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oLbeechts] the swimmer MANUSCRIPT 15
It does not as a rule torment a person of its own free will; it is inert
of itself, but is subdued to the will of more powerful agents, spirits,
ghosts, or even human beings, who may cause it to enter the body of
those persons whom they wish to harm.
The idioms of the formulas seem to imply that the i;1sg€*'do° is not
so much put into the victim, as under him; the expression:
Di;nu*'yHantle*°i' ''he (the disease causer) has put it (the disease)
under him, it appears," always being used. How the disease then
finally enters the victim under whom it has been put is not clear.
There is a consensus of opinion among the medicine men that it
enters the body somehow, but on the question as to whether this in-
troduction takes place by way of a natural orifice or whether it is
possible for a disease to enter the body anywhere, not one of the
medicine men cared to commit himself.
From the fact that an i;1sg€''do° is present in a person's body it
by no means follows that an illness is the instantaneous result: the
disease may be present in a dormant, latent condition, and often
months, or even years after the revengeful animal-ghost or spirit has
"inoculated" the person the malady may become "virulent." It is
easy to see how powerful a means this conception must be toward
consolidating the prestige of the medicine man, enabling him as it
does to explain many diseases, for which there is no evident cause,
by events and dreams of many months or years ago, and to explain
how it is that certain acts and infractions of taboos that, according to
the general belief ought to be followed by the contraction of a disease,
apparentl}?" remain without any immediate results.
The presence of an i;lsGe*'Do°, however, does not account for all
the cases of sickness. There are, for example, the ailments due to
"our saliva being spoiled." The Cherokee beheves that the saliva
is located in the throat and that it is of capital importance in human
physiology; as a matter of fact, the physiologic role they ascribe to
the saliva would lead us to beheve that they consider it as importan t
as the blood and the gall. When the saHva is "spoiled" the patient
becomes despondent, withers away, and dies.
The most frequent causes of this state of affairs are dreams, es-
pecially the dreams caused by the ghost people (see p. 26), but also
those caused by snakes and fish. The belief is based no doubt on
the feeling of oppression and anguish that accompanies many dreams,
especially those of the "nightmare" variety.
A state of ill health very much akin to the one just mentioned,
and where no ulsGe-'Do"* is believed to be present, is caused by an
enemy of ours feeling v'ya UDa-'N^to, "of a different mind" toward
us, "different" here again being a euphemistic term for "bad" or
"worse."
7548°—32 3