Untitled - Smithsonian Institution

64 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 99
as a preventive measure against the machinations of witches (see
p. 13), and, with a view to faciUtating delivery, at the time of parturi-
tion (see p. 123).
The dextral circuit (sunwise) seems to be the most common and
original one; the sinistral circuit is, however, not unknown, and may
have its origin in the symbolical reversion of that which is customary.
(Compare Germ. "Riickzauber.")
To close this survey, which to the best of my knowledge is complete,
it may be well to state that all of these methods are only practiced
by the medicine men; all a layman may venture to do is to give a
patient his medicine to drink, or to give him an additional inunction
of his decoction, but all this only under the explicit direction of the
worthy practitioner. (See p. 5Q.)
Prescriptions as to Diet, Taboos, Etc.
As will be seen in the chapter dealing with the formulas (p. 144),
almost every one of these is, or should be, accompanied by an often
quite extensive explanation, listing the symptoms of the ailment
against which the formula should be used, its cause, the simples to be
gathered, with their mode of preparation, and finally the restrictions
to be observed. These restrictions, or taboos, are the object of the
following lines.
Roughly speaking they may be divided into two classes: Those
referring to the diet of the patient; those referring to the care of the
patieut and to his behavior.
As to the former, ample illustrations will be found of them, in almost
every formula or prescription, and I merely want to draw attention
to them here, at the same time contributing a few notes toward
making this custom more intelligible.
For here again, as mth almost every phase in the Cherokee treatment
of disease, we are dealing with entities of a purely mythological
nature. Every observant reader v/hen looldng over the formulas will
be struck with the so often repeated prohibition of hot food and salt.
The reason for this, as for many of these restrictions, can not be given,
not even by the most erudite of the Cherokee medicine men.
Mr. Mooney repeatedly in liis notes expresses the opinion that salt
and hot food are tabooed because they have been introduced by the
whites, and. are therefore thought to interfere witli the action of the
Indian medicine. I do not quite share this opinion. Even if the
use of mineral salt had not spread among the Cherokee to the same
extent as it did after the advent of the whites, yet they did know lye,
and lye is prohibited by the medicine men in every case where salt is
forbidden.
I noticed, furthermore, that now that the food introduced by the
white people, such as canned goods, coffee, sugar, etc, is easily