Untitled - Smithsonian Institution

oi°BRECHTs] THE SWIMMER MANUSCRIPT 35
had the experience that when I visited sick members of the tribe I
was not granted admission to the cabin until I had been subjected
from inside, by the patient himself, to a very meticulous and an
annoyingly intimate cross-examination. (See p. 66.)
Not only in the domain of sickness does a woman in this condition
, exert this unfortunate influence, but even on growing plants and
crops her presence is equally pernicious, whereas if she were to wade
through a river where a fish trap is set she would spoil the catch.
Pregnant women are considered only slightly less dangerous, and
the harm and havoc they may cause is combated by the same means
as that of the menstruantes. (See p. 120 ; also Mooney, Myths, p. 442.)
For further facts relating to these subjects, the reader is referred
to Childbirth, page 116 et seq.
Dreams
The importance the Cherokee ascribe to dreams as causes of disease
is quite remarkable.
Whereas it appears from the more archaic data available that some
dreams are the actual cause of many diseases, there is now in this
very generation an evolution to be observed from " dream = diseasecause";
to " dream = omen of disease." ^^ In either of those two
cases it is still possible for the dream to play an active part as symptom.
The Cherokee, especially those that have kept intact their allegiance
to the aboriginal gastronomical ways and manners, dream fre-
quently, and their dreams are often of the "nightmare" variety.
Hearing them relate a dream of this sort, and their comments upon
it, makes one more than ever inclined to accept Hofler's theory ac-
cording to which the conception and the visualization of diseasedemons
have then" origin in nightmare dreams.
Dreams, as a rule, affect the dreamer only, but in a few cases the
person dreamed about may be the future sufferer. Certain types of
dreams may occur more frequently at a certain time than at another;
a woman during her catamenial period often dreams of "all sorts of
things" (i. e., of unnatural intercourse, of giving birth to animals,
etc.). Dreams may vary also according to the sphere of interest of
the individual: dza*'dzi (George), a powerful Nimrod before the
Lord, dreamed of negroes more than W. did, the latter being given to
dreams of the medicine man's type: Thunder, train, burning house,
etc. Attention should also be called to the psychological shrewdness
of considering "rheumatism " a result of dreams with sexual contents.
One individual had to some extent formed his own exegesis : If he
dreams during winter of a nice summer day, it is going to be
-2 "Fish dreams is a sign our appetite is going to be spoiled," an informant told
me. From the older texts, however, it appears that it is the very fact of dream-
ing of fish that causes the disease.