122 THE ACOMA INDIANS [eth.ann.47 



When eveiyone has received his kernel the war chief is called in and 

 given the basket. He keeps a kernel of com for himself; the rest he 

 takes around the village and distributes it to the persons who have 

 remained in their houses. 



When the war chiefs return the headman asks two doctors to come 

 out from behind the altar. The medicine (wawa) is going to be admin- 

 istered now. Each doctor picks up a medicine bowl. They pray. 

 Then they go about the chamber, giving each person a draught of 

 medicine in a shell. The war chiefs are given some first. Some 

 people get two doses. Then they go back to the altar. They fill their 

 mouths with the wawa (medicine) and blow it all over the people. 

 Then the medicine men and medicine women are given medicine to 

 drinlv, and more is blown from the mouth over them. The niedicine 

 bowls are put back in their places. The headman addresses the 

 people. He thanks the medicine men for their work and thanks the 

 people for their help. He hopes that everything will be all right, etc. 



Everyone leaves now except the medicine men. It is almost dawn, 

 the ceremony ha\ang lasted all night. The wives of the medicine men 

 gather up the paraphernalia of their husbands, which they take to their 

 homes. The objects which have been sucked from the people are 

 taken out, together with a hmch for the spirits, and thrown over a 

 cliff.^* The medicine men sleep in their chamber for four nights 

 thereafter. 



Feats of magic of the medicine men. — We have already noted a num- 

 ber of magical performances of the medicine men, such as are found 

 in their curing and initiation ceremonies, but they have many others. 

 Not infrequently the medicine men will perform some magical feat to 

 convince some skeptic of their genuine prowess. A young man who 

 was fairly well educated, quite progressive, and who frankly and 

 openly "did not believe in the tcaiani (medicine men)" told me of two 

 episodes as follows: 



One night there was a curing ceremony in progress. This young 

 man (I shall call him Juan) was sitting near the doctors; he wanted 

 to see how they accomplished their miracles. The medicine men well 

 knew that he was skeptical. So one of them told him to follow him 

 as he went out of the chamber. They went out to the eastern edge of 

 the mesa. It was a bright moonlit night, and there was snow on the 

 ground. It was almost as bright as daj'. The doctor stopped at the 

 edge of the mesa. At this point a finger of rock rises from the flats 

 400 feet below to the level of the mesa. It is about 40 feet from the 

 main mesa. Juan said that the medicine man backed away from the 

 edge of the mesa a bit and then started running toward the pinnacle 

 of rock. Just before he reached the edge of the mesa he put his flint 



-* This food, according to my notes, is olTered to the witches, but something causes me to doubt this at 

 the present writing. 



