The Yakima herald. [volume] (North Yakima, W.T. [Wash.]) 1889-1914, 1894-12-06
INDIAN WITCH" POWER
Implicit Faith Of the Redskin In the
"HOOdoO," and Belief In
HYPN0TISM go OR WHAT IS 1T?
some Instances OF wonderful Cures
by Good Medicine Men on the
Yakima Reserve - How Captain
John Got the aPower.v

Madame Blavatsky and Msdsme's
most energetic. enlightened and mystery
loving disciple, Mrs. Besant, have given
the world to understand that while Isis
may have been unveiled for the edifca-
ton OF the many, yet there is still an
other veil within the veil, a sanctum
sanctorum behind and into which only
the chosen few may penetrate. To these
are given powers commensurate with the
characteristics, moral and intellectual,
with which they have been endowed
through or resultant from successive in
carnations (of distinct progress in this
easel; to those, in fact, who, because of
proper heredity, education and circnm-
stance, to quote that thrilling genius.
George Du Maurier, are eminently fitted
to be made the recipients OF the dread
messages of the Mahatmas. The veracity
OF the Russio- American has been ques-
toned q thousand times, and her followe
has many thorny path to traverse, were
every argument with which she is as
sailed thorn. Disciples of the chief
| disciple may sometimes hesitate and fall
ter IN their belief, even though they be
guided and assisted by the subjective
reasoning Of the faith; how much more,
then, is it probable that the cropping NOR
tai whose logic cannot grasp the divinity
of Mahatma pronunciamento, should
proclaim his unbelief that one finite mind
may be gwen infinite power, and another
finite mind may not: particularly when
the ill used, abused and illiterate savage
OF the great northwest, in addition to the
fakir OF India, enthusiastically processes
his belief in certain occult sciences?
The American Indian is a strange com
bination OF strength and weakness, of
superstition and skepticism. Within his
wigwam he is oftimes brutal husband
and father, and under the shelter OF his
teepee he will in childish simplicity open
his soul and the secrets OF his mind to
his brothers and the great Father, whose
teachings he follows, perhaps, under the
belief that "Our Brothers Laws" as he
calls them, are divine. His education is
absolutely nonentity, even from an In.
dian standpoint; he is vicious Except
upon Sunday and depraved; he never
heard of magnetism-he would not know
what was meant il one spoke to him of
hypnotism-yet he is blind believer in
the witch" incantations of his medicine
man. and he will suffer unheard.of tor
lures and almost assassinate himself in
the endeavor to secure the power"
which will enable him to witch" others.
Furthermore he does witch" his enc
mice, and he sometimes witches" his
friends. In the first case he occasionally
meets an untimely death at the hands OF
his would-be victim; in the second in
stance he arises to the dignity Of "doc.
tor" and is beloved by his numberess
| followers.
However, both the good and the bad
medicine men are feared by the members
of their tribe because they possess the
power to enthrall the soul-and what is
perhaps more pertinent, the body-in
mysterious bounds from which there is
no escape. So strongly has this belief
become part of the Indian that the
courts of the northwest have come to &C
cept it as an excuse for crime; and muir
derers in fact, though but self-defenders
in their own minds, have been given
their freedom after having confessed
without emotion that the reason they had
killed their brother redskin was because
he had "witched" wife, child or even
the murderer himself to die within a
stated period. Evidence is always pro-
ducable that the intended victim, after
having been "witched," begins to pine
away; takes to his bed becomes al
most lieless-and altogether so il the
bad medicine man be not summary re-
moved before the expiration of the time
given when the witchery occurs or begins.
Three cases of this kind have occurred in
Yakima county; and although the states
evidence proved beyond the shadow of
doubt that the defendant walked up to
his "witcher" and filled him full of holes,
yet the defendant in turn would bring In
his whole tribe to tell how he or his had
been "witched;" how the victim had be-
gun to grow pale and enfeebled, and how
rapidly he grew well again as soon as his
prosecutor was removed. In each of the
three instances cited the judge who tried
the case sentenced the murderer to one
year only, as punishment for man
slaughter, holding that the Indian was
acting only in selfdefence, according to
his belief.
Instances of the curative powers OF
good medicine men are more than fire.
quent. When white doctor on an In
dian reservation concludes he cannot
save the life of patient medicine man
is called in. and almost into the grave
this representative of the mysterious will
penetrate, bringing back to life anu
health what has been all but pronounced
a dead body.
A lineal descendant of Tommy-hop-
Tommy twhom Charles McEwsn, Col.