It is possible that the question of cannibal customs as insults to the dead also influence the Indians in the matter of burial, and the absence of sign upon a grave. It would in some measure account for the burial in the house—as a protective measure—in spite of the fact that they recognise the danger of the spirit’s return, a belief which would more naturally incline them to extramural burials.
Ceremonial bathing always takes place after a funeral, in which every one takes part for the purpose of purification.
CHAPTER XIV
The medicine-man, a shaman—Remedies and cures—Powers and duties of the medicine-man—Virtue of breath—Ceremonial healing—Hereditary office—Training—Medicine-man and tigers—Magic working—Properties—Evil always due to bad magic—Influence of medicine-man—Method of magic-working—Magical cures.
The medicine-man of the South American Indian tribes has been described as “the counterpart of the shaman type.”[292] There would seem to be hardly need for any qualification—he is a shaman. The word has attained a certain vogue, with too frequent lax usage, so that merely finding the name “shimano” in connection with any of these Indians—especially when it is found in the pages of an American writer—does not warrant this assertion.[293] But a short study of the exhaustive paper on Shamanism and the Shaman in the Royal Anthropological Institute Journal[294] will show that point for point the methods and procedure of the Witoto, the Boro, and kindred tribes tally with that of the shamans of Siberian peoples. That is to say he is a doctor and a wizard, not a priest. He claims to deal with spirits by magical processes, to exorcise, outwit, and circumvent, not to officiate in any sacred office as the minister, the vicar, of a deity. He is a hypnotist and a conjuror. But he is more than a mere charlatan. He is the poison-maker for the tribe, and possesses, as a rule, especially among the Andoke and Karahone, a considerable knowledge of drugs, both curative and lethal. The curare poison is a treasured secret of the medicine-men. Its recipe is religiously guarded by them, and the deadly preparation is made with both ceremony and privacy. The Andoke medicine-men have an ointment concocted from a plant—the identity of which they would not divulge—that is used for massaging purposes. They all use tobacco juice, coca, and a white snuff that I thought must be the famous niopo, but could not find out anything about it.[295] One cure for a headache is worked with a special kind of dried bark. The medicine-man carries a piece of this in his magic-bag, and with it he rubs over the head of the sufferer; or, if he is dealing with a wound, he will pass the bark over the skin to make it heal. There is also a species of lichen or moss used by them to rub lightly over the affected part, which acts as a very mild blistering agent. It stings and, acting as a counter irritant, draws the inflammation away from the seat of the injury to the surface, and thus to some extent neutralises the pain. It is a sage green in colour, dry and feathery in appearance, and is found growing round the roots of trees.
Pain, sickness, death, each and all are caused in Indian opinion by some evil spirit, sent of course by an enemy. It is to combat this magic-worked mischief that the medicine-man’s services are required in the first place. Magic must be countered by magic.[296] Incidentally the medicine-man relies also to some extent on his own medicine, his purges, and narcotics. However potent these may, or may not be, the fact that the patient has implicit faith in their efficacy goes far to assist their intrinsic merits and further the cure, the expulsion of the evil spirit that has wrought the trouble. A medicine-man probably has a number of these more or less genuine remedies, infusions of herbs that possess curative properties, such as those already dealt with in the previous chapter.
But drugs and ointments alone do not, to the Indian mind, go far to bring about recovery. Much more effective, as a spirit-evicting agent, is the medicine-man’s virtue, represented by his breath. It is sufficient for him to breathe over food or drink to render it healthy, to breathe on a sore place to secure removal of pain, to breathe on the sick to promote recovery.[297] Nor is this power vested only in the medicine-man. Other people’s breath may have similar value, if of less degree.[298] Should an Indian wish to eat of forbidden food, he may get an old woman to breathe over it. Is a child sickly, a like procedure may restore it to health. In all the medicine-man’s performances breathing and blowing over the patient is a prominent part of the processes. The medicine-man will breathe on his own hand and then massage the part of the patient that is affected; and if stronger measures are required he will suck the place, or as near the place as his mouth can be put, suck vigorously and possibly spit out a black liquid—the tobacco juice freely taken by him during the performance explains the colour. The avowed object of the suction is that it draws out the poison—the evil spirit.[299] It is here that some degree of charlatanism comes into play, for the operating medicine-man will presently produce a tangible object from his mouth, a bit of stick, a thorn, a fishbone, or anything of a similar description, and inform the patient and his friends that this is the material form which had been assumed by the evil spirit which he has drawn bodily from the flesh of the sick person.[300] This is the usual accompaniment of the shaman’s rites, and too universally indulged in by the wizard fraternity to need any particular comment.
The Indian medicine-man receives presents for the cures he effects. Should he fail he must make the best case he can for himself, and depart to the bush to work magic against the rival who has successfully—according to his account—outmanœuvred him. The blame for failure is not to be his but another’s. This, it is hardly necessary to note, is an alluring chance for the repayment of any personal injury or slight, not often missed by so entirely human a person as the Indian medicine-man.