480 MEDICINE-MEN OF THE APACHE. 
Apache have been modified to some extent by the crude ideas of the 
Mexican captives among them, who still remember much that was taught 
them in the churches of the hamlets in northern Mexico, from which 
they were kidnapped years ago; but, on the other hand, it is to be re- 
membered that the cross has always formed a part of the Apache sym- 
bolism; that the snake does not belong to the Christian faith, and that 
ithas never been allowed to appear upon the cross since the time of the 
Gnostics in the second and third centuries. Therefore, we must regard 
that as a Pagan symbol, and so must we regard the circle of willow 
twigs, which is exactly the same as the circle we have seen attached to 
the sacred cords for the cure of headache.! 
The cross was found in full vogue as a religious emblem among the 
aborigines all over America. Father Le Clercq? speaks of its very gen- 
eral employment by the Gaspesians: “Is ont parmi eux, tout mfideles 
qwils soient, la Croix en singuliere veneration, quwils la portent figurée 
sur leurs habits & sur leur chair; qwils la tiennent a la main dans 
tous leurs voiages, soit par mer, soit par terre; & qu’enfin ils la posent 
au dehors & au dedans de leurs Cabannes, comme la marque @’honneur 
qui les distingue des autres Nations du Canada.” He narrates® that the 
Gaspé tradition or myth was, that the whole tribe being ravaged by a 
plague, the medicine men had recourse to the Sun, who ordered them 
to make use of the cross in every extremity. 
Herrera relates that the followers of Hernandez de Cordoba found at 
Cape Catoche “unos Adoratorios . . . i Cruces pintadas que les 
eauso gran admiracion.”* He also says that Juan de Grijalva on the 
island of Cozumel found a number of oratories and temples, but one in 
particular was made in the form of a square tower, with four openings. 
Inside this tower was a cross made of lime, which the natives rever- 
enced as the god of the rain; ‘‘una Cruz de Cal, de tres varas en alto- 
a Ja qual tenian por el Dios de la luvia.”” 
NECKLACES OF HUMAN FINGERS. 
The necklace of human fingers, an illustration of which accompanies 
this text (Pl. 1v), belonged to the foremost of the medicine-men of a 
brave tribe—the Cheyenne of Montana and Wyoming. They were the 
backbone of the hostility to the whites, and during the long and ardu- 
ous campaign conducted against them by the late Maj. Gen. George 
Crook, which terminated so successfully in the surrender of 4,500 of the 
allied Sioux and Cheyenne, at Red Cloud and Spotted Tail agencies, in 
the early spring of 1877, it was a noted fact that wherever a band of the 
1“ When the rain-maker of the Lenni Lennape would exert his power, he retired to some secluded 
spot and drew upon the earth the figure of a cross (its arms toward the cardinal points?), placed 
upon it a piece of tobacco, a gourd, a bit of some red stuff, and commenced to cry alond to the spirits 
of the rains.’'—Brinton, Myths of the New World, New York, 1868, p. 96 (after Loskiel). 
2Pére Chrestien Le Clercq, Gaspesie, Paris, 1691, p. 170. 
3Tbid., cap. x, pp. 172-199. 
4Dec. 2, lib. 2, p. 48. 
*Tbid., p. 59. 
