Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-09-18
MEDICINE OF SAVAGES
TRIBAL DOCTORS OF ABoRI0INES
OF NORTH QUEENSLAND.
Priest and Physician in One Man
Charms and Magic Of Aus
tralian Blacks.
From the London Standard,

medicine of savages to the limbo OF the
merely negligible. Yet. connected as 1t Is
with magic and superstition, 1t Is none the
less well worthy of the most careful study.
Among most savages the medicine man
occupies much the same position as that
held in civilized communities by two OF
the learned professions-physic and divin-
ity. The medicine man Is both priest and
physician, and is at once the repository
of all that a tribe knows, fears and be-
Neves. In very low stages Of human de-
velopment, however, he is at best only a
magician, dealing in terrors, possessed OF
occult powers but laying claim to no spe-
cial medical knowledge. Thus, among the
aboriginals of north Queensland, the tribal
doctors do not attend specially on the sick
An invalid being cared for by wife or
mother. Nor, as Mr.. Walter Ruth. the
northern protector Of aroriginals in Queens
land. has pointed out in a recently pub
nshed report to his government do they
specially prescribe for patients, as thera-
peutical knowledge. where such exists. is
the common property of the tribe.
Duty Of Medicine Men.
their professional duty among these most
Primitive, albeit Interesting, Australian
blacks, is to produce or cure accident or
| disease by means of charms and SO forth.
Their medical education is purely mag
ical In the country round Boulia, for in
| stance, the intending practitioner starves
himself for three or four days in lonely
place, and, becoming light-headed, Is visit
ed by Malkar1 a nature spirit, who effects
his initiation into the ranks of tribal medt-
cine men by inserting in his inside some
small pebbles, quartz crystals. or pieces of
bone. Another initiating god Is karnmar1,
who appears to a man whom he intends to
initiate in the shape of water snake. AS
| such he will come swimming along at night
fall on the surface of the water, and will
fr1ghten the novice, who is probably fishing
In complete ignorance Of the honor intended
him. The man runs home in q panic and
awakes from his nights sleep feeling far
from well. His sickness increases for near
ly week. A medicine man then attends
him, and by dint Of clever seight-o hand
removes from his inside the Identical bone,
or stone. or quartz crystal that Karnmari
put there. The water snake, 1t is supposed,
had pointed death charm at him. The
finding of this charm serves to initiate him.
Again. ghost haunts the graves of the
dead, and is known to the Boulia blacks as
Mona" Mona inserts q bone or pebble
into man, who thus comes to be respect
fully known as 1.-The possessor OF the bone
or pei 5le. Another nature spirit Is be-
| heved to haunt Cloncurry district, and at
night may be heard scratching the bark
and swapping the branches OF the bough
shelters under which the natives sleep.
Sometimes he is not in the way when want
ed, and then aspirants are compelled to I'M
O0Ttdk6 q very long journey 10 g. certain
river. where dwells a tribe that is able to
| initiate according to this spirits ideas.
Talismans and Death Charms.
But the process is long, and involves,
among other things, the murder and SUBJ
sequent smoke-curing of the novice. He
| is. however, sure to recover eventually, and
| succeed admirably in his profession. The
"possessors of the BONE" however they may
have nv mi nd
| much feared by their -tribesmen.
| They are not ostentatious we are told,
medicine man being distinguished by no
special insignia save small bag in which
| his talismans. death charms and other ere
dentfals" are carried. These he hands about,
much as white man shows letters from
| influential people, and his friends, taking
note OF them, he gets to be talked about,
and grows quietly famous without undue
advertisement. 1t is remarkable, where all
are impostors, that among the native alb
originals Of Australia there should exist
quacks as shrewd as any in civilized coun-
| tries.
| The artificial production Of disease espe-
cially of wasting diesase terminating in
death, is effected. as In classical and me-
diaeval times in Europe, by means of chants,
dirges, the burning of the effigy OF the
doomed person, or of parts of his animal
| economy, such as his hair. Incurable mad
ness is supposed to be caused by the touch
| of a charm formed of unequal lengths of
1
| In tea tree "chiruko" is a piece of point
i ed human shin bone, which, when buried
| deep under the victims sleeping place.
causes him or her to pine away. Sometimes
| a death charm, in the shape of a long
needle, is made from human bone, and
when fixed on a haft resembles a small
spear. The operator. who is not necessarily
a medicine man. points this spear in the di-
rection of his victim at night, breathing
deeply forth and inwards he slowly
| thrusts it backward and forward in space.
| The spear is then buried under fireplace.
and in a short time the victims blood be-
gins to turn bad" and he pines away. 1t
| is now the turn of the medicine man to
cure him, and this is brought about by sue
| ton. The medicine man sucks some spe-
cially affected part of the invalid, and final
| ly gets the charm into his mouth ejecting
| 1t through one of his nostrils by dint of Sc
we're taps on the hack of his head. OF
course, any sick person will be told that he
has been pointed at and that some charm
| Is inside him. In certain cases this is a
good-sized cord, which the medicine man
pretends to extract. A relic of this impos-
ture was found In Europe In the middle
ages, where whole class of quacks throve
by pretending to extract stones from their
patients heads.
The medicine men Of the Australian alb
originals are typical Of the class among the
sayages They are mainly terrorists and
coniurors and "a bad lot"