Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1891-02-06
INDIAN MEDICINE MEN.
THEIR PHYsIc is MAGIC AND THEIR
SYSTEM CONJUR!NG.

How the Indian Priests Look and Dress
When They Are Making HIedicine-Cus-
toms Recalling Some Old Bible Stories.
How They Got Their Name.
The fact that Sitting Bull was what is
JAILED 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. 10 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, f. r. G. S., and Lewis
and Clarke were very shaky when they
c. me to this subject.
Every tribe had, and still has, many
medicine men, some of whom are chiefs, all
of whom are very important personages.
Nearly all that the writer ever saw have
been old men or men past the middle age,
but that is mere accident for man may
be made medicine man while he is young.
No one can visit any Indians at any festi-
val time or time of general excitement
from any cause without seeing the medi-
cine man figuring very conspicuously in
whatever is going on.
Sometimes they are merely beating
drums, or perhaps they are only grooming,
while a dance or feast is in progress. At
other times they appear in the most gro
tesque costumes, painted all over, hung
with feathers and nails and claws, and car
rying some wand or staff, gorgeous with
color and smothered with Indian finerY.
HOW THE TERM WAS APPLIED.
The term medicine is 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 first white men often found them MAX
ing their lamentations at 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 his
offices they say he is making medicine"
The medicine man is a con- urer, a 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 pharmacopoeia of his
fellows, and may prescribe certain leaves
or roots to allay fever, to arrest cold, or
to heal 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 when
medicine fails, and it is pursued until death
is seen to be certain, when-among most of
the tribes-the sick or wounded man is
abandoned to meet his fate. Far from
L.. = IT,
one, the Indians themselves have little re-
gard for one who is half dead or seems GER
tain to die.
A WEIRD SIGHT.
No more weird sight is to be seen on the
face of this continent than view of such
a group of medicine men at work to save a
life. Seen at night the effect is awesome
They sit in a circle, broken only by the
body of the invalid stretched ON blanket,
at the head of the tent opposite the door or
tent opening. The wavering light is from
a candle stuck ingeniously in loop of
birch bark, fastened tight in a slit in the
end of stick that has been thrust in the
earth. The medicine men are painted in
their own colors, green and yellow predom-
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 as suiting the case. He has
on no clothing but moccasins and a breech
clout, or "gee string" as 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
futters down from his head and mixes it's
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 resemblance between the In
dams and those Hebrew bands of whose
history the Old Testament is a 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 OF 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 ali
no iab II, q ,,1pIipjr1p mo of ha
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 they built little wicl1-i-ups
of saplings and leaves, and went into them
and held conversations that were audible,
though not Ineligible to cred men LISTEN
ing outside. The sayageS heard the medi-
cine mans voice and then heard the voice
Of some other person replying to him in a
iargon they could not unrayel. In other
tribes the medicine men merely reported
having held such conversations precisely
as the Israelitish leaders did. 1t is not for
us to say that the grounds for such reports
of the words of the Almighty were as
slight in one case as the other, but it is
true that the Indians have believed that
their priests have really believed such con-
versations took place.
Those who followed Sitting Bulls his
tory know that his tribe was long divided
as to his power. One contingent held that
his medicine was no good, by which they
meant that if he ever had genuine power
20 converse with spirits that power left
him. This often happens. Medicine men
have their day and their decline, and he is
very sagacious Indian who can keep up
faith in his ministrations for many years
at time or until he dies.-New York Sun
Beard1ess Soldiers.
Mndarn warriors generally Mear hair ON