Note 60 — Front matter

Ethn. Rep. 1888-89, p. 503:—Account of “a cloak or mantle made from the skin of a deer, and covered with various mystic paintings. It was made and used by the Apaches as a mantle of invisibility, that is, a charmed covering for spies which would enable them to pass with impunity through the country, and even through the camp of their enemies. In this instance the fetichistic power depends upon the devices drawn.” The Apache have a similar fetich or charm. The symbols drawn were the raincloud, serpent lightning, raindrops and the cross of the winds of the four cardinal points. Ethn. Rep. 1889-90, p. 515:—Among the Hidatsa (Sioux) fetiches are especially the skins of the wolf. “When they go to war, they always wear the stripe off the back of a wolf skin, with the tail hanging down the shoulders. They make a slit in the skin through which the warrior puts his head, so that the skin of the wolf’s head hangs down upon his breast.” Finally the magic robes or shirts and girdles came to be a part of the regular paraphernalia of the shamans, or practisers of magic. In the folklore of all countries we find numerous notices of holy girdles.

Ethn. Rep. 1897-98, I. (Cherokee) 393: “Some warriors had medicine to change their shape as they pleased, so that they could escape from their enemies.” Page 501: Such stories might be paralleled in any tribe.