Untitled - Smithsonian Institution

118 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 99,
the plant resembles parsley (cf. Larousse Medical (Paris, 1922), 226),
and parsley {Petroselinum sativum Hoffm.) has been and still is
popular in several European countries as an abortive (cf. v. Hov.
Kr. I 170; Lemery 417; Dodoens 1176). It is still used in official
medicine as an emmenagogue (U. S. Dispensatory, p. 1393).
During Pregnancy
As soon as a woman feels she is with child she informs her husband
and her friends of it. Soon the whole settlement knows about
her condition, and she becomes subjected to the multifarious taboos
and injunctions relating to her condition. The most important of
the latter is that she be " taken to the water" every new moon.
The ceremony of going to the river to pray, to be prayed for, and
to bathe, is the outstanding one of Cherokee ritual. It is now fast
disappearing, and only the staimch and conservative old-timers cling
to it as to one of the last vestiges of aboriginal religion.
As stated elsewhere (see p. 150), there are sereral occasions on which
the Cherokee should perform this ceremony ; as a whole, the ceremony
is pretty much the same in every case; whether it be merely the
monthly rite at the new moon, or whether it be to work against an
enemy, or to conjure a disease away, or to "examine with the beads,"
the individual on whose behalf the ceremony is performed goes to
the bank of the river, accompanied by the priest, who recites some
prayer, conjuration, or incantation, at the end of which some water is
dipped out with the hollow of the hand, and the crown of the head,
the bosom ("where our soul is"), and often the face is washed.
The particular ceremony of taking pregnant women to the water is
renewed at every new moon, a few months prior to the expected
delivery. According to information, listed in notes of Mooney, it
should be started after the third month of pregnancy; 01. and Del.
told me that it was only observed during the last three months
preceding delivery, whereas W. maintained the ceremony took place
every new moon, starting when the pregnant woman felt for the
first time the motion of the child within her, which is said by the
Cherokee to happen usually about the fifth month after conception.
The pregnant woman goes down to the river, accompanied by the
priest. Two white beads (white being the color emblematic of hfe),
or sometimes two red beads (red being the color symbolizing success),
and a white thread, 50 to 60 centimeters long, are put down on the
ground on a yard of white calico. All this is to be supplied by the
client, and is afterwards taken away by the priest as his fee.
The couple is usually accompanied by an attendant, as a rule the
husband, the mother, or some other relative of the woman, who
throughout the proceedings acts as assistant, spreading out the cloth,