SwANTON] INDIANS OF THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES 789 



mountains, where these agues seldom or never appear. Nature having provided 

 suitable remedies in all countries, proper for the maladies that are common thereto. 

 The savages of Carolina have this tea in veneration above all the plants they are 

 acquainted withal, and tell you the discovery thereof was by an infirm Indian, 

 that labored under the burden of many rugged distempers, and could not be cured 

 by all their doctors : so one day he fell asleep, and dreamed that if he took a decoc- 

 tion of the tree that grew at his head, he would certainly be cured. Upon which he 

 awoke, and saw the yaupon or cassena tree, which was not there when he fell 

 asleep. He followed the direction of his dream and became perfectly well in a 

 short time. Now, I suppose no man has so little sense as to believe this fable, yet 

 it lets us see what they intend thereby, and that it has, doubtless, worked feats 

 enough to gain it such an esteem amongst these savages who are too well versed in 

 vegetables to be brought to a continual use of any one of them, upon a mere con- 

 ceit of fancy, without some apparent benefit they found thereby . . . The bark 

 of the root of the sassafras tree I have observed is much used by them. They 

 generally torrefy it in the embers, so strip off the bark from the root, beating it to 

 a consistence fit to spread, so lay it on the grieved part, which both cleanses a 

 fowl ulcer, and after scarrification being applied to a contusion or swelling, draws 

 forth the pain and reduces the part to its pristine state of health, as I have often 

 seen effected. Fats and unguents never appear in their chirurgery when the skin 

 is once broken. The fats of animals are used by them to render their limbs 

 pliable, and when wearied, to relieve the joints, and this not often, because they 

 approve of the sweating house in such cases, above all things .... 



They are never troubled with the scurvey, dropsy, nor stone. The phthisic, 

 ashma, and diabetes, they are wholly strangers to. Neither do I remember 

 I ever saw one paralytic amongst them. The gout, I cannot be certain whether 

 they know what it is, or not. Indeed, I never saw any nodes or swellings, 

 which attend the gout in Europe ; yet they have a sort of rheumatism or burn- 

 ing of the limbs, which tortures them grievously, at which time their legs are 

 so hot, that they employ the young people continually to pour water down 

 them. I never saw but one or two thus afflicted. The struma is not uncom- 

 mon amongst these savages, and another distemper, which is, in some respects, 

 like the pox, but is not attended with no( !) gonorrhsea. This not seldom 

 bereaves them of their nose. I have seen three or four of them rendered most 

 miserable spectacles by this distemper. Yet, when they have been so negligent, 

 as to let it run on so far without curbing of it; at last, they make shift to 

 patch themselves up, and live for many years after; and such men commonly 

 turn doctors. I have known two or three of these no nose doctors in great 

 esteem amongst these savages. The juice of the tulip tree is used as a proper 

 remedy for this distemper. What knowledge they have in anatomy, I cannot 

 tell, neither did I ever see them employ themselves therein, unless as I told 

 you before, when they make skeletons of their kings and great men's bones. . . . 

 The small pox has been fatal to them, they do not often escape, when they are 

 seized with that distemper, which is a contrary fever to what they ever know. 

 Most certain, it has never visited America, before the discovery thereof by the 

 christians. Their running into the water, in the extremity of this disease, 

 strikes it in, and kills all that use it. Now they are become a little wiser ; but 

 formerly it destroyed whole towns, without leaving one Indian alive in the 

 village. The plague was never known amongst them, that I could learn by 

 what enquiry I have made. These savages use scarification almost in all dis- 

 tempers. Their chief instruments for that operation is the teeth of rattle- 

 snakes, which they poison withal. They take them out of the snake's head, and 

 suck out the iwi-son with their mouths, and so keep them for use, and spit out 



