The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1890-12-07

LITTLE BIG MAN AND THE YANKEE JUGGLER.
At another time l was at sun dance of
one of the Sioux Indian tribes ana an
American luggler, who was quite sleight of
hand performer, begged to be allowed to go
along with me- | thought ne might do some
good and took him. | shall not forget how
he astonished the Indians. He went up to
one of the chiefs and without warn
ing gave him slap on the
side of the cheek, nearly knocking
him over. Then with his other hand he
got hold of the other cheek and apparently
pulled twenty dollar gold piece out of it,
while the rest of the Indians looked on
with open mouthed wonder. He went up
to another chief, who reioiced in the title
Of Little Big Man, and grabbing him by the
nose, pulled twenuy-dollAr gold piece out
bis nose, much to the chiefs surprise.
This chief was with me during the whole
of the day, and he evidently did not get
over the impression he had received. l
saw him a number of times, and when he
thought | was not looking, he would pull
his blanket up over his nose and feel the
end of it, to see if there were not some
more twenty-dollar gold pieces where the
other one had come FROM
A SCARED APACHE DOCTOR.
81 remember another medicine man, Big
Apache, who called upon me il the sur
geon's Office of one of the stations | was
very anxious to see his medicine charm,
which be carried carefully concealed under
his shirt, and which not even the other In
dams ever saw told him I knew he was
great medicine man, but that [ believed
that my medicine was better than his med
icine, and with that picked up bottle of
nitric acid. 1t was not bigger than your
thumb. / said: Il will put drop of this
on your tongue, and in one minute | will
burn hole clear through it He opened
| his eyes, but when | again asked him to
stick out his tongue he said he believed l
could do it and that he would not test my
skill / then picked up a bottle of chloro-
form and said: Here is more of my medi-
cine. If you smell this | can put you to
sleep and no one can wake you until l want
to wake you, and with this picking up an
other bottle, i can strike you dead BY
this time he was thoroughly scared and he
showed me the wonderful talisman by
which he performed his tricks. 1t was a
chamois bag covered with mysterious char
acters. He wore it over his chest and il
never left him day or night"
HOW INDIAN MEDICINE MEN WORK.
visited the National museum this morn
ing and took look at the specimens oil
Indian doctors in its collection. One form
of the Sioux medicine man has bear Skin
over his shoulders and BEARS head upor
his head. and he walks along with an arrow
adorned with feathers as his staff. The
Alaskans have their medicine men, and
there is an ivory carving from Alaska
showing the Indian doctor driving out the
evil spirit from the patient. The spirit is
travelling off on a turtle and the doctor
claps a pair of ivory sticks together as ht
goes. The Indians along the north Pacific
coast have terrible orgies as to their medi-
cine men, and Indians are chosen a:
medicine men through popular super
stition. If a man dreams that his Sol
has performed miracle, he conclude!
that the boy is cut out for medicine man
and he gives him over to the other doctor:
for education and training. The Siou1
ordeals are by all means the most severe
The young medicine men have to hans
themselves to ropes by skewers, which arr
put through the muscles of the breast ant
they hang on to these ropes until the test
is torn off, There are no more super
stitious Indians in the world than thes
Sioux, and though the present dangers ma.
be exaggerated, still it is easy to see hov
such story as that of the Messiah nigh
cause trouble at any time, provided Their
was clever sleight-of- hand Indian amonl
them who would pretend to perform
miracles.
HOW RED CLOUD GUYED OUR wAsHINGTO,
STATESMEN.
Judge j. j. Noah. Of the census bureau