Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1916-01-12

iokE MEDICINE, HAN 1, American and other traders for Euro pean and American consumption.
 Through their slaving operations the Bachokes came to roll in wealth. It is 8 poor Bachoke indeed who can- not wear at least three strings of blue and red beads, buy very costly and powerful spirit medicines from the medicine man, keep a wife or two to raise his grain and tobacco for him and secure other necessities of a male existence.
 Lazy and Immoral. s
 Knowing nothing of the dire events that befell wealthy Rome or Greece the Bachokes, nevertheless, followed in the same path. They became exces- sively immoral. Pipes, women and song took the place of the more manly and healthful exercises of staying or enslaving their neighbors. Instead of hurting snake-poisoned spears and ten pound, serrated edge hatchets and knives at their fellow men the Bach okes have degenerated SO far as to lie indolently sprawled out in the sun be- fore, their huts. playing the while steel keyed musical instruments which sound like musical boxes badly out of tune and smoking tobacco strong enough to send any white man to his grave at the first pun
 I Whatever may be said as to the morals of the Bachokes in their rela- tions to pipes, women and song 1t can not be said that their immortality ex- tends to the culinary line. They have. never been known, despite plenty of examples to the contrary. to cook and eat white man.
 The most they have done in this di- rection is to make medicine out of several venturesome whites who have strayed into their country unarmed or unattended. Just what the pharmacol- 0gic F process is. has never been diyulged; 1t Is a carefully guarded se- cret of the suspicious and erudite medicine men of the, tribe. But the resultant medicine is well known though carefully guarded. It Is a dry powder which to the uninitiated gives no sign that the original owner was once filled with the joy of living. and is sold at very high price by the medicine man.
 Medicine Men Are Clever.
 As thoroughgoing as David Belasco are these savage black physicians in creating the proper sort of atmos- phere for the effect they wish to pro duce. Clad in beads and feathers. sur rounded by horrific ghost chasers and spirit placators carved out lof wood, and wearing frightful mask that completely covers head, face and neck. the Bachoke medicine man awaits his patients in his dark hut
 The .nedicine he distributes after properly blessing 1t depends upon the fee he receives. The sufferer with may for few beads or a chicken buy a pair of carved field mice to wear at his belt as a protec- tion against the pains. but man of wealth who can .aford ito pay at least a goat or 8 sheep can be completely insured, according to the medicine mans schedule, against further recurs renee sof the nalady. His medicine takes the form of an elaborately carved fetish. into the stomach of which hole has been cut and filled with a substance too sacred even for the medicine man to pronounce It's name-perhaps brass tack or a piece of blue clay.
 But. if after all, the pains actually do recur? We'll, Q contingency of this sort has been carefully provided against by the medicine man. Such things have been known to happen. But the reason for 1t Is this: Some other man in the tribe. an enemy to the sufferer with rheumatism, has been going to rival medicine man and paying higher prices for more po- tent medicine. which permits him to harass the rheumatic patient with evii spirits. hence the pains. But if the rheumatic patient wishes to pay a lit- tie higher price for stronger medicine then he in turn may set evil spirits to afiicting his enemy. all of which the medicine man will be glad to arrange for the proper consideration.