Untitled - Smithsonian Institution

Olbrechts] the swimmer MANUSCRIPT 59
In the folk medicine of many rural communities of western Europe
it is often specified that the medicine be prepared, steeped, or boiled
in an earthen vessel; this in spite of the fact that the use of earthen
vessels for everyday purposes was dropped centuries ago.^®
Some of the Morocco Mohammedans who have known and used
for centuries metal daggers and knives that are the pride of museum
collections still use a stone knife for such a delicate, but ritual and
archaic operation as circumcision.^^
A consideration of the same order as the one commented upon
under gourd dippers is no doubt partly responsible for the use of a
terrapin shell (tu'ksi v'ya'ska) to keep the medicine in. (Cf. Mooney,
SFC, p. 345.)
The persimmon-wood stamper is an object that has fallen into
complete desuetude. It was used in certain manipulations closely
related to, if not identical with, massage. Mooney, as appears from
his notes, found it mentioned during his first visit, but even then the
object was no longer in actual use; after repeated vain efforts he was
able to locate a man who was still able to nake a specimen, which
now forms part of the collections of the Division of Medicine, United
States National Museum, Washington, D. C.
If I had not found the reference to this object in Mooney 's notes I
would not have suspected that it was ever in use, as only a couple
of the oldest medicine men could painstaldngly recall it— its name is
completely lost— but no one could be found who was able to carve a
specimen. Neither of the two medicine men who vaguely remembered
its having been in use could describe the procedure ; they could not
tell me whether it was used to rub, to stamp, or to press the sore spot.
The beads (aDc'lo") belong, properly speaking, not so much to the
medicine man's paraphernalia as to those of the divinator. Since,
however, these two arts are very often pursued by one and the same
individual, and especially since the divination with the beads is so
often inextricably fused with a curing procedure, they can not very
well be left outside of this enumeration.
Finally the rattle calls for a few comments in this connection.
Nowadays there is no medicine man, as far as I know, who still uses
the rattle (i. e., the gourd rattle, Gandze'^ti) when singing medicine
songs; its use is entirely restricted to the accompanying of dance songs.
The terrapin -shell rattles were apparently never used in medicine.
There are some indications, however, that would lead us to believe
that the gourd rattle must once have been extensively used in medicine
and must once have been practically the emblem of the medicine
man's profession.
28 "Troost der Armen" Gent (n. d.), p. 9.
2' Rohlfs, "Mein erster Aufenthalt in Marokko," ap. von Hovorka and Kron-
feld, vol. II, p. 492.