oisREcnTs] THE SWIMMER MANUSCRIPT 67 



on the mode of collecting them. In Ms. II a formula occurs in which 

 the medicine man, when he goes out to gather the plants needed, 

 states in an appropriate formula how long a period of restrictions he is 

 going to prescribe to his patient. 



A Typical Curing Procedure 



We have now analyzed the different and multifarious elements and 

 concepts which we find entangled in Cherokee ideas on disease, its 

 causes, and its treatment. Needless to say, neither the native patient 

 nor the medicine man ever look at the problem in such a scrutinizing 

 and analytical way. We will therefore now present a sjmthetic pic- 

 ture of the w^hole as it is presented to the mind of the native. The 

 following lines contain the account of a case of illness and of the 

 treatment and curing of the same. The account was given me quite 

 spontaneously and unsolicited by one (W.) who was an interested pa^t3^ 

 Apart from correcting the more flagrant grammatical lapses in it 

 I have not changed it in any way and will give in footnotes what little 

 supplementary information may be necessary to make it intelligible. 



"Many years ago^^ my cousin, Charlie, Je.'s^° son, was very ill ; he was 

 very poorly; he w^as just about to die.^^ My mother ^^ was very sorry 

 for her daughter and for her grandson, and she sent after Doctor 

 Mink,^^ asking him to come down to see what he could do. An 

 evening, soon after. Doctor Mink came to our house and said he 

 would spend the night.^* But my mother was anxious to know some- 

 thing about her grandson's illness and prepared the cloth and the 

 beads.^^ Mink examined with the beads, but he found that nothing 

 could be done. My mother cried and was sorry because of her grand- 

 son; she got some more white cloth and two more white beads, and 

 asked the medicine man to try again. He did, but again he said the 

 boy could not recover. And again my mother put some more cloth 

 and two more beads down, but still there was no hope. A fourth 

 time she got cloth and beads and the medicine man examined once 

 more; but again he found that the boy was very poor, and that he 

 would have to die. 



"I then proposed to go over the mountain to where the sick boy 

 lived, and to go and see him anyway. We all went, and when we got 

 there we found the boy unconscious. 



20 Thirteen years ago (information given November, 1926). 



30 W.'s half-sister; cf. pp. 9, 116 and pi. 12, a. 



51 He was ill vi^ith G9'''wani'Gtst9°'.i, cf. p. 120. 



52 Aye, herself a reputed medicine woman during her lifetime. (Cf. p. 9.) 



33 Alias V/il., son of Gad. (cf. p. 9) ; two medicine men (now both deceased) 

 from whom James Mooney obtained the Mss. II and III. 



31 Cf. p. 97. 

 35 Cf. p. 132. 



