siOBX; - Smithsonian Institution

SwANTON] CHOCTAW SOCIAL, AND CEREMONIAL LIFE 229
his tobacco-pouch which was an otter skin in which he kept his pipe and
tobacco, which he threw into the middle of an open place where the people
were assembled to judge of his skill: after he had uttered a number of obscurely
articulated words and thrown himself repeatedly into the fire, from
which he came out in a perspiration, and without being burned, this skin was
seen to swell out, fill with flesh, and come to life, and to run between the legs
of the Frenchmen, some of whom in the company having caressed it and felt
of it, found that it was like a true otter. When each one was satisfied it
returned to the same place where it had come to life and was seen to diminish
in size and return to the form which it had before.
When we were surrounded by the Spaniards in Dauphin Island, and were
expecting help from France from day to day, we wished to know whether it
was on the point of arriving, which could only be known by means of the
savages whom we had with us. They were then made to conjure, and having
done this they reported that five vessels would come the next day, three of
which were large and two smaller, that they were loaded with soldiers, that
one of the little ones would not arrive as soon as the others, because it was
separated and was still a long way off, but that all would have arrived the
day after that toward evening. This actually took place, for the next day
at eight in the morning the first vessel was discovered, and about three or four
in the afternoon four were anchored at Dauphin Island, but the fifth did not
come in until the day following."
In this quotation we seem to find the practices of the common
physician and the performances of Cushman's " Medicine Man or
Prophet " somewhat mixed up, but other writers confuse them also,
including Bossu and Cushman himself. Bossu, however, dwells
most upon the medical side.
The savages generally have a great deal of regard for their medicine men
or diviners, perfect charlatans who impose on the common fool so that they
may live comfortably at his expense. They also have considerable authority
and are turned to for advice on all sorts of occasions as if they were oracles.
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
condition 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 rattlesnakes and other poisonous animals.
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 gu6rtr du secret. In their dressings they do not
make use of lint or 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.^
The material side is also principally in evidence in the following
from Cushman
The Choctaws' Materia Medica, like [that of] all their race, was Nature,
and
herbs, and roots furnishing their remedies both externally and internally ;
*^ Appendix, pp. 249-251; Mem. Am. Anth. Assn., vol. v. No. 2, pp. 61-63.
»» Appendix, pp. 260-261 ; Bossu, Nouv. Voy., vol. 2, pp. 96-98.