siOBX; - Smithsonian Institution

228 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bdll.103
voluntarily, and give success to the hunter by depriving the denizens of the
forest of their natural fear of man ; lie could impart bravery to the heart of
the warrior, strength aud skill to his arm and fleetness to his feet ; yea, could
put to flight the evil spirits of disease from the bodies of the sick. He could
throw a spell or charm over a ball player that would disenable him to hit the
post ; or over the ball-post that would prevent its being hit by anyone whom he
wished to defeat. Such were the professed attainments of the Indian " Medi-
cine Man." But whether he possessed all or any of the supernatural powers,
he professed one thing, the power, art, skill, call it what you may, to make
his people believe it, and that was all-sufficient for him—even as it is with all
humbugs.^'
It is this type of doctor which the author of the French Eelation
seems to have in mind in the following paragraphs
These persons have much to fear when they undertake the case of a sick
person who is a chief, for if he dies after they have conjured, his relatives
say that he has bewitched him, and if he escapes after he has been condemned
to death, they say that he had bewitched him and that fate has erred; so in
all ways he runs the risk of being killed. When there is a sick person among
them they have the doctor come to the place where he is, who, after having
conjured or demanded of their Spirit if the sick person will get well, bleeds
him with a piece of flint. Eight or ten incisions are made in the skin in the
space of the size of a crown (6cu), as when one cups, over which they place
one end of a pierced horn and suck it until the horn is full of blood. As these
jugglers sometimes wish to hide their ignorance they say that someone has
thrown a spell over them (the patients) and then they adroitly put some
bison wool or a little piece of wood into the bottom of the horn, and after
having sucked the sick man and poured out the blood 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.
It is certain that these jugglers speak to the devil. I have seen a number of
examples of it. I will cite three to you. One day, arriving May third at the
house of a man named Fine Teeth, chief of the Naniabas, returning from the
Chicachas and being in need of tobacco, I asked some of this chief, who, in
order to give me some, hunted in his chest, where he had placed three twists,
but could not find them. He thought it was I or some one of the French
whom I had with me who had hidden it from him, but when he had learned
that it was not, I saw him dress and daub himself as if he were going to a
dance, after which, having gone to an open space a gunshot distant from the
house, we saw him fill his pipe, strike the flint, light it, and smoke it with
many gesticulations, as if he were disputing with someone. When he had
smoked it half up it seemed to us that he gave it to someone else to smoke,
without, however, our seeing anyone, except that he held his pipe at a distance
from himself, and the smoke came out in puffs (peletons) as if someone
smoked it. He returned to us immediately and told us, all of a sweat, that
he knew who had taken it, and continuing on toward a cabin opposite his
own, whither I followed him, he sprang at the throat of a savage, demanding
of him the three twists of tobacco which he had taken from him at such an
hour in such a manner, in short explaining to him the method which he had
employed in accomplishing his theft. The poor savage, all of a tremble,
admitted his crime and returned to him his tobacco.
The French, curious regarding his skill, went to find him, and begged him,
under promise of recompense, to make the otter dance for them. He took
' Cusbniap, ijjst. Jpds., pp. 230-231.