Olbeechts] the swimmer MANUSCRIPT 109 



had died. I straightened his legs out, and his stepmother tied her 

 handkerchief under his chin. 



But all of a sudden he breathed, and again, and again. Quickly 

 they took the handkerchief away; he opened his eyes, and asked: 

 "When did I come back?" (It sounded as if he thought he had been 

 away.) His father said: "You have not been away; you have been 

 in bed all the time." 



Next day he ate, and soon he became stronger; within a week he 

 walked about the house; he recovered. 



Personalities — Individual Differences 



Although I have carefully avoided conveying the impression that 

 anything applying to one medicine man likewise holds for every one 

 of his congeners, yet I consider it necessary to specially devote a few 

 lines to a rough sketch of the character of a few of them, bringing out 

 such individual differences in views and behavior as struck and im- 

 pressed me most. 



It goes without saying that just as anywhere else, and as in any other 

 profession, some of them are more proficient and skillful than others; 

 that some again are less overawed and fettered bj^" tradition and pat- 

 tern than some of their colleagues; that some there are, finally, whose 

 honesty and integrity can not be doubted, whereas others are no better 

 than some of the vulgar and mercantile quacks that are not unlaiown 

 even in our communities. 



There is W. (57 years old, married; see pi. 5), who acted as my 

 interpreter and main informant during the major part of my stay. 

 He has a very striking personality. His mother, ayo^sta (Mooney, 

 SFC, p. 313; Myths, pi. xiv) was a medicine woman of high repute 

 and a staunch traditionalist. From her W. got a lot of mythological 

 and botanical lore when he was quite young, but after he went to the 

 Government school at Hampton, Va., he lost, as he says himself, all 

 faith in what the old people believed and taught. He was recon- 

 verted, however, by an experience, a detailed account of which will 

 be given elsewhere, and during which, bj^ some Cherokee talisman, 

 which his half brother. Climbing Bear, had procured for him, he 

 managed to win the affection of a white girl. 



In spite of this success, the white people's settlements made him feel 

 hopelessly homesick. He returned to his people, and it did not take 

 him more than a few days to drop into the old life again, and to work 

 out a quaint philosophy and outlook on life of his own, and which he 

 occasionally teaches and advocates, with the result that these views 

 are uttered rather frequently by other medicine men, with more or less 

 conviction as the case may be. According to this system, "white 

 medicine might be good, and Indian medicine might be good. There 

 are some diseases (e. g., uye-Uao-Gi diseases) which a white doctor can 



