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Olbrecuts] the swimmer MANUSCRIPT 105
To some extent there is also a diffusion of the medicinal knowledge
from the members of the profession to the laity, to outsiders who have
no intention of ever becoming medicine men, but who may want a
particular formula or song because they need it so often that they can
not be bothered to hire a medicine man to recite it for them on every
occasion. They therefore ask a medicine man to sell them such-and-
such a formula—say a hunting song or a love conjuration—which will
put an end to their being dependent on the medicine man, for this
emergency at any rate.
Even to his best friend a medicine man will never give a formula,
excusing himself by saying that any information given free loses its
power. Their motives seem to be less interested, when they state that
formulas should not be propagated too much anyway, since the more
they are diffused the less powerful they become. (See p. 99.)
As to the kind of formulas that are most frequently desired by laymen
and communicated to them by the members of the profession,
the reader is referred to the chapter on the Formulas (p. 144 et seq.).
Succession and Inheritance
There is now no definite rule as to who becomes the successor of a
medicine man when he dies, and it is difficult to ascertain if ever such
a rule existed.
As we have seen, a great many individuals may inherit of a medicine
man's knowledge during his lifetime. The problem of the inheritance
of his medicinal and ritual writings must of course be a very modern
one, since it could not antedate the invention of the syllabary by
Sequoj'-a in 1821. But even so, there may have prevailed a rule prior
to this, regulating the inheritance of the paraphernalia and especially
of the profession, of the office. Be that as it may, there is no trace in
the present beliefs or traditions that elucidates this problem.
At the death of a medicine man now, he is succeeded by any one
of the members of his household who takes a sufficiently keen interest
in the profession and "who is not too lazy to be continually on
the road, visiting sick people, collecting medicine for them, etc."
From what has been stated (see p. 99), it is evident that anybody
who succeeds him must have been officially or unofficially initiated
by him, since to an outsider even the most carefully written collec-
tion of formulas would be a closed book.
His wife may succeed him, as in the case of Og.,^^ one of his chil-
dren may, or again a brother or a sister, who, through having been
educated Avith him, may know some of the ins and outs of the pro-
fession.
W. inherited a good deal of his knowledge from his mother, Ayo.,
and a considerable amount from his half-brother, Climbing Bear.
'* Whose practice was taken over by his wife. (PL 8, b.)