There are three causes of sickness. The first is when a good yapaitu spirit is angry with a man and strikes him with his spirit point; second, when a bad spirit puts his missile in a man and makes him sick (the spirit in this case does it at his own instance); third, when an evil spirit sends his missile into a man at the request or prayer of a doctor.
When the dokos or missile that has been sent into a man is drawn out by the spirit which assists the curing doctor, the doctor forces the dokos to tell what yapaitu sent it, and at the prayer of what doctor. But the dokos does not tell the truth in every case, and sometimes accuses the wrong person. It is very difficult, therefore, to know surely what doctor is guilty of making a man sick. A doctor, if the spirit is in him when he comes to see a sick man, is able to look right through the body of the patient and see where the dokos lies. Sometimes he is not able to draw it out; he can see where the dokos is, that is all; but if his spirit were stronger than the one who put it there, he could draw it out and cure the patient.
There is danger, however, in drawing out a very powerful dokos by sucking, for when it is coming out of the sick man’s body it may be sent down through the mouth of the doctor into his body by the spirit who owns it, and the doctor is killed in this way.
A doctor may have twenty or thirty spirits, but he rarely calls on more than two or three, and it is seldom that any great number are fitted to work together in a given case.
The office of doctor is very dangerous, especially if the doctor is powerful. If he has many spirits to help him, each has to be pleased in its own special way; each has its own food, prefers certain kinds, and dislikes others. The doctor must not eat food hateful to his spirits: if he does, he is liable to be killed. A man who has twenty or thirty spirits is greatly limited, therefore, in his manner of living.
Some spirits do not like venison, others do not eat fish; the doctor who commands these spirits must eat neither venison nor fish, and so with other kinds of food in the case of other spirits.
The man who seeks to be a doctor cannot choose his spirits; they come to him; he cannot refuse to receive them, and must live in a way to please them.
Every dokos can be extracted from a sick man’s body by the aid of a spirit stronger than the one who put it in.
Among other spirits, doctors have the spirit of the sun, the spirits of stars and the clouds to help them. These are good spirits. Sedit’s spirit cannot help doctors much. They call it sometimes, but it doesn’t do much; it has not the power. Suku (dog) is very powerful and bad. If Suku wants to kill a man, he does it quickly. A doctor who has the Suku spirit in his service is great. If a man has been made sick by Suku, he will vomit blood, or bleed from his nostrils all the time. The Suku spirit is a good one to send to kill people. Chir (the sucker fish) is an evil spirit too. When Chir wants to kill a man, it makes him giddy and crazy right away. He becomes senseless and dies, unless some doctor cures him, and generally doctors can do nothing against Chir. The Chir sickness is the worst that spirits bring. It is called chiruntowi, sickness from the sucker. The man who has it dies; he cannot tell where he is troubled; he grows dizzy and senseless. No one can cure him unless by great luck. Something tried by some doctor may save him—just by chance, just because it happens so. Kele is also an evil spirit. He has a song, the same which his two daughters sang on the mountain top (see the tale “Kele and Sedit”), and which Sedit heard far away in the west. This is a poison song, and draws people after it. Kele is here now, suppose, in Cottonwood or in Tehama, and sees a man up at Yreka. Kele sings, and the song goes as straight as a string to the man. It draws him and draws him; he is drawn as water is when people pump it. The man must follow the song; he has got to do so, he cannot help himself, he is sick; his sickness is called lubeluntowi (sickness from lubelis). The man will keep going and going and going; he will not know what makes him go. Suppose I am listening to Kele’s song. I go, and it is the song that draws me. I hear it; but nobody else does. The spirits of the Kele girls drew Sedit to them; he couldn’t help himself, he couldn’t stop; he had to go, and he never went home again; he had to stay up at Kele’s. The spirits of Chir and Kele always make people crazy.
Many Wintu women lose their minds, and are killed by Kele’s sons. Many Wintu men have been lost through Kele’s daughters. Suppose I am out here in the wood, I see a woman coming, a nice woman. She stops and talks; I talk to her. If I have sense in me, I look at her toes to see if she is one of those Kele women. If she is, she has a bunch of hair on the tip of her foot, and if I see it, I say right there, “You are a Kele!” At these words she will leave me and run. When ten feet away, she will turn to a mountain wolf, and I shall see that Kele running away very fast.