According to Alexander, medicine has come to be applied to objects and practices controlling the animistic powers of Nature as the Indian conceives them. Medicine is, therefore, private magic and may “exist in the form of a song or spell known to the owner,” in some symbol upon his body or in some object that he carries in his “medicine bag.” It may appear in a ceremony or in a system of rites and practices known to the “medicine lodge.” “The essential idea varies from fetichism to symbolism.” When fetichistic, the objects are regarded as talismans. Disease comes from occult powers of wizards or from the anger of certain animals. Death is the result of necromancy practised by bad men or angry gods. Medicine ceremonials are quite unlike rain ceremonials.—H. B. ALEXANDER, _North American Mythology_, p. 269. IX. SMOKE Cigars and cigarettes are used by Navajo and Pueblo peoples even for ritualistic purposes. Smoke is an invocation to “those above” and, being always a preliminary to councils, came to be known to the white man as the Pipe of Peace. All Southwestern and California tribes used the straight tubular pipe of clay or stone. Elaborate pipes are found in prehistoric mounds, most often among the more northern tribes. However, in 1922 Dr. J. Walter Fewkes and his corps of archaeological assistants found on the Mesa Verde National Park a central _Kiva_ unique there so far as we yet know. Among the objects found in it “were a full dozen decorated tobacco pipes made of clay, some blackened by use, others showing no signs that they had ever been smoked.... For many years it had been suspected that the ancient inhabitants of the Mesa Verde cliff dwellings were smokers, but these pipes are the first objective evidence to prove it, and the fact that these objects were found in the shrine of a sacred room would indicate that they were smoked ceremonially, as is customary in modern pueblo rites.” The _Kiva_ is known as Pipe Shrine House. X. SHAMAN A word corrupted from the Sanskrit, meaning “ascetic.” A term more or less interchangeable with “medicine man,” “doctor,” or even “priest.” Many tribes give Shaman and priest not merely distinct, but antagonistic functions. The priest is keeper and demonstrator of rituals. The Shaman mystifies by jugglery, pretends to foretell events and control them by incantations, and by fetish-practice prevents the evil spirits to whom all mishaps are attributed from working harm. Since disease is mischief done by evil spirits, Shamans treat the sick. They are the workers of “good magic,” and preside over ceremonies peculiar to their healing powers. When they fail they become wizards and practisers of “bad magic,” and are feared and if possible are put out of the way. XI. SERPENT The great mythic serpent is as much a sky-being as one of earth. The lightning and the Milky Way are his sky attributes. He is the emblem of healing and of fertility in our Southwest.