Note 67 — Front matter
Reading edition
Ethn. Rep. 1887-88, p. 467:—The medicine-men of the Apache are paid at the time they are consulted, the priest beforehand among the Eskimo. Ethn. Rep. 1889-90, p. 187: “The magnitude of the disease is generally measured by the amount of the patient’s worldly wealth.” Page 416:—Sioux sorcerers prepared love-potions for those who bought them. Ethn. Rep. 1901-2, p. 568:—“The shaman, like the theurgist is usually paid after each visit with calico, cotton, or food, according to the wealth of the family, since it is always understood that these doctors expect proper compensation for their services.” Page 387:—“The Zuñi doctor is paid according to his reputation.” Grinnell, Blackfoot lodge tales, p. 284: “In early days if a man remained sick for three or four weeks, all his possessions went to pay doctors’ fees.”
Ethn. Rep. 1887-88, p. 462 fol.—The American Indian’s theory of disease is the theory of the Chaldean, the Assyrian, the Hebrew, the Greek, the Roman—all bodily disorders are attributed to the maleficence of spirits (that is of animal spirits, ghosts or witches), who must be expelled or placated. Gibberish was believed to be more potential in magic than was language which the practitioner or his dupes could comprehend. Page 468:—The medicine-men are accused of administering poisons to their enemies. Ethn. Rep. 1889-90, p. 416:—Sioux sorcerers were thought to cause the death of those persons who had incurred their displeasure. Ethn. Rep. 1887-88, p. 581:—“When an Apache or other medicine-man is in full regalia he ceases to be a man, but becomes, or tries to make his followers believe that he has become, the power he represents.” The Mexican priests masked and disguised, and dressed in the skins of the women offered up in sacrifice.
So the shaman practiced sorcery, medicine and was a priest. Ethn. Rep. 1887-88, p. 594:—The Indian doctor relied far more on magic than on natural remedies. Dreams, beating of the drum, songs, magic feasts and dances, and howling were his ordinary methods of cure. Grinnell, Story of the indian, p. 210 fol.:—They have “firm confidence in dreams.” “Their belief in a future life is in part founded on dreams,” etc.