Ten years of missionary work among the Indians at Skokomish, Washington Territory, 1874-1884Eells, Myron
Religion
Ten years of missionary work among the Indians at Skokomish, Washington Territory, 1874-1884
Eells, Myron
Clallam Indians -- Missions; Missions -- Washington (State); Skokomish Indian Reservation (Wash.); Twana Indians -- Missions
The department of the physician has always been a discouraging one. The
government, for twenty-five years, has furnished a physician free, and
yet it is difficult to induce the Indians to rely on him. There are
three reasons for this: (1) The natural superstition an Indian has about
sickness. This has been quite fully discussed under the head of native
religion. (2) The Indian doctor does not like to have his business
interfered with by any one. It is a source of money and influence to
him, and he often uses his influence, which is great among the Indians,
to prevent the use of medical remedies. (3) If a medicine given by the
physician does not cure in a few doses, or, at least, in two or three
days, they think it is not strong, or it is good for nothing--so often
when medicine is given, with directions how to use it, it is left
untouched or thrown away. When using medicine they often employ an
Indian doctor, and his practices often kill all the good effects of
medicine, so that sometimes the physicians have felt that, when Indian
doctors were employed, it was almost useless for them to do any thing.
At the same time there have been some things which have aided our
methods very materially. Under the head of native religion, two cases
have been given, where it seemed to the Indians as if their mode was
true. This has occasionally been the effect with older people. But with
young children, too young to go to school, the opposite has been true.
Infants have continually died. Their mortality has been very great, when
they lived at home, where they could have all the Indian doctors they
wanted with no one to interfere. The medicine-men have been especially
unfortunate in losing their own children. One Indian doctor has buried
twelve and has only three left. Another has buried four and has one
left. And others have lost theirs in like proportion. On the other hand,
in the school, where we could have more control over them, both as to
observing the laws of health and the use of medicine, when they were
sick there have been very few deaths. Only five children in ten years
have died in school, or been taken fatally sick while there, while the
attendance has been from twenty-five to forty.
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