The Coconino sun., 1920-01-09

His wife sickened and died near the fireplace in it. Throwing some dirt over her where she expired they fled. accidentally leaving the. door open. Later they begged party of govern ment officials to close the door, which they did. Many other dead were aban- doned and left unburied. If there were government officials or traders in the vicinity they begged them to bury them, otherwise they were left uninterred. The agency people buried many Indians who had been abandon, ed. Glad Hand, the agency police man at Marsh Pass was buried by an agency party after he had been dead in an abandoned hogan eight days. Also in the closing week of April
 Q919) the government stockman in- tered two influenza victims who had lain in their respective hogans since last fall.
 When sick the Navajos think they should eat a whole lot. "If one can not eat, he dies" says the Navajo sage. Stuffing in sickness is usually practiced as a remedy! And is the cause of not a few deaths. At one place on the reservation during the plague meat balls the size of pigeon eggs were forced down the patients who were too weak and sick to eat, until no more could be forced down them. The stomach of an influenza victim who had been abandoned and partly eaten by the wolves was also seen to contain about quart of corn which had probably been boiled before it was forced down him.
 The medicine man often gives his patient the juice of the Arizona jimp- son and same was much used during the influenza epidemic. This makes the pulse run high and often causes the patient to be delirious. It is used as one of the last resorts. One jimpson victim examined by the agency physi- clan had pulse running above 240! The Indians also killed horses and made horsetail soup as 4emedy to combat the disease. This was good thing as it helped get rid of some of the worthless ponies. The main rem- edy, however, was the powow, yava- chai ceremonies accompanied by elab- crate sand paintings.
 In making these paintings, all but the patient in the respective house. hold concerned is moved from the ho gan to a small, circular brush protec- tion, unless a medicine lodge is erect ed for the purpose. The drawing is then made on the ground to the west of the central fire; each medicine man has his own system of drawings which he places to suit his own tastes and whims, though on the whole the sand paintings are very similar. Often the parts of the drawing are in con centric bands whose separating rings are rainbows. The inter-rainbow spaces are filled with crude figures of human-mythical beings called "chindes." When completed, the nude patient is smeared from head to foot with blackish, medicinal concoction. He is then placed on or near the draw. ing. Then elaborate singing and praying follows. As a faith cure this is a good remedy, but it failed to cure the influenza. This failing, thes final and last remedy was a massage, con torting process. As the disease usual- ly terminated in pneumonia and con- sequently the lungs were tight" the medicine man jumped on the chest to loosen up the lungs!
 After the final abatement of the malady the aborigines rode over hills, valleys, mesas and mountains scat tering sacred meal and corn pollen over their stone altars to prevent the epidemic's returning.
 This one thing we do-Job Printing
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