506 MEDICINE-MEN OF THE APACHE. 
diseases with which the Apache at Camp Verde had been afflicted the 
summer previous.” 
Tam not sure that the Apache-Yuma have not borrowed the use of 
hoddentin from the Apache. My reason for expressing this opinion is 
that I have never seen an Apache without a little bag of hoddentin 
when it was possible for him to get it, whereas I have never seen an 
Apache-Yuma with it except when he was about to start out on the 
warpath. The “altars” referred to by Corbusier are made also by the 
Apache, Navajo, Zuni, and Tusayan. Those of the Apache, as might be 
inferred from their nomadic state, were the crudest; those of the Navajo, 
Zuni, and Tusayan display a wonderful degree of artistic excellence. 
The altars of the Navajo have been described and illustrated by Dr. 
Washington Matthews,' and those of the Tusayan by myself.’ 
Moses Henderson, wishing me to have a profitable interview with his 
father, who was a great snake doctor among the Apache, told me that 
when he brought him to see me I should draw two lines across each 
other on his right foot, and at their junction place a bead of the chal- 
chihuitl, the cross to be drawn with hoddentin. The old man would 
then tell me all he knew. 
The Apache, I learned, at times offer hoddentin to fire, an example 
of pyrodulia for which I had been on the lookout, knowing that the 
Navajo have fire dances, the Zuni the Feast of the Little God of Fire, 
and the Apache themselves are not ignorant of the fire dance. 
Hoddentin seems to be used to strengthen all solemn compacts and 
to bind faith. I had great trouble with a very bright medicine-man 
named Na-a-cha, who obstinately refused to let me look at the contents 
of aphylaetery which he constantly wore until I let him know that I, too, 
was a medicine-man of eminence. The room in which we had our con- 
versation was the quarters of the post surgeon, at that time absent on 
scout. The chimney piece was loaded with bottles containing all kinds 
of drugs and medicines. I remarked carelessly to Na-a-cha that if he 
doubted my powers I would gladly burn a hole through his tongue with 
a drop of fluid from the vial marked ‘“ Acid, nitric,” but he concluded 
that my word was sufficient, and after the door was locked to secure us 
from intrusion he consented to let me open and examine the phylactery 
and make a sketch of its contents. To guard against all possible 
trouble, he put a pinch of hoddentin on each of my shoulders, on the 
crown of my head, and on my chest and back. The same performance 
was gone through with in his own case. He explained that hoddentin 
was good for men to eat, that it was good medicine for the bear, and 
that the bear liked to eat it. I thought that herein might be one clew 
to the reason why the Apache used it as a medicine. The bear loves 
the tule swamp, from which, in days primeval, he sallied out to attack 
the squaws and children gathering the tule powder or tule bulb. Poorly 
1 Ann. Rep. Bu. Eth., 1883-’84. 
2Snake Dance of the Moquis. 
