SwAKTON] INDIANS OF THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES 795 



which is in the horn, they show this wood or bison wool to the parents of the 

 sick man, which they make them believe is a charm ; then this juggler passes 

 as a very wise man. ( Swanton, 1918, pp. 61-62 ; 1931 a, p. 228. ) 



Bossu's account is almost as old : 



When a Chacta is sick, he gives all that he has to be treated, but if the sick 

 man dies, his relatives attribute his death to the doctor and not to the con- 

 dition of the patient. Consequently they kill the doctor if they feel so inclined, 

 but this happens seldom because there is always a back door. Besides, these 

 doctors are acquainted with many plants good to cure the maladies to which 

 one is exposed in this country. They can heal with certainty the bites of rat- 

 tlesnakes and other poisonous creatures. 



When savages have been wounded by a bullet or arrows, the jugglers or 

 doctors begin by sucking the patient's wound and spitting out the blood, which 

 is called in France gu^rir du secret. In their dressings they do not make use 

 of lint of pledgets, but of a powdered root which they blow into the wound 

 to make it suppurate and another which makes it dry up and close. They 

 clear the wounds of gangrene (cangrene) by bathing them in a decoction of 

 certain roots with which they are acquainted. (Swanton, 1931a, p. 229; Bossu, 

 1768, vol. 2, pp. 96-98.) 



Coming down into the nineteenth century, we have a very good 

 resume of native Choctaw practice from Folsom, himself a Choctaw. 

 After remarking that females as well as males practiced medicine, 

 in equal numbers he maintains, he says : 



The doctors made use of herbs and roots in various forms, applied and given 

 in different modes — for emetics, cathartics, sweat, wounds, and sores; they 

 also made use of cold baths, scarification, cupping and blistered by means of 

 burning punk, and practiced suction to draw out pain ; some used enchantment, 

 while others practiced by magic, pretending to have learned the art of healing 

 ... by special revelation, communicated to them in some retired and unfre- 

 quented forest. It was in this way, also, it is said, that the war-prophets were 

 raised up to lead the people to battle. At a high price and much expense 

 the doctors of both sexes learned the mode and manner of the use of herbs 

 and roots . . . They have, among other things, an effectual remedy for the 

 bite of the rattle-snake, or of any other venomous reptile, thfe bite of which 

 they consider very easy of cure. (Cushman, 1899, pp. 367-368; Swanton, 1931a, 

 p. 226.) 



Cushman speaks of sweat bathing as the last resort of the doctor 

 and states that it was astonishingly effective in "intermittent fevers." 

 We are also told that the doctor danced, sang, beat upon a drum, and 

 uttered formulae, calling at times upon the four quarters of the 

 earth (Cushman, 1899, pp. 258-260; Swanton, 1931a, pp. 230-231). 

 Dances resembling the Pishofa dances seem to have been held at 

 times. 



Although Cushman overvalued native medical knowledge, the two 

 followmg paragraphs by him are inserted as giving an idea of some 

 of the native remedies and the effect of the influx of diseases intro- 

 duced by the whites : 



In cases of bowel affections they use persimmons dried by the heat of the 

 snn and mixed with a light kind of bread. In case of sores, they applied a 



