PARSONS] PERSONAL LIFE 241 



There is a boj's' game called abalone shell (fieriiku'ru) '" or 

 laburupaUau'ii (box shining) or maboro pakau'u (beads shining) in 

 which the one who is "it" is called kuchi (Mexican, hog) wiu (tail) 

 or taika (Isletan, hog) wiy. 



Sickness and Cure; Witchcraft 



For any slight sickness invitation to doctor is sent directly to the 

 chief of either medicine society, the Town Fathers, or the Laguna 

 Fathers, who will appoint one of his assistants for the case. If the 

 case is verj^ grave and a ceremony in the house of the medicine society 

 is required, the request is sent to the society chief through the chief 

 of the Corn group the patient belongs to." This is done, too, in the 

 case of snake scare, when the society chief will direct the Snake Father 

 (pirn ka'ade) to doctor. But in snake bite, application ^\•ill be made 

 directly to the Snake Father or doctor, who has to find the snake for 

 the %actim to spit into its mouth, thus making the snake cure the 

 man. After the man spits, the snake bursts and dies, and the man 

 recovers. . . . No female should approach the snake bitten lest she 

 instantly swell up. 



There appears to be no ceremonial cure for the hghtning struck. 

 A certain plant is boUed and given him to drink to get rid of the 

 "smoke" that is inside him.'^ After the man is struck anyone must 

 wait before approaching until it thunders three times (as it always 

 does). Otherwise the stricken man might die.'^ And the first person 

 to touch him, to feel him over, should be a sacerdotalist. ... In 

 the great river flood a girl who was nearly drowned was left "half 

 crazy, perhaps because she got scared." Ritual was performed for 

 her; " more than that I could not learn. 



For toothache you might "feed the scalps" which are kept in the 

 roundhouses, and even before you have sprinlded the pollen or meal 

 your toothache is gone. A story was told of a man who had tried 

 something without success for his toothache. "Go and feed the 

 scalps," he was told. He asked his brother to go wdth him. His 

 brother was afraid, but he said he would go and stay outside. The 

 man himself was so afraid that when he was halfway down the ladder 

 he merely threw the meal down and ran back to his brother, teUing 

 him that the toothache was gone. "Perhaps because he was so 

 afraid," was the shrewd and yet not at all skeptical comment. (See 

 p. 456 for another method of treating toothache, offering a candle 



■» Fieru. earring; kuru, dipper. Wliich etymology points to familiar hut obsolescent Puehlo use of ahalone 

 for earrings: and to the use of shell as ritual dipper. 



" .\t another time it was said that the chief of the Com group would apply to the town chief, who would 

 assign the case to one or the other of the medicine societies. 



" Compare Parsons, 12: 275, n. 4. 



" Compare Parsons, 12: 27S, n. 3. 



» Compare Parsons, 8: 121, n. 4. 



