Читать книгу: «The Medicine-Men of the Apache. (1892 N 09 / 1887-1888 (pages 443-604))», страница 15
PHYLACTERIES
The term phylactery, as herein employed, means any piece of buckskin or other material upon which are inscribed certain characters or symbols of a religious or "medicine" nature, which slip or phylactery is to be worn attached to the person seeking to be benefited by it, and this phylactery differs from the amulet or talisman in being concealed from the scrutiny of the profane and kept as secret as possible. This phylactery, itself "medicine," may be employed to enwrap other "medicine" and thus augment its own potentiality. Indians in general object to having their "medicine" scrutinized and touched; in this there is a wide margin of individual opinion; but in regard to phylacteries there is none that I have been able to discover, and the rule may be given as antagonistic to the display of these sacred "relics," as my Mexican captive interpreter persisted in calling them.
The first phylactery which it was my good fortune to be allowed to examine was one worn by Ta-ul-tzu-je, of the Kaytzentin gens. It was tightly rolled in at least half a mile of orange-colored saddlers' silk, obtained from some of the cavalry posts. After being duly uncovered, it was found to be a small piece of buckskin two inches square, upon which were drawn red and yellow crooked lines which the Apache said represented the red and yellow snake. Inside were a piece of green chalchihuitl and a small cross of lightning-riven twig (pine) and two very small perforated shells. The cross was called "intchi-dijin," the black wind.
A second phylactery which I was also allowed to untie and examine belonged to Na-a-cha and consisted of a piece of buckskin of the same size as the other, but either on account of age or for some other reason no characters could be discerned upon it. It, however, enwrapped a tiny bag of hoddentin, which, in its turn, held a small but very clear crystal of quartz and four feathers of eagle down. Na-a-cha took care to explain very earnestly that this phylactery contained not merely the "medicine" or power of the crystal, the hoddentin, and the itza-chu, or eagle, but also of the shoz-dijiji, or black bear, the shoz-lekay, or white bear, the shoz-litzogue, or yellow bear, and the klij-litzogue or yellow snake, though just in what manner he could not explain.
It would take up too much time and space to describe the manner in which it was necessary for me to proceed in order to obtain merely a glimpse of these and other phylacteries, all of the same general type; how I had to make it evident that I was myself possessed of great "medicine" power and able to give presents of great "medicine" value, as was the case. I had obtained from cliff dwellings, sacred caves, and other places beads of talc, of chalchihuitl, and of shell, pieces of crystal and other things, sacred in the eyes of the Apache, and these I was compelled to barter for the information here given.
The medicine shirts of the Apaches, several of which are here represented, do not require an extended description. The symbolism is different for each one, but may be generalized as typical of the sun, moon, stars, rainbow, lightning, snake, clouds, rain, hail, tarantula, centipede, snake, and some one or more of the "kan" or gods.
The medicine sashes follow closely in pattern the medicine shirts, being smaller in size only, but with the same symbolic decoration. Similar ornamentation will be found upon the amulets (ditzi), made of lightning-struck pine or other wood. All of these are warranted, among other virtues, to screen the wearer from the arrows, lances, or bullets of the enemy. In this they strongly resemble the salves and other means by which people in Europe sought to obtain "magical impenetrability." The last writer to give receipts for making such salves, etc., that I can recall, was Etmüller, who wrote in the early years of the seventeenth century.
Such as the reader can imagine the medicine-man to be from this description of his paraphernalia, such he has been since the white man first landed in America. Never desirous of winning proselytes to his own ideas, he has held on to those ideas with a tenacity never suspected until purposely investigated. The first of the Spanish writers seem to have employed the native terms for the medicine-men, and we come across them as cemis or zemis, bohiti, pachuaci, and others; but soon they were recognized as the emissaries of Satan and the preachers of witchcraft, and henceforth they appear in the documents as "hechicheros" and "brujos" almost exclusively. "Tienan los Apaches profetas ó adivinos que gozan de la mas alta estimacion. Esos adivinos pratican la medicina lamas rudimental, la aplicacion de algunas yerbas y esto acompañado de ceremonias y cantos supersticiosos."744 Pimentel seems to have derived his information from Cordero, a Spanish officer who had served against the Apache at various times between 1770 and 1795, and seemed to understand them well.
"There was no class of persons who so widely and deeply influenced the culture and shaped the destiny of the Indian tribes as their priests. In attempting to gain a true conception of the race's capacities and history there is no one element of their social life which demands closer attention than the power of these teachers… However much we may deplore the use they made of their skill, we must estimate it fairly and grant it its due weight in measuring the influence of the religious sentiment on the history of man."745
"Like Old Men of the Sea, they have clung to the neck of their nations, throttling all attempts at progress, binding them to the thraldom of superstition and profligacy, dragging them down to wretchedness and death. Christianity and civilization meet in them their most determined, most implacable foes."746
In spite of all the zeal and vigilance of the Spanish friars, supported by military power, the Indians of Bogotá clung to their idolatry. Padre Simon cites several instances and says tersely: "De manera que no lo hay del Indio que parece mas Cristiano y ladino, de que no tenga ídolos á quien adore, como nos lo dice cada dia la experiencia." (So that there is no Indian, no matter how well educated he may appear in our language and the Christian doctrine, who has not idols which he adores, as experience teaches us every day.)747
"The Indian doctor relied far more on magic than on natural remedies. Dreams, beating of the drum, songs, magic feasts and dances, and howling to frighten the female demon from the patient, were his ordinary methods of cure."748
In a very rare work by Padre José de Arriaga, published in Lima, 1621, it is shown that the Indians among whom this priest was sent on a special tour of investigation were still practicing their old idolatrous rites in secret. This work may be found quoted in Montesinos, Mémoires sur l'Ancien Pérou, in Ternaux-Compans, Voyages, vol. 17; the title of Arriaga's work is Extirpacion de la Idolatría de los Indios del Peru. Arriaga also states that the functions of the priesthood were exercised by both sexes.
It will only be after we have thoroughly routed the medicine-men from their intrenchments and made them an object of ridicule that we can hope to bend and train the mind of our Indian wards in the direction of civilization. In my own opinion, the reduction of the medicine-men will effect more for the savages than the giving of land in severalty or instruction in the schools at Carlisle and Hampton; rather, the latter should be conducted with this great object mainly in view: to let pupils insensibly absorb such knowledge as may soonest and most completely convince them of the impotency of the charlatans who hold the tribes in bondage.
Teach the scholars at Carlisle and Hampton some of the wonders of electricity, magnetism, chemistry, the spectroscope, magic lantern, ventriloquism, music, and then, when they return to their own people, each will despise the fraud of the medicine-men and be a focus of growing antagonism to their pretensions. Teach them to love their own people and not to despise them; but impress upon each one that he is to return as a missionary of civilization. Let them see that the world is free to the civilized, that law is liberty.
