Untitled - Smithsonian Institution

2 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 99
Of the 137 formulas, Mooiiey edited 14 in SFC7 Four only of
these 14 formulas he intended to incorporate in the final edition of the
Ay. book,^ viz, Nos. 1, 3, 29, and 70 of the present collection, which
were tentatively edited in SFC, pages 359, 366, 365, and 363, respec-
tively. I have respected Mr. Mooney's intention and conserved
these four formulas in the present paper.
Of three more formulas, Nos. 43, 83, and 93 of the present paper,
a translation without the Cherokee text was published by Mooney in
The Cherokee River Cult; the phonetic texts have now been incorporated
in this paper, as Mooney intended. The manuscript as
Mooney planned to hand it to the printer consisted of the texts and
translations, together with explanatory notes, of 96 formulas, includ-
ing, as just stated, the 4 formulas published with texts, translations,
and notes in the SFC, and the 3 formulas of which a translation and
the accompanying notes were published in The Cherokee River Cult.
The remaining formulas that are left unaccounted for were not included
by Mooney in those intended for publication, possibly on account of
their being incomplete, or because they were for some reason deemed
unfit for publication. The explanation which seems most probable
is that Mooney intended to edit in this paper only the formulas that
were of a strictly medicinal character, and that he mthheld all other
formulas, such as love-attraction formulas, incantations, hunting
songs, etc., for publication at some future time.
Indeed, not one of the many Cherokee manuscripts that I have seen
contained sach a homogeneous collection as is here presented, so much
so that this homogeneity can only be explained by its being artificial.
The true character of a Cherokee book of formulas and prescriptions
does not therefore appear from the manuscript now published to the
same extent as it will from the other manuscripts, the publication of
which is under consideration.
The 96 formulas here published had furthermore been arranged by
Mooney in a systematic sequence, in a logical order, "logical" from the
white man's point of view, classifying the various formulas as those
"against genito-urinary disorders," "against indigestion," "against
bowel troubles," etc. This classification is quite foreign to Cherokee
knowledge and use, and I have considered that it diminished the value
of the manuscript as an aboriginal document.
The original of the manuscript not being available for comparison,
I went through a tedious process of comparing various notes and cross
references found in Mooney's manuscript notes. By so doing I have
been able to reconstitute the original sequence of the manuscript as
faithfully as this could be done by the means available ®; it is, of
^ Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees, Seventh Ann. Rept. Bur. Ethn.
8 For the abbreviations of the names of medicine men as Ay., W., etc., see p. 9.
^ The sequence as given by Mooney is shown in the Appendix, p. 167.