"He then held his hand out to a man, who took a pinch of the powder and rubbed it on the crown of a boy's head. Yellow pollen treated in this manner is a common remedy for headache, and may frequently be seen on the crowns of the heads of men and boys."[267]
Hoddentin is used in the same manner as a remedy for headache among the San Carlos Apache, but the medicine-men apply a snake to the person of a patient only when their "diagnosis" has satisfied them that he has been guilty of some unkindness to a snake, such as stepping upon it, in which case they pretend that they can cure the man by applying to the part affected the portion of the reptile's body upon which he trampled.
The Apache state that when their medicine-men go out to catch snakes for their snake dance, they recite a prayer and lay their left hand, in which is some hoddentin, at the opening of the snake's den, through which the reptile must crawl, and, after a short time the snake will come out and allow himself to be handled.
Hoddentin is also offered to other animals, especially the bear, of which the Apache, like their congeners the Navajo, stand in great awe and reverence. When a bear is killed, the dance which is held becomes frenzied; the skin is donned by all the men, and much hoddentin is thrown, if it can be obtained. One of these dances which I saw in the Sierra Madre, Mexico, in 1883, lasted all night, without a moment's cessation in the singing and prancing of the participants.
A great deal of hoddentin is offered to the "ka-chu" (great or jack rabbit).[268]
The Apache medicine-man, Nakay-do-klunni, called by the whites "Bobbydoklinny," exercised great influence over his people at Camp Apache, in 1881. He boasted of his power to raise the dead, and predicted that the whites should soon be driven from the land. He also drilled the savages in a peculiar dance, the like of which had never been seen among them. The participants, men and women, arranged themselves in files, facing a common center, like the spokes of a wheel, and while thus dancing hoddentin was thrown upon them in profusion. This prophet or "doctor" was killed in the engagement in the Cibicu canyon, August 30, 1881.
In a description of the "altars" made by the medicine-men of the Apache-Yuma at or near Camp Verde, Arizona, it is shown that this sacred powder is freely used. Figures were drawn upon the ground to represent the deities of the tribe, and the medicine-men dropped on all, except three of them, a pinch of yellow powder (hoddentin) which was taken from a small buckskin bag. This powder was put upon the head, chest, or other part of the body of the patient.
Surgeon Corbusier, U. S. Army,[269] says that the ceremony just described was "a most sacred one and entered into for the purpose of averting the diseases with which the Apache at Camp Verde had been afflicted the summer previous."
I am not sure that the Apache-Yuma have not borrowed the use of hoddentin from the Apache. My reason for expressing this opinion is that I have never seen an Apache without a little bag of hoddentin when it was possible for him to get it, whereas I have never seen an Apache-Yuma with it except when he was about to start out on the warpath. The "altars" referred to by Corbusier are made also by the Apache, Navajo, Zuñi, and Tusayan. Those of the Apache, as might be inferred from their nomadic state, were the crudest; those of the Navajo, Zuñi, and Tusayan display a wonderful degree of artistic excellence. The altars of the Navajo have been described and illustrated by Dr. Washington Matthews,[270] and those of the Tusayan by myself.[271]