I 
ROCKY MOUNTAIN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. 65 
elaborate care, and occasionally in the most grotesque 
manner, and always has with him his medicine-bag 
filled with charms and simples, the precursor of the 
doctor's saddle-bag, and the city physician's satchel.^ 
gifts, and after severe trials by fasting and privation. I am of opinion 
from what I have observed that the principal powers by which these 
doctors obtain such influence among the tribes are those of mesmer- 
ism ; and the stronger the physical energies to exert the magnetic de- 
velopment, the greater is the person possessing them considered." 
(Schoolcraft, vol. vi, p. 632.) 
* The dress of the medicine-men varied greatly in its minutiae 
among the different tribes, but all bore to each other a general sem- 
blance of care and pretension. The costume in some cases was ex- 
tremely ludicrous, in others horrible, and always calculated to inspire 
awe and terror. It was generally the skin of some wild beast, with 
many trinkets and a medicine-bag, including the skins of some rare 
animal, bird, or insect attached. The horns of animals were occa- 
sionally fixed upon the head, and thus arrayed, with rattle or drum to 
accompany the medicine-song, the physician appeared before his 
patient. 
G. H. Loskiel described an Indian doctor who made his profes- 
sional visits attired in a large bear-skin, so that his arms were covered 
with the skin of the fore legs, his feet and legs with that of the 
hind legs, and his head concealed in the skin of the animal's head, 
in which pieces of mica or some bright substance were set to repre- 
sent eyes. In his hand he held a *' calabash" or rattle, and was 
accompanied by a great crowd of people who were singing and 
dancing. 
John W. De Forest, in his History of the Indians of Connecticut, 
says the Indian doctor attired himself so as to resemble a wild beast 
or some nondescript monster. 
Francois Coreal, in his Voyages aux Indes Occidentales, i666-'97, 
vol. i, pp. 39-41, speaking of the Florida Indians, says: "The 
yaoilnas were clothed in long robes made of skins of various animals 
cut into bands. Girdles of deer-skin were used to fasten these robes, 
and from these were suspended pouches containing herbs. Over all 
these the physicians wore, after the fashion of a cloak, the hide of 
some wild animal. The feet and arms are bare, but they wore on 
their heads caps or helmets of skins, terminating in a point." 
