Fig. 429.—Medicine arrow used by Apache and Pueblo women.
There are medicine-women as well as medicine-men among the Apache, with two of whom I was personally acquainted. One named "Captain Jack" was well advanced in years and physically quite feeble, but bright in intellect and said to be well versed in the lore of her people. She was fond of instructing her grandchildren, whom she supported, in the prayers and invocations to the gods worshiped by her fathers, and I have several times listened carefully and unobserved to these recitations and determined that the prayers were the same as those which had already been given to myself as those of the tribe. The other was named Tze-go-juni, a Chiricahua, and a woman with a most romantic history. She had passed five years in captivity among the Mexicans in Sonora and had learned to speak Spanish with facility. A mountain lion had severely mangled her in the shoulder and knee, and once she had been struck by lightning; so that whether by reason of superior attainments or by an appeal to the superstitious reverence of her comrades, she wielded considerable influence. These medicine-women devote their attention principally to obstetrics, and have many peculiar stories to relate concerning pre-natal influences and matters of that sort. Tze-go-juni wore at her neck the stone amulet, shaped like a spear, which is figured in the illustrations of this paper. The material was the silex from the top of a mountain, taken from a ledge at the foot of a tree which had been struck by lightning. The fact that siliceous rock will emit sparks when struck by another hard body appeals to the reasoning powers of the savage as a proof that the fire must have been originally deposited therein by the bolt of lightning. A tiny piece of this arrow or lance was broken off and ground into the finest powder, and then administered in water to women during time of gestation. I have found the same kind of arrows in use among the women of Laguna and other pueblos. This matter will receive more extended treatment in my coming monograph on "Stone Worship."
Mendieta is authority for the statement that the Mexicans had both medicine-men and medicine-women. The former attended to the sick men and the latter to the sick women. "Á las mujeres siempre las curaban otras mujeres, y á los hombres otros hombres."[70] Some of the medicine-women seem to have made an illicit use of the knowledge they had acquired, in which case both the medicine-woman and the woman concerned were put to death. "La mujer preñada que tomaba con que abortar y echar la criatura, ella y la física que le habia dado con que la lanzase, ambas morian."[71]
Gomara asserts that they were to be found among the Indians of Chicora (South Carolina).[72] He calls them "viejas" (old women).
"Los Medicos eran Mugeres viejas, i no havia otras."[73] In Nicaragua, "Las Viejas curaban los Enfermos."[74]
There were medicine-women in Goazacoalco: "Tienen Medicos para curar las enfermedades, i los mas eran Mugeres, grandes Herbolarias, que hacian todas las curas con Iervas."[75]
Bernal Diaz, in 1568, speaks of having, on a certain occasion, at the summit of a high mountain, found "an Indian woman, very fat, and having with her a dog of that species, which they breed in order to eat, and which do not bark. This Indian was a witch; she was in the act of sacrificing the dog, which is a signal of hostility."[76]
"The office of medicine-man though generally usurped by males does not appertain to them exclusively, and at the time of our visit the one most extensively known was a black (or meztizo) woman, who had acquired the most unbounded influence by shrewdness, joined to a hideous personal appearance, and a certain mystery with which she was invested."[77] Creeks have medicine-women as well as medicine-men. The Eskimo have medicine-men and medicine-women.[78] The medicine-men and women of the Dakota "can cause ghosts to appear on occasion."[79]
Speaking of the Chippewa, Spencer says: "Women may practice soothsaying, but the higher religious functions are performed only by men."[80]