The singing shamans invariably have a primitive musical instrument, the rattle, with which they beat time to their singing and dancing. Ordinarily it is made from a gourd filled with pebbles and mounted on a short stick which serves as a handle. Another kind is made from coarse shavings glued together. The latter variety is not infrequently decorated with daubs of red or some similar painting. Sometimes at the feast the shaman, even nowadays, may be seen wearing a head-dress made of the plumes of birds. Through the plumes the birds are thought to impart all that they know. Besides, the plumes are supposed to keep the wind from entering the shaman’s body, and thus prevent him from falling ill.
When curing, the shamans may sometimes use rational means. There is in existence around Norogachic for instance, a kind of sweating-bath, made by placing in a hole in the ground, just large enough for a man to sit in, several hot stones, pouring water on them, and covering them up with branches of the fragrant mountain cedar. The steam passing through the latter is credited with curative power.
The Indians know several excellent medicinal herbs. Palo amarillo is a kind of household remedy used extensively in every family. There are many other highly valued herbs and trees, some of which have a wonderfully refreshing and invigorating aromatic scent. Headache is cured by a green herb called pachoco, of which they smell until they begin to sneeze. To cure constipation they boil ari with a grain of salt, or they heat stones and pour water over them and sit over the steam.
Both the sacred little cactus called híkuli and the maguey have undoubtedly medicinal properties, but the administration of these remedies, especially of the former, is connected with so many rites and ceremonies that their therapeutic value becomes obscured. The curative power of tesvino is absolutely magical, and this is the remedy to which recourse is most commonly had. In administering it the shaman makes his customary passes, and exhales over the patient to blow away the disease. He also dips a small cross into the liquor, and with the wetted end taps the sick man on the head, neck, shoulders, and back, and draws crosses over his arms. Finally the patient is given three spoonfuls of the liquor, while all the members of the family stand around and murmur approvingly, “Thank you, thank you.” Occasionally tesvino is exclusively used for curing, with the aid of two small crosses, one of red Brazil wood, the other of white pine. If he chooses, a shaman may provoke illness as well as cure it, but he cannot cure the person he made ill.
When a shaman is asked to cure a person of any complaint, real or imaginary, his first move is to find the cause of the trouble. According to his opinion illness is brought on either by the wind or by sorcery. From the former kind of disease nobody dies, although the heart, the liver, or the head may be attacked; but the other kind is serious. Sorcerers may put snakes into the legs, and such animals as centipedes, toads, larvae, scorpions, or even small bears into the body of some unfortunate person, and these disturbers have to be drawn out at once or else they will eat the sick man’s heart. The shaman therefore first feels the patient all over, to find if something—in other words, the disease-bringing animal—is moving underneath the skin. Illness may also result from small stones, or the spine of the nopal placed in the body by the same agency.
A person suspected of having been bewitched is told to hold his mouth open to the sun, that the shaman may see whether the evil entered the body through this aperture. People become bewitched at night through the openings of the body, and the shaman also examines the nostrils, ears, etc. It is also the shaman’s business to find out who caused the trouble, and since he can see more than ordinary people he is able to track the offender.
Some people by their mere looks or thoughts are liable to make a. person ill. Such illness may be brought on in retaliation for some slight or offence, and may even result in death. The first thoughts of a person falling ill are: Whom have I offended? What have I taken that I should have left alone, and what have I kept that I should have given? Then the shaman may tell him to find the person to whom he had refused to give food, and the sick one and his wife go from house to house asking the people: “Was it you whom I refused food? Someone has made me ill, and I want him to make me well again.” If he can find the person whom he had offended, and arrange matters with him, he will recover.
Rubio, the Shaman.
The doctor may find that the person’s heart is on the wrong side, and prescribe a liberal allowance of tesvino to get it back to its proper place. But generally the skill of the shaman is taxed more severely and he resorts to the more direct and powerful methods of magic. A common occurrence is that of illness caused by maggots, which the shaman has to extract from the patient by means of a sucking-tube, a short piece of reed about three inches long, cut from a kind of reed different from that of the arrow-shaft. He places it on the afflicted spot, and after sucking vigorously for a minute or so empties from his mouth into his hand or into a corn-leaf, what purports to be the maggots. I never had an opportunity of examining closely the small white bits of something or other that he spit out, but they seemed to me to be tiny pieces of buckskin which the man had secreted in his mouth and which swelled up when saturated with saliva. To the shaman they represent maggots; that is, the embodiment Of the disease, and all the people firmly believe that they are maggots. The corn-leaf and its contents are buried; a cross is made on the ground over the spot and a ceremonial circuit run around it. When resting between operations, the shaman places his sucking-tube into a bowl of water in which some herbs are soaking.