Читать книгу The Medicine-Men of the Apache. (1892 N 09 / 1887-1888 (pages 443-604)) - Bourke John Gregory - Страница 3

The materia medica of the Apache is at best limited and comprehends scarcely anything more than roots, leaves, and other vegetable matter. In gathering these remedies they resort to no superstitious ceremonies that I have been able to detect, although I have not often seen them collecting. They prefer incantation to pharmacy at all times, although the squaws of the Walapai living near old Camp Beale Springs in 1873, were extremely fond of castor oil, for which they would beg each day.

The main reliance for nearly all disorders is the sweat bath, which is generally conducive of sound repose. All Indians know the benefit to be derived from relieving an overloaded stomach, and resort to the titillation of the fauces with a feather to induce nausea. I have seen the Zuñi take great drafts of lukewarm water and then practice the above as a remedy in dyspepsia.

When a pain has become localized and deep seated, the medicine-men resort to suction of the part affected, and raise blisters in that way. I was once asked by the Walapai chief, Sequanya, to look at his back and sides. He was covered with cicatrices due to such treatment, the medicine-men thinking thus to alleviate the progressive paralysis from which he had been long a sufferer, and from which he shortly afterwards died. After a long march, I have seen Indians of different bands expose the small of the back uncovered to the fierce heat of a pile of embers to produce a rubefacient effect and stimulate what is known as a weak back. They drink freely of hot teas or infusions of herbs and grasses for the cure of chills. They are all dextrous in the manufacture of splints out of willow twigs, and seem to meet with much success in their treatment of gunshot wounds, which they do not dress as often as white practitioners, alleging that the latter, by so frequently removing the bandages, unduly irritate the wounds. I have known them to apply moxa, and I remember to have seen two deep scars upon the left hand of the great Apache chief Cochise, due to this cause.

It should not be forgotten that the world owes a large debt to the medicine-men of America, who first discovered the virtues of coca, sarsaparilla, jalap, cinchona, and guiacum. They understand the administration of enemata, and have an apparatus made of the paunch of a sheep and the hollow leg bone.

Scarification is quite common, and is used for a singular purpose. The Apache scouts when tired were in the habit of sitting down and lashing their legs with bunches of nettles until the blood flowed. This, according to their belief, relieved the exhaustion.

The medicine-men of the Floridians, according to Vaca, sucked and blew on the patient, and put hot stones on his abdomen to take away pain; they also scarified, and they seemed to have used moxas. "Ils cautérisent aussi avec le feu."88

The medicine-men of Hispaniola cured by suction, and when they had extracted a stone or other alleged cause of sickness it was preserved as a sacred relic, especially by the women, who looked upon it as of great aid in parturition.89 Venegas speaks of a tube called the "chacuaco," formed out of a very hard black stone, used by the medicine-men of California in sucking such parts of the patient's body as were grievously afflicted with pains. In these tubes they sometimes placed lighted tobacco and blew down upon the part affected after the manner of a moxa, I suppose.90

The men of Panuco were so addicted to drunkenness that we are told: "Lorsqu'ils sont fatigués de boire leur vin par la bouche, ils se couchent, élèvent les jambes en l'air, et s'en font introduire dans le fondement au moyen d'une canule, taut que le corps peut en contenir."91 The administration of wine in this manner may have been as a medicine, and the Aztecs of Panuco may have known that nutriment could be assimilated in this way. It shows at least that the Aztecs were acquainted with enemata.

"Quando la enfermedad les parecia que tenia necesidad de evacuacion, usaban del aiuda ò clister [clyster], con cocimientos de Iervas, i polvos, en Agua, i tomandola en la boca, con yn canuto de hueso de pierna de Garça, la hechaban, i obraba copiosamente: i en esto pudo esta Gente ser industriada de la Cigueña, que con su largo pico se cura, como escriven los Naturales."92 Smith says that the medicine-men of the Araucanians "are well acquainted with the proper use of emetics, cathartics, and sudorifics. For the purpose of injection they make use of a bladder, as is still commonly practiced among the Chilenos."93 Oviedo says of the medicine-men: "Conoçian muchas hiervas de que usaban y eran apropiadas á diversas enfermedades."94 One of the most curious remedies presented in Bancroft's first volume is the use of a poultice of mashed poison-ivy leaves as a remedy for ringworm by the Indians of Lower California.

The Indians of Topia (in the Sierra Madre, near Sinaloa), were in the habit of scarifying their tired legs and aching temples.95 The Arawaks, of Guiana, also scarified, according to Spencer.96 The inhabitants of Kamchatka use enemata much in the same way as the Navajo and Apache do.97 They also use moxa made of a fungus.98

It has never been my good fortune to notice an example of trephining among our savage tribes, although I have seen a good many wounded, some of them in the head. Trephining has been practiced by the aborigines of America, and the whole subject as noted among the primitive peoples of all parts of the globe has been treated in a monograph by Dr. Robert Fletcher, U. S. Army.99

Dr. Fordyce Grinnell, who was for some years attached to the Wichita Agency as resident physician, has published the results of his observations in a monograph, entitled "The healing art as practiced by the Indians of the Plains," in which he says: "Wet cupping is resorted to quite frequently. The surface is scarified by a sharp stone or knife, and a buffalo horn is used as the cupping glass. Cauterizing with red-hot irons is not infrequently employed." A cautery of "burning pith" was used by the Araucanians.100

"It may be safely affirmed that a majority of the nation [Choctaw] prefer to receive the attentions of a white physician when one can be obtained. * * * When the doctor is called to his patient he commences operations by excluding all white men and all who disbelieve in the efficacy of his incantations."101 "The [Apache] scouts seem to prefer their own medicine-men when seriously ill, and believe the weird singing and praying around the couch is more effective than the medicine dealt out by our camp 'sawbones.'"102 The promptness with which the American Indian recovers from severe wounds has been commented upon by many authorities. From my personal observation I could, were it necessary, adduce many examples. The natives of Australia seem to be endowed with the same recuperative powers.103

After all other means have failed the medicine-men of the Southwest devote themselves to making altars in the sand and clay near the couch of the dying, because, as Antonio Besias explained, this act was all the same as extreme unction. They portray the figures of various animals, and then take a pinch of the dust or ashes from each one and rub upon the person of the sick man as well as upon themselves. Similar altars or tracings were made by the medicine-men of Guatemala when they were casting the horoscope of a child and seeking to determine what was to be its medicine in life. This matter of sand altars has been fully treated by Matthews in the report of the Bureau of Ethnology for 1883-'84, and there are several representations to be found in my Snake Dance of the Moquis. "Writing on sand" is a mode of divination among the Chinese.104 Padre Boscana represents the "puplem" or medicine-men of the Indians of California as making or sketching "a most uncouth and ridiculous figure of an animal on the ground," and presumably of sands, clays, and other such materials.105