Untitled - Smithsonian Institution

18 BUEEAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 99
on his head, his imagination forthwith finds cause for speculation,
and he may come to the conclusion that the "Little People," or the
"Mountain People" have become angry at him and have taken
vengeance by the means just stated.
SUPERNATURAL CAUSES
If even in cases where the natural course and cause of events
seems evident and obvious, a mythologic explanation may be advanced,
what are we to expect when it becomes necessary to account
for such mysterious, unexplainable, insidious changes of condition to
which disease subjects our body and mind?
The man who but two or three days ago was a living image of both
Hercules and Adonis, and who came home from the mountain carrying
on his shoulder a tree trunli of formidable weight and dimension
as lightly as if it were but a bark canoe, to-day lies prostrate, pain
and terror stricken, with haggard looks and sallow complexion,
suffering, panting, and gasping. . . .
The buxom woman, from whom last week a chubby, healthy
baby boy "jumped down," as the Cherokee express it, is now suffer-
ing more than ever she did, and feels herself as being burned by a
scorching internal fire . . .
The sprightly baby, which ever since it moved was as alert and
bustling as a young chipmunk or a scampering squirrel, suddenly
lapses into spasmodic convulsions, or lies motionless with haggard
eyes wide open, as those of a terror-stricken rabbit . . .
Why? For what reason?
When we think of how, in a civilized community, as soon as anything
uncanny happens, as soon as the Awful Incomprehensible
makes its presence felt, even the sophisticated lose their reasoning
faculties and grasp at ridiculous explanations and at impossible
hopes, how can we scoff at the conclusions these poor people reach?
The man who became Ul so suddenly has had a quarrel a week or
so ago with an ill-reputed medicine man, who told him, as they
separated, that he would hear about hun again. The wizard has
shot an invisible flint arrowhead into his bowels.
The woman who had laiown the joys of such a happy delivery had
not heeded the subsequent taboo, prohibiting all wann food to any
one in her condition. That is why she is now being consmned by an
internal fire.
The baby is now paying the penalty of his mother having partaken
of rabbit meat during her pregnancy, six months or so ago. And that
is why it is now assuming the cramped position, so reminiscent of the
hunchback position of a squatting rabbit, or why its eyeballs are so
dilated.