To a certain extent the office of tribal medicine-man is hereditary, that is to say the eldest son, if efficient, succeeds the father. It would be more correct to say the most hairy of his sons, as hirsute qualifications are far more weighty and essential determinatives than questions of primogeniture. The hairier the wiser it would seem. But of this anon. Often the medicine-man will have a small boy with him, who may be his son, actual or adopted, and who is also credited with magic gifts.[301] Thus the secrets of the profession are preserved from generation to generation, the chosen youths being the recipients of the secrets and trained to develop and carry on the magic of their predecessors. Part of the ritual of initiation, as of the ceremonial healing, consists of what to the unbelieving white man is not too well done conjuring. The medicine-man is a clumsy conjuror, and only the implicit trust of his patients and audience saves him from frequent detection. But the belief that they must see what he declares they see goes far to make them in very truth behold it. The “conjuring” in the initiation of a novice consists of simple “passes” of sticks up through the nostril and out of the back of the head. According to Waterton the probationers have to endure exhausting ordeals and torture.[302] This is very probable, but on this point I received no information.
So far as I am aware not one of these tribes attaches any importance to the hair that is clipped or depilated, nor to nail parings; if they do the point escaped me. But though they depilate because they dislike resembling monkeys with a hairy pelt, at the same time it is noticeable that not only does the medicine-man ignore this general custom, especially among the Andoke where it is strictly tabu to him—yet hairiness is, as I have stated above, a necessary qualification for any man or youth who is desirous of attaining the position of medicine-man. He is certainly the only man in the tribe with any face hair. When the medicine-man has a hairy son the boy is trained to inherit the “practice,” but should he have no offspring with this distinctive requirement, a hairy child will be chosen and educated for the post.
There may possibly be some connection between this tabu and the belief that when a medicine-man dies he returns as a tiger, and even during his lifetime he can make excursions in tiger-form, and be so absolutely tiger that he can slay and eat the beasts of the wild. Every medicine-man possesses a jaguar skin that he is said to use when he turns tiger. By possession of a skin he has the power of resuscitating the tiger, he himself being the spirit of the tiger. He can thus work his will, afterwards returning to human form. An ordinary tiger might be killed, but a medicine-man in tiger form could not be.[303] On one occasion a medicine-man I met had a bag made of tiger-skin hung round his neck, in which he carried all his paraphernalia. But the medicine-men never wear these skins as wraps or coverings. Each hides his tiger skin away, when not in actual use for magic purposes.
The power to return after death in the shape of the dreaded jaguar is a further defensive measure, a precaution against hostile peoples, as in this shape both before and after death the medicine-man can attack the tribal enemies, and carry obnoxious individuals away into the bush whenever opportunity offers.
The medicine-man lives with, and yet aloof from his fellow-tribesmen. He has to observe many tabu, certain kinds of food are prohibited, and he must have no connection with women when making his medicines,[304] for should the woman bear a child it will be a tiger cub. To make his drugs and unguents a medicine-man goes alone into the forest, and this in itself marks him as different from other men, who will never of their own free will go far without a companion. Spruce mentions an armed guard attendant on medicine-men, “their lives being in continual jeopardy,” but no such thing is known south of the Japura.[305] The medicine-men certainly wander in the bush alone, for they will disappear at times, and on their return inform the tribesfolk that they have been about some magical journeyings; they may have worked in the guise of tigers against tribal enemies; or paid visits in the spirit to other lands. No armed escort could protect a medicine-man better than his own reputation suffices to do, for all medicine-men are feared—certes one that was not feared would not be worth the killing—and no Indian would be likely to risk the danger resultant on doing one an injury. I doubt if even a hostile tribe would wittingly put a medicine-man to death, for they fear retaliation on the part of the spirit, which would certainly haunt them, even if it worked no graver ill.
The medicine-man’s dress, as already mentioned, is largely a matter of personal taste; something original and striking is usually attempted. The Orahone medicine-man clothes himself in tapir-skin, and the Andoke medicine-man in the illustration opposite p. 73 was wearing a dyed turban when I took his portrait. Any fancy article that comes to hand is utilised to make him different from his fellows. His “properties,” which are carried in an ornamented bag of tiger skin, or of beaten bark sewn with fibre string, consist of a rattle—of rather more elaborate design than the ordinary dance rattle—some small magic stones, and a cup made from the shell of a river fish.[306] The latter resembles a large oyster, and the mother-of-pearl inner coating is much used for earrings and ornaments. The medicine-man takes this cup, speaks into it, and rubs the sick person all over with it. Then, if this does not bring about a cure, the patient must suck it till he vomits, and continue to vomit till the evil spirit be expelled.
Condor claws play a great part in magic-working among the northern tribes. These gigantic birds are rare in the bush, and I never saw one, though I heard of them from all the medicine-men, and obtained some specimens of the dried feet from them. These are ugly objects, the leg stump stopped with pitch and bound roughly round with bands of beaten bark, about half or a quarter of an inch wide, and not twisted. But though I got the claws I could not get any details as to what they were supposed to do.[307]
I once saw a medicine-man with the skin of an anaconda, and was told that by using the skin he could control the spirit of the anaconda.[308] For this purpose the medicine-men are habitually provided with the dried skins of lizards and snakes.[309]
The Andoke place great faith in strings of magical stones, five or seven in number. These are taken off the string and laid by the medicine-man in certain patterns on the sufferer. The medicine-man gazes at them abstractedly till a degree of self-induced trance is established. He will then break out into a frenzy, stamp, shout, and brandish his rattle. The stones are also used for magical rubbing, and are most assiduously guarded by their possessors, who will not part with them for any consideration. The only string of such stones I managed even to see are shown in the illustration. They are of quartz, somewhat roughly made flat discs, worn smooth by continual use, about three-quarters of an inch in diameter and a quarter of an inch thick, bored in the centre, the hole being half the size in the middle to what it is at its external radius. These stones are always carried on a string.
