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oIbrecIts] the swimmer MANUSCRIPT 117
It is held that imsimultaneous detumescence can not produce
offspring.
There is no clear conception as to the origin of the soul of the
child. The majority of the informants say that they do not know,
"they have never thought of it." The keenest of the medicine men,
W., thought that it came along, with what went to form the body of
the child, and was therefore secreted by both the individuals
concerned in the act.
A woman knows she has conceived by the stopping of her catamenial
flow.
Abortus— Contraceptives
Abortus is totally unknown; even my best informant (a man of
56, prominent medicine man, holding a leading position in the tribal
organization, twice married, high school graduate), had never heard
of it, and I had a good deal of difficulty in making him understand
what I meant. He was horrified at the idea, and I am afraid his
esteem for the white people and the ways of some of them was not
improved, when he finally grasped the idea.
It does not seem to have dawned on them that the foetus can be
tampered with at aU, and to do so, W. thought, would be outright
murder. As he put it: "You might as well cut a 5-year-old child's
head off."
Of contraceptive measures, they do not seem to be quite so ignorant.
They know one: t'l'ltyu^sti {Cicuta maculata L. ; spotted cowbane;
musquash root; beaver's poison), the roots of which are chewed and
swallowed for four days consecutively by the woman who wants to
put an end to her conceptive abilities. It is alleged that if a woman
uses this she will become sterile forever.
From a point of view of morals, it is considered nothing less than
a crime, and none of my informants knew a case where it had been
used. One, W. again, said that he never knew it to be used, but
that he imagines that it might be used by a woman who can not keep
her children alive, or when it is considered that "partus" would
endanger her life. But even then, he said, they would not do it,
"for a woman will just as lief take the risk of dying with her baby,
rather than to live without a child."
There is a vague hint by some of the informants at the possibility
of promiscuous women using this drug, especially if they are married,
so that there can be no material proof of their misbehavior. But
substantial evidence to prove this impression could not be given.
When we consider their total ignorance of abortive measures
and the scant and vague knowledge of contraceptives, I am inclined
to think that the Cherokee hold the only means known to them from
the white settlers. It is said that, at an early period of its growth.