Western Scenes and Reminiscences / Together with Thrilling Legends and Traditions of the Red Men of the Forest

by Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

Upon its disappearance, he began to distort himself in the most frightful manner, using every gesture which could convey the idea of pain; at length he succeeded, or pretended to succeed, in throwing up one of the bones. This was handed about to the spectators, and strictly examined; but nothing remarkable could be discovered. Upon this, he went back to his song and rattle; and after some time threw up the second of the two bones. In the groove of this, the physician upon examination, found, and displayed to all present, a small while substance, resembling a piece of the quill of a feather. It was passed round the company from one to the other; and declared, by the physician, to be the thing causing the disorder of his patient.

The multitude believe that these physicians, whom the French call jongleurs, or jugglers, can inflict as well as remove disorders. They believe that by drawing the figure of any person in sand or ashes, or on clay, or by considering any object as the figure of a person, and then pricking it with a sharp stick, or other substance, or doing, in any other manner, that which done to a living body would cause pain or injury, the individual represented, or supposed to be represented, will suffer accordingly. On the other hand, the mischief being done, another physician, of equal pretensions, can by suction remove it. Unfortunately however, the operations which I have described were not successful in the instance referred to; for, on the day after they had taken place, the girl died.

With regard to flesh-wounds, the Indians certainly effect astonishing cures. Here, as above, much that is fantastic occurs; but the success of their practice evinces something solid.

At the Sault de Sainte-Marie I knew a man who, in the result of a quarrel, received the stroke of an axe in his side. The blow was so violent, and the axe driven so deep, that the wretch who held it could not withdraw it, but left it in the wound, and fled. Shortly after, the man was found, and brought into the fort, where several other Indians came to his assistance. Among these, one, who was a physician immediately withdrew, in order to fetch his penegusan, or medicine bag, with which he soon returned. The eyes of the sufferer were fixed, his teeth closed, and his case apparently desperate.

The physician took from his bag a small portion of a very white substance, resembling that of a bone; this he scraped into a little water, and forcing open the jaws of the patient with a stick, he poured the mixture down his throat. What followed was, that in a very short space of time the wounded man moved his eyes; and beginning to vomit, threw up a small lump of clotted blood.

The physician now, and not before, examined the wound, from which I could see the breath escape, and from which a part of the omentum depended. This the physician did not set about to restore to its place, but, cutting it away, minced it into small pieces, and made his patient swallow it.

The man was then carried to his lodge, where I visited him daily. By the sixth day he was able to walk about; and within a month he grew quite well, except that he was troubled with a cough. Twenty years after his misfortune he was still alive.

Another man, being on his wintering-ground, and from home, hunting beaver, was crossing a lake, covered with smooth ice, with two beavers on his back, when his foot slipped, and he fell. At his side, in his belt, was his axe, the blade of which came upon the joint of his wrist; and, the weight of his body coming upon the blade, his hand was completely separated from his arm, with the exception of a small piece of the skin. He had to walk three miles to his lodge, which was thus far away. The skin, which alone retained his hand to his arm, he cut through, with the same axe which had done the rest; and fortunately having on a shirt, he took it off, tore it up, and made a strong ligature above the wrist, so as in some measure to avoid the loss of blood. On reaching his lodge, he cured the wound himself, by the mere use of simples. I was a witness to its perfect healing.

I have said that these physicians, jugglers, or practitioners of pretended sorcery, are supposed to be capable of inflicting diseases; and I may add, that they are sometimes themselves sufferers on this account. In one instance I saw one of them killed, by a man who charged him with having brought his brother to death by malefic arts. The accuser, in his rage, thrust his knife into the belly of the accused, and ripped it open. The latter caught his bowels in his arms, and thus walked toward his lodge, gathering them up, from time to time, as they escaped his hold. His lodge was at no considerable distance, and he reached it alive, and died in it.

Our next encampment was on the island of Saint-Martin, off Cape Saint-Ignace, so called from the Jesuit mission of Saint Ignatius to the Hurons, formerly established there. Our object was to fish for sturgeon, which we did with great success; and here, in the enjoyment of a plentiful and excellent supply of food, we remained until the twentieth day of August. At this time, the autumn being at hand, and a sure prospect of increased security from hostile Indians afforded, Wawatam proposed going to his intended wintering-ground. The removal was a subject of the greatest joy to myself, on account of the frequent insults, to which I had still to submit, from the Indians of our band or village, and to escape from which I would freely have gone almost anywhere. At our wintering-ground we were to be alone; for the Indian families, in the countries of which I write, separate in the winter season, for the convenience as well of subsistence as of the chase, and re-associate in the spring and summer.