Untitled - Smithsonian Institution

108 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 99
And yet, there are even more arguments. White medicine and
Indian medicine are both good; but as Indian medicine is not good for
a white man, what is the use of white medicine for an Indian? "We
Indians have always used the medicine raw,^° and have gotten used
to it. But white medicine is not raw, and it does not agree with us."
Others are less dogmatic about it, and say that there are successful
white doctors, just as there are skillful Indian medicine men, and that,
if one of the latter has failed to cure a patient, there is no reason why
the white doctor should not be given a chance. But the two should
never be employed at the same time. The only exception to this
rule that has come to my knowledge is a case where a child was ill,
and the agency doctor, being summoned, prescribed a medicine to
be drunlc. The Cherokee medicine man, Wil., since deceased, who
had been attending to the case, had ordered a collection of herbs to
be cooked and the decoction to be sprinkled over the child. When
he heard of the white doctor's prescription he did not oppose himself
to the white man's medicine being used simultaneously with his own,
as the former was to be used internally, whereas his was for external
use only.
One point which even the most inveterate traditionalist will always
be found readily willing to concede is that there are certain diseases
which an Indian medicine man could not possibly cure, viz, those
diseases that are of an infectious and contagious nature, and which
are reputed to be imported by the white people, and more specifically,
caused by the white doctors.
On the other hand, there exist ailments which even the best white
physician could not cure, as the dreaded and uncanny ay€''ltGo*'Gi
diseases (see p. 33) and in a general way all diseases that are held to
be caused by human agency and occult means.
There are quite a few stories circulating, calculated to uphold the
prestige of the native medicine men at the expense of the agency
doctors. One of them, representative of the kind, follows below,
almost textually (Informant W.):
One day my brother-in-law became suddenly ill on the ball field.
I carried him home and went after Doctor X ^^ to cure him.
Doctor X came twice, but gave him up and said there was no hope
of recovery. I then went to Og., who came; he said that if the sick
man lived until midnight he would recover, but that he was very bad,
and might die before then. So I went and warned all the relatives,
and they came and stood by his bedside. About half past 10 that
night he became very bad, his breath stopped, and we all thought he
^ The point he wants to make here is, that our materia medica is prepared,
distilled, extracted, compressed into tablets, etc. There is neither smell, taste,
nor trace "of the barks and roots" left.
81 The Government Agency physician.