Untitled - Smithsonian Institution

86 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 99
protection against disease and witchcraft, etc.; to bring about the
happy delivery of a pregnant woman, etc.
The specialty which is most often combined with the one just
described is that of "divinator" (see infra); more rarely they also
claim to be able to command the winds and storms, to cause rain,
etc. (see p. 152),
aDo'mt^ski', he examines and conjures (hab.).
This is the name given to the medicine men that are reputed to
foretell future events, to know where hidden things are, how an ab-
sent person is getting on, etc., by means of various divinatory pro-
ceedings and paraphernalia, as, e. g., the beads, aD€*'l5°, also sonikt'a,
the brown stone, n5°'ya wo'-otGe*"', several kinds of grass, the fire, etc.
The name implies not merely examining to find, or to find out the
condition of a given object or person, but rather examining how a
thing is, and influencing it by occult power to become as we would
have it. It refers, therefore, especially to the ceremony performed
by a pj'iest, by means of which he tries to fmd out who our enemy
or our rival is, and whether we are going to succeed against him;
whether our team is going to mn or lose in the ball game; whether
the woman whose favors we crave is well or ill disposed toward us;
whether we will get the better of a rival in a love affair; whether a
relative who is very ill will live or die, etc.
At the same time as he "works" to get an answer he influences
the evil thing or person against which he is acting, and strives to
bring about an evolution into the matter, favorable to his client.
The term "evolution" is peculiarly apt, for usually the proceeding
is repeated four or seven times in succession, the pattern being that
the first couple of times the chances for the client look pretty scant,
but as the experiment is tried over again, and more cloth is put down,
the medicine man and his patron gradually get the better of their
opponent.
It frequently happens that in certain diseases, where the cause is
very occidt and hidden (even to the Cherokee mind), a divinator is
called upon to assist the disease curer proper with his all-revealing
art. Then the part of the work incumbent upon the former is first
to "examine," usually with the beads, to find out which particular
medicine man of the tribe is the one who will be able to cure the
patient. Afterwards, while the "discovered" doctor is treating the
patient, the services of the divinator are still required every day to
find out, again by exandning with the beads, whether the patient is
progressing satisfactorily, and recovering, or whether no headway
is being made. The facts here succinctly sketched are well brought
out in the "Typical curing procedure," described by W. (p. 67).
About divination proper, there is yet a good deal to be said; but
it has been thought that the notes relating to it, and not specifically