584. MEDICINE-MEN OF THE APACHE. 
facing the east; then the south side, facing the north, and back to the 
original position. While at each position, each of the medicine-men in 
succession, after making all the passes and gestures described, seized 
the cradle in his hands, pressed it to his breast, and afterwards lifted it 
up to the sky, next to the earth, and lastly to the four cardinal points, 
all the time prancing, whistling, and snorting, the mother and her squaw 
friends adding to the dismal din by piercing shrieks and ululations. 
That ended the ceremonies for that night so far as the baby person- 
ally was concerned, but the medicine-men retired down to the parade 
and resumed their saltation, swinging, bending, and spinning with such 
violence that they resembled, in a faint way perhaps, the Dervishes of 
the East. The understanding was that the dance had to be kept up as 
long as there was any fuel unconsumed of the large pile provided; any 
other course would entail bad luck. It was continued for four nights, 
the colors and the symbols upon the bodies varying from night to night. 
Among the modes of exorcism enumerated by Burton, we find “ cutting 
the air with swords.”! Picart speaks of the ‘fléches ou les baguettes 
dont les Arabes Idolitres se servoient pour deviner par le sort.” He 
says that the diviner “ tenoit 4 la main” these arrows, which certainly 
suggest the swords or wands of the Apache medicine-men in the spirit 
dance.’ 
There were four medicine-men, three of whom were dancing and in 
conference with the spirits, and the fourth of whom was general superin- 
tendent of the whole dance, and the authority to whom the first three 
reported the result of their interviews with the ghostly powers. 
The mask and headdress of the first of the dancers, who seemed to 
be the leading one, was so elaborate that in the hurry and meager light 
supplied by the flickering fires it could not be portrayed. It was very 
much like that of number three, but so fully covered with the plumage 
of the eagle, hawk, and, apparently, the owl, that it was difficult to as- 
sert this positively. Each of these medicine-men had pieces of red flan- 
nel tied to his elbows and a stick about four feet long in each hand. 
Number one’s mask was spotted black and white and shaped in front 
like the snout of a mountain lion. His back was painted with large 
arrowheads in brown and white, which recalled the protecting arrows 
tightly bound to the backs of Zuni fetiches. Number two had on his 
back a figure in white ending between the shoulders in a cross. Num- 
ber three’s back was simply whitened with clay. 
All these headdresses were made of slats of the Spanish bayonet, un- 
painted, excepting that on number two was a figure in black, which 
could not be made out, and that the horizontal crosspieces on number 
three were painted blue. 
The dominos or masks were of blackened buckskin, for the two 
fastened around the neck by garters or sashes; the neckpiece of num- 
ber three was painted red;. the eyes seemed to be glass knobs or brass 
' Anatomy of Melancholy, London, 1827, vol. 1, p. 337. 
?Picart, Cérémonies et Cofitumes, ete., Amsterdam, 1729, vol. 5, p. 50. 
