110 BULLETIN UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY. 



visible manner. They believe in it so firmly, that they say when the 

 heart of one who has died has been opened that often this stone, or 

 bone, or the like, has been found. When the good medicine-man 

 tamanamuses over the sick person, sometimes he gets well and some- 

 times he d6es not. When he does, often I think he would have re- 

 covered had there been no tamanamus, and sometimes I am inclined to 

 think it might, perhaps, be attributed to mesmeric power on the part of 

 the doctor, or to the powers of the imagination, as often spoken of in 

 mental philosophy, on the part of the sick person. There are enough 

 cures to make them firm believers in it, and enough deaths to make them 

 believe that there is some other doctor stronger than the one who is 

 trying to cure. They pay the doctor who is trying to cure whatever 

 they wish, but generally considerable, so as to secure his services again 

 if they need him, and if they can discover to their satisfaction the bad 

 doctor who sends the sickness, they will extort considerable from him. 



In addition to this, which might be called tamanamus for the sick, 

 there are at least three other kinds which are called b/the name of 

 tamanamus — the black tamanamus — which is the most savage (see III, 

 15, A, Secret orders), that for the living and that for the dead. 



I do not know all the order of ceremonies, but there is, in connection 

 with the last two of them, very much feasting, pounding, singing^ 

 hallooing, dancing, &c., and some fasting. 



In the tamanamus for the living, the candidate starves himself until 

 he is about sick, when all his friends gather and make the noise, he 

 singing a kind of solo at times and they responding ; and this is kept 

 up more or less for several days and nights, with intervals of rest 

 more or less long. The object of it is to gain the favor of his tamana- 

 mus or guardian spirit. 



Tamanamus for the dead: — Some time before a person dies, it may be 

 months, it is supposed that a spirit comes from the spirit-world and 

 carries away the spirit of the person, after which the person gradually 

 wastes away or suddenly dies. If by any means it can be discovered 

 that this has been done, and there are those who profess to do it, then 

 they attempt to get the spirit back by a tamanamus, and, if it is done, 

 the person will live. 



There are three traditions about tamanamus which I have learned. 



One is of a man, a long time ago, who formed an image of a man, into 

 which he put his tamanamus, and over which he had considerable 

 power, even to making it dance. Two young men did not believe it, 

 and at one time, when many were gathered in the house where it was,. 

 were told that, if they did not believe it, to take hold of it and hold it 

 still. But when they did so, the man made it dance, and soon, instead 

 of the two men holding it still, it made them dance, one holding to an 

 arm on each side of it, nor could they stop or let go, but after dancing 

 a while in the house it took them outside, dancing toward the salt-water. 

 All the people followed, trying to stop it, but could not. It took thetu 



