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56 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 90
Pounding the roots and barks is still occasionally done with a stone,
but a hammer is now more generally used. Leaves that are to be
steeped are, prior to being put into the infusion vessel, crushed or
crumpled in the hand. The different ingredients that are to be boiled
or steeped are usually tied together in a bundle, by moans of a strip of
hickory bark.
"Boiling down" is a mode of preparing the medicine which is prescribed
with many formulas. It consists in boiling the medicine and
drinking part of it the first day, boiling the same decoction over again
and drinking another part of it the second day, and so on, usually, for
four consecutive days. The fourth day the decoction is often a thick
treaclish sirup. Sometimes, however, water from the river is added
every day to the decoction.
Occasionally poultices are made of large leaves of mullein and held
by the hand against the affected part for a few minutes.
Black pine wax (a*tsa') is used, and also the use of bear grease
(yo-'no° Go.i') and eel oil (tg-^te-'aa Go.i') is occasionally met with.
In some cases, when the decoction is so bitter as to be very disagreeable
to swallow, it is sweetened by adding honey or the pods of honey
locust to it. This procedure is especially frequent when the decoction
is to be administered to children. The custom of adding whisky to
certain decoctions has boon taken over from the white mountaineers.
Mode oj administering.—This is as a rule fairly simple. Usually a
member of the patient's household gives him the medicine to drink;
in a few cases it is specified that an aboriginal gourd dipper be used for
this purpose. These dippers are not used so extensively as household
utensils now as they used to be, metal spoons and ladles having grad-
ually replaced them, but it is an often observed fact that in primitive
and folk medicine, as in ritual, objects are retained that have passed
out of existence as everyday utensils hundreds of years ago. (See
p. 58.)
In some cases, however (all this is invariably and minutely laid
down in the prescriptions appended to the formulas, }). 158), the medi-
cine has to be administered by the medicine man himself. In doing
this he observes certain ceremonies, as standing with his back toward
the east, so that the patient opposite him faces the "sun land," lifting
the dipper containing the medicine high up, and bringing it down in a
spiral or swooping movement, imitating by so doing certain birds of
prey that may have been mentioned in the formulas he has recited
prior to giving the patient his medicine to drink.
Not the slightest attention is paid to dosing the patient nor, it is
superfluous to state, to his idiosyncrasy. If any question is asked, as
to the amount of the decoction or of the infusion to be taken, the
answer is invariably "Just asmuchashe can hold." This I found upon
observation is very elastic and fluctuating from one individual to