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Olbrechts] the swimmer MANUSCRIPT 207
powerful wizard, what (is there) thou ever failest in? The important
thing, which he ^* has put under him, is the very thing thou eatest.
Only a likeness of it will be left, when thou will have passed. (And)
not for a night (only, but forever). Relief indeed has been caused.
This is to scratch them. A brier should be used with it. And to
cure (them) with common everlasting (mth the) yellow flowers, (and)
little vetch are to be rubbed on them. "All day" has been said, but
as long as noon (is) merely (meant). Fasting is the only restriction.
EXPLANATION
This formula is used for scratching with a brier, preparatory to
rubbing on the medicine, in cases of local pains and muscular cramps
and twitching. The patient is said also to dream of game and
hunting.
Ailments of this class are ascribed to the influence of revengeful
deer ghosts, possibly because the deer, lilce the horse and the cow,
has a habit of nervously twitching the muscles while standing. The
hunter always took care to ward off the evil results, by asking pardon
of the slain deer according to a set formula, after having Idlled it.
[These formulas are now no longer known. There are even many
medicine men who have never heard about them. It is easy to
understand that this kind of formula would soon fall into desuetude
and oblivion with the extinction of the deer. (Cf. further Mooney,
Myths, pp. 263-264.)]
The raven is invoked because it is accustomed to feed upon the
offal left by the hunter after cutting up the game. [For the same
reason the raven is mentioned in some of the hunting formulas,
"because," as an inforaiant told me, "he is as anxious to point out
the deer to us as we are to shoot it, because he knows that he will
get the guts (of the shot animal)."]
The formula is recited by the medicine men after each round of
scratching while standing over the patient, and holding the cup
containing the medicine in his uplifted hand. Having finished the
formula, he brings the cup slowly down with a spiral circuit, after
the manner a raven descends, imitating at the same time the raven's
cry, k'a* k'a' k'a* k*a*, until he puts the cup to the lips of the patient,
who then takes a drink of the medicine.
The scratching is done with a stout piece of brier, ni;*'Gutlo"',
Smilax glauca Walt., saw brier, having thorns about the size of
large rose thorns. The medicine which is rubbed into the scratches
consists of a warm infusion of k'o*'sDi;"'D8, Gnajphalium, obtusifoUum L.,
common everlasting; uitso"'"sti u'str'aa, Vicia carolinianaW sdt., vetch.
3< The disease spirit.
7548°—32 15