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The medicine-men of the Apache are most influential personages. They are usually men of more than ordinary ability, claiming, through their many deities and their knowledge of the occult and ominous, to have supernatural power. In sickness any individual may make supplication to the deities, but the prayers of the medicine-men are accepted as being most efficacious.

Apache Medicine-man

Many of the medicine-men have some knowledge of the medicinal properties of plants and generally make use of them in the treatment of disease, but their treatment consists more of incantation than aught else. Even in collecting the plants they invoke the deities, usually facing the cardinal points in turn. In case the prescription calls for a combination of herbs or other vegetal products, the number four is always strictly adhered to; it might be a decoction made of four roots of one variety or of a single root from each of four varieties of plants.

Every Apache medicine-man has a medicine skin, his ĕpú̆n ezchí, inscribed with the symbolism of the tribal mythology. With his prayer wands he rehearses the symbolic figures, praying to the mythical characters who are regarded as most efficacious in the particular ailment under treatment. In his own little kówa, or dwelling, with the painted deerskin spread before him, on which are delineated the symbolic representations of a score of gods comprising the Apache pantheon, a medicine-man will sit and croon songs and pray all day and all night in the hope of hearing the voices of celestial messengers.

Many of the prayers and songs of the Apache medicine-men are very beautiful. The following is an example:

1 Stĕná pĕhí̆nda nzhóni, tógonĭl ádahĕ bé̆oĭshkan.

2 Inaté̆sh nzhóni bé̆oĭshkan.

3 Ĕnŭdé̆tsos nzhóni bé̆oĭshkan.

4 Ĭnyátĭl nzhóni bé̆oĭshkan.

5 Bé̆hnandahĭ ĭnkéhĭ tógonĭl ádahĕ bé̆oĭshkan.

6 Ĭndú̆h bĭnandáhĕ bé̆oĭshkan.

7 Bĕh nashálolĕzh ndĕ; nashéyo shĭchí̃sĭgon zhóndolĕzh.

8 Ndĕ shĭnklóho bĕh sanandáhĕ bé̆oĭshkan.

9 Bĕh sanashádo bé̆oĭshkan.

10 No oskóngo adĭshní daházhĭ bĕhnashádo ti ndĕ ta nashéyo gonzhódo.

11 Shágocho paógo násha.

12 Akúd ndĕ sa nzhóni yé̆sĭtchĭ yé̆atido.

13 Pídi yú̆gga sa nzhóni yé̆kĭssĭn shí̃dĭl é̆ndo.

14 Shĭtú̆h gozhóndolĕzh pógo hádĭshndi.

1 Stĕnátlĭhăn, you are good, I pray for a long life.

2 I pray for your good looks.

3 I pray for good breath.

4 I pray for good speech.

5 I pray for feet like yours to carry me through a long life.

6 I pray for a life like yours.

7 I walk with people; ahead of me all is well.

8 I pray for people to smile as long as I live.

9 I pray to live long.

10 I pray, I say, for a long life to live with you where the good people are.

11 I live in poverty.

12 I wish the people there to speak of goodness and to talk to me.

13 I wish you to divide your good things with me, as a brother.

14 Ahead of me is goodness, lead me on.

While this prayer is worded as if uttered by the supplicant, it is in reality offered by the medicine-man in his behalf.

There are head medicine-men and medicine-men of lesser degree. The man who becomes influential enough to be considered the head medicine-man of the tribe is more of a politician than a doctor of diseases, and in important cases only is he called to treat in a healing ceremony. It requires a particularly capable Indian to attain the position of head medicine-man, for to do so he must not only make the people subservient to his will, but must wrest the leadership from some other and usually older medicine-man who is himself an influential character. Unfortunately it is apt to be the most crafty, scheming man who gains such power over his tribesmen.

A case in point was the recent strife between Das Lan and Goshonné. For some years the latter, an Indian of exceptional ability and withal apparently an honest man in his treatment of diseases, was the head medicine-man of the White Mountain Apache. Then it came to pass that the crafty old Das Lan of the Cibicu had his vision, in which was revealed a special message brought by Chuganaái Skhĭn from Kútĕrastan to the Apache people. This was the beginning of the present so-called messiah craze.

Maternity Belt - Apache

From the first there was promise of a battle to the end between Goshonné and Das Lan. Goshonné well knew that if the new cult gained a firm footing he would lose his influence and at best be but a mediocre medicine-man. Das Lan, on the other hand, knew that he must break the power of such a man as Goshonné, if he was to assume the leadership. Goshonné scoffed and scorned, and would have none of the new belief. Still, he was an Indian, and the prophecies of his rival gradually filled him with superstitious fear, while his followers were either deserting him openly or were secretly joining the ranks of the enemy. Death was predicted for the members of Goshonné's own family, and well could Das Lan make such prophecies, for Goshonné's two brothers were already stricken with tuberculosis. First one died, then the other. Das Lan could now point to him and say, "That is what Kútĕrastan does to those who do not believe!" It was thus that Goshonné's power finally was broken and Das Lan became a seer.

Sacred pollen, hádĭntĭn, is used in all ceremonies, particularly in those designed for healing. The principal source of hádĭntĭn is the tule, but much of it comes from the piñon. For prayers invoking an abundance of corn, pollen is mixed with cornmeal. Not only do the medicine-men use this powder, but each individual carries a small quantity of it in a deerskin pouch somewhere about his person. In the pollen may be small medicine trinkets—sometimes consisting of a few shell beads from prehistoric ruins—and there is scarcely a person, old or young, who does not have a small section of the candle cactus fastened somewhere about his clothing.

When childbirth approaches, the medicine-men are always summoned. Nothing can give a better idea of the medicine rites on such an occasion, and of the use of sacred pollen, than a description of a maternity belt procured by the writer and here illustrated. So far as can be learned, this belt is very old, so old that its painted symbolic figures have been three times renewed. Belts of this kind are very rare, and are hired whenever their use is required. The owner of this particular belt, a widow, did not care to dispose of it; as she expressed it, "it is like a husband": the remuneration from granting its use was sufficient to support her.

The belt is made from skin of the mountain lion, the black-tail deer, the white-tail deer, and the antelope—animals which give birth to their young without trouble. Medicine-men are called in to pray to the spirits of these animals when a woman approaching confinement puts on the belt. It is worn for a day or so only, but constantly during the critical period, not being removed until after the child is born. Prayers are made, first by a mother or father for their daughter, then by a medicine-man, and lastly by the patient to the gods and elements depicted on the belt. These figures are all connected with lightning lines. The first one to the left is Stĕnátlĭhăn; on the same portion is the Snake Girl, Klĭshcho Nalí̆n; the next is Nayé̆nĕzganĭ, the third Tubadzĭschí̆nĭ, and the last Yólkai Nalí̆n. The sharp points around the circular abodes of the two goddesses represent barricades for protection. At the real homes of these deities, none can pass through these barriers.

Each of the gods from left to right is prayed to successively, and hádĭntĭn is sprinkled around them afterward. Stĕnátlĭhăn is the first to be addressed by the prospective mother:

"We are your children. When you gave birth to your children, it caused you no trouble. Make me like yourself, that my child, soon to be born, may come into this world easily and quickly, without pain to me."

Next the Snake Girl is prayed to:

"Klí̆shcho Nalí̆n, you came into this life with ease. Do what you can for me now, that my child may come in like manner."

Then to Nayé̆nĕzganĭ:

"Help my babe, soon to be born, to come as you did—quickly, easily, and without pain."

The belt in Nayé̆nĕzganĭ's left hand represents the one worn by his mother, Stĕnátlĭhăn, when he was born. There was a time when skirts, too, having the same magic power the belt is supposed to possess, were worn by women at childbirth. One such is shown in the hand of Tubadzĭschí̆nĭ, next pictured, to whom the woman addresses a prayer much the same as the last. The skirt also is the one worn by Stĕnátlĭhăn when the two brothers were born.

Medicine Cap and Fetish - Apache

Yólkai Nalí̆n is the favorite goddess from whom, in their belief, the Apache women are endowed with great beneficence. She lives in the skies, where all souls go. The prayer to her is, as to the others, "Save me from pain and let my child come as you did."

Clouds at the feet of Nayé̆nĕzganĭ typify the bounties of the world into which it is hoped and prayed the child will be happily born.

The prayers finished, hádĭntĭn is sifted over all the figures. Beginning at the left, the lightning line is followed into Stĕnátlĭhăn's abode, which is then encircled, and the sacred powder is liberally sprinkled around and over her body. Each figure is treated in like manner.

The accompanying plate shows a medicine-cap made by Yotlú̆nĭ, a medicine-man, about forty years ago, to cure a boy of lightning stroke which had impaired his reason, and a small wooden image of a god recently made to be carried by a girl troubled with nervousness. On both these objects the gods and elements which cause afflictions and which alone can give relief are symbolically represented.

The central figure on the cap pictures Ndídĭlhkĭzn, Lightning Maker, with lightning, hádĭlhkĭh, in zigzag lines above his head and beneath his feet. The broad arch indicates clouds with rifts in them, out of which the evil came and into which it may return. The cross of abalone, the small white bead, and the eagle feather are media through which Tu Ntĕlh (Wide Water), Yólkai Nalí̆n (White-Shell Girl), and Itsád Ndé̆yu (Eagle People) are supplicated.

The cap was worn at night by the boy, whose parents each morning at sunrise prayed to the various gods and elements represented on it, invoking them to take back that which they had left with the boy, and adding: "Keep us even in temper and mild and clean in action. We do wrong at times, but that is not our wish. If our minds are kept clean we will do nothing bad. We wish to have good thoughts and to do good deeds. Keep our minds clear that we may think them and do them." After each prayer hádĭnĭn was sifted upon the symbol representing the deity addressed.

As the boy soon recovered, the virtue of the cap was attested, and subsequently its owner often hired it to others.

The little wooden image represents Hádĭnĭn Skhĭn, Pollen Boy, God of Health. The painted figures on the skin pouch in which it is carried are similar to those on the cap, and all are supplicated in the same manner. The medicine-man who made the image and pouch received a horse from the father of the patient in payment; but not the least interesting feature of the case for which these objects were made is that the god of the natives received all the credit for the efficient treatment given the afflicted girl for a year by the reservation physician.

Dry-paintings, or figures drawn upon the ground with colored earths, were used in the Apache healing ceremonies, but never to a great extent, and of late years they have been practically abandoned. These paintings, compared with the beautiful, conventional productions of the Navaho, are crude; in making them the Apache always attempt to picture the objects literally rather than to represent them conventionally or symbolically.

On the infrequent occasions when the dry-paintings are employed, the medicine-man in charge of the ceremony directs his assistants, at daylight, to begin the painting. When it is finished he takes his station close to the easternmost figure of the painting, on its northern side. At the right of the medicine-man sit twelve chosen singers with a drum. The four masked gáŭn, or gods, at the same time take their places at the cardinal points. The patient then enters from the east and sits down on the head of the large figure in the centre of the dry-painting. As he does so the medicine-man commences to sing, and is joined by the chorus at once. They may sing the song four times, or sing four different songs, or any multiple of four, at the pleasure of the medicine-man. When the songs are finished the four masked personages scrape the colored earths into a heap about the patient and rub them in handfuls over his body. If this ceremony proves to be ineffectual, it is believed to be the will of the gods that the patient be not cured.

Das Lan - Apache