Untitled - Smithsonian Institution

olbrechts] the swimmer manuscript 133
This ceremony need not necessarily be performed at the patient's
bedside, as may be seen from the description given of the typical cur-
ing procedure, page 67.
It is furthermore alleged of some powerful medicine men that they
can prophesy the exact day of their death, and that they will take
care themselves of the preparation of all objects that will be needed to
lay out their corpse. This was reputed to have been done by old
man Ax (see p. 88), and also Mooney cites a case of it in his Myths.
This ability of foretelling their death these medicine men are said to
possess by virtue of their keeping the i;15°'*sudo°' stone.
Apart from the divination methods proper, wliere the future is
being inquired into by active means, and apart from the very rare
cases where a medicine man foretells his own death, there are some
signs and omens of death which are common knowledge. Some of
these have without doubt been borrowed from the whites. (See p.
37.)
When you are fishing, and you see a small fish rolling over and over
in the water, dying, it is a sign one of your relatives is going to die.
If a tree is falling over near you, without any apparent cause, as a
storm, lightning, etc.
If you hear something in the graveyard.
If you hear a dog howling dismally.
If one of your hens crows.
If at night a screech owl comes and perches near the house.
As it becomes apparent that no recovery is to be expected the
relatives are summoned, not only those living at the settlement
where the man is dying, but also those from other localities, even if
they be two or three days distant. Also friends, whom the moribund
may express a desire to see, are summoned.
As the end approaches the medicine man may make a last effort to
turn the scales, by trying the cure for the illness generally referred
to as Ga'kw€'no°"ski, "if it wraps them up" (apoplexy). As it
becomes clear that all hope is to be abandoned the moribund is made
to partake of as square a meal as possible, "to strengthen him for
the long journey he is about to undertake toward the Night Land."
One informant who had often been present at the decease of old
people said that it was a custom for them, as they felt their end
approaching, "to talk to their people, and tell them to love one
another, and to love even their enemies,"
Nothing that is needed to lay out the corpse should be prepared
before the man has breathed his last, as "by doing this we would
show that we are anxious for him to go."
As soon as the breathing stops the sufferer is pronounced dead,
feeUng the pulse or listening for the beating of the heart being un-