THE MEDICINE-MEN OF THE APACHE. 
By Joun G. BOURKE. 
CePA POP SsB ery iT: 
THE MEDICINE-MEN, THEIR MODES OF TREATING DISEASE, 
THEIR SUPERSTITIONS, PARAPHERNALIA, ETC, 
The Caucasian population of the United States has been in inti- 
mate contact with the aborigines for a period of not less than two hun- 
dred and fifty years. In certain sections, as in Florida and New 
Mexico, this contact has been for a still greater period; but claiming 
no earlier date than the settlement of New England, it will be seen 
that the white race has been slow to learn or the red man has been 
skillful in withholding knowledge which, if imparted, would have less- 
ened friction and done much to preserve and assimilate a race that, 
in spite of some serious defects of character, will for all time to come 
be looked upon as ‘the noble savage.” 
Recent deplorable occurrences in the country of the Dakotas have 
emphasized our ignorance and made clear to the minds of all thinking 
people that, notwithstanding the acceptance by the native tribes of 
many of the improvements in living introduced by civilization, the 
savage has remained a savage, and is still under the control of an in- 
fluence antagonistic to the rapid absorption of new ideas and the 
adoption of new customs. 
This influence is the ‘* medicine-man.” 
Who, and what are the medicine-men (or medicine-women), of the 
American Indians? What powers do they possess in time of peace or 
war? How is this power obtained, how renewed, how exercised? 
What is the character of the remedies employed? Are they pharma- 
ceutical, as we employ the term, or are they the superstitious efforts of 
empirics and charlatans, seeking to deceive and to misguide by pre- 
tended consultations with spiritual powers and by reliance upon mys- 
terious and occult influences? 
Such a discussion will be attempted in this paper, which will be 
restricted to a description of the personality of the medicine-men. the 
regalia worn, and the powers possessed and claimed. To go farther, 
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