Untitled - Smithsonian Institution

16 BXJREAIJ OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 99
This is usually ascribed to the activities of a human enemy and
refers to a psychopathological state rather than to any other disorders.
The victim is utterly despondent and dejected and seems to be the
victim of a severe case of chronic melancholy.
Another explanation that is offered in some cases, and one which
is more apt to cause surprise, as it is not common to the Indians of
the eastern United States, is that the illness is caused by the action of
a human being who has ravished the soul of the patient. The fact
that one's soul has been buried does not result in instant death : one
may live without it for six or eight months, or even for a year. But
if the party working on behalf of the victim is not successful in
ultimately removing the ban, death is inevitable. The symptoms
ascribed to an illness of this order do not differ materially from those
belonging to "having one's saliva spoiled" or to the illness caused
by some one "having his mind different toward us." This makes it
the easier for a medicine man who does not succeed in. curing a patient
to make a new diagnosis, and to change his treatment from one,
the object of which was to dislodge the spoiled saliva, to a new one
aiming at removing the ban from the buried soul of the patient.
The way in which the mediciue man finds out what is actually
the cause of a given disease will be discussed under the caption of
Diagnosis (p. 39). Sometimes, however, a diagnosis, however ac-
curate, will fail to disclose the actual cause of the ailment. A favorite
explanation in such a case is to ascribe the evil to the fact that the
patient "has dreamed of different things." It is implicitly under-
stood that this means "different, or all sorts of bad things." Since
in this case the causes are complex, it is considered that the treatment
must be the same, and a medicine is prescribed consisting of a
decoction of as many as 24 different plants.
Nobody ever becomes ill without a cause. And with very few
exceptions every individual is responsible and blamable for the dis-
eases he contracts.
A distinction is made between dangerous and less serious diseases,
but even the latter have to be adequately cared for and attended to
for disease senders and causers, whether human or nonhuman, have
a predilection for sending disease to a person when he is already in a
weakened condition; they know that then they stand a far better
chance to be successful and attain their ends.
General Semeiology
Although very little value is attached to what might be called a
scientific symptomatology by the Cherokee, a few remarks about the
subject are not out of place here.
As will soon appear from a glance at the titles of the formulas, the
different ailments themselves are usually called by names that refer
;