The Swimmer manuscript : Cherokee sacred formulas and medicinal prescriptions

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Cherokee dance mask 1 Plate 4 is from a photograph taken by James Mooney in Plates 1, 2, 3, and 7, i, are from the collections of the Bureau of American Ethnology. The other illustrations are from photographs taken in the field by the editor The history of the American Indians.

Boston and New York, Animal and plant lore. Disease and medicine American. Hastings' Encyclo- psedia of Religion and Ethics, vol. New York and Edin- burgh, Games of the North American Indians. The natural and aboriginal history of Tennessee. Kleiweg de Zwaan, J. Die Heilkunde der Niasser. Dictionnaire ou Traits Universel des Drogues simples. The literature of American aboriginal languages. The Seminole Indians of Florida. A paper read before the American Ethnological Society, March, Historical Magazine and Notes and Queries, vol. The sacred formulas of the Cherokee.

Myths of the Cherokee. The Cherokee River cult. The Cherokee ball play. A grammar of the Cherokee language. Bibliography of the Iroquoian languages. Folk beliefs of the southern Negro. An inquiry into the animism and folk-lore of the Guiana Indians. A history of Georgia. Von der Gabelentz, Hans Georg Connor. Kurze Grammatik der Tschero- kesischen Sprache. Verglcichende Volksmedizin, ii vol, Stuttgart, The Dispensatory of the United States. Franz Boas, of Columbia University, to whom I am not only indebted for my ethnological training and for many personal favors, but who has been directly responsible for my being intrusted with the editing of the present manuscript.

To the late and the present chiefs of the Bureau of American Ethnology, Dr. Walter Fewkes and Mr. Stirling; to the ethnologists of the bureau, especially to Dr. Swanton; and to the officers of the Smithsonian Institution. I want to thank especially Dr. Galpin, secretary, and Mr. Shaler, the foundation's representative in Brussels.

C, and to Mr. Henderson, superintendent of the Yellowhill Government Boarding School, as well as to the members of his staff, especially to Mr. More than to any other of the white residents in the Cherokee country I feel indebted to Mr. C, who by their cordial hospitality of the first two weeks and by their repeated proofs of sympathy during the rest of our stay have greatly facilitated the field work. C, I am greatly obUged for the identification of the botanical specimens, as well as for valuable hints and instructions.

Thanks are due also to Mr. Speck, of the University of Pennsylvania, who both gave me valuable informa- tion and advice before I started on the trip. To all of the Cherokee informants with whom I worked I feel a great debt of gratitude. I especially want to remember W. To Margriet Olbrechts, my wife, who cheerfully shared all the joys and troubles of the trip with me, much credit is due for invaluable assistance in practical as well as in ethnological matters. The glowing tribute paid to him in the name of his colleagues and friends by Dr. Swanton in the American Anthropologist, volume 24, No.

Doctor Swanton was the eloquent spokesman of James Mooney's white friends. When I went to live with the Cherokee of the Great Smoky Mountains to continue the work of Mooney I found that his departure had been felt as cruelly by his Indian friends as by his white colleagues. People who looked askance, and medicine men who looked sullen when first approached, changed as if touched by a magic wand as they heard his name and as I explained my connection with his work.

From all that I heard I concluded that his life and his dealings with our mutual friends, the Cherokee, were a stimulating example for me, and I was well satisfied whenever I heard my conduct and my person not too unfavorably compared with that of my sympathetic predecessor. The line of research which Mooney had started in the Cherokee field was too interesting not to be followed up ; the results he had obtained demanded still a considerable amount of further study, both in the field and at the desk.

It is sad indeed that he did not have the satis- faction of seeing this manuscript pubhshed before he passed away from his beloved Cherokee studies.

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But the fife of a scientist and a pioneer like Mooney is not of threescore and ten only. He continues to live for generations in his splendid and altruistic work, in monu- ments more durable than stone. I consider it a great honor and an enviable privilege to link my name with his, and at the same time to be able to contribute something more to the memory of James Alooney, by offering to the public the results of our joint work contained in the following pages.

Kessel-Loo, Belgium, Christmas, The "dictionary" of Christian Priber has never been heard of since it reached Fred erica, Ga. Worcester, including a gram- mar and a dictionary, went down on the Arkansas about Thomas have ''unfortunately been mislaid. To reach a climax: The manuscript which is edited in the following paper has been true to the tradition, and has disappeared without leaving a clue. The manuscript is described by Mooney, who dis- covered it and brought it to Washington, as "a small daybook of about pages,.

I have respected Mr. Mooney's intention and conserved these four formulas in the present paper. Of three more formulas, Nos. The remaining formulas that are left unaccounted for were not included by Jklooney in those intended for publication, possibly on aqcount of their being incomplete, or because they were for some reason deemed unfit for publication. Indeed, not one of the many Cherokee manuscripts that I have seen contained such a homogeneous collection as is here presented, so much so that this homogeneity can only be explained by its being artificial.

The true character of a Cherokee book of formulas and prescriptions does not therefore appear from the manuscript now published to the same extent as it will from the other manuscripts, the publication of which is under consideration. This classification is qidte foreign to Cherokee knowledge and use, and I have considered that it diminished the value of the manuscript as an aboriginal document.

The original of the manuscript not being available for comparison, I went through a tedious process of comparing various notes and cross references found in Mooney's manuscript notes. Another fact to which attention should be called is that this manu- script contains 13 fonnulas wldch were obtained by Ay. Mooney much information on these formulas and the data we have on them have mainly to be gathered by analogy with what we loiow of the other formulas.

The original manuscript having been lost, Mooney's transliteration was taken along when I went on the Cherokee field trip. The transliteration of Mooney was then read aloud to a medicine man, who wrote the text in the Sequoya syllabary. On this latter text the work was done. This may seem to be a very artificial way of reconstituting the text but I can vouch for its accuracy. Until the original manuscript comes to Ught again — which I sincerely hope it wiU— there is only one proof to test the acciu'acy of the texts acquired in this way: The two texts are given on opposite pages.

From a careful investigation of them, and after due allowance is made for the variants residting from the difference between the magistral, calligraphic wiiting of Ay. The words that '" In the course of this paper the manuscript here edited will usually be referred to by an abbreviation: It is a mere matter of euphony, to which W. As a result, the Cherokee themselves are quite inconsistent in using the symbols for g, k and d, t. The matter is made more complicated by the actual existence of the so-called "intermediates" in their phonetics. This discrepancy is an illustration of this state of affairs.

In the written docmnents they are there- fore left to the reader to discover, as in W. It is usually represented by the complex: In lines 17 and 19, however, W. It appears from the foregoing notes that, as I said, the few and slight differences that can be found are mainly phonetic. These are not of a nature to invite skepticism as to the accuracy of the texts. Moreover, since writing them, it has been possible, by further re- search, to discover additional texts and to obtain from other medicine men copies of separate formulas.

Some of these are identical with those in the Ay. They must be either later copies or earher predecessors, if not the actual originals, from which some of the Ay. Comparing two versions wherever this was possible has again proved that the method used in reconstituting the texts is flawless. In order not to commit Mr. Mooney's name, and to take my own responsibility, I have thought it advisable to make a definite state- ment as to what part of this paper is Mooney's and how much of it is my work. As has already been clearly stated, the credit for the discovery of the manuscript and for the first work on it is Mooney's.

I am also very much indebted to his former pubHcations on the Cherokee tribe and to many items of interest found in his manuscript notes. Mooney transUterated and translated the formulas free transla- tions and wrote explanatory comments, some of them quite lengthy, to accompany them. It should be borne in mind that this work was done by Mooney about 40 years ago, at a time when methods for studying the native languages and the phonetic notations to record them had not attained the same degree of perfection they now boast of.

That is the reason why it has been deemed expedient to take down the texts anew, as has already been explained in detail. I have, moreover, considered that the value of the texts would be considerably enhanced by an interlinear translation, which I have con- sequently added. As for the explanatory notes and comments wliich Mooney had written for eveiy formula, these could not possibly be improved upon. In some cases, however, I was able to collect items of information that cast an additional Ught on the subject; sometimes I was able to actually catch a belief or a practice in the process of change and evolu- tion ; or again, I got the individual point of view of different medicine men.

All tliis was carefully noted and is added to Mr. Mooney's explanations, inclosed in brackets. I have furthermore collected all the botanical specimens of which mention is made in the manuscript. For the identification of these I am obhged to Air. Standley of the United States National Museum. Finally I wrote an introduction which gives as extensive a survey of Cherokee beliefs and practices with regard to disease and medicine as is necessary to fully imderstand the formulas and prescriptions of the Ay.

Although every formula contains a few ele- ments that inlierently belong to it, and may not be met with in any of the others, yet there is in all of the formulas an underljdng complex of ideas that is basically the same. Whereas those elements that specifically belong to a given formida are better explained in a short note commenting on them, and affixed to that particular formula, it has been thought advisable, in order to avoid constant repetitions, and also in order to present a more synthetic picture of the whole, to give a broadly sketched and general outHne of the subjects treated: Disease, its nature and its causes; the means by which disease is diagnosed and cured; the materia medica and the curing methods; of the person who is constantly associated with all of this, the medicine man.

Short chapters on birth and death have been added, as well as a general introduction to the formulas. Lengthy as these introductory notes may seem, yet they have been strictly limited to the subject matter contained m the Ay. I have modified my first intention, which was to append in copious notes any parallels with which I am acquainted. However, the time for a comparative work of wdde scope on primitive medicine has not yet come, our special loiowledge being far too inadequate to justify generalizations.

I have therefore considered that it would be better to give as exhaustive a survey as possible of Cherokee medical lore and custom; a collection of monographs of this kind will be the mate- rial from which once a comparative study of the medicine and of the science of " primitive " peoples, will be compiled.

On the Cherokee method of compilating manuscripts of this description, see pp. He died m , at 65 years of age. He was Mooney's main in- formant on the history, mythology, and later especially on the medi- cine and botany of the Cherokee. On his personality, see what Mooney says about him in his Myths, pp.

The lucky chance by which Mooney got scent of the existence of the manuscript, and how he ultimately obtained it, are related by him in his SFC, pages The son, t'a'mi i. The memory of Ay. He is looked upon as one of the last old, wise men, such as there are now none left. For ample details regarding the historic past of the Cherokee, and especially of the present reservation of the Eastern Band, the reader is referred to the excellent liistorical sketch by James Mooney in his Myths, pages There were many reasons that all but enforced this choice: Lying in a secluded cove, of difficult and at some times of the year of impossible access, with a population of far more con- servative people than that of the villages lying nearer the boarding school and the Government offices, tribal life has conserved much of its aboriginal flavor in Big Cove.

Especially the beliefs and prac- tices relating to medicine are still rampant in this community to such an extent that of the 15 families that constituted the population of the cove 10 people were avowed medical practitioners, whereas three or four more occasionally took up the practice of medicine as a side line. They live as a rule in 1-room log cabins, covered with hewn boards, although five or SLX famihes hve in frame houses built by natives or half bloods that have learned the art in the Government schools.

The cabins are scattered about the two slopes of the cove, at least to yards, often a mile and more, from each other. This does not prevent the inmates from loiowing all that happens in the valley. Even if Cherokee eyes are no longer trained on the warpath, they are still annojdngly keen! There is quite a remarkable spirit of tribal and social solidarity reigning among the people cf. These people have known abom- inable treatment and tyrannic oppression at our hands, and they know how to remember.

Their only word by which they can refer to a white man is identical with their expression for " he is a mean feUow. This attic was the best post of observation one could have wished for: The very fact that we had come from so far, and from the east the direction of favor, luck, and fortune , "to learn their language, and to Hsten to their beautiful stories," that we fived wuth one of their own people in his house, that we cut our owti wood, carried our owTi suppfies, etc. Soon we had pro- gressed so far that we knew the joy of being looked upon, if not as one of them, at least as congenial neighbors.

As a whole only medicine men could be used. Some of these, even if they were good practitioners were but poor informants; others as a matter of principle refused for many months to give information.

Swimmer Manuscript: Cherokee Sacred Formulas and Medicinal Prescriptions, Free PDF | Global Grey

Some of them, however, were ideal collaborators, and for such of them as W. The following is a list of the informants and medicine men cited in these pages. Those the names of whom are preceded by two asterisks are the medicine men who worked with Mooney and who died be- tween his visits and inine; the names preceded by one asterisk are those of the medicine men I worked with, but who died during or since my stay; the medicine men whose names are not preceded by an asterisk are those I worked with, and who are, so far as I know, still alive at the time of wTiting. Since some of the latter are depicted in these pages in terms that are not always complimentary, and also because much of their activity as described in this paper might bring upon them the wrath of people who beheve it their duty to stamp out all vestiges of aboriginal belief and practice, it is deemed best to cite them by their initials only.

I have deposited a detailed list in the archives of the Bureau of American Ethnology by which these individuals can be identified by any ethnologist who may desire to make investigations in that quarter of the world in the future. Del See this paper, pi. Climbing Bear's widow, W. W My main informant and interpreter see pi. But two attempts to publish a grammar of it have been made — one by J. Pickering's attempt was not any better than could be expected at a time when so little of American Indian Unguistics was known, and Von der Gabelentz's sketch, though interesting, is based on material gleaned from very inadequate sources.

Neither of the two have found, for example, the typical Iroquoian system of pronominal prefixes in the Cherokee verbal series, nor the difference between the static and active verbs. There are still two Cherokee dialects extant — the Western often called "Upper" dialect, spoken by the majority of the Cherokee in Oklahoma and by a few families in Graham County, N. C, and the Central often called "Middle" dialect, spoken by the Cherokee on the Qualla Reservation, where these investigations were made. There is historic evidence of a third dialect, wliich may be called the Eastern it has sometimes been referred to as the "Lower" dialect; the last Indian, as far as we know, who spoke this dialect died in the beginning of this century.

There is a possibility that one or two? The differences existing between the two dialects that are still spoken are small indeed, nor does the extinct dialect seem to have diverged much from the two others. Allowing for such phonetic sliifts as West. The formulas as written in the Ay. Still, a lot of Western dialect forms are to be found in them and there are also a great many archaic, ritualistic expressions the meaning of which is rapidly disappearing.

I have given in the interlinear analysis a translation as correct and conveying the Cherokee meaning as faithfully as was found possible. Rather than speculate on probabilities or advance conjectures that can not be proved, I have indicated by a query mark those elements that can not be satisfactorily analyzed. As for this analysis, I have always given in the interlinear translation the original meaning as far as this could be ascertained, giving the semasiological evolution in footnotes to the free translation.

In the free translation it will be rendered by "bullet," which is its meaning in the context, a footnote explaining the evolution in meaning: It is hoped that a paper on Cherokee linguistics, on which the pres- ent wiiter is working, will soon be ready for publication. Phonetics Vowels — Oral: Long or short — Open — a, as in Engl, far, Gm.

V, as in Engl, spoon, you. Closed — a, as in Gm. Short— 0, as in Engl, bird, but very short; Gm. Parasitical — Phonems that are scarcely audible and occur frequently as weakly articulated vowels are indicated by small superior characters: Voiceless — A, I, u, o— Voiceless vowels, as they are paradoxically called, are phonems produced by lips and tongue taking the position to pronounce a vowel a, i, u, or o, as the case may be ; there may be — and there usually is — a strong emission of breath, but as the vocal cords are not brought in action, the phonem is voiceless.

The w is often preceded by a barelj' audible u sound; in this case the phonem is written "w. Stops — Dental — d, voiced, as in Engl.

D, intermediate sound between voiced and unvoiced dental, t, unvoiced, as in Engl. Velar — g, voiced, as in Engl, go, dog. G, intermediate sound between voiced and unvoiced velar, k, unvoiced, as in Engl. Nasals — Dental — n, voiced nasal, as in Engl, can, near. The tongue takes the dental position as if about to pronounce d implosion , but immediately the uvula is lowered and the breath escapes by the nose passage, without having occasioned the explosion usually accompanying the d phonem. N, voiceless nasal; always followed by a strong nasal aspiration Bilabial — m, voiced as in Engl, mother.

Velar — q, voiced, as in Engl, sing, rang. Spirants — Dental — s, unvoiced fricative as in Engl, race, sing.

Palatal — X, unvoiced, as in Gm. Laterals — 1, voiced, as in Engl, lid, rill. Affricatives — Dental — dz, voiced, as in Engl, hands up.

Prepalatal — dj, voiced, as in Engl. Lateral — tl, unvoiced 1, preceded by unvoiced dental stop. Q, a hook, turned to the right, under a vowel indicates nasalization. The two latter can be combined to ", i. Words or parts of words between brackets [ ] in the texts were written by the native compilator of the manuscript by mistake. Words or parts of words between parentheses had been omitted by him but have been interpolated by J. In every case the interpolation is accounted for in a footnote.

Words or sentences between brackets, in the explanatory notes foUow-ing every one of the formulas, are by the editor. All the rest in these explanatory notes is the work of James Mooney. These are not by any means so simple or uniform as many theorists are wont to ascribe to peoples at this stage of ciilture. Gpyu'ca — "I have resentment toward thee.

The original meaning of this word has now been lost, even by the medicine men, who always claim it merely means ''the disease present in the body," and Mooney accordingly invariably translated it as "the intruder. It appears from various expressions that can be compared with the one under discussion that the meaning would be "that which is important. It must be very important, else thou wouldst not have come. It would thus appear that it is one of the many "euphemistic terms" which the Cherokee, as so many other tribes and peoples, use, and the object of which is to allude to a dreaded concept by a respect- ful circumlocution, so as not to offend it, or so as not to bring about its appearance, its "materiaUzation," we might say, by calling it by its common name.

Although it is invisible, intangible, and in all other respects immaterial, it very often may manifest its presence by material means, as swellings, protuberances, or even by worms and insects. How the disease then finally enters the victhn under whom it has been put is not clear. There is a consensus of opinion among the medicine men that it enters the body somehow, but on the question as to whether this in- troduction takes place by way of a natural orifice or whether it is possible for a disease to enter the body anywhere, not one of the medicine men cared to commit himself.

There are, for example, the ailments due to "our sahva being spoiled. The most frequent causes of this state of affairs are dreams, es- pecially the dreams caused by the ghost people see p. The belief is based no doubt on the feeling of oppression and anguish that accompanies many dreams, especially those of the "nightmare" variety. The victim is utterly despondent and dejected and seems to be the victim of a severe case of chronic melancholy. Another explanation that is offered in some cases, and one which is more apt to cause surprise, as it is not common to the Indians of the eastern United States, is that the illness is caused by the action of a human being who has ravished the soul of the patient.

The fact that one's soul has been buried does not result in instant death: The symptoms ascribed to an illness of this order do not differ materially from those belonging to "having one's saliva spoiled" or to the illness caused by some one "having his mind different toward us. The way in which the medicine man finds out what is actually the cause of a given disease will be discussed under the caption of Diagnosis p.

Sometimes, however, a diagnosis, however ac- curate, will fail to disclose the actual cause of the ailment. A favorite explanation in such a case is to ascribe the evil to the fact that the patient "has dreamed of different things. Nobody ever becomes ill without a cause. And with very few exceptions every individual is responsible and blamable for the dis- eases he contracts. A distinction is made between dangerous and less serious diseases, but even the latter have to be adequately cared for and attended to ; for disease senders and causers, whether human or nonhuman, have a predilection for sending disease to a person when he is already in a weakened condition; they know that then they stand a far better chance to be successful and attain their ends.

General Semeiology Although very little value is attached to what might be called a scientific symptomatology by the Cherokee, a few remarks about the subject are not out of place here. As will soon appear from a glance at the titles of the formulas, the different ailments themselves are usually called by names that refer IMOOKEY Olbrechts. As a rule, only the main symptom — that is, the phenomenon which the patient or the medicine man considers as the main symptom — is considered to be of any importance, and as a result of this many ail- ments that are of an entirely different pathological nature are classed as one and the same disease, because headache, for example, is the most unpressive symptom.

Yellowness of the skin, black rings round the eyes, headache, swellings, and the nature of the feces and of the m'ine are practically the only general signs which the medicine men consider as being of any importance. Some may be impressed by the rationality of this symptomatology ; but it should be borne in mind that the deductions made from it, and the treatment followed as a result of it, are by no means as rational as we are led to expect. Headache is not so much a symptom as a proof that a group of birds have invaded the patient's head, and are there carrying on in a way which is not conducive to the rest of the victim.

Diarrhea in children is evidenced by the nature of the feces, but is explained by the fact that two rival teams of "Little People" are playing a ball game in the child's stomach. More of the symptoms that are known and that are occasionally mentioned and taken into consideration will be discussed with the relevant formulas. Disease Causes natural causes However primitive and unsophisticated may be the views of a tribe on disease and its causes, and however great may be the share of mysticism and occultism in its explanation of the events of daily life, yet there is almost everywhere a recognition of natural agency if not for some of the ailments, at least for some accidents.

But one should never be too sure. The buxom woman, from w'hom last week a chubby, healthy baby boy "jumped down," as the Cherokee express it, is now suffer- ing more than ever she did, and feels herself as being burned by a scorching internal fire.

The sprightly baby, which ever since it moved was as alert and busthng as a young chipmunk or a scampering squirrel, suddenly lapses into spasmodic convulsions, or lies motionless vdtb haggard eyes wide open, as those of a terror-stricken rabbit. When we think of how, in a civilized community, as soon as any- thing uncanny happens, as soon as the Awful Incomprehensible makes its presence felt, even the sophisticated lose their reasoning faculties and grasp at ridiculous explanations and at impossible hopes, how can we scoff at the conclusions these poor people reach?

The man who became ill so suddenly has had a quarrel a week or so ago wdth an ill-reputed medicine man, who told him, as they separated, that he would hear about him again. The wizard has shot an invisible flint arrowhead into his bowels. That is why she is now being consumed by an internal fire. The baby is now paying the penalty of his mother having partaken of rabbit meat during her pregnancy, six months or so ago. And that is why it is now assuming the cramped position, so reminiscent of the hunchback position of a squatting rabbit, or why its eyeballs are so dilated.

The motives of these spirits, whether they be of an anthropomorphic or of a zoomorphic type, are mostly very human and justifiable — they take revenge for slights, lack of respect, abuses, etc. This holds especially for the animal spirits, the Little Deer, the White Bear, etc. There are hardly any spirits that are, per se, benevolent or ne- farious; they may be one or another, according to circumstances. One spirit may send a disease as a punishment, and yet may on another occasion help the same individual to overcome another spirit.

As a rule the spirit who has caused a disease is never prevailed upon to take the disease away; the office of another, rival, spirit is called upon to do this. Spirits do not merely send disease of their own initiative; they may be prevailed upon to do so by human agency, by witches see p. According to some informants it would seem that spirits may exercise their nefarious power quite arbitrarily; the sun may cause a headache without any apparent reason, or without any plausible cause.

This is, however, so exceedingly rare that it is quite possible that this view is foreign to earher Cherokee conceptions, and that such an allegation is now made simply because the earlier explana- tion has been lost. Let us now pass in review the more important of these anthro- pomorpliic spirits. By far the most important is The Sun. The first of these expressions means: The same stem is used to express the allotting of the tribal territory to the individuals that are entitled to a part, "an allotment," of it.

It is now well-nigh impossible to gain a clear conception of the part which this spirit must have once played in Cherokee reUgion. Only a very few of the older people can shed any Ught on his true nature. Some who have been missionized to some extent identify this spirit with the God of the Christians; others, even if they do not go qiute so far, have absolutely forgotten that une-'tlano'Ji is identical with the sun, and have even no idea of the sex of this spirit.

Although tliis spirit was not considered responsible for the origin of things see Mooney, Myths, pp. When such very important tribal or ritualistic events take place as the ball game, or the search for medicine, he is always invoked in a very humble and propitiating way. He and the Fire they are stUl by a few of the oldest informants felt to be one and the same person are the only spirits to which prayers, in the true meaning of the term, are ever offered ; of them things are asked, while other spirits are merely commanded to do things.

Another proof is found in the etiological myth explaining the black spots on the "face" of the moon as a result of the love affair of the moon with the sun, his sister. See Mooney, Myths, pp. No one could give the reason why the sun causes disease. An explanation is found in a myth where it is stated that the sun causes fever because she hates to see her grandchildren the human beings screw up their faces when they look up at her.

It is often addressed as "our grandparent," opening his her? Epithets, as "Ancient white," "Ancient red," are often bestowed upon it. The hunter, when returning from a successful trip, never neglected to offer a particle of meat, usually the liver of the animal, to it, but this custom is now well-nigh obsolete. There is only one instance of the fire curing an ailment by its own virtue, viz, where burns and scalds caused by flames are exposed to the fire, "so that the fire should take the pain back," but there are a great many instances where the curing virtue of the fire is relied upon as an additional element in the cure.

In all the cases, viz, where the patient has "to be hit" see p. Usually a few live coals are taken from the hearth on a shovel, in a dish, or a flat vessel, and put near the patient; the medicine man warms his hands over these coals before he starts "rubbing the disease away. Another case where the curing virtue of the fire is resorted to is when an infusion, prior to being dnmk by the patient, or to being rubbed on his body, is "strengthened" by dropping four or seven live coals into it.

The considerable role the fire plaj's in divination ceremonies is retained for discussion in a future paper deahng with that subject, when also the use made of the fire in a "man-ldlHng" ceremony will be amply described. It would appear, however, that this loss of popularity is of rather recent date, since very old customs, such as the "going to water" see p.

The diseases held to be caused by the moon are very scarce; blind- ness is one of them. It may be that originally this illness was considered to be caused by the moon, but such a belief does not exist now; it is now merely looked upon as an omen. The moon is never appealed to vdih. This offers the more cause for surprise, as the moon must once have been the object of great respect. It is still occasionally addressed as "grandparent," the only spirit to share this honor with the Sun and the Fire.

At the time when it uill be like this again i. Pronouncing this salutation formula is a sure means of safeguarding against all sickness or accidents throughout the ensuing month. The rite of going to water, however, is rapidly disappearing from the tribal life, and after another couple of generations all that will probably subsist of the river cult will be a few survivals, unintelligible even to those who practice them.

The river sends disease to those who insult it by such actions as throwing rubbish into it, by urinating into it, etc. As a vengeance for the latter act it causes a disease from a description of the symptoms of which it appears that enuresis is meant. Your request to send this item has been completed.

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The Swimmer manuscript: Cherokee sacred formulas and medicinal prescriptions

Bureau of American Ethnology ; no. Subjects Cherokee Indians -- Ethnobotany.

This item appears in the following Collection(s)

Materia medica, Vegetable -- United States. Ethnobotany -- Southern States.

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