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THE MEDICINE HAT
The medicine hat of the old and blind Apache medicine-man, Nan-ta-do-tash, was an antique affair of buckskin, much begrimed with soot and soiled by long use. Nevertheless, it gave life and strength to him who wore it, enabled the owner to peer into the future, to tell who had stolen ponies from other people, to foresee the approach of an enemy, and to aid in the cure of the sick. This was its owner's own statement in conversation with me, but it would seem that the power residing in the helmet or hat was not very permanent, because when the old man discovered from his wife that I had made a rude drawing of it he became extremely excited and said that such a delineation would destroy all the life of the hat. His fears were allayed by presents of money and tobacco, as well as by some cakes and other food. As a measure of precaution, he insisted upon sprinkling pinches of hoddentin over myself, the hat, and the drawing of it, at the same time muttering various half-articulate prayers. He returned a month afterwards and demanded the sum of $30 for damage done to the hat by the drawing, since which time it has ceased to "work" when needed.
This same old man gave me an explanation of all the symbolism depicted upon the hat and a great deal of valuable information in regard to the profession of medicine-men, their specialization, the prayers they recited, etc. The material of the hat, as already stated, was buckskin. How that was obtained I can not assert positively, but from an incident occurring under my personal observation in the Sierra Madre in Mexico in 1883, where our Indian scouts and the medicine-men with them surrounded a nearly grown fawn and tried to capture it alive, as well as from other circumstances too long to be here inserted, I am of the opinion that the buckskin to be used for sacred purposes among the Apache must, whenever possible, be that of a strangled animal, as is the case, according to Dr. Matthews, among the Navajo.
The body of Nan-ta-do-tash's cap (Fig. 434, p. 503) was unpainted, but the figures upon it were in two colors, a brownish yellow and an earthy blue, resembling a dirty Prussian blue. The ornamentation was of the downy feathers and black-tipped plumes of the eagle, pieces of abalone shell, and chalchihuitl, and a snake's rattle on the apex.
Nan-ta-do-tash explained that the characters on the medicine hat meant: A, clouds; B, rainbow; C, hail; E, morning-star; F, the God of Wind, with his lungs; G, the black "kan"; H, great stars or suns.
"Kan" is the name given to their principal gods. The appearance of the kan himself and of the tail of the hat suggest the centipede, an important animal god of the Apache. The old man said that the figures represented the powers to which he appealed for aid in his "medicine" and the kan upon whom he called for help. There were other doctors with other medicines, but he used none but those of which he was going to speak to me.
When an Apache or other medicine-man is in full regalia he ceases to be a man, but becomes, or tries to make his followers believe that he has become, the power he represents. I once heard this asserted in a very striking way while I was with a party of Apache young men who had led me to one of the sacred caves of their people, in which we came across a great quantity of ritualistic paraphernalia of all sorts.
"We used to stand down here," they said, "and look up to the top of the mountain and see the kan come down." This is precisely what the people living farther to the south told the early Spanish missionaries.
The Mexicans were wont to cry out "Here come our gods!" upon seeing their priests masked and disguised, and especially when they had donned the skins of the women offered up in sacrifice.715
The headdresses worn by the gods of the American Indians and the priests or medicine-men who served them were persistently called "miters" by the early Spanish writers. Thus Quetzalcoatl wore "en la cabeça una Mitra de papel puntiaguda."716 When Father Felician Lopez went to preach to the Indians of Florida, in 1697, among other matters of record is one to the effect that "the chief medicine man called himself bishop."717 Possibly this title was assumed because the medicine-men wore "miters."
Duran goes further than his fellows. In the headdress used at the spirit dances he recognizes the tiara. He says that the Mexican priests at the feast of Tezcatlipoca wore "en las cabezas tiaras hechas de barillas."718 The ghost dance headdress illustrated in this paper (Fig. 441) is known to the Chiricahua Apache as the "ich-te," a contraction from "chas-a-i-wit-te," according to Ramon, the old medicine-man from whom I obtained it. He explained all the symbolism connected with it. The round piece of tin in the center is the sun; the irregular arch underneath it is the rainbow. Stars and lightning are depicted on the side slats and under them; the parallelograms with serrated edges are clouds; the pendant green sticks are rain drops; there are snakes and snake heads on both horizontal and vertical slats, the heads in the former case being representative of hail.
There are feathers of the eagle to conciliate that powerful bird, turkey feathers to appeal to the mountain spirits, and white gull feathers for the spirits of the water. There are also small pieces of nacreous shells and one or two fragments of the "duklij," or chalchihuitl, without which no medicine-man would feel competent to discharge his functions.
The spirit dance itself is called "cha-ja-la." I have seen this dance a number of times, but will confine my description to one seen at Fort Marion (St. Augustine, Fla.), in 1887, when the Chiricahua Apache were confined there as prisoners; although the accompanying figure represents a ghost dance headdress seen among the Apache in the winter of 1885. A great many of the band had been suffering from sickness of one kind or another and twenty-three of the children had died; as a consequence, the medicine-men were having the Cha-ja-la, which is entered into only upon the most solemn occasions, such as the setting out of a war party, the appearance of an epidemic, or something else of like portent. On the terreplein of the northwest bastion, Ramon, the old medicine-man, was violently beating upon a drum, which, as usual, had been improvised of a soaped rag drawn tightly over the mouth of an iron kettle holding a little water.
Although acting as master of ceremonies, Ramon was not painted or decorated in any way. Three other medicine-men were having the finishing touches put to their bodily decoration. They had an under-coating of greenish brown, and on each arm a yellow snake, the head toward the shoulder blade. The snake on the arm of one of the party was double-headed, or rather had a head at each extremity.
Each had insignia in yellow on back and breast, but no two were exactly alike. One had on his breast a yellow bear, 4 inches long by 3 inches high, and on his back a kan of the same color and dimensions. A second had the same pattern of bear on his breast, but a zigzag for lightning on his back. The third had the zigzag on both back and breast. All wore kilts and moccasins.
While the painting was going on Ramon thumped and sang with vigor to insure the medicinal potency of the pigments and the designs to which they were applied. Each held, one in each hand, two wands or swords of lathlike proportions, ornamented with snake-lightning in blue.
The medicine-men emitted a peculiar whistling noise and bent slowly to the right, then to the left, then frontward, then backward, until the head in each case was level with the waist. Quickly they spun round in full circle on the left foot; back again in a reverse circle to the right; then they charged around the little group of tents in that bastion, making cuts and thrusts with their wands to drive the maleficent spirits away.
It recalled to my mind the old myths of the angel with the flaming sword guarding the entrance to Eden, or of St. Michael chasing the discomfited Lucifer down into the depths of Hell.
These preliminaries occupied a few moments only; at the end of that time the medicine-men advanced to where a squaw was holding up to them a little baby sick in its cradle. The mother remained kneeling while the medicine-men frantically struck at, upon, around, and over the cradle with their wooden weapons.
The baby was held so as successively to occupy each of the cardinal points and face each point directly opposite; first on the east side, facing the west; then the north side, facing the south; then the west side, facing the east; then the south side, facing the north, and back to the original position. While at each position, each of the medicine-men in succession, after making all the passes and gestures described, seized the cradle in his hands, pressed it to his breast, and afterwards lifted it up to the sky, next to the earth, and lastly to the four cardinal points, all the time prancing, whistling, and snorting, the mother and her squaw friends adding to the dismal din by piercing shrieks and ululations.
That ended the ceremonies for that night so far as the baby personally was concerned, but the medicine-men retired down to the parade and resumed their saltation, swinging, bending, and spinning with such violence that they resembled, in a faint way perhaps, the Dervishes of the East. The understanding was that the dance had to be kept up as long as there was any fuel unconsumed of the large pile provided; any other course would entail bad luck. It was continued for four nights, the colors and the symbols upon the bodies varying from night to night. Among the modes of exorcism enumerated by Burton, we find "cutting the air with swords."719 Picart speaks of the "flêches ou les baguettes dont les Arabes Idolâtres se servoient pour deviner par le sort." He says that the diviner "tenoit à la main" these arrows, which certainly suggest the swords or wands of the Apache medicine-men in the spirit dance.720
There were four medicine-men, three of whom were dancing and in conference with the spirits, and the fourth of whom was general superintendent of the whole dance, and the authority to whom the first three reported the result of their interviews with the ghostly powers.
The mask and headdress of the first of the dancers, who seemed to be the leading one, was so elaborate that in the hurry and meager light supplied by the flickering fires it could not be portrayed. It was very much like that of number three, but so fully covered with the plumage of the eagle, hawk, and, apparently, the owl, that it was difficult to assert this positively. Each of these medicine-men had pieces of red flannel tied to his elbows and a stick about four feet long in each hand. Number one's mask was spotted black and white and shaped in front like the snout of a mountain lion. His back was painted with large arrowheads in brown and white, which recalled the protecting arrows tightly bound to the backs of Zuñi fetiches. Number two had on his back a figure in white ending between the shoulders in a cross. Number three's back was simply whitened with clay.
All these headdresses were made of slats of the Spanish bayonet, unpainted, excepting that on number two was a figure in black, which could not be made out, and that the horizontal crosspieces on number three were painted blue.
The dominos or masks were of blackened buckskin, for the two fastened around the neck by garters or sashes; the neckpiece of number three was painted red; the eyes seemed to be glass knobs or brass buttons. These three dancers were naked to the waist, and wore beautiful kilts of fringed buckskin bound on with sashes, and moccasins reaching to the knees. In this guise they jumped into the center of the great circle of spectators and singers and began running about the fire shrieking and muttering, encouraged by the shouts and the singing, and by the drumming and incantation of the chorus which now swelled forth at full lung power.
THE SPIRIT OR GHOST DANCE HEADDRESS
As the volume of music swelled and the cries of the on-lookers became fiercer, the dancers were encouraged to the enthusiasm of frenzy. They darted about the circle, going through the motions of looking for an enemy, all the while muttering, mumbling, and singing, jumping, swaying, and whirling like the dancing Dervishes of Arabia.
Their actions, at times, bore a very considerable resemblance to the movements of the Zuñi Shálako at the Feast of Fire. Klashidu told me that the orchestra was singing to the four willow branches planted near them. This would indicate a vestige of tree worship, such as is to be noticed also at the sun dance of the Sioux.
At intervals, the three dancers would dart out of the ring and disappear in the darkness, to consult with the spirits or with other medicine-men seated a considerable distance from the throng. Three several times they appeared and disappeared, always dancing, running, and whirling about with increased energy. Having attained the degree of mental or spiritual exaltation necessary for communion with the spirits, they took their departure and kept away for at least half an hour, the orchestra during their absence rendering a mournful refrain, monotonous as a funeral dirge. My patience became exhausted and I turned to go to my quarters. A thrill of excited expectancy ran through the throng of Indians, and I saw that they were looking anxiously at the returning medicine-men. All the orchestra now stood up, their leader (the principal medicine-man) slightly in advance, holding a branch of cedar in his left hand. The first advanced and bending low his head murmured some words of unknown import with which the chief seemed to be greatly pleased. Then the chief, taking his stand in front of the orchestra on the east side of the grove or cluster of trees, awaited the final ceremony, which was as follows: The three dancers in file and in proper order advanced and receded three times; then they embraced the chief in such a manner that the sticks or wands held in their hands came behind his neck, after which they mumbled and muttered a jumble of sounds which I can not reproduce, but which sounded for all the world like the chant of the "hooter" at the Zuñi Feast of Fire. They then pranced or danced through the grove three times. This was repeated for each point of the compass, the chief medicine-man, with the orchestra, taking a position successively on the east, south, west, and north and the three dancers advancing, receding, and embracing as at first.
This terminated the "medicine" ceremonies of the evening, the glad shouts of the Apache testifying that the incantations of their spiritual leaders or their necromancy, whichever it was, promised a successful campaign. These dancers were, I believe, dressed up to represent their gods or kan, but not content with representing them aspired to be mistaken for them.
AMULETS AND TALISMANS
THE "TZI-DALTAI."
The Apache, both men and women, wear amulets, called tzi-daltai, made of lightning-riven wood, generally pine or cedar or fir from the mountain tops, which are highly valued and are not to be sold. These are shaved very thin and rudely cut in the semblance of the human form. They are in fact the duplicates, on a small scale, of the rhombus, already described. Like the rhombus, they are decorated with incised lines representing the lightning. Very often these are to be found attached to the necks of children or to their cradles. Generally these amulets are of small size. Below will be found figures of those which I was permitted to examine and depict in their actual size. They are all unpainted. The amulet represented was obtained from a Chiricahua Apache captive. Deguele, an Apache of the Klukaydakaydn clan, consented to exhibit a kan, or god, which he carried about his person. He said I could have it for three ponies. It was made of a flat piece of lath, unpainted, of the size here given, having drawn upon it this figure in yellow, with a narrow black band, excepting the three snake heads, a, b, and c, which were black with white eyes; a was a yellow line and c a black line; flat pearl buttons were fastened at m and k respectively and small eagle-down feathers at k on each side of the idol. The rear of the tablet, amulet, or idol, as one may be pleased to call it, was almost an exact reproduction of the front.
The owner of this inestimable treasure assured me that he prayed to it at all times when in trouble, that he could learn from it where his ponies were when stolen and which was the right direction to travel when lost, and that when drought had parched his crops this would never fail to bring rain in abundance to revive and strengthen them. The symbolism is the rain cloud and the serpent lightning, the rainbow, rain drops, and the cross of the four winds.
These small amulets are also to be found inclosed in the phylacteries (Fig. 447) which the medicine-men wear suspended from their necks or waists.
Sir Walter Scott, who was a very good witness in all that related to prehistoric customs and "survivals" among the Celtic Scots, may be introduced at this point:
A heap of wither'd boughs was piled
Of juniper and rowan wild,
Mingled with shivers from the oak,
Rent by the lightning's recent stroke.721
CHALCHIHUITL
The articles of dress depicted in this paper are believed to represent all those which exclusively belong to the office of the Apache "diyi" or "izze-nantan." Of late years it can not be said that every medicine-man has all these articles, but most of them will be found in the possession of the man in full practice.
No matter what the medicine-man may lack, he will, if it be possible, provide himself with some of the impure malachite known to the whites of the Southwest as turquoise. In the malachite veins the latter stone is sometimes found and is often of good quality, but the difference between the two is apparent upon the slightest examination. The color of the malachite is a pea green, that of the turquoise a pale sky blue. The chemical composition of the former is a carbonate of copper, mixed with earthy impurities; that of the latter, a phosphate of alumina, colored with the oxide of copper. The use of this malachite was widespread. Under the name of chalchihuitl or chalchihuite, it appears with frequency in the old Spanish writings, as we shall presently see, and was in all places and by all tribes possessing it revered in much the same manner as by the Apache. The Apache call it duklij, "blue (or green) stone," these two colors not being differentiated in their language. A small bead of this mineral affixed to a gun or bow made the weapon shoot accurately. It had also some relation to the bringing of rain, and could be found by the man who would go to the end of a rainbow, after a storm, and hunt diligently in the damp earth. It was the Apache medicine-man's badge of office, his medical diploma, so to speak, and without it he could not in olden times exercise his medical functions.
In the curious commerce of the Indian tribes, some possessed articles of greater worth than those belonging to their neighbors. In the southwest the red paint sold by the tribes living in the Grand Canyon of the Colorado was held in higher repute than any other, and the green stone to be purchased from the Rio Grande Pueblos always was in great demand, as it is to this day. Vetancurt722 speaks of the Apache, between the years 1630 and 1680, coming to the pueblo of Pecos to trade for "chalchihuites." John de Laet speaks of "petites pierres verdes" worn in the lower lip by the Brazilians.723
Among the Mexicans the chalchihuitl seems to have been the distinguishing mark or badge of the priesthood. Duran, in speaking of the consecration of a sacrificial stone in Mexico by Montezuma the elder, and his assistant or coadjutor, Tlacaclel, says: "Echáronse á las espaldas unas olletas [I do not know what this word means] hechas de piedras verdes muy ricas, donde significaban que no solamente eran Reyes, pero juntamente Sacerdotes."724
Among the tribes in Central America, a chalchihuitl was placed in the mouths of the dying to receive their souls: "que era para que recibiese su ánima."725
One of the Mexican myths of the birth of Quetzalcoatl narrates that his mother, Chimalma, while sweeping, found a chalchihuitl, swallowed it, and became pregnant: "Andando barriendo la dicha Chimalma halló un chalchihuitl, (que es una pedrezuela verde) y que la tragó y de esto se empreñó, y que así parió al dicho Quetzalcoatl."726 The same author tells us that the chalchihuitl (which he calls "pedrezuela verde") are mentioned in the earliest myths of the Mexicans.727
In South America the emerald seems to have taken the place of the chalchihuitl. Bollaert728 makes frequent mention of the use of the emerald by the natives of Ecuador and Peru, "a drilled emerald, such as the Incas wore;" "large emeralds, emblematic of their [the Incas'] sovereignty."
From Torquemada we learn that the Mexicans adorned their idols with the chalchihuitl, and also that they buried a chalchihuitl with their dead, saying that it was the dead man's heart.729
"Whenever rain comes the Indians [Pima and Maricopa] resort to these old houses [ruins] to look for trinkets of shells, and a peculiar green stone."730 The idols which the people of Yucatan gave to Juan de Grijalva in 1518 were covered with these stones, "cubierta de pedrecicas."731 Among the first presents made to Cortes in Tabasco were "unas turquesas de poco valor."732 The fact that the Mexicans buried a "gem" with the bodies of their dead is mentioned by Squier, but he says it was when the body was cremated.733
The people of Cibola are said to have offered in sacrifice to their fountains "algunas turquesas que las tienen, aunque ruines."734
"Turquesas" were given to the Spaniards under Coronado by the people of the pueblo of Acoma.735
"The Mexicans were accustomed to say that at one time all men have been stones, and that at last they would all return to stones; and, acting literally on this conviction, they interred with the bones of the dead a small green stone, which was called the principle of life."736
The great value set upon the chalchihuitl by the Aztecs is alluded to by Bernal Diaz, who was with the expedition of Grijalva to Yucatan before he joined that of Cortes to Mexico.737 Diaz says that Montezuma sent to Charles V, as a present "a few chalchihuis of such enormous value that I would not consent to give them to any one save to such a powerful emperor as yours."738 These stones were put "in the mouth of the distinguished chiefs who died."739
Torquemada740 repeats the Aztec myth already given from Mendieta. He says that in 1537 Fray Antonio de Ciudad-Rodrigo, provincial of the Franciscans, sent friars of his order to various parts of the Indian country; in 1538 he sent them to the north, to a country where they heard of a tribe of people wearing clothes and having many turquoises.741 The Aztec priesthood adopted green as the sacred color. The ceremony of their consecration ended thus: "puis on l'habillait tout en vert."742
Maximilian, Prince of Wied, saw some of the Piegans of northwestern Montana "hang round their necks a green stone, often of various shapes." He describes it as "a compact talc or steatite which is found in the Rocky Mountains."743
