Note 434.1 — Chapter XV · THE COUVADE AND OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE STRENGTH OF THE BLOOD-TIE—CONCLUSION OF THE INQUIRY INTO THE THEORY OF THE LIFE-TOKEN.

It is, however, unnecessary to suppose that the medicine-man must be a kinsman of the sufferer. His very office brings him for the time into sacramental relations with him, which would be quite sufficient to account for his sharing both the potion and the taboos. A curious parallel to the Navajo rite is found in a leech-book of our Anglo-Saxon forefathers dating from the tenth century. To heal a man of fever certain crosses and letters are directed to be written upon the holy paten, and the opening words of Saint John’s Gospel are to be sung over the writing. It is then to be washed off the paten with holy water into the medicine. The creed, the paternoster, fourteen psalms (including the hundred and nineteenth) and a solemn adjuration of the fever are then to be sung over it. When all this conjuring was finished, the leech and the sick man were each directed to sip thrice of the drink thus sanctified.434.1