The North American Indian Part 6

9 _I pray to live long._

10 _I pray, I say, for a long life to live with you where the good people are._

11 _I live in poverty._

12 _I wish the people there to speak of goodness and to talk to me._

13 _I wish you to divide your good things with me, as a brother._

14 _Ahead of me is goodness, lead me on._

While this prayer is worded as if uttered by the supplicant, it is in reality offered by the medicine-man in his behalf.

There are head medicine-men and medicine-men of lesser degree. The man who becomes influential enough to be considered the head medicine-man of the tribe is more of a politician than a doctor of diseases, and in important cases only is he called to treat in a healing ceremony. It requires a particularly capable Indian to attain the position of head medicine-man, for to do so he must not only make the people subservient to his will, but must wrest the leaders.h.i.+p from some other and usually older medicine-man who is himself an influential character. Unfortunately it is apt to be the most crafty, scheming man who gains such power over his tribesmen.

A case in point was the recent strife between Das Lan and Goshonne. For some years the latter, an Indian of exceptional ability and withal apparently an honest man in his treatment of diseases, was the head medicine-man of the White Mountain Apache. Then it came to pa.s.s that the crafty old Das Lan of the Cibicu had his vision, in which was revealed a special message brought by Chuganaai Skhin from Kuterastan to the Apache people. This was the beginning of the present so-called messiah craze.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Maternity Belt - Apache]

Maternity Belt - Apache

_From Copyright Photograph 1907 by E.S. Curtis_

From the first there was promise of a battle to the end between Goshonne and Das Lan. Goshonne well knew that if the new cult gained a firm footing he would lose his influence and at best be but a mediocre medicine-man.

Das Lan, on the other hand, knew that he must break the power of such a man as Goshonne, if he was to a.s.sume the leaders.h.i.+p. Goshonne scoffed and scorned, and would have none of the new belief. Still, he was an Indian, and the prophecies of his rival gradually filled him with superst.i.tious fear, while his followers were either deserting him openly or were secretly joining the ranks of the enemy. Death was predicted for the members of Goshonne's own family, and well could Das Lan make such prophecies, for Goshonne's two brothers were already stricken with tuberculosis. First one died, then the other. Das Lan could now point to him and say, "That is what Kuterastan does to those who do not believe!"

It was thus that Goshonne's power finally was broken and Das Lan became a seer.

Sacred pollen, _hadintin_, is used in all ceremonies, particularly in those designed for healing. The princ.i.p.al source of _hadintin_ is the tule, but much of it comes from the pinon. For prayers invoking an abundance of corn, pollen is mixed with cornmeal. Not only do the medicine-men use this powder, but each individual carries a small quant.i.ty of it in a deerskin pouch somewhere about his person. In the pollen may be small medicine trinkets-sometimes consisting of a few sh.e.l.l beads from prehistoric ruins-and there is scarcely a person, old or young, who does not have a small section of the candle cactus fastened somewhere about his clothing.

When childbirth approaches, the medicine-men are always summoned. Nothing can give a better idea of the medicine rites on such an occasion, and of the use of sacred pollen, than a description of a maternity belt procured by the writer and here ill.u.s.trated. So far as can be learned, this belt is very old, so old that its painted symbolic figures have been three times renewed. Belts of this kind are very rare, and are hired whenever their use is required. The owner of this particular belt, a widow, did not care to dispose of it; as she expressed it, "it is like a husband": the remuneration from granting its use was sufficient to support her.

The belt is made from skin of the mountain lion, the black-tail deer, the white-tail deer, and the antelope-animals which give birth to their young without trouble. Medicine-men are called in to pray to the spirits of these animals when a woman approaching confinement puts on the belt. It is worn for a day or so only, but constantly during the critical period, not being removed until after the child is born. Prayers are made, first by a mother or father for their daughter, then by a medicine-man, and lastly by the patient to the G.o.ds and elements depicted on the belt. These figures are all connected with lightning lines. The first one to the left is Stenatlihan; on the same portion is the Snake Girl, Klishcho Nali?n; the next is Naye?nezgani, the third Tubadzischi?ni, and the last Yolkai Nali?n. The sharp points around the circular abodes of the two G.o.ddesses represent barricades for protection. At the real homes of these deities, none can pa.s.s through these barriers.

Each of the G.o.ds from left to right is prayed to successively, and _hadintin_ is sprinkled around them afterward. Stenatlihan is the first to be addressed by the prospective mother:

"We are your children. When you gave birth to your children, it caused you no trouble. Make me like yourself, that my child, soon to be born, may come into this world easily and quickly, without pain to me."

Next the Snake Girl is prayed to:

"Kli?shcho Nali?n, you came into this life with ease. Do what you can for me now, that my child may come in like manner."

Then to Naye?nezgani:

"Help my babe, soon to be born, to come as you did-quickly, easily, and without pain."

The belt in Naye?nezgani's left hand represents the one worn by his mother, Stenatlihan, when he was born. There was a time when skirts, too, having the same magic power the belt is supposed to possess, were worn by women at childbirth. One such is shown in the hand of Tubadzischi?ni, next pictured, to whom the woman addresses a prayer much the same as the last.

The skirt also is the one worn by Stenatlihan when the two brothers were born.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Medicine Cap and Fetish - Apache]

Medicine Cap and Fetish - Apache

_From Copyright Photograph 1907 by E.S. Curtis_

Yolkai Nali?n is the favorite G.o.ddess from whom, in their belief, the Apache women are endowed with great beneficence. She lives in the skies, where all souls go. The prayer to her is, as to the others, "Save me from pain and let my child come as you did."

Clouds at the feet of Naye?nezgani typify the bounties of the world into which it is hoped and prayed the child will be happily born.

The prayers finished, _hadintin_ is sifted over all the figures. Beginning at the left, the lightning line is followed into Stenatlihan's abode, which is then encircled, and the sacred powder is liberally sprinkled around and over her body. Each figure is treated in like manner.

The accompanying plate shows a medicine-cap made by Yotlu?ni, a medicine-man, about forty years ago, to cure a boy of lightning stroke which had impaired his reason, and a small wooden image of a G.o.d recently made to be carried by a girl troubled with nervousness. On both these objects the G.o.ds and elements which cause afflictions and which alone can give relief are symbolically represented.

The central figure on the cap pictures Ndidilhkizn, Lightning Maker, with lightning, _hadilhkih_, in zigzag lines above his head and beneath his feet. The broad arch indicates clouds with rifts in them, out of which the evil came and into which it may return. The cross of abalone, the small white bead, and the eagle feather are media through which Tu Ntelh (Wide Water), Yolkai Nali?n (White-Sh.e.l.l Girl), and Itsad Nde?yu (Eagle People) are supplicated.

The cap was worn at night by the boy, whose parents each morning at sunrise prayed to the various G.o.ds and elements represented on it, invoking them to take back that which they had left with the boy, and adding: "Keep us even in temper and mild and clean in action. We do wrong at times, but that is not our wish. If our minds are kept clean we will do nothing bad. We wish to have good thoughts and to do good deeds. Keep our minds clear that we may think them and do them." After each prayer _hadinin_ was sifted upon the symbol representing the deity addressed.

As the boy soon recovered, the virtue of the cap was attested, and subsequently its owner often hired it to others.

The little wooden image represents Hadinin Skhin, Pollen Boy, G.o.d of Health. The painted figures on the skin pouch in which it is carried are similar to those on the cap, and all are supplicated in the same manner.

The medicine-man who made the image and pouch received a horse from the father of the patient in payment; but not the least interesting feature of the case for which these objects were made is that the G.o.d of the natives received all the credit for the efficient treatment given the afflicted girl for a year by the reservation physician.

Dry-paintings, or figures drawn upon the ground with colored earths, were used in the Apache healing ceremonies, but never to a great extent, and of late years they have been practically abandoned. These paintings, compared with the beautiful, conventional productions of the Navaho, are crude; in making them the Apache always attempt to picture the objects literally rather than to represent them conventionally or symbolically.

On the infrequent occasions when the dry-paintings are employed, the medicine-man in charge of the ceremony directs his a.s.sistants, at daylight, to begin the painting. When it is finished he takes his station close to the easternmost figure of the painting, on its northern side. At the right of the medicine-man sit twelve chosen singers with a drum. The four masked _gaun_, or G.o.ds, at the same time take their places at the cardinal points. The patient then enters from the east and sits down on the head of the large figure in the centre of the dry-painting. As he does so the medicine-man commences to sing, and is joined by the chorus at once. They may sing the song four times, or sing four different songs, or any multiple of four, at the pleasure of the medicine-man. When the songs are finished the four masked personages sc.r.a.pe the colored earths into a heap about the patient and rub them in handfuls over his body. If this ceremony proves to be ineffectual, it is believed to be the will of the G.o.ds that the patient be not cured.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Dan Lan_ - Apache]

_Dan Lan_ - Apache

_From Copyright Photograph 1907 by E.S. Curtis_

THE MESSIAH CRAZE

Among the Apache, in the spring of 1906, the excessive use of a combined cross and crescent symbol was noted. Men, women, and children had this anchor-like design cut into wood, tin, and metal talismans, and also tattooed on their faces and branded on their horses. It was used also as a decorative device in much of the new basketry and worked in beads on their moccasins, and new s.h.i.+rts and waists seldom failed to display a cross in narrow yellow and black ribbon in front.

Four years before this time a forceful old medicine-man living on the Cibicu, in a remote corner of the Apache reservation, either through the influence of a vision or other hallucination, or by a desire to become the ruling spirit in the tribe, proclaimed the gospel of a messiah who, he claimed, had appeared to him in the hills and would later return to the deliverance of his tribespeople.

In childhood this future prophet was given the name Das Lan, Hanging Up, by which designation he is commonly known in familiar discourse among his tribesmen; but on the census rolls of the White Mountain agency he is recorded simply as "V-9." On becoming a medicine-man in his youth, in accordance with tribal custom he adopted the name-what may be termed a professional t.i.tle-Doni Tli?s.h.i.+ Noiltansh, which signifies Turquoise Rolling Stone.

As. .h.i.therto mentioned, the Apache is the personification of devoutness in the performance of his religious duties, and no matter where circ.u.mstances may place him, he manages always to have a small pouch of _hadintin_ carefully secreted about his person for use in paying his devotions to half a score of G.o.ds, at least once every four days. If occasion demands, he may pray every day, or four times a day, or any multiple of four times.

This custom has a direct bearing on the story of the messiah, which is this:

Das Lan, in a spirit of more than usual devotion, began a series of prayers to the G.o.ds of Life, Peace, and Plenty, delivered as usual just as the sun appeared over the eastern mountains. On the fourth morning, with offerings of _hadintin_, he invoked the benediction of Kuterastan, the Creator, Hadintin Skhin, G.o.d of Health, Hadintin Nalin, G.o.ddess of Crops, and of Chuganaai himself, the All-seeing Sun. As the fourth pinch of pollen wafted away on the breeze there appeared the vision, immediately beneath the sun, of a small bearded dwarf, less than three feet in height, who approached him, and said: