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Olbeechts] the swimmer MANUSCRIPT 109
had died. I straightened his legs out, and his stepmother tied her
handkerchief under his chin.
But all of a sudden he breathed, and again, and again. Quickly
they took the handkerchief away; he opened his eyes, and asked:
"When did I come back?" (It sounded as if he thought he had been
away.) His father said: "You have not been away; you have been
in bed all the time."
Next day he ate, and soon he became stronger; within a week he
walked about the house; he recovered.
Personalities— Individual Differences
Although I have carefully avoided conveying the impression that
anything applying to one medicine man likewise holds for every one
of his congeners, yet I consider it necessary to specially devote a few
lines to a rough sketch of the character of a few of them, bringing out
such individual differences in views and behavior as struck and im-
pressed me most.
It goes without saying that just as anywhere else, and as in any other
profession, some of them are more proficient and skillful than others;
that some again are less overawed and fettered bj^" tradition and pattern
than some of their colleagues; that some there are, finally, whose
honesty and integrity can not be doubted, whereas others are no better
than some of the vulgar and mercantile quacks that are not unlaiown
even in our communities.
There is W. (57 years old, married; see pi. 5), who acted as my
interpreter and main informant during the major part of my stay.
He has a very striking personality. His mother, ayo^sta (Mooney,
SFC, p. 313; Myths, pi. xiv) was a medicine woman of high repute
and a staunch traditionalist. From her W. got a lot of mythological
and botanical lore when he was quite young, but after he went to the
Government school at Hampton, Va., he lost, as he says himself, all
faith in what the old people believed and taught. He was recon-
verted, however, by an experience, a detailed account of which will
be given elsewhere, and during which, bj^ some Cherokee talisman,
which his half brother. Climbing Bear, had procured for him, he
managed to win the affection of a white girl.
In spite of this success, the white people's settlements made him feel
hopelessly homesick. He returned to his people, and it did not take
him more than a few days to drop into the old life again, and to work
out a quaint philosophy and outlook on life of his own, and which he
occasionally teaches and advocates, with the result that these views
are uttered rather frequently by other medicine men, with more or less
conviction as the case may be. According to this system, "white
medicine might be good, and Indian medicine might be good. There
are some diseases (e. g., uye-Uao-Gi diseases) which a white doctor can