768 BUREAU OP AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 137 



^yind (Mooney, 1900, pp. 239-240; 1932, pp. 42-50). They believed in 

 survival after death and, according to Timberlake, in a different fate 

 hereafter, d^^pending upon actions in this life, though Olbrechts could 

 not find a trace of this and the exact native attitude on this point is 

 probably lost (Timberlake, Williams ed., 1927, p. 87; Mooney, 1932, 

 p. 142). Ceremonies were performed in the town houses, and we are 

 sometimes told that they formerly kept a perpetual fire in the town 

 house at Echota, but these houses were not so much like temples as the 

 communal edifices we find in some other parts of the section. Numer- 

 ous places in the Cherokee country were held in awe as the abodes of 

 supernatural beings but we hear little of offerings made to them 

 (French ms.; Mooney, 1900, pp. 404-419, 395-396, 501-503). 



Individuals dealing with the occult and those treating diseases cannot 

 be separated clearly. They included several classes, the curers 

 proper, the priests, who performed rites at running water over 

 persons desiring not only relief from sickness and protection against 

 it but success in the ball game, in love, and in hunting, and who 

 aspired to long life; prognosticators of future events or diviners; 

 midwives; and those who practiced witchcraft. Their influence ex- 

 tended to all departments of the tribal and individual life. Women 

 could perform these functions as well as men though there were not 

 so many of them. Treatment consisted in administering an infusion 

 of certain plants internally or externally, blowing on the affected 

 part, sprinkling with medicine, exposure of the patient to vapors 

 from the medicine, the sweat bath, massage, vomiting into the 

 river, symbolic means, scratching, sucking and burying the disease, 

 circumambulation of the sick man, accompanied by various food and 

 other taboos and regulations. The administration of most remedies 

 was accompanied by the repetition of set formulae of which a great 

 mnay have been recorded (Mooney, 1932, pp. 83-88). 



Our earliest note regarding the operations of rain makers and 

 doctors is from Charles Hicks, a prominent mixed-blood chief who 

 says: 



They have a similar plan of choosing one or two men to represent the clans 

 in what is called making rain. 



In making rain, seven men or women are chosen to represent the clan, who 

 keep a fast during the time the conjurer is about to obtain rain, and when the 

 rain comes he sacrifices the tongue of a deer that is procured for that purpose. 

 The conjurer himself observes a strict fast with frequent bathings during the 

 time he is making rain. On such occasions the conjurer speaks a language dif- 

 ferent from the present language of the nation, and which few understand. They 

 who design to follow the practices are taught by those who understand it. . . . 



The doctors among the Cherokee suppose that cures are to be made in 7 nights 

 of the different disorders which the human body is subject to. During these 

 cures the doctors are remarkably strict to keep out of the house where the jmtient 

 lies such persons as have handled a dead body, women, &c. for it is held among the 



