siOBX; - Smithsonian Institution

230 BUEEAU OF AMEEICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 103
the success with which they used those remedies proved their knowledge of
the healing properties of the various herbs and roots in which their extensive
forests abounded. They had a specific for the bite of the sintullo'" (rattle-
snake). Their doctors relied much on dry-cupping, using their mouth alone
in all such cases. Oft have I witnessed the Choctaw physician, east of the Mississippi
river, administering to the necessities of his suffering patient through
the virtues found in the process of dry-cupping. Stretching the sufferer upon a
blanket spread upon the ground, he kJieeled beside him and began a process
of sucking that part of the body of which the patient complained, or where,
in his own judgment, the disease was located, making a guttural noise during
the operation that reminded one of [a] dog worrying an opossum; at different
intervals raising his head a few inches and pretending to deposit into his
hands, alternately in the one and the other, an invisible something which he
had drawn from his patient, by a magic power known alone to himself.
After sucking a sufficient length of time to fill both hands, judging from
the frequent deposits therein made, with great apparent dignity and solemn
gravity, this worthy son of Esculapius arose and stepping to the nearest ti"ee,
post, or fence, wiped the secret contents of his apparently full hands thereon
then with an air of marked importance v/alked away to the enjoyment of his
own reflections, while the sufferer, in real or fancied relief, acknowledged
the efiicacy of the physician's healing powers by ceasing to complain, turned
over and sought forgetfulness in the arms of refreshing sleep. If there ensued
a change for the better he claimed the honor and praise as due the noble
profession of which he I'ecognized himself a worthy and important member
but if the disease proved stubborn and refused to yield to the medicinal
virtues of his herbs, roots, and dry-cupping, he turned to his last resort—the
Anuka [or anu°ka], (Hot-house). This edifice, an important adjunct in all
Choctaw villages, was made of logs rendered nearly air tight by stopping all
cracks with mortar. A little hole was left on one side for an entrance. A fire
was built in the center of this narrow enclosure, and soon the temperature
within was raised to the desired degree, then the fire was taken out and the
patient instructed to crawl in ; which being done, the little opening was
closed. As a matter of course, the patient must bake or sweat ; which, however,
resulted in the latter; and when, in the opinion of the Alikchi, (doctor) he
had undergone a thorough sweating, the entrance was opened, and the patient
bidden to come forth :
who, upon his exit, at once runs to the nearest water into
which he plunges head first ; but if not of suflficient amount and depth for
the correct performance of that ceremony to its fullest extent, he ducks his
head into it several times, thus making practical the wholesome theory of the
hygienist : " Keep your head cool, but your feet warm." In case of common
intermittent fever, the efficiency of this mode of proceeding (the sweat and
cold bath) was truly astonishing, seldom failing to effect a cure.
But if the patient died—ah, then ! with that shrewdness peculiar to all
quacks the world over, he readily found a cause upon whicli to base his excuse
for his inefficacy to effect a cure ; differing somewhat, however, from his
white brother alikchi, who attributes the cause of his failure to innumerable
" where-as-es and ifs," while he openly acknowledged and emphatically declared
the interposition of a hat-tak holth-kun-na [or hatak holhkunna] (witch),
which, counteracting the beneficial virtues of his remedies, had caused the death
of his patient by thus placing him beyond the reach of mortal skill, nothing
more nor less. Sometimes, for the sake of variety, he attributed the death
of his patient, if occurring very suddenly, to an Ish tulbih [isht albi] (witch
^ Sintullo is probably from siutl hullo, " sacred snake," or " sacred mysterious snake."