Untitled - Smithsonian Institution

n^ZII'frlr^] THE SWIMMER MANUSCRIPT 91
OlbkecutsJ
A poor attempt in this direction is being made by the more progres-
sive of the medicine men, whom I found cultivating the following
medicinal plants:
tso-'laGay9-'"h, Nicotiana rustica L., wild tobacco.
a-''skwane-'D5", Veratrum viride Ait., American white helle})ore;
Indian poke.
tso-'ltyi;"sti Gf'GaGe'"' a-\lzfl5°'ski, Lobelia cardinalis L., cardinal
flower.
Dunu*'na, Glycine apios L.
a't'tse'H, Alnus rugosa (Du Koi) Spreng., smooth alder.
Gana-'ca tsu-'nt'ano"', Scirpus validus Vahl, great bulrush.
It is equally rare to find medicine men collecting and drying roots or
other parts of simples for use in sudden emergencies. Only three
items so treated have come to my attention: Powder (snufi") of the
dried leaves of tso-'laGay9-'"li, Nicotiana rustica L,, wild tobacco, and
the root of o-'naliGa'^li, Panax trifolium L., dwarf ginseng, and finally
the roots needed for prenatal and puerperal care, and that can not be
located in wintertime.
Social Status
Even if we no longer find any traces of the individual medicine man
or of a body of them exercising any such politic influence as has been
ascribed to the a nikuta"ni (see p. 97), there is no doubt but that the
position of the medicine man must at one time have been one of
considerable importance in the tribe.
Such hints as Adair's statement (p. 240) that Priber, forming the
Cherokee "into a nominal republican government, crowned their old
Archimagus emperor," seem to indicate that the political influence
of the medicine men, or at any rate of the chief medicine man, was
very considerable at that time.
In many of the tales relating to the war exploits of the Cherokee
against the neighboring tribes it is often explicitly stated that a
medicine man accompanies the party, and the success of the expedition
often depends more on his skill in divination and conjuring than on the
prowess and cunning of the warriors. This also must undoubtedly
have resulted in strengthening their position socially, as his orders
were of greater import than those of the actual leader of the party.
Even now, when two settlements are training for the ball game, a
contest which with the Cherokee is as much of a social as of a sportive
nature, the medicine man is exercising his influence and his per-
sonality in such a way that the whole affair takes the aspect of a
contest between the occult power of the two medicine men conjuring
for the teams rather than that of a match between two rival teams of
players.
It is he, the medicine man, not the chief of the settlement, who
addresses the team before they leave home to meet their opponents.