Читать книгу The Medicine-Men of the Apache. (1892 N 09 / 1887-1888 (pages 443-604)) - Bourke John Gregory - Страница 10

A number of examples are to be found of the employment of necklaces of human teeth. In my own experience I have never come across any specimens, and my belief is that among the Indians south of the Isthmus such things are to be found almost exclusively. I have found no reference to such ornamentation or "medicine" among the tribes of North America, but there are many to show the very general dissemination of the custom in Africa and in the islands of the South Sea. Gomara says that the Indians of Santa Marta wore at their necks, like dentists, the teeth of the enemies they had killed in battle.174 Many of the Carib, we are told by a Spanish writer, ostentatiously wear necklaces made of strings of the teeth of the enemies whom they have slain.175 Padre Fray Alonzo Fernandez says of the Carib: "Traen los dientes con los cabellos de los que mataron por collares, como hazian antiguamente los Scitas."176 The people of New Granada "traen al cuello dientes de los que matavan."177 Picart says that the natives of New Granada and Cumana "portent au col les dents des ennemis qu'ils ont massacrez."178 The Spaniards found in the temple of the Itzaes, on the island of Peten, an idol made of "yesso," which is plaster, and in the head, which was shaped like the sun, were imbedded the teeth of the Castilians whom they had captured and killed.179

"They strung together the teeth of such of their enemies as they had slain in battle and wore them on their legs and arms as trophies of successful cruelty."180

Stanley says, referring to the natives of the Lower Congo country: "Their necklaces consisted of human, gorilla, and crocodile teeth, in such quantity, in many cases, that little or nothing could be seen of the neck."181

"The necklaces of human teeth which they [Urangi and Rubunga, of the Lower Congo] wore."182 Again, "human teeth were popular ornaments for the neck."183 When a king dies they [the Wahŭma, of the head of the Nile] cut out his lower jaw and preserve it covered with beads.184

Schweinfurth185 speaks of having seen piles of "lower jawbones from which the teeth had been extracted to serve as ornaments for the neck" by the Monbuttoo of Africa. "A slaughtered foe was devoured from actual bloodthirstiness and hatred by the Niam-Niams of Central Africa… They make no secret of their savage craving, but ostentatiously string the teeth of their victims round their necks, adorning the stakes erected beside their dwellings for the habitation of the trophies with the skulls of the men they have devoured. Human fat is universally sold."186

The four front teeth were extracted by the men and women of the Latooka and other tribes of the White Nile, but no explanation is given of the custom.187

In Dahomey, strings of human teeth are worn.188

Freycinet saw in Timor, Straits of Malacca, "a score of human jawbones, which we wished to purchase; but all our offers were met by the word 'pamali,' meaning sacred."189

In one of the "morais" or temples entered by Kotzebue in 1818, on the Sandwich Islands, there were two great and ugly idols, one representing a man, the other a woman. "The priests made me notice that both statues, which had their mouths wide open, were furnished with a row of human teeth."190

The Sandwich Islanders kept the jaw bones of their enemies as trophies.191 King Tamaahmaah had a "spitbox which was set round with human teeth, and had belonged to several of his predecessors."192

Among some of the Australian tribes the women wear about their necks the teeth which have been knocked out of the mouths of the boys at a certain age.193 This custom of the Australians does not obtain among the North American tribes, by whom the teeth, as they fall out, are carefully hidden or buried under some tree or rock. At least, I have been so informed by several persons, among others by Chato, one of the principal men of the Chiricahua Apache.

Molina speaks of the customs of the Araucanians, who, after torturing their captives to death, made war flutes out of their bones and used the skulls for drinking vessels.194 The Abipones of Paraguay make the bones of their enemies into musical instruments.195

The preceding practice is strictly in line with the "medicinal" and "magical" values attached in Europe to human teeth, human skin, etc. The curious reader may find much on this subject in the works of Frommann, Beckherius, Etmüller, Samuel Augustus Flemming, and others of the seventeenth century, where it will be shown that the ideas of the people of Europe of that period were only in name superior to those of the savages of America, the islands of the South Seas, and of Central Africa. In my work upon "The Scatalogic Rites of all Nations" I have treated this matter more in extenso, but what is here adduced will be sufficient for the present article.

The skin of Ziska, the Bohemian reformer, was made into a "medicine drum" by his followers.