Untitled - Smithsonian Institution

152 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 99
Fob Examining with the Beads
aDe-'lo° Di'kt'o.ti'
bead(s) to look with them
These are the formulas that are used when conjuring with the red
(or white) and black beads; this manipulation is very frequent in
Cherokee magic and medicine.
It is nothing else but a kind of divination by which such hidden
things are alleged to be discovered, as whether a sick man will live
or die, whether we will be successfid against an enemy, whether we
will be successful in love, etc.
These formulas are unknown to the laity. No. 83 of the Ay.
manuscript belongs to this class.
Just as the tobacco (cf. above), the beads may be used ''both
ways," as the Cherokee put it; i. e., they can be used to bring about
beneficial or deleterious results, according to whether they are used
along with a conjuration or with an incantation. But the medicine
men always distinguish clearly between the two uses to which this
manipulation may be put; the essence of the act does not depend on
the paraphernalia used, but on the kind of formula which is recited.
Against Witches
s9'no*'yi e'HQ'li Gana*'y'to.ti' uGQ-'wutli'
at night he wallis about to guard with for the purpose of
This land of conjuration is recited to ward off the evil influence or
the envious machinations of witches.
As described (p. 30), witches are especially active around the
dwelling of the sick and the dying. (For a full description of the
activities of the witches and of the ways of thwarting these, see
pp. 29-33.)
Agricultural
Se-lu'
corn
The whole of the Cherokee collection of formulas is very poor IQ
specimens of this description. This can be explained in two ways.
The fine climate and the good soil of the southern Alleghanies
have made agriculture for the Cherokee a far easier proposition than
it is, e. g., for the tribes of the Southwest. They are not so scantily
provided with rain as the desert people are, and therefore formulas
to cause rain or to make the corn grow may never have been used
to any considerable extent.
The present scarcity of these formulas might also be explained in
this way, that the Cherokee are now far less dependent on the native
crops than they were a couple of centuries ago, when they did not
have the advantages of the easy niean^ of communication, and when
they did not have traders and farmers living in their midst, or only