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62 BXJKEAU OF AMERICAisr ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 99
Massage plays a considerable part in Cherokee curing methods and
is frequently mentioned. Although they use it in some cases where
it is unquestionably of a nature to bring relief, as in painful menstrua-
tion, spraining, etc., it is resorted to m many other cases—as a rule as
soon as there is evidence of any kind of swelling, whether of the stomach
or of the knee—where it lacks the least degree of efficacy. The
underlying principle is invariably that the swelling is the material
evidence of an immaterial agent (the "important thing," the disease)
and that this can be eliminated, expelled, ejected out of the affected
part of the body by pressing and rubbing.
Previous to starting the massaging, the medicine man always warms
his hands near some live coals taken by his assistant—who is usually
a member of the patient's household^—from the hearth, and that are
put down near the medicine man on a shovel, on the lid of a pot, a flat
pan, or some other such receptacle. The medicine man warms his
hands while he recites the first part of the formula, and then rubs the
affected part, eventually under the clothes of the sufi'erer. The
massage is done by the whole right hand, the palm efl'ecting most of
the pressure, and a circle of 6-7 centimeters from the center being
described. Starting from the right, he moves upward, conies down
to the loft, continuing the motion for a fev/ minutes, from 2 to 3 or
6 to 7 times, as he sees lit.
He then warms his hands again, reciting meanwhile the second part
of the formula, and the whole treatment is continued until the (usually)
four parts of the formula have been recited and followed by the rubbing.
Mooney, SFC, p. 335, has drawn attention to the rubbing for
treating snake bites. In this case the "operator is told to rub in a
direction contrary to that in whicli the snake coils itself, because 'this
is just the same as uncoiling it'."
A practice that was still faintly remembered when Mooney visited
the tribe is the massage by means of a stamper made of the wood of
persimmon. (See p. 59.)
I have been surprised to find that the Cherokee all but ignore the
elsewhere so popular and common method of transferring disease to
other creatures— to fellow human beings, dead or alive, to anmials, to
trees even, and to rocks, rivers, etc.
Of the two only mstances of this kind which I found—and I am
pretty sure that no other varieties exist—one has very probably been
borrowed from the whites, if not in its actual form, at least in certain
of its aspects. I am referring to the following practice on which only
one informant (W.) could give me full particulars: A howling dog forebodes
illness or death; the only way to avoid its prophecy being ful-
filled is to command it to die itself, instead of the person, or the
member of the household who is the object of its evil warning. (See
p. 37.)