Pierre weekly free press. (Pierre, S.D.) 1889-19??, 1891-07-23
INDIAN INCARNATION
A Strange Profession to Which Sitting
Bull Owed the Most of His
Influence.
How the Priests Look and Dress
When They are Making
Medicine.
A Spectacle That is More Suggestive OF
Dante's Inferno Than of Modern
America.
Customs Recalling Some Old Bible
StOries-HOw They Got Their
Name.

The fact that Sitting Bull was what /,
called a ''medicine man. has been stated
in all the notices of his death, but it is
question whether one in seven Of eastern
people know precisely what medicine man
Is. To one who does know, nothing is more
amusing than to read the accounts of early
travellers in the Indian country when they
come to treat OF the making of medicine
and the other doings of medicine men
Even Capt. Butler, L. X. G. s., and Levi.
and Clarke were very shaky when they
came to this subject.
Every tribe had, and still has, many
medicine men, some of whom are chiefs, all
Of whom are very important personagea
Nearly all that the writer ever saw have
been old men or men past the middle ago
but that is a mere accident. for n man may
be made a medicine man while he is young
No one can visit any Indians at any festL
val tine or time of general exctemcn,
from any cause without seeing the medi
cine man figuring very conspicuously il
whatever is going on.
Sometimes they are merely beating
drums. or perhaps they are only grooming
while II dance or feast is in progress. Al
other times they appear in the most gro
tesquc costumes, painted all over, hung
with feathers and nails and claws, and car
rying some wand or staff, gorgeous Will
color and smothered with Indian finery
HOW THE TERN WAS APPLIED.
The term medicine" is a white mans
expression which the Indians have adopted
1t was applied to the priests of the tribes
for that is what they really are-because
the irst white men often found them max.
ing their incantations ut the side of the
sick. the wounded or the dying. In reality
they were exercising the evil spirits of dis
ease or death, but the white travellers, see
ing them in the presence of the sick, put
two and two together and called them
medicine men. The term is two centuries
old, and the Indians have so fully adopted
It that when one of these officials is at hia
offices they say he is making medicine"
The medicine man is a conjurer, magi
clan, dealer in magic, and an intermediary
between the men of this world and the
spirits Of the other. He may know some
thing of the rude pharmacopnu Of his
fellows, and may prescribe certain leaves
or roots to allay fever, to arrest a cold. or
to heal a wound. That is not his business
however, and such prescriptions are more
apt to be offered by the squaws or by any
member OF the patients family.
The medicine mans work comes in wher
medicine fails. and it is pursued until deatL
is seen to be certain, whcn-amOng most OF
the tribes-the sick or wounded man is
abandoned to meet his fate Far from
thinking the only good Indian is a dead
one, the Indians themselves have little re-.
gard for one who is half dead or seems Ger.
tain to die.
WEIRD SIGHT.
No more weird sight is to be seen on the
face of this continent than view of such
group of medicine men at work to save a
life. Seen at night the effect is awesome.
They sit in circle, broken only by the
body of the invalid stretched on Il blanket,
at the head of the tent opposite the door or
tent opening. The wavering light is from
candle stuck ingeniously in loop Of
birch bark, fastened tight In slit in the
end OF u stick that has been thrust in the
earth. The medicine men are painted in
their own colors, green and yellow FREEDOM.
mating. They are in full regalia, but their
hair falls over their hideous faces as they
bend forward to swing to and fro or to beat
their drums
All are singing. Often they sing only
the tunes of ancient songs, the words be-
ing forgotten or having grown tiresome.
Now and then one leaps to his feet, waving
his befeathered rattle and yelling louder
than the others. He sings the words that
occur to him us suiting the case. He has
on no clothing but moccasins and a brcech
clout, or "gec string," us they call that gar
ment on the plains
His thin, bony, bare red legs have the
effect of their nakedness increased by the
jumping, dangling tail of feathers that
dutters down from his head and mixes its
colors with the paint stripes on his flesh.
His dancing is rather more like pounding
something beneath him than like what we
call dancing. He lifts his feet by bending
his knees; lifts them and thumps them
down monotonously, though he turns his
body first to one side and then to the
other. When the dancer tired and fell
back in his place in the circle, the spirit
moved another to take his place.
QUEER REsEMBLANCES.
The queer resemblances between the In
dians and those Hebrew bands of whose
history the Old Testament is record have
often been pointed out. but the writer has
never seen attention called to the similar.
ity OF certain of the Hebrew incidents to
the common practices of Indian medicine
men. In their early history the Hebrew
leaders were continually holding converse
with the Almighty. They went apart from
their followers up in mountains or in Sc
cret places and talked with Jehovah. That
| Is precisely what the medicine men do to-.
| day, or pretend to do. Every man who
knows the Indians knows that during all
the Messiah craze the medicine men of the
various tribes with great formality pre-.
pared to talk with Gitche- -Manitou or what
ever they happen to call the Good Spirit.
In some tribes thew h,lilt little wick linn.