DENSMORE] NORTHERN UTE MUSIC 129 
be due to “poisoning.”” Thus it was said that ‘“‘a person who had a 
bad plant could put it in a man’s footprints and poison him.”’ In 
that case it was the duty of the medicine man to learn who had poi- 
soned his patient and to counteract it. Thus he would say to the 
sick man: “I dreamed so and so, and I know who or what has poisoned 
you.” Pa’gitS said that throughout his treatments the little green 
man stayed outside the tent, and he could see him and hear what 
he said, every phase of the treatment being according to his direction. 
Nine “medicine songs’’ were recorded by Pa’git’, who said that 
he sang them all when treating the sick. The relatives of those 
whom he frequently treated had learned these songs and sang them 
with him, continuing their singing when the method of treatment 
required that he place his head against the body of the patient. 
Pa’gits’ “specialty” was the treatment of acute pain, and he said 
that he could cure pain in any part of the body. He said that he 
took from the patient’s body a ‘strange something,” sucking it out 
through the skin. Then he took it from his mouth, held it in his 
hand, and showed it to all the people, after which he put it again in 
his mouth. As soon as this substance was removed from the patient’s 
body he began to recover. Sometimes this substance is one of the 
little green man’s arrows which he has shot into the person’s body. 
In shape this ‘‘strange something”’ was said to be “like a carrot” and 
1 or 2 inches in length. In color it was red, like blood, and in texture 
it was not unlike a fingernail. The ‘‘ arrows” were always of the same 
kind, differimg only in size. Pa’gitS said that he usually had to sing five 
times before he could extract this cause of the pain from his patient’s 
body. He sings five times in one evening, cures the patient, and 
receives ‘about five or six dollars” as compensation. When he has 
. sung for some time he says to the people around him, ‘Sing harder, 
sing harder; I am going to take out what causes the pain.” Ina 
few moments he has it in his hand and shows it to them all.” 
In describing the treatment of general cases by medicine men, 
Pa’gitS said that it often took two or three weeks to cure a sick 
person, the medicine man singing at first every evening and then 
less often as the condition of the patient improved. Sometimes he 
sang two hours at a time, and if the person were very ill the medicine 
man would continue his singing until daylight. ‘If the medicine 
men are afraid a person will die, they pray and talk a great deal to 
his spirit.” 
The second group of songs in this section were recorded by a 
woman known as Mrs. Washington, who considered that she treated 
2 Fred Mart, the writer’s interpreter, stated that he once saw a treatment similar to that described by 
Pa’gitS and saw the substance apparently removed from the person’s body. It was red, about an inch 
tong, and shaped like an arrow point. 
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