BULL. oOJ 



SWEATING AND SWEAT-HOUSES 



661 



outside, were dropped by means of forked 

 sticks. These were sprinkled with water 

 to generate steam. A temporary covering 

 of blankets or skins made the inclosure 

 tight. This was the sweat-house in its 

 simplest form. The Delawares of Penn- 

 sylvania, according to Loskiel (Hist. Miss. 

 United Breth.,pt. 1, 108-9, 1794) in the 

 18th century had ' ' in every town an oven, 

 situated at some distance from the dwell- 

 ings, built either of stakes and boards 

 covered with sods, or dug in the side of 

 a hill, and heated with some red-hot 

 stones." 



The construction of a sweat-house was 

 usually attended with many rules and ob- 

 servances. Among the Ntlakyapamuk or 

 Thompson Indians (Teit), the door must 

 always face the e. Among the Kiowa 

 (Mooney) the framework consisted always 

 of twelve supports. Formerly among the 

 southern Plains tribes a buffalo skull was 

 placed on a small mound in front of the 

 sweat-house, the mound being formed of 

 earth excavated from the fireplace. In 

 no tribe was the sweat-lodge made except 

 according to prescribed rules. 



In permanent villagesamore roomy and 

 substantial house was made, and the stout 

 framework was covered by the Ntlakyapa- 

 muk with bark or pine-needles and with 

 earth. Among the Eskimo, according 

 to Nelson, a kashim was used for the 

 sweat-bath, a large permanent struc- 

 ture that was the "center of social and 

 religious life" in every village. In Cali- 

 fornia the sweat-house was a permanent 

 structure, semisubterranean or earth- 

 covered. Except in the extreme n. e. 

 part of the state, heat was produced di- 

 rectly by a fire, never by steam. In some 

 cases the sweat-house was more or less 

 merged with the communal ceremonial 

 chamber, the same structure being used for 

 both purposes. Like the PueVjlo kiva, it 

 sometimes partook of the character of a 

 men's club-house or working or lounging 

 place. It was sometimes entered or used 

 by women for ceremonial purposes, but 

 never for sweating. In n. w. California 

 it was the regular sleeping place of adult 

 males, who never passed the night in the 

 living house. The use of the sweat-house 

 in California was always more or less as- 

 sociated or tinged with religious motives, 

 but the fact that it was a regular practice, 

 and with some groups a daily habit, must 

 not be lost sight of ( Kroeber). 



Among the Indian triljes methods of 

 sweating seem to have been everywhere 

 very similar. After a half-hour or more 

 spent in the steaming air of the sweat- 

 house, the bather plunged into the cold 

 water of a stream, when one was near, and 

 thus the function was ended. Among the 

 Eskimo hot air was used in place of steam, 

 and in Zuiii, and probably in the pueblos 



generally, hot stones near the body fur- 

 nished the heat. The practice of scraping 

 the body with wooden or bone scrapers 

 before leaving the sweat-house was com- 

 mon, and was perhaps simply a measure 

 of cleanliness, for Beechey records that 

 the Kaniagmiut Eskimo near Cook inlet 

 do not employ scrapers, but rub them- 

 selves after the bath with grass and twigs. 

 There seem to have been three distinct 

 purposes for which sweating was prac- 

 tised. First, it was a purely religious 

 rite or ceremony for the purpose of pu- 

 rifying the body and propitiating spir- 

 its. A sweat-bath was al ways undergone 

 by warriors prei:)aring for war; among 



many tribes, by boys at the puberty age; 

 and, perhaps generally, before any seri- 

 ous or hazardous undertaking. Such cere- 

 monial ) tat lis were almost always attended 

 by scarification or the mutilation of some 

 part of the body. Teit states of the 

 Ntlakyapamuk that while in the sweat- 

 house the hunter "sang to his spirit." 

 No doubt the offering of prayers in the 

 sweat-house for success in various en- 

 terprises was a general custom. The re- 

 ligious motive probably gave rise to the 

 practice, and it was by far the most im- 

 portant in the estimation of the Indian. 

 Second, sweating was important in med- 

 ical practice for the cure of disease. The 

 underlying idea was doubtless analogous 

 to its religious and ceremonial use, since 

 it was intended to influence disease spir- 

 its and was usually prescribed by the 

 shaman, who sang outside and invoked 

 the s)iirits while the patient was in the 

 sweat-bouse. It was sometimes the 

 friends and relatives of the sick person 

 who, assembled in the sweat-house, sang 

 and prayed for the patient's recovery. 

 Among the Plains tribes all priests who 

 perform ceremonies have usually to pass 

 through the sweat-house to be purified, 

 and thesweatingisaccompanied by special 

 rituals (Miss Fletcher). Whether the 

 Indian's therapeutic theory was rational 

 or irrational, sweating was an efficacious 

 remedy in many diseases to which he was 

 subject, though used with little discrimi- 

 nation. Third, it was often purely social 



