Indian Tribes of the Upper Missouri 12

Indian Tribes of the Upper Missouri 12

All sing to the extent of their voices and make a terrible noise with

the instruments spoken of. The doctor slowly approaches the patient,

applying his mouth to his naked breast or belly, draws or appears to

draw therefrom by suction a worm, sometimes a bug, a wolf hair, or

even a small snake, making at the same time horrible gestures, grunts,

and grimaces. This object he displays to the lookers-on, stating he

has extracted the cause of the disease. This operation is repeated

several times with like results, and after he and the accompanying

band of music partake largely of a dog or other feast provided for

them they leave for the time. The whole performance, with the music,

incantations, preparations, and feast included, would occupy perhaps

from two to three hours and often the whole night, if the performers

are paid high. Frequently their diseases are colic from eating unripe

fruits and berries or overloading the stomach, which, of course, get

well in a short time and the credit is given to the doctor, each

recovery aiding to raise his reputation and enlarge his practice. But

if the case is serious and the patient gets worse, the doctor is then

paid again and another visit takes place. The forms are always somewhat

similar, but on this occasion, in addition to the full band of music

and cupping with the horn, besides the usual grimaces, noises, etc.,

the patient is made to drink decoctions of roots or powders made by

the doctors of pulverized roots, rattles of the rattlesnake, calcined

bones, etc., the properties of which he is entirely ignorant, and

probably the smallness of the dose preventing them from doing any harm.

This, with the noise of the instruments and feast, concludes the second

visit.

 

Sometimes the doctor performs alone and keeps up the drumming, etc.,

all night. In this way by a repetition of visits, if the case is of

long duration, the whole of the property of the relatives of the sick

person falls to the doctor and his assistants, who are also slightly

paid for the music. And this is the cause of great individual distress

and poverty, though the property given does not go out of the nation,

but only changes hands and is liable in like manner to revert to others

should the divining man fall sick. In case, after all, the patient

dies, it is then the doctor who is in danger, and runs great risk of

losing his life, by the parents or relatives of the deceased. Indeed,

being aware of this they generally abscond to other camps when death

approaches, and whatever property they leave behind is taken from them.

No later than last winter the writer paid an Indian to prevent his

killing the “Bull’s Dry Bones” (doctor) who the man said had poisoned

his two children six years ago. But the old doctor, although a humbug,

is an innocent man and would harm no one.

 

They have various forms of doctoring, in all of which the drum forms

a principal figure, and songs and incantations, all of which are

most religiously believed in by the Indians. Old women are as often

practitioners as old men and of as great celebrity. There is also

another reason why these Indians give away so much of their property to

the divining man. Independent of these payments securing the doctor’s

services, they are considered as sacrifices; that is, the man makes

himself poor with a view of propitiating the Great Spirit.

 

Also it is considered and spoken of as a great honor to give away large

articles to the divining man, such as horses, guns, etc., and goes to

prove the affection with which they regard their sick relatives. For a

long time afterwards the giver will boast of his liberality in these

respects and is also looked upon as a man with a “large heart.” We

must, at the risk of not being believed, state that on two particular

occasions, and before witnesses, we have examined the divining man’s

mouth, hands, and all his person, which was entirely naked, with the

view of discovering where these worms, snakes, etc., were hidden, and

that these examinations were made without any previous intimations

to him who, never having been subject to examinations of the kind by

Indians, was completely unprepared for the trial, yet he acquiesced

cheerfully, afterwards continued his performance, and repeated it in

our presence, drawing and spitting out large worms, clots of blood,

tufts of hair, skin, etc., too large to be easily secreted, and leaving

no visible mark on the patient’s body. The trick was well done and not

yet known to any of us.

 

Their knowledge of anatomy consists in being acquainted with the

larger bones and joints. They can set a broken arm or simple fracture

tolerably well, and even replace a dislocated shoulder, which they do

by pulling and outward pressure from the armpit, but this knowledge is

not confined to the divining man nor is it his business more than any

other who happens to be present. Most men of middle age have witnessed

so many accidents of the kind that they can do this.

 

They are, however, unacquainted with the circulation of the blood

and with any judicious treatment of internal diseases, for all of

which they resort to incantations and drumming. They do, however,

indiscriminately use the vapor bath or sweat house for various

complaints. This construction is a small lodge thrown over a basketwork

of willows stuck in the ground and bent in an oval or round form, the

skins well pinned down and every aperture well closed. The doctor after

heating some large stones red hot and putting them into the lodge

enters with the patient, both entirely naked and taking along a kettle

of water and, as usual, his drum. The lodge is then shut tight by the

people on the outside. A brisk singing and drumming is kept up in the

lodge by the doctor, who at intervals throws water on the stones and

steam is raised. A violent heat and perspiration takes place, which

they endure as long as they can; as soon as the patient is taken out he

is immersed in cold water, which in nine cases out of ten results in

his death. In this way the Crow Indians lost nearly 200 persons three

years since during a prevailing influenza. The Mandan and Gros Ventres,

however, being accustomed to cold bathing from their youth, are said

seldom to suffer any inconvenience but often receive benefit from the

vapor bath and immediate cold immersion. They have no names for fevers,

consumptions, obstructions of the liver, etc., and can not explain

further than by pointing out that part of their body which is in a

state of pain.

 

Indeed, in this climate, except consumption, rheumatism and quinsy,

diseases are extremely rare; and no febrile symptoms seen except in

cases of wounds and parturition when puerperal fever often occurs, and

assuming a typhoid form is generally fatal. They are also exempt from

paralysis, toothache and almost all the thousand nervous complaints to

which the whites are subject, among which might be mentioned baldness

or failure of eyesight from age. Their materia medica is consequently

in a very primitive state. They have no medicine except some roots,

some of which are known to be good for the bite of the rattlesnake,

frozen parts, and inflammatory wounds. The principal of these is the

black root, called by them the comb root (pl. 67, _a_), from the pod on

the top being composed of a stiff surface that can be used as a comb.

It is called by the French racine noir, and grows everywhere in the

prairie throughout the Indian country. It is chewed and applied in a

raw state with a bandage to the part affected. We can bear witness to

the efficacy of this root in the cure of the bite of the rattlesnake

or in alleviating the pain and reducing the tension and inflammation

of frozen parts, gunshot wounds, etc. It has a slightly pungent taste

resembling black pepper, and produces a great deal of saliva while

chewing it. Its virtues are known to all the tribes with which we are

acquainted, and it is often used with success. A decoction of the root

of cat-tail (pl. 67, _b_) is also used to reduce inflammation, and

given internally to produce perspiration, but mostly as an external

application for wounds, sprains, and pains of all kinds, as also the

inner bark of the red willow; both of which are said to be beneficial,

and are much used by the Indians and French voyageurs in all the Indian

country.

 

[Illustration: FIGURE 30.—Lancet]

 

At the risk of a smile and perhaps something more from the enlightened

civilized medical fraternity we will now state how they absolutely can

and do cure hydrophobia, in hopes of furnishing them with a hint that

may be improved upon. We have never actually seen this operation, but

are as certain of its being done as we can be of anything not seen but

in all other respects well authenticated. Although Indians are often

bitten by mad wolves, yet they never die from the disease if operated

upon. After it is known that the patient has hydrophobia, the symptoms

of which they are well acquainted with, and has had a fit or two, he

is sewed up in a fresh rawhide of a buffalo. With two cords attached

to the head and foot of the bale the man is swung backward and forward

through a hot fire until the skin is burnt to cinders and the patient

is burned and suffocated [sic]. He is brought to the brink of the

grave by the operation; taken out in a state of profuse perspiration

and plunged into cold water; and if he survives the treatment the

disease disappears. The remedy is terrible. Now, if the poison of the

rattlesnake is expelled by perspiration by administering ammonia and

other remedies, might not the poison communicated by the rabid animal

undergo a like process by the violent treatment mentioned, or intense

heat produce the desired constitutional revolution and effect a cure.

 

DEPLETION BY BLEEDING.—They bleed often, both when the pulse is full

from sickness and at any time they think it beneficial.

 

The instrument is a sharpened arrow point or any other small piece of

pointed iron. (Fig. 30.) They wrap the whole of this with sinew except

as much as they wish to enter the vein. It is then tied into a split

stick and secured firmly with sinew and being laid on the vein is

knocked in suddenly with the thumb and middle finger. They also open

the veins of their legs and arms while crying over dead relatives,

making large transverse cuts with knives, arrow points, or flints. When

they bleed they generally let the blood flow as long as it will without

bandage. Cupping is done with a part of the upper end of a buffalo

horn, about 2½ inches long, and a vacuum is produced by suction with

the mouth which, with their powerful muscles and exertions, is, of

course, double force. It is said to be useful in drawing out the poison

of snake bites and is also used for pains and cramps in the stomach,

besides for extracting worms, bugs, snakes, etc., as mentioned in the

general practice. We believe it may have something of the effect of

dry cupping with glasses; they do not, however, scarify before cupping

except in cases of snake bites.

 

STOPPAGE OF BLOOD AND HEALING ART.—For stopping of blood they use

cobwebs, dried pulpy fungus, or very fine inner bark of trees. When

these are not to be had finely pulverized rotten wood is used. These

answer tolerably well when the divided artery is small. They have no

good plasters or healing salves.

 

Bandages are mostly tied on too tight, with the view of stopping the

bleeding and are left too long before being removed, which frequently

results in gangrene. They are not skillful nor clean in these things,

seldom washing a wound. From actual observation, which has been pretty

extensive with regard to cuts and wounds of all kinds, we are disposed

to believe that their cure does not depend upon any skill in treatment

nor care taken of them, but upon their vigorous constitutions,

extremely healthy climate, and strictly temperate mode of life, with

perhaps a disposition to heal naturally in the absence of scientific

knowledge vouchsafed to the ignorant Indian by an all-wise Creator.

 

AMPUTATION.—They never amputate a limb, though fingers and toes often

undergo that operation.[8] The Assiniboin run a sharp knife around

the joint of the finger and snap it off. The Crows do the same, but

on other occasions take them off by placing a sharp tomahawk on the

finger, it being laid on a block and the tomahawk being struck with

a mallet. Whenever a Crow Indian dies his near relatives, male and

female, sacrifice each a finger and sometimes two, and the loss of

these people by sickness and enemies the last few years having been

great, there is scarcely such a thing as a whole hand to be found in

the Crow Nation. The men reserve the thumb and middle finger on the

left and the thumb and two forefingers of the right hand to use the bow

and gun, but all the rest are sacrificed.

 

[8] In the few cases where the Indians have an arm or leg missing, they

have been shot off, or so nearly off as not to come under the head of

amputation, as but little skin or nerve were to be cut.

 

They mostly take them off at the first and second joints, though

occasionally lower down. These small amputations are seldom attended

with any serious effect, but from their awkward operations the bone

frequently projects and requires a long time to heal. They use splints

and bark in fractures and lacerated bones, but are not skillful in

applying them, nor attentive in removing them, and in a short time

the wound smells bad. Their wounded are carried from the field in a

blanket, robe, or skin, by four men each holding a corner, who are

relieved by others when fatigued, in which way they transport them

for days and sometimes weeks together. When very badly wounded in an

enemy’s country and supposed to be mortally wounded they are left in

some point of timber to die. A small stock of provisions and ammunition

is left with them. They sometimes recover almost by miracle. Instances

of this kind are not uncommon and serve to show the suffering an Indian

will undergo and the different means he will use to preserve life.