



This is the Indian story as told by the half-blood, who did not claim 

 to have been an eye-witness, but spoke of it as a matter of common 

 knowledge and beyond question. It is doubtless substantially correct. 

 The hypnotic action described is the same which the author has 

 repeatedly seen employed in the Ghost dance, resulting successively 

 in involuntary trembling, violent spasmodic action, rigidity, and final 

 deathlike unconsciousness. The Ghost dancers regard the process not 

 only as a means of bringing them into trance communication with their 

 departed friends, but also as a preventive and cure of disease, just as 

 we have our faith healers and magnetic doctors. With the Indian's 

 implicit faith in the supernatural ability of the doctor, it is easy to sup- 

 pose that the mental effect on the woman, who was told and believed 

 that she was to be cured, would aid recovery if recovery was possible. 

 It is unlikely that death resulted to the medicineman. It is more prob- 

 able that under the hypnotic spell of the doctors he fell unconscious 

 ami apparently lifeless and remained so perhaps lor a considerable time, 

 as frequently happens with sensitive subjects in the Ghost dance. The 

 fact that the same process should produce exactly opposite effects in 

 the two subjects is easily explainable. The object of the hypnotic per 

 formance was simply to bring the mind of the subject under the control 

 of the operator. This accomplished, the mental, and ultimately the 



