The medicine hat of the old and blind Apache medicine man, Nan-ta-do-tash, was an antique affair of buckskin, much begrimed with soot and soiled by long use. Nevertheless it gave life and strength to him who wore it, enabled the owner to peer into the future, to tell who had stolen ponies from other people, to foresee the approach of an enemy, and to aid in the cure of the sick. * * * This same old man gave me an explanation of all the symbolism depicted upon the hat, and a great deal of valuable information in regard to the profession of medicine men, their specialization, the prayers they recited, etc. The material of the hat, as already stated, was buckskin. How that was obtained I can not assert positively, but from an incident occurring under my personal observation in the Sierra Madre, in Mexico, in 1883, where our Indian scouts and the medicine men with them surrounded a nearly grown fawn and tried to capture it alive, as well as from other circumstances too long to be here inserted, I am of the opinion that the buckskin to be used for sacred purposes among the Apache must, whenever possible, be that of a strangled animal, as is the case, according to Dr. Matthews, among the Navajo.
The body of Nan-ta-do-tash’s cap was unpainted, but the figures upon it were in two colors, a brownish yellow and an earthy blue, resembling a dirty Prussian blue. The ornamentation was of the downy feathers and black-tipped plumes of the eagle, pieces of abalone shell and chalchihuitl, and a snake’s rattle on the apex.
Nan-ta-do-tash explained that the characters on the medicine hat meant: A, clouds; B, rainbow; C, hail; E, morning star; F, the god of wind, with his lungs; G, the black “kan;” H, the great stars or suns. “Kan” is the name given to their principal gods. The appearance of the kan himself and of the tail of the hat suggest the centipede, an important animal god of the Apache. The old man said that the figures represented the powers to which he appealed for aid in his “medicine” and the kan upon whom he called for help.
The same author says, op. cit., p. 587:
The Apache, both men and women, wear amulets, called tzidaltai, made of lightning-riven wood, generally pine or cedar or fir from the mountain tops, which are highly valued and are not to be sold. These are shaved very thin and rudely cut in the semblance of the human form. They are in fact the duplicates, on a small scale, of the rhombus. Like it they are decorated with incised lines representing the lightning. Very often these are to be found attached to the necks of children or to their cradles.
Four of the several winter counts described in the present work unite in specifying for the year 1843-’44 the recapture of a fetich called the great medicine arrow.
Fig. 709.—Magic arrow.
Fig. 709.—In a great fight with the Pawnees the Dakotas captured the great medicine arrow which had been taken from the Cheyennes, who made it, by the Pawnees. Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1843-’44.