160 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 99 



Again in many formulas that are used, as in love attraction, there 

 are many motives that are quite uncalled for in the curing conju- 

 rations. 



In quite a few of the formulas the name and the clan of the patient, 

 of the patron, or of the enemy may be mentioned. 



The first paragraph of the formula is often repeated three times, 

 very slight changes being made every time; usually only the color 

 of the spirits and their abode are modified. 



Only rarely does a formula contain seven paragraphs. This is 

 almost exclusively the case with some long-life formulas recited at 

 the river's bank. 



The Ritual Language ^^ 



There is abundant proof that the language as used in Cherokee 

 religion and ritual has been checked in certain aspects of its evolu- 

 tion and that it has become stationary and archaic, the everyday 

 language having followed its fatal course of development. 



This process is easy to explain when we call to mind the tremendous 

 importance which the untutored mind attaches to form and pattern. 

 Whereas the eveiyday language, the tribal language as we will call 

 it, is a tool of the community, of the man in the street, to express 

 his views on a countless number of matters, in an almost unlimited 

 variety of ways, the ritualistic language is usually the appanage of a 

 chosen few, and is in any case strictly used in rigidlj?" exclusive circum- 

 stances, and in sternly conserved, crystallized and stereotyped ex- 

 pressions. 



Sacred formulas, whether they be conjurations, incantations, or 

 conventional prayers, are bound to form rather than to content. 

 The desired result is held to be brought about, not by the meaning 

 of the words used, but merely by strict adherence to the wording 

 and the form. This accounts for the fact that even in European 

 folklore so many conjurations and incantations are still in use con- 

 taining words and expressions so archaic that even the initiated and 

 the adepts fail to understand them; yet not one of these adepts would 

 dare or venture to change a word and to supply a modern, more in- 

 telligible expression for it, since to tamper with even so little as a 

 syllable would not only seriously compromise but would render abso- 

 lutely nil the power and the result of the formula. We find the same 

 conditions prevailing with the Cherokee, only to an even greater 

 extent. 



'"^ The following remarks have already been presented in a slightly different 

 form in a paper read before the First International Congress of Linguists, The 

 Hague, April, 1928. 



