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160 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 99
Again in many formulas that are used, as in love attraction, there
are many motives that are quite uncalled for in the curing conju-
rations.
In quite a few of the formulas the name and the clan of the patient,
of the patron, or of the enemy may be mentioned.
The first paragraph of the formula is often repeated three times,
very slight changes being made every time; usually only the color
of the spirits and their abode are modified.
Only rarely does a formula contain seven paragraphs. This is
almost exclusively the case with some long-life formulas recited at
the river's bank.
The Ritual Language ^^
There is abundant proof that the language as used in Cherokee
religion and ritual has been checked in certain aspects of its evolution
and that it has become stationary and archaic, the everyday
language having followed its fatal course of development.
This process is easy to explain when we call to mind the tremendous
importance which the untutored mind attaches to form and pattern.
Whereas the eveiyday language, the tribal language as we will call
it, is a tool of the community, of the man in the street, to express
his views on a countless number of matters, in an almost unlimited
variety of ways, the ritualistic language is usually the appanage of a
chosen few, and is in any case strictly used in rigidlj?" exclusive circum-
stances, and in sternly conserved, crystallized and stereotyped ex-
pressions.
Sacred formulas, whether they be conjurations, incantations, or
conventional prayers, are bound to form rather than to content.
The desired result is held to be brought about, not by the meaning
of the words used, but merely by strict adherence to the wording
and the form. This accounts for the fact that even in European
folklore so many conjurations and incantations are still in use containing
words and expressions so archaic that even the initiated and
the adepts fail to understand them; yet not one of these adepts would
dare or venture to change a word and to supply a modern, more in-
telligible expression for it, since to tamper with even so little as a
syllable would not only seriously compromise but would render absolutely
nil the power and the result of the formula. We find the same
conditions prevailing with the Cherokee, only to an even greater
extent.
'"^ The following remarks have already been presented in a slightly different
form in a paper read before the First International Congress of Linguists, The
Hague, April, 1928.