94 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 99 



long. The free end of the twine is held between the thumb and 

 index finger of the right hand, while the left hand, with the fingers 

 stretched out, is placed over the right, ostensibly in a free, easy- 

 manner, and without any particular purpose, but actually to sliield the 

 function of the middle finger of the right hand, wliich is to stealthily 

 transmit to the dangling stone its ''occult " metion. The direction in 

 which the stone starts swingingis the one in which the search is to be start- 

 ed. By this method often things are found, the whereabouts of which 

 are not so completely unknown to the medicine man as he pretends, 



A procedure where prestidigitation is likewise often met with is 

 when the medicine man sucks the swollen part of a patient's body, 

 and after much exertion usually succeeds in spitting out "the disease," 

 viz, a pebble, an insect, etc., objects, of course, wliich he held hidden 

 in his cheek before the performance began. I know of a case where 

 Og., as a doctor, and as a man as honest a fellow as you could care to 

 meet, produced a worm after having sucked the jaw of a man suffering 

 with toothache. 



Needless to say, just as in any other communities and as in every 

 other professional group, there are also among the Cherokee medicine 

 men individual differences as far as professional ethics are concerned. 

 One of them told me the following story which throws some light on his 

 methods of keeping up liis reputation: 



He once went to Yellowhill (e*'lawo*'Di) and on the way met an 

 acquaintance who told him tluit he had built a fish trap but could 

 not manage to catch more than two or three fish a day. He asked the 

 medicine man if he did not know a formula to catch fish. 



This cunning fellow said "he was sony, he loiew no such formula; 

 as a matter of fact ho would Yory much like to get one himself."^'' 

 Anyhow the man insisted that the medicine man come to Ms house, 

 look at the trap, and spend the night at liis house. 



Next morning, before breakfast, the owner of the trap went down 

 to the river and came back Avith a whole washtub full of fish. There 

 must have been more than a hundred of them; and he had to go back 

 again, and fetch a second washtub fidl. He cUdn't doubt for an instant 

 that the medicine man had recited a formula, and said so. The 

 medicine man just smiled a mysterious grin, and let liim continue in 

 his belief. 



(The real reason of this "prodigious catch" was, the branch by 

 wliich the fish usually passed had been poisoned by a sawmill near by, 

 letting its sawdust loose in it. This had made the fish come by another 

 branch of the river, the one on which the trap had been set.) 



Frequently, after having consulted the spirits by means of the fire 

 or of the beads divination, the medicine man will foretell or prophesy 



*8 This in spite of the fact tliat he did know at least three or four fishing con- 

 jurations. — r. M. O. 



