594 MEDICINE MEN OF THE APACHE. 
history there is no one element of their social life which demands closer 
attention than the power of these teachers. . . . However much 
we may deplore the use they made of their skill, weanust estimate it 
fairly and grant it its due weight im measuring the influence of the re- 
ligious sentiment on the history of man.”! 
“Like Old Men of the Sea, they have clung to the neck of their 
nations, throttling all attempts at progress, binding them to the 
thraldom of superstition and profligacy, dragging them down to 
wretchedness and death. Christianity and civilization meet in them 
their most determined, most implacable foes.” 
In spite of all the zeal and vigilance of the Spanish friars, supported 
by military power, the Indians of Bogota clung to their idolatry. 
Padre Simon cites several instances and says tersely: ““De manera 
que no lo hay del Indio que parece mas Cristiano y ladino, de que no 
tenga idolos 4 quien adore, como nos lo dice cada dia la experiencia.” 
(So that there is no Indian, no matter how well educated he may appear 
in our language and the Christian doctrine, who has not idols which 
he adores, as experience teaches us every day.)’ 
“The Indian doctor relied far more on magic than on natural reme- 
dies. Dreams, beating of the drum, songs, magic feasts and dances, 
and howling to frighten the female demon from the patient, were his 
ordinary methods of cure.”* : 
In a very rare work by Padre José de Arriaga, published in Lima, 
1621, it is shown that the Indians among whom this priest was sent on 
a special tour of investigation were still practicing their old idolatrous 
ritesin secret. This work may be found quoted in Montesinos, Mémoires 
sur Ancien Pérou, in Ternaux-Compans, Voyages, vol. 17; the title of 
Arriaga’s work is Extirpacion de la Idolatria de los Indios del Peru. 
Arriaga also states that the functions of the priesthood were exercised 
by both sexes. 
It will only be after we have thoroughly routed the medicine-men 
from their intrenchments and made them an object of ridicule that we 
can hope to bend and train the mind of our Indian wards in the direc- 
tion of civilization. In my own opinion, the reduction of the medicine- 
men will effect more for the savages than the giving of land in severalty 
or instruction in the schools at Carlisle and Hampton; rather, the 
latter should be conducted with this great object mainly in view: to 
let pupils insensibly absorb such knowledge as may soonest and most 
completely convince them of the impotency of the charlatans who hold 
the tribes in bondage. 
Teach the scholars at Carlisle and Hampton some of the wonders 
of electricity, magnetism, chemistry, the spectroscope, magic lantern, 
1 Brinton, Myths of the New World, pp. 285, 286. 
2Tbid., p. 264. 
3 Kingsborough, vol. 8, sup.. p. 249. 
* Parkman, Jesuits, introduction, p. lxxxiv. 
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