Untitled - Smithsonian Institution

174 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY (Bull. 99
the malady and the cure. [As already stated (see p. 157), the formulas
or prescriptions, as written down without order by a medicine man in
his notebook or on stray scraps of paper, do not alwaj^s have a title,
and often even lack any indication whatever as to the disease against
which they are to be used.]
The disease is described as an itching of the privates, which causes
the patient to scratch the parts affected, thus producing painful sores.
[Women as well as men may suffer from it.] It is the residt of
having urinated, when a child, upon tlie fire, the ashes, or upon an
ant hill. In the first two cases the act is a profanation of the fire,
which is esteemed sacred (see p. 21), and children are frequently
warned against committing such a sacrilege. In the otlier case tlie
revengeful ants deposit their eggs on tlie privates, thus causing an
irritation of these parts. [Also urinating along a trail, in the yard
surrounding the house, m a place where an animal has been lolled,
and in the river, are all acts which may result in an ailment such as
is here vaguely described as "itching." Informants do not agree as
to whether the itching is internal or cutaneous. In the first case the
disease is but a sympton of another illness, as, e. g.,
rnc'ca yi'nf'n8nii'Go*tc*€'!a
D-nQ-'^ni tsa-'ndfk'o'!a°
and is now occasionally by "modernists" among tlie medicine men
held to be part and parcel of a disease of venereal nature. When
the itching is cutaneous it is quite possible, from the description of
symptoms given, that we are dealing \\ith a case of "itch-worm"
(Sarcoptes (Acarus) scabiei).]
The disease may follow hnmediately on the commission of one of
the acts mentioned above, or may lie dormant until manliood or
womanhood is reached.
[The plants used are i''nistJD.t'sti €-'g\\'6'^\ Lappxda lirginiana (L.)
Greene, beggar's lice, u^ntstdo.t'sti ystf'ca, Cynoglossum virginianwn
L., Mild comfrey.]
The affected parts are bathed vn.th. a decoction of tlie roots, while
anotlier portion of the decoction is drunlv by tlie patient, who, while
under treatment, entirely abstains from anything else in the nature
of food and drink. [The patient may diink the decoction at intervals
of an hour or half an hour, from sunrise to noon, when he is allowed
to break his fast, after Avhich the treatment is considered ended for
tlie day. In severe cases, though, he may not eat until sunset; in
either of the two cases the treatment is continued for four days.]