The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees: Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1885-1886, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1891, pages 301-398 — John Shaqi
The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees: Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1885-1886, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1891, pages 301-398Mooney, James
Religion
The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees: Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1885-1886, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1891, pages 301-398
Mooney, James
Cherokee Indians -- Religion; Cherokee language -- Texts; Indians of North America -- Medicine
quantity of cloth must be doubled, so that on the whole the doctrine
is a very convenient one for the shaman. In many of the formulas
explicit directions are given as to the pay which the shaman is
to receive for performing the ceremony. In one of the Gatigwanasti
formulas, after specifying the amount of cloth to be paid, the writer
of it makes the additional proviso that it must be “pretty good cloth,
too,” asserting as a clincher that “this is what the old folks said a
long time ago.”
The ugista´‘tĭ can not be paid by either one of a married couple to
the other, and, as it is considered a necessary accompaniment of the
application, it follows that a shaman can not treat his own wife in
sickness, and vice versa. Neither can the husband or wife of the sick
person send for the doctor, but the call must come from some one
of the blood relatives of the patient. In one instance within the
writer’s knowledge a woman complained that her husband was very sick
and needed a doctor’s attention, but his relatives were taking no
steps in the matter and it was not permissible for her to do so.
CEREMONIES FOR GATHERING PLANTS AND PREPARING MEDICINE.
There are a number of ceremonies and regulations observed in
connection with the gathering of the herbs, roots, and barks, which
can not be given in detail within the limits of this paper. In
searching for his medicinal plants the shaman goes provided with a
number of white and red beads, and approaches the plant from a certain
direction, going round it from right to left one or four times,
reciting certain prayers the while. He then pulls up the plant by the
roots and drops one of the beads into the hole and covers it up with
the loose earth. In one of the formulas for hunting ginseng the hunter
addresses the mountain as the “Great Man” and assures it that he comes
only to take a small piece of flesh (the ginseng) from its side, so
that it seems probable that the bead is intended as a compensation to
the earth for the plant thus torn from her bosom. In some cases the
doctor must pass by the first three plants met until he comes to the
fourth, which he takes and may then return for the others. The bark
is always taken from the east side of the tree, and when the root or
branch is used it must also be one which runs out toward the east, the
reason given being that these have imbibed more medical potency from
the rays of the sun.
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