oLbeechts] the swimmer MANUSCRIPT 15 



It does not as a rule torment a person of its own free will; it is inert 

 of itself, but is subdued to the will of more powerful agents, spirits, 

 ghosts, or even human beings, who may cause it to enter the body of 

 those persons whom they wish to harm. 



The idioms of the formulas seem to imply that the i;1sg€*'do° is not 

 so much put into the victim, as under him; the expression: 

 Di;nu*'yHantle*°i' ''he (the disease causer) has put it (the disease) 

 under him, it appears," always being used. How the disease then 

 finally enters the victim under whom it has been put is not clear. 

 There is a consensus of opinion among the medicine men that it 

 enters the body somehow, but on the question as to whether this in- 

 troduction takes place by way of a natural orifice or whether it is 

 possible for a disease to enter the body anywhere, not one of the 

 medicine men cared to commit himself. 



From the fact that an i;1sg€''do° is present in a person's body it 

 by no means follows that an illness is the instantaneous result: the 

 disease may be present in a dormant, latent condition, and often 

 months, or even years after the revengeful animal-ghost or spirit has 

 "inoculated" the person the malady may become "virulent." It is 

 easy to see how powerful a means this conception must be toward 

 consolidating the prestige of the medicine man, enabling him as it 

 does to explain many diseases, for which there is no evident cause, 

 by events and dreams of many months or years ago, and to explain 

 how it is that certain acts and infractions of taboos that, according to 

 the general belief ought to be followed by the contraction of a disease, 

 apparentl}?" remain without any immediate results. 



The presence of an i;lsGe*'Do°, however, does not account for all 

 the cases of sickness. There are, for example, the ailments due to 

 "our saliva being spoiled." The Cherokee beheves that the saliva 

 is located in the throat and that it is of capital importance in human 

 physiology; as a matter of fact, the physiologic role they ascribe to 

 the saliva would lead us to beheve that they consider it as importan t 

 as the blood and the gall. When the saHva is "spoiled" the patient 

 becomes despondent, withers away, and dies. 



The most frequent causes of this state of affairs are dreams, es- 

 pecially the dreams caused by the ghost people (see p. 26), but also 

 those caused by snakes and fish. The belief is based no doubt on 

 the feeling of oppression and anguish that accompanies many dreams, 

 especially those of the "nightmare" variety. 



A state of ill health very much akin to the one just mentioned, 

 and where no ulsGe-'Do"* is believed to be present, is caused by an 

 enemy of ours feeling v'ya UDa-'N^to, "of a different mind" toward 

 us, "different" here again being a euphemistic term for "bad" or 

 "worse." 



7548°— 32 3 



