oLflKEcaTj THE SWIMMER MANUSCRIPT 231 



The medicine man facing the patient and holding tlie cup in his 

 hand begins by singing the first verse, after which he takes a draught 

 of the Uquid and blows it four times upon the head and the breast of 

 the sick man. The same operation is repeated with each of the other 

 three verses. Finally he recites [the ''parlando " part of] the formula, 

 after which he blows his breath four times on the top of the head 

 [the crown], the back of the neck, and the face of the patient. The 

 ceremony is repeated four times if necessary. [If the attack is con- 

 sidered so serious that inmied:ate action is necessary, no time is lost 

 in procuring ginseng or Avild tobacco, and the medicine man merely 

 blows water on the stricken man.] 



The formula contains a number of expressions which the medicine 

 man himself from whom it was obtained [Ay.] could not explain, as 

 he in turn had obtained it from his grandfather. In fact, he was 

 completely in the dark as to the meaning of the formula, and when 

 pressed for an explanation became suUen and asserted that he recited 

 the formula as it had been handed down to liim, and that it was not 

 for him to question its autliority. The same difficulty was experi- 

 enced in connection with fonnulas obtained from other medicine men, 

 and goes to show the antiquity of the formulas, while it also proves 

 how much of the sacred knowledge has been lost. As Ay. was born 

 about 1830, his grandfather was probably a boy when Adair v/rote 

 bis account of the Cherokee and the other southern tribes in 1775. 



The words e'DO''Do and e'Du-'tsi show that the formula was originally 

 written by a Cherokee speaking the Western Dialect, the correspond- 

 ing forms in the Middle Dialect being a'GtD0''D9 and a'ctDi^-'tsi. [I 

 noticed during my 1926-27 stay, however, that among the Central 

 Dialect speaking Cherokee these two Western Dialect forms are quite 

 frequently used.] 



[As to the persons or spirits meant by "my father" and "my 

 (maternal) uncle" no information coidd be obtained, neither by Mr. 

 Mooney nor by me. As is known, it is common for American 

 Indians to call a powerful protecting spirit by some name denoting 

 relationship, and this is also frequently done by the Cherokee: they 

 wiU address the moon as "grandfather," and will proclaim them- 

 selves the children of the "Old White One," i. e., the Fire, or of 

 the "Long Human Being," i. e., the stream, the river, the flowing 

 water. No doubt the meaning of these expression^ has to be looked 

 for in that direction.] 



The expression "a'ntskii'ya ant'lo!i'," "The men have just gone 

 by," occurs also in a song to cure headache. (No. 2, p. 170.) Who 

 the men referred to are, the medicine men can not tell. Ay. was of 

 the opinion that they were the Thunder Boys, commonly spoken of 

 as the Two Little Men, or the Little People, i. e., the spirits inhabiting 

 the cliffS; the mountain caverns^ etc. The latter explanation is more 



