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156 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 99
Nowadays the medicine man does not always rely on his memory
when reciting the longer forrtiulas; he often reads the text from his
ragged notebook or from the crumpled sheets of paper on which he
has it jotted down.
How THE Formulas are Considered by the Laity and by the
Medicine Men
The layman holds the formulas of any land in a sort of timorous
respect and apprehensive awe. They are most powerfid means indeed
in the hands of those who know how to use them, but one who is not
an expert had better leave them alone, for you never know what
might happen.
To the medicine men the formulas are the means by which men
are indirectly made powerful wizards; indirectly, i. e., through endow-
ing them with the faculty to solicit or to command the services of
those mighty wizards, the Spirits.
We must beUeve without flinching or wavering, we must have a
staunch confidence in this power of the formulas. For the wizards
we call on "know our mind," and if they find our conviction faltering
they will not heed us, nor the words we speak.
A formula is sure to bring about the desired result, if only we are
careful not to make any mistake in our choice. We may be so ignorant
as to think that a patient is suffering from a disease caused by
the fish, and we will consequently call on the fishing hawk to come
and combat the fish. But maybe the ailment is not caused by the
fish at all; possibly ghosts are responsible for it, or animal ghosts, or
the birds, or the sun. It is obvious, the medicine men argue, that
in this case no relief would follow, as we have appealed to a curing
agent (the fishing hawk) who is absolutely powerless in this emergency.
We must also be careful not to omit a word, not a syllable, of the
formula recited. It does not matter if there are words we do not
understand (words, e. g., belonging to the ritual language (see p. 160)
or words which, through erroneous copying, have been contaminated)
the spirits we talk to understand them, as these expressions have been
used in addressing them ''ever since the time of long ago, when the
old people lived."
Merely reciting the formula is not sufficient if we want to obtain
success, though: we must also know ''what is to be used with it,"
i. e., what simples are to be collected, how they have to be prepared,
how they should be administered, etc. ; and last but not least, we
should also know "how we have to work." It is not difficult to
recite a formula, but it is far from easy to know how to perform
all the accompanying rites, to be conversant with the voluminous
materia medica, and to be an expert at finding the simples and at
preparing them. All this only a medicine man knows.