460 MEDICINE-MEN OF THE APACHE. 
men could do to check its progress. When the Walapai were about to 
engage in a great hunt continence was enjoined upon the warriors for a 
certain period. 
Besides all these accidental impairments of the vigor of the medicine- 
men, there seems to be a gradual decadence of their abilities which can 
be rejuvenated only by rubbing the back against a sacred stone pro- 
jecting from the ground in the country of the Walapai, not many miles 
from the present town of Kingman, on the Atlantic and Pacific Rail- 
road. Another stone of the same kind was formerly used for the same 
purpose by the medicine-nen of the pueblos of Laguna and Acoma, as 
IT have been informed by them. I am unable to state whether or not 
such recuperative properties were ever ascribed to the medicine stone 
at the Sioux agency near Standing Rock, 8. Dak., or to the great stone 
around which the medicine-men of Tusayan marched in solemn pro- 
cession in their snake dance, but I can say that in the face of the latter, 
each time that I saw it (at different dates between 1874 and 1881), there 
was a niche which was filled with votive offerings. 
Regnard, a traveler in Lapland, makes the statement that when the 
shamans of that country began to lose their teeth they retired from 
practice. There is nothing of this kind to be noted among the Apache 
or other tribes of North America with which I am in any degree fanfiliar. 
On the contrary, some of the most influential of those whom I have 
known have been old and decrepit men, with thin, gray hair and teeth 
gone or loose in their heads. In a description given by Corbusier of a 
great ‘‘medicine” ceremony of the Apache-Yuma at Camp Verde, it is 
stated that the principal officer was a ‘toothless, gray-haired man.”! 
Among many savage or barbarous peoples of the world albinos have 
been reserved for the priestly office. There are many well marked ex- 
amples of albinism among the Pueblos of New Mexico and Arizona, 
especially among the Zuni and Tusayan; but in no case did I learn that 
the individuals thus distinguished were accredited with power not 
ascribable to them under ordinary circumstances. Among the Chey- 
enne I saw one family, all of whose members had the crown lock white. 
They were not medicine-men, neither were any of the members of the 
single albino family among the Navajo in 1881. 
It is a well known fact that among the Romans epilepsy was looked 
upon as a disease sent direct from the gods, and that it was designated 
the ‘sacred disease ”—morbus sacer. Mahomet is believed to have 
been an epileptic. The nations of the East regard epileptics and the 
insane as inspired from on high. 
Our native tribes do not exactly believe that the mildly insane are 
gifted with medical or spiritual powers; but they regard them with a 
feeling of superstitious awe, akin to reverence. I have personally 
known several cases of this kind, though not within late years, and am 
not able to say whether or not the education of the younger generation 
1 American Antiquarian, November, 1886, p. 334. 
