52 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 99 



As with the majority of the North American Indians, color sym- 

 bolism is intimately associated with the rite of circumambiilation, of 

 which further mention is made (p. 63). 



Sacred numbers. — Four is the fundamental sacred number in 

 Cherokee ritual and seems always to have been. Although seven is 

 also frequently met with, it would seem that this number has no 

 claim to as venerable an age as has four. 



Seven may have grown in importance by such outside and acci- 

 dental influences as the 7-day week and by the reduction to seven 

 of the number of Cherokee clans. 



There are traces of the significance of another number, viz, 12 

 (and also of its multiple 24) as evidenced by — 



The 12 runs in the ball game. 



The 24 days' taboo of a woman after her delivery (this 24 days can 

 be reduced to 12 by using an appropriate medicine). 



The 24 different plants used against amsGfna diseases. 



The formulas and the notes appended to them simply teem with 

 illustrations of the importance of the sacred numbers, especially of 4 

 and 7. I therefore considered it superfluous to multiply the examples 

 here. Attention has been called on page 122 to the interesting proc- 

 ess of rationalization by which a sanction of the use of the number 

 4 is alleged to be found in a (nonodsting) North Carolina State law. 



Materia Medica 



In this section I endeavor to give a summary description of Chero- 

 kee materia medica. I would have very much preferred to incor- 

 porate in this paper a detailed Cherokee "pharmacopojia," but the 

 Cherokee botanical materia medica is so extensive as to command 

 separate treatment. It is considered best to withhold this material, 

 and to publish it, probably in the form of a paper on Cherokee 

 ethnobotany, in the near future. 



As a general and preliminary consideration it may be stated that 

 although the Cherokee believe to a limited extent in the therapeutic 

 value of certain matters of animal and vegetal origin, their materia 

 medica consist primarily of botanical elements. It is happily ignorant 

 of any human ingredients, the use of wdiich is so conspicuous in the 

 primitive medicine of numerous tribes, nay, in the folk medicine of so 

 many civilized countries; even the belief in the curative power of 

 saliva (cf. our "fasting spittle") is found wanting; stcrcoraria are 

 never used, and as a whole, their materia medica is very much 

 cleaner than, for instance, that of the rural communities of Europe. 



The generic name for any particle possessing medicinal properties 

 is nQ"Vo"t4', the meaning of which is literally "to treat with," but the 

 emotional value of which had better be rendered "to cure with." 



