The Medicine-Men of the Apache. (1892 N 09 / 1887-1888 (pages 443-604)). John Gregory Bourke
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the owner himself without due consideration. One may ask a warrior of any tribe to give his name and the question will be met with either a point-blank refusal or the more diplomatic evasion that he can not understand what is wanted of him. The moment a friend approaches, the warrior first interrogated will whisper what is wanted, and the friend can tell the name, receiving a reciprocation of the courtesy from the other. The giving of names to children is a solemn matter, and one in which the medicine-men should always be consulted. Among the Plains tribes the children were formerly named at the moment of piercing their ears, which should occur at the first sun dance after their birth, or rather as near their first year as possible. The wailing of the children at the sun dance as their ears were slit will always be to me a most distressing memory.
The warriors of the Plains tribes used to assume agnomens or battle names, and I have known some of them who had enjoyed as many as four or five; but the Apache name once conferred seems to remain through life, except in the case of the medicine-men, who, I have always suspected, change their names upon assuming their profession, much as a professor of learning in China is said to do.
The names of mothers-in-law are never mentioned and it would be highly improper to ask for them by name; neither are the names of the dead, at least not for a long period of time. But it often happens that the child will bear the name of its grandfather or some other relative who was a distinguished warrior.
All charms, idols, talismans, medicine hats, and other sacred regalia should be made, or at least blessed, by the medicine-men. They assume charge of all ceremonial feasts and dances—such as the nubile dance, which occurs when any maiden attains marriageable age, and war dances preceding battle. Nearly all preparations for the warpath are under their control, and when on the trail of the enemy their power is almost supreme. Not a night passes but that the medicine-men get into the "ta-a-chi," or sweat bath, if such a thing be possible, and there remain for some minutes, singing and making "medicine" for the good of the party. After dark they sit around the fire and sing and talk with the spirits and predict the results of the campaign. I have alluded quite fully to these points in a previous work.
When a man is taken sick the medicine-men are in the zenith of their glory. One or two will assume charge of the case, and the clansmen and friends of the patient are called upon to supply the fire and help out in the chorus. On such occasions the Apache use no music except a drum or a rawhide. The drum is nearly always improvised from an iron camp kettle, partially filled with water and covered with a piece of cloth, well soaped and drawn as tight as possible. The drumstick does not terminate in a ball, as with us, but is curved into a circle, and the stroke is not perpendicular to the surface, but is often given from one side to the other. The American Indian's theory of disease is the theory of the Chaldean, the Assyrian, the Hebrew, the Greek, the Roman—all bodily disorders and ailments are attributed to the maleficence of spirits who must be expelled or placated. Where there is only one person sick, the exercises consist of singing and drumming exclusively, but dancing is added in all cases when an epidemic is raging in the tribe. The medicine-men lead off in the singing, to which the assistants reply with a refrain which at times has appeared to me to be antiphonal. Then the chorus is swelled by the voices of the women and larger children and rises and falls with monotonous cadence. Prayers are recited, several of which have been repeated to me and transcribed; but very frequently the words are ejaculatory and confined to such expressions as "ugashe" (go away), and again there is to be noted the same mumbling of incoherent phrases which has been the stock in trade of medicine-men in all ages and places. This use of gibberish was admitted by the medicine-men, who claimed that the words employed and known only to themselves (each individual seemed to have his own vocabulary) were mysteriously effective in dispelling sickness of any kind. Gibberish was believed to be more potential in magic than was language which the practitioner or his dupes could comprehend. In Saxon Leechdoms, compiled by Cockayne, will be seen a text of gibberish to be recited by those wishing to stanch the flow of blood. (See p. 464.)
In the following citations it will be observed that Adair and Catlin were grievously in error in their respective statements. Adair denies that Indians on the warpath or elsewhere depend upon their "augurs" for instruction and guidance.[36] Gomara is authority for the statement that the natives of Hispaniola never made war without consulting their medicine-men—"no sin respuesta de los ídolos ó sin la de los sacerdotes, que adevinan."[37]
The medicine-men of Chicora (our present South Carolina) sprinkled the warriors with the juice of a certain herb as they were about to engage in battle.[38]
In Chicora "Mascaban los Sacerdotes una Ierva, i con el çumo de ella rociaban los Soldados, quando querian dar batalla, que era bendecirlos."[39]
"Among the Abipones [of Paraguay] the medicine-man teaches them the place, time, and manner proper for attacking wild beasts or the enemy."[40]
"The North American Indians are nowhere idolaters."[41]
Idols were always carried to war by the natives of Hispaniola: "Atanse á la frente ídolos chiquitos cuando quieren pelear."[42]
"Among the primitive Germans * * * the maintenance of discipline in the field as in the council was left in great measure to the priests; they took the auguries and gave the signal for onset."[43]
"In New Caledonia * * * the priests go to battle, but sit in the distance, fasting and praying for victory."[44]
Our hunting songs and war songs may be a survival of the incantations of Celtic or Teutonic medicine-men.
The adoption or retention of obsolete phraseology as a hieratic language which has been noted among many nations of the highest comparative development is a manifestation of the same mental process.
Gibberish was so invariable an accompaniment of the sacred antics of the medicine-men of Mexico that Fray Diego Duran warns his readers that if they see any Indian dancing and singing, "ó diciendo algunas palabras que no son inteligibles, pues es de saber que aquellos representaban Dioses."[45]
Henry Youle Hind says:
The Dakotahs have a common and a sacred language. The conjurer, the war prophet, and the dreamer employ a language in which words are borrowed from other Indian tongues and dialects; they make much use of descriptive expressions, and use words apart from the ordinary signification. The Ojibways abbreviate their sentences and employ many elliptical forms of expression, so much so that half-breeds, quite familiar with the colloquial language, fail to comprehend a medicine-man when in the full flow of excited oratory.[46]
"Blood may be stanched by the words sicycuma, cucuma, ucuma, cuma, uma, ma, a."[47] There are numbers of these gibberish formulæ given, but one is sufficient.
"The third part of the magic[48] of the Chaldeans belonged entirely to that description of charlatanism which consists in the use of gestures, postures, and mysterious speeches, as byplay, and which formed an accompaniment to the proceedings of the thaumaturgist well calculated to mislead."[49]
Sahagun[50] calls attention to the fact that the Aztec hymns were in language known only to the initiated.
It must be conceded that the monotonous intonation of the medicine-men is not without good results, especially in such ailments as can be benefited by the sleep which such singing induces. On the same principle that petulant babies are lulled to slumber by the crooning of their nurses, the sick will frequently be composed to a sound and beneficial slumber, from which they awake refreshed and ameliorated. I can recall, among many other cases, those of Chaundezi ("Long Ear," or "Mule") and Chemihuevi-Sal, both chiefs of the Apache, who recovered under the treatment of their own medicine-men after our surgeons had abandoned the case. This recovery could be attributed only to the sedative effects of the chanting.
Music of a gentle, monotonous kind has been prescribed in the medical treatment of Romans, Greeks, and even of comparatively modern Europeans. John Mason Goode, in his translation of Lucretius' De Natura Rerum, mentions among others Galen, Theophrastus, and Aulus Gellius. An anonymous writer in the Press of Philadelphia, Pa., under date of December 23, 1888, takes the ground that its use should be resumed.
The noise made by medicine-men