242 ISLETA, NEW MEXICO [eth. ann. 47 



to a deceased townsman who had great power.) The water the 

 scalps are washed in is a medicine against "worry." '^ 



Paralysis may be treated by sweat bath. The chief of the Town 

 Fathers is applied to. A hogan is built in the orchard southeast of 

 town and the patient taken there early in the morning. Special 

 stones called shihio', ej'^e stones, are heated red hot and then sprinkled 

 with water. The chief stays in the hogan with the patient to 

 sing three songs. ("He's got lus power; may be he don't feel the 

 heat.") . . . One old man was cited as having been cured by this 

 treatment, after he had been treated in the family, without success, 

 with applications of the blood, still hot, of a coyote. 



Kalaichu, a plant with a yellow bloom, is used by the medicine men 

 to regulate the menstrual flow, but whether to promote it or check 

 it my informant did not know Women assistants in the ceremonial 

 groups, if menstruating at the time of their ceremony, are expected 

 to notify their chief and absent themselves from the ceremony. 



Nor do menstruating women go to church The Mexican 



woman who was housing my informant one day had a sharp pain in 

 her side and asked her tenant for medicine. He recommended a plant 

 called hu in Isletan, yerba awelo (Spanish, abuelo, grandfather) in 

 Mexican, with reference to the clown masks both Mexicans and 

 Isletans (also Tewa) call grandfather. A plaster for broken bones is 

 made of foaia, jucca root. 



There is a skin disease called pafu'na characterized by water 

 blisters and itch, wliich is said to be caused by gum running into 

 pinons in a good piiion year. Skin eruptions may be caused by 

 ants or by ^ntches or by nature. "We can tell by looking at it 

 whicli it is." 



Sore eyes are caused by small thorns (hfola) sent into the body, or 

 sticks, stones, rags, etc., by witches. They have to be removed by 

 the medicine men, either privately or at public ceremonial. (See 

 pp. .312, 443.) Thirty or more years ago there was a smallpox epi- 

 demic which was beheve^l to be witch sent. 



Belief in mtchcraft is quite as vigorous and comprehensive as in 

 other pueblos. Among other familiar ideas are those about the 

 witches assembling in a cave, which is placed at Shimtua, in the 

 mesa side, 5 miles to the southwest, and about the efficiency of for- 

 eign witches. Should one want to harm a relative one would com- 

 mission a witch from another town. If you are bewitched, you may 

 offer a relative in your own place. The woman who was drowned in 

 the flood '* was thus given by her own husband, "they say." . . . 

 "If a woman is not right (i. e., a witch), her children get it"; that is, 

 witchcraft runs in families.'"" The witch comes as a light in the night 



