84 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [V.vu.. 09 



plur, Dt"'Da'n9Wt'ski ("he cures anyone"; "he cures people") it is 

 more customary to call them by a name which is more discriminating 

 and descriptive of the specialty to which the medicine man referred 

 to devoted himself. 



The overwhelndng majority of the practitioners are men; sporadi- 

 cally tliere is yet a medicine woman to be found, but there are indi- 

 cations that lead us to believe that formerly there were far more of 

 them tlian is now the case. An informant, when asked to account 

 for the fact that tliere were so few female disease curers, as compared 

 to males, told me that it was "because women do not take so much 

 interest in it (i. e., in the study of plants, of the formulas, etc.) as 

 men do." 



Apart from midwives (see p. 122) there are now only two medicine 

 women wortli speaking of — an old person of about 80 years old, 

 called aGy-'ya (i.e., "it is being taken out of the liquid") and se''lt3'^€''ni 

 (Sally-Annie?), the wife of Og. (PL 8, 6.) 



A couple of the regular nudwives will also occasionally go in for 

 some curing of ailments that do not quite fall within their compe- 

 tence, but this is not usual. 



If a woman practices at all she does not limit herself to patients 

 of her own sex, nor to any set diseases; nor is the treatment by her 

 of any ailments, even in male patients, considered improper. She 

 exercises her profession on a par with her male congeners, enjoys tlie 

 same rights, and if her knowledge and her skill justifies it, she may 

 in time be held in the same reputation as one of the leading members 

 of the faculty. 



As ^^dll be seen again and again in these pages, the medicine men 

 are the staunchest supporters of aboriginal faith, lore and custom, 

 and with the disintegration of Cherokee material culture and social 

 organization the medicine man has obtained a position of leadership 

 which in many instances practically amounts to that of political head 

 in another tribe. 



Different Classes 



However much the proverbial tooth of time has gnawed at Cherokee 

 organization and tradition, it is still possible to find in the present 

 body of medicine men traces of a difl"erentiation which must have 

 existed to an even greater extent at a more remote period. 



It might as well be stressed right away that throughout this paper 

 the term "medicine man" is used to cover a rather broad concept; 

 it is used without distinction as to sex, and refers not only to those 

 members of the tribe that treat the sick and cure diseases, but also to 

 those tluit might be called "priests," "magicians," "divinators," etc. 



A short discussion of these several varieties follows now, together 

 A\-ith the names given to these practitioners and the practices they 



