Untitled - Smithsonian Institution

Olbkechts] the swimmer MANUSCRIPT 95
events that are to happen four or seven days afterwards, or within
four or seven days. I am quite convinced that they honestly beheve
themselves in what they forecast in tliis manner, e. g., that the
patron's enemy, against whom the medicine man had been asked to
conjure, will die within seven days; or that a disease has been sent by
a plotter, etc.
But it should be borne in mind that four or seven days (or rather
four or seven ''nights passed") is a ritual expression wliich may
just as well mean the same number of years, so that the margin of
error becomes verj'- elastic. Adding to wliich such exegetical com-
modities at the command of the Cherokee medicine man as the
superior magic power of the opponent, the possible neglect of the
medicine man's patron to observe the necessary taboos, and all the
difficulties raised by skeptics are explained away.
"A desire to serve." Such might well be the slogan of the pro-
fession, summing up its attitude toward the sick and the disabled.
There are, of course, some less worthy members who are only too
anxious to convince the suffering party that a treatment of seven days
would be more advantageous than one of four, tliinking at the same
time of the greater profit in cloth and beads wliich the former will
bring him.
But it deserves emphasis, on the other hand, that any medicine
man called upon is willing and ready to undertake the curing of a
patient who is utterly destitute; although he quite well knows that he
is to expect no reward for his troubles, he will dispense to him the same
care, and will exert the same amount of sldil to relieve him, as he would
do for the benefit of a well-to-do member of the tribe.
Nor does a personal enemy of a medicine man call on his aid in vain,
in his hour of need. Two medicine men told me that their mother,
from whom they had inherited a great deal of their knowledge, had
told them before she died that they should never make use of their
knowledge to harm their enemies; they shoidd never take vengeance
of a first slight or insult, nor of a second; but if they had been abused
three times (see p. 100) by the same person, then they might react by
occult means against him. Should this enemy become ill, however,
and call for their help, they should not refuse it, but should extend to
him the benefit of their skill and knowledge with the same good will
as if he were their best friend.
The Medicine Man's Fee
There is not much left to be added to James Mooney's excellent
account of this in his SFC, pages 337-339.
The only main point left at issue, viz, the etymology of the word,
has been subjected to a further investigation, with the following
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