oIbrechts] the swimmer MANUSCRIPT 87 



dealing with medicine or disease, had better be withheld to introduce 

 Ms. II, which contains several divinatory formulas, whereas not one 

 formula of this class occurs in the Ay. Ms. 



The medicine men, claiming as theirs the specialty of rainm.aking, 

 driving off storms, etc., are on the verge of extinction. The formulas 

 used in their ceremonies are equally scanty. The Ay. manuscript 

 does not contain a single specimen of them. There are some, how- 

 ever, in Mss. II and III, and since the matter does not pertain 

 directly to the subject discussed in this paper, it is deemed advisable 

 to go into details about it in its proper place. 



Ga'^ht'aDtn9"''Da"ne!a', she makes it (i. e., the baby) jump down 

 for her (the parturiens). 



This is the way in which a midmfe is generally referred to. Since 

 formerly there was an injunction that a parturient woman must be 

 assisted by four female attendants, all the women are more or less 

 conversant with the help to be tendered to mother and infant. 



Some of them, however, perhaps a daughter of a medicine man or 

 a woman who has married one, become more proficient in the matter, 

 and extend their knowledge so as to be able to attend to complications 

 and to prenatal and puerperal troubles; they may gradually come to 

 be looked upon as regular medicine women, in which case, as already 

 described (see p. 84), they will also treat ailments of different nature. 



One of these women is usually preferred to a male doctor to assist 

 at partus and to supervise and direct the other women attendants. 



O. (pi. 12, b) and Jo. (pi. 12, a) were the leading midvvives at Big 

 Cove during our stay there, se-hyemi (pi. 8, b) and my informant, W.'s 

 wife, also enjoying quite an enviable reputation. 



Df'Dane''s8Gi''ski, he kills people by witchcraft (hab.). 



This name, which can not be sufficiently analyzed — the stem may 

 have connection with -yj-ne's- "to droop"; there is, however, no 

 causative element in the expression — is given to the medicine man who 

 has attained the summit of occult power: he can kill a person by 

 reciting an incantation against him, and thus "spoiling his saliva" or 

 "making his soul dispirited." This is also done by obtaining stealth- 

 ily some saliva of the victim and burning it, by shooting invisible 

 arrowheads, sharp sticks, or pebbles into his body, even by stealing 

 his soul. When they exert their powers in this way their activity is 

 hardly different from that of witches. (See p. 129.) 



As a rule they only harm people when asked and hired to do so by 

 the victim's enemies. The ceremony is usually performed near the 

 river, which accounts for the name ama''yi Df'Dadzo".stt''sGi (see 

 p. 85) also occasionally being bestowed on these medicine men, but 

 everybody feels that there is a black abyss between their activity and 

 their formulas and those of the "priest." 



