POWELL] TECHNOLOGY LIII 



the carboniferous rocks of Colorado, aud known as Afhi/ris 

 snhtilita. I liave many times known colds to be attributed to 

 insects, toothache to be attributed to worms, rheumatism to 

 be attributed to snakes, fevers to be attributed to birds; but 

 on careful examination T have often found that the bodies of 

 these things were not held to be the authors of the mischief, 

 but that their ghosts were the active ag-encies. Not alwavs 

 can this explanation be obtained, and sometimes the thing 

 itself will be exhibited as having been extracted from the 

 patient; but, in the case of the Athijris, the medicine-man 

 asserted to me that, when he extracted the disease from the 

 child, he put the fossil in his mouth before he performed the 

 act of suction by which the ghost was extracted, aud that his 

 office consisted in extracting- the ghost from the child and 

 returning it again to the body of the fossil. 



It may be worth while for me to state how widel)" pi-evalent 

 is this doctrine of disease among the North American Indians. 

 I have found it myself among many of the Shoshonean tribes, 

 which occupy a large area in the western portion of the United 

 States; I have found it among the Wintun of California and 

 many other tribes of the Pacific slope; I have found it also 

 among the tribes of the Gulf states, and have never failed to 

 find instances in any tribe in which I have made diligent 

 inquir}^ Such causes for disease, however abundant they 

 may be, must not be considered to be universal as they appear 

 to the savage mind. The tribes of America seem rather to 

 prefer to ascribe their evils to their enemies within the tribe, or 

 still more often to their enemies in other tribes, for of course 

 they believe in witchcraft. Especially are epidemics imputed 

 to hostile tribes. The theory of the action of their enemies 

 seems to be somewhat of this nature: That the shamans of the 

 enemies have control over disease ghosts. But enougli of this 

 phase of the matter here. 



In barbarism, which is the upper stage of tribal society, the 

 theory of disease undergoes marked development; not that 

 imputation is abandoned, not that ghosts play a less important 

 role, but that a new group of mythologic beings is developed. 

 These mystic personages are personified phenomena of nature 



