Untitled - Smithsonian Institution

304 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Buu,. 99
EXPLANATION
This formula [edited and discussed by Mr, Mooney in his article
on Cherokee River Cult, p. 9] is for going to water to avert the
consequences of bad dreams, such as of falling from a cliff, drowning
in the river, or being crushed under a log. Such dreams are generally
regarded as the result of hostile conjurations of some secret enemy,
and it is held that the calamity thus shadowed forth will actually
befall (the victim) unless some ceremony be performed to avert it.
The medicine man mentions the name and clan of his client and
endeavors to send the evil fortune from him, to "where [there is a
crowd of] people," i. e., to some distant settlement.
The medicine man and his client go down to the water at daybreak
and stand at the edge of the stream as already described. The
medicine man then recites the formula, after which his client, stripped
with the exception of his shirt, wades out into the water and ducks
under seven times. At the seventh plunge he tears the shirt from
his body while still under water and lets it float down the stream. It
is afterwards secured and taken by the medicine man as his fee if it
is worth the trouble. If of no value the client gives other cloth
instead. After this preliminary ceremony the client remains standing
in the water while the medicine man, on the bank, takes out his beads
and proceeds to banish the impending calamity.
He first asks [his chent] to what [settlement] he wishes to send the
evil foreshadowed in the prophetic dream, for it is held that such
dreams must be fulfilled, and that all the medicine man can do is to
divert their accomphshment from the intended victim. The client
names some distant settlement as the place where he wishes the blow
to fall and the medicine man at once begins the ceremony to send
the tso-'sta to that point. Should the medicine man find himself
unable to send it so far his chent names some nearer settlement, and a
second attempt is made, and so on, until a resting place is found for
the calamity, even if it be necessary to send it to another clan or
family within the settlement of the client himself. These successive
trials are made by "worldng [with] the beads": [The medicine man
holds a black bead representing the evil between thumb and fore-
finger of one hand, and a red or white bead, representing the client,
between thumb and index finger of the other hand. Should the
black bead prove the more lively and vivacious in its movements,
the client's bead remaining motionless, or moving only very slowly,
the chances for banishing the evil to the settlement in question are
very scanty, and another settlement has to be named and the opera-
tion has to be started over again.]
After each successive trial the client stoops down and laves his
face [sometimes also the crown of his head and his breast with water