464 MEDICINE-MEN OF THE APACHE. 
Gibberish was so invariable an accompaniment of the sacred antics 
of the medicine-men of Mexico that Fray Diego Duran warns his 
readers that if they see any Indian dancing and singing, ‘“ 6 diciendo 
algunas palabras que no son inteligibles, pues es de saber que aquellos 
representaban Dioses.”’! 
Henry Youle Hind says: 
The Dakotahs have a common and a sacred language. The conjurer, the war 
prophet, and the dreamer employ a language in which words are borrowed from other 
Indian tongues and dialects: they make much use of descriptive expressions, and 
use words apart from the ordinary signification. The Ojibways abbreviate their 
sentences and employ many elliptical forms of expression, so much so that half- 
breeds, quite familiar with the colloquial language, fail to comprehend a medicine- 
man when in the full flow of excited oratory.? 
“Blood may be stanched by the words sicyeuma, cucuma, ucuma, 
cuna, uma, ma, a.”? There are numbers of these gibberish formule 
given, but one is sufficient. 
“The third part of the magic! of the Chaldeans belonged entirely to 
that deseription of charlatanism which consists in the use of gestures, 
postures, and mysterious speeches, as byplay, and which formed an 
accompaniment to the proceedings of the thaumaturgist well calculated 
to mislead.” ® 
Sahagun® calls attention to the fact that the Aztec hymns were in 
language known only to the initiated. 
It must be conceded that the monotonous intonation of the medicine- 
men is not without good results, especially in such ailments as can be 
benefited by the sleep which such singing induces. On the same princi- 
ple that petulant babies are lulled to slumber by the crooning of their 
nurses, the sick will frequently be composed to a sound and beneficial 
slumber, from which they awake refreshed and ameliorated. I can 
1Vol, 3, p. 176. 
“In every part of the globe fragments of primitive languages are preserved in religious rites.” Hum- 
boldt, Researches, London, 1814, vol. 1, p. 97. 
“Et méme Jean Pc, Prince de la Mirande, escrit que les mots barbares & non entendus ont plus de 
puissance en la Magie que ceux qui sont entendus.”’ Picart, vol. 10, p. 45. 
The medicine-men of Cumana (now the United States of Colombia, South America) cured their 
patients ‘con palabras muy revesadas y que aun el mismo médico no las entiende.”” Gomara, Hist. 
de las Indias, p. 208. 
The Tlasealtecs had ‘oradores * who employed gibberish—“hablaban Gerigonca.’’ Herrera, dec. 2, 
lib. 6, p. 163. 
In Pern, if the fields were afflicted with drought, the priests, among other things, ‘‘chantaient 
un cantique dont le sens était inconnu du vulgaire.”’ Balboa, Hist. du Pérou, p. 128, in Ternaux- 
Compans, vol. 15. 
2 Assiniboine and Saskatchewan Exped., London, 1860, vol. 2, p. 155. 
3 Cockayne, Leechdoms. vol. 1, p. xxx. 
4The belief in the magic power of sacred words, whether religious formulas or the name of gods, was 
also acknowledged [i. e. in Egypt] and was the source of a frightful amount of superstition. ... The 
superstitious repetition of names (many of which perhaps never had any meaning at all) is particularly 
conspicuous in numerous documents much more recent than the Book of the Dead.’’—Hibbert, Lec- 
tures, 1879, pp. 192, 193. 
5Salverte, Philosophy of Magic, vol. 1, p. 134. 
6 Kingsborough, lib. 2, vol. 7, p. 102. 
