SMITHSONIAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO ANTHROPOLOGY

VOLUME 2, Number 6

Notebook of a Cherokee
Shaman

Jack Frederick Kilpatrick and Anna Gritts Kilpatrick

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION PRESS

City of Washington: 1970

A Publication of the

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION

United States National Museum

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Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INTRODUCTION

The author

The manuscript

Western Cherokee shamanism

Abbreviations used in the texts

TEXTS

1. To doctor for “insects”

2. To doctor “the rainbow black”

3. For arthritis

4. To make tobacco when they are hurting somewhere

5. (To help oneself with)

6. (To attract a woman)

7. If they have gashed themselves or have been shot

8. And this is to “go to the water” early in the morning

9. (To put a woman to sleep)

10. (For a spider bite)

11. To turn one aside with

12. (To remove anger)

13. (To destroy a rival in a love affair[?])

14. (To protect against thinkers)

15. (To make a woman lonely)

16. (?)

17. One is to use four black roots

18. (For divining with a suspended object)

19. Second one (for divining with needles)

20. (For divining with stones)

21. (For “going to the water” to ensure longevity)

22. (To help oneself with)

23. (For blisters [?])

24. (For blisters [?])

25. (For attending a gathering at which women are present)

26. To make tobacco when they are hurting somewhere

27. Medicine for the sides

28. Medicine for the backs of their necks

29. (For “remaking” tobacco for use in gambling)

30. (For tonsillitis)

31. More “They have been shot” medicine

32. To doctor arthritis

33. (For “the big black”)

34. (For gastric distension)

35. (For “the big black”)

36. For “the big black”

37. Chicken remedy

38. To doctor them for “the black”

39. For feverishness and headache

40. (For “the rainbow black”)

41. (For a severe burn)

42. When his [her] intestines become alive

43. (For a snakebite)

44. (For muscular cramps)

45. (?)

46. (For tonsillitis [?])

47. (?)

48. One is to use a new pestle on their “veins”

49. (For toothache)

50. (For a snakebite)

LITERATURE CITED

Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge that certain phases of this study were made possible by a grant from the Phillips Fund of the American Philosophical Society.

We are also deeply indebted to a number of our Cherokee relatives and friends for their knowledge and their good will in sharing that knowledge; especially S. D., the son-in-law of the late Ade:lagh(a)dhí:ya, and the contemporary shaman, A. S.

JACK FREDERICK KILPATRICK
ANNA GRITTS KILPATRICK

NOTEBOOK OF A CHEROKEE SHAMAN

By Jack Frederick Kilpatrick and Anna Gritts Kilpatrick

Introduction

THE AUTHOR

Ade:lagh(a)dhí:ya Ga:n(i)sgawi¹ was the exemplification of a type institutional in Cherokee culture for well over a hundred years: the medicine man who was also a Christian preacher; who in tribal affairs led in the manner traditionally most acceptable to his people—through precept, persuasion, and selfless activity within the framework of a sanctioned group. Almost his entire existence was expended in the social milieu in which he was born. In the hill-country community in which he resided during most of the years of his maturity, he is remembered with affection. “He was an honest man,” say his old acquaintances—and Cherokees know no higher praise than that resident in the various connotations of the word “honest.”

He was born near Jay, Delaware County, Oklahoma about 1896. We have no information as to the identity of his principal master in shamanism. We do know that he was a student of his art when he went into military service during World War I; the notebook under consideration here went with him into battle, and some of the most interesting entries in it pertain to his experiences as a Private in Company I, 358th Infantry. Something of the elemental cast of the man’s mind is revealed in such laconic jottings, as: “… o:gahlilart:gi tsoʔí:ne igá:i Duli:sdi ghaʔlart:i li vgiyo:hlv:gi (… we fought the third day. On September 11th I was shot).” He never fully recovered from the abdominal wound that he received in France. To the end of his days he walked with a limp, and his wound was a contributing factor to his rather early demise on 3 July 1938.

Ade:lagh(a)dhí:ya must always have been something of an idealist. Early in life he became identified with the nativistic Redbird Smith movement² and was active in its A:mé:hi Fire near his home. It is said that Redbird Smith himself persuaded Ade:lagh(a)dhí:ya to take up residence in the southern part of the Cherokee country in order to be closer to the nerve center of the organization which was (and still is) a few miles northeast of Gore, in Sequoyah County.

For some reason, Ade:lagh(a)dhí:ya came to lose faith in the Redbird Smith movement and removed a few miles north to the Indian community of Gwagwé:hi, in the vicinity of the post office of Barber, in Cherokee County, where he spent the remainder of his life. Here he married and reared a family of eight or nine children, and here he affiliated himself with the Sycamore Tree Cherokee Baptist Church in which he rose to leadership, becoming church secretary, deacon, and a licensed minister. We possess a number of manuscripts in Ade:lagh(a)dhí:ya’s precise Sequoyan that pertain to the affairs of the church he served.

Ade:lagh(a)dhí:ya was a medicine man before he became a Christian, and he continued to practice his profession after his conversion. We have examined a letter of his to another shaman which is a powerful apologia for the Christian religion. Ade:lagh(a)dhí:ya appears to have been known for no particular specialties. He was a full-fledged dida:hnvwi:sg(i);³ a general practitioner, so to speak. While his reputation was not awesome, it was solid. His medicine was “live,” as the Cherokees say. As such collections go, his library of medicomagical manuscripts must have been rather sizable, but it was dispersed at his demise. Although we have managed to recover a part of it, much of it is no doubt irretrievably lost, and that which exists is in a poor state of preservation.

In Ade:lagh(a)dhí:ya’s day, but a few decades ago, the area about Barber in the Cookson Hills was exceedingly remote from the mainstream of White America, and a notorious hideout for outlaws. Today it lies upon the left bank of Tenkiller Lake in resort country. Tourists, temporarily bored with fishing and boating, may occasionally visit little Barber Cemetery, but there is nothing there to bring to their attention the fact that a conventional white military headstone near the gate marks the resting place of a man who practiced a Stone Age profession within their own lifetimes.

THE MANUSCRIPT

The textual material is inscribed in a notebook 4½ × 7 inches in size. The book is bound in mottled green cardboard. Its end papers (the front end leaf is missing) are pale green; its cloth hinges, now loose and tattered, are blue. The book contains 46 pages that are crisscrossed with blue printed lines—23 in number latitudinally, 34 in number longitudinally— that form squares measuring ³/₁₆ of an inch. Some of the leaves in the book have come loose.

Much of the content of the notebook consists of autobiographical and demographic jottings, among which is a short account of Ade:lagh(a)dhí:ya’s war experiences (translated in Kilpatrick and Kilpatrick 1965a, pp. 68–70). Entries were made variously with lead pencil, indelible pencil, purple crayon pencil, and green-blue, black, and red ink. But the core of the book is comprised of pages 13–16, a group of medicomagical texts written with meticulous care in black ink in an exceedingly minute and beautiful (but difficult to decipher) calligraphy. Other texts, penciled in a larger handwriting with evidence of a certain amount of haste, on pages 7, 9, and 17–20, were probably written at a later date. A few of the texts were not separated by conventional spacing devices, but were massed together, which made for an occasional difficulty in determining the termination of a given text and the beginning of the one that followed it.

The notebook was obtained in December of 1961 (together with a number of other manuscripts in Sequoyah syllabary) from the widow of its author.

WESTERN CHEROKEE SHAMANISM

Frans M. Olbrechts, writing in reference to ethnographical fieldwork among the Cherokees of North Carolina stated (Mooney and Olbrechts, 1932, pp. 77–78):

… it has been fortunate indeed that such a keen observer as James Mooney repeatedly visited the tribe, his first visit dating as far back as 1887. At that time it was still possible to obtain information on a great many questions on which no light could now be shed by any of the present medicine men. Moreover, at that time the explanation and exegesis of the older informants was free of scepticism and sophistication.

Much of what Mr. Mooney collected could now no longer be obtained, and this in itself partly illustrates the process of change which the Cherokee, as every other of the American Indian tribes, is undergoing. Having Mooney’s statements as to what conditions were like in the eighties, and comparing them with the state of things in 1926–27, it is possible to see in what respects ideas have changed, in how far opinions have altered …

… the death of every old medicine man, of every staunch traditionalist, means a blow to the culture of yore that is truly irremediable: A considerable portion of the aboriginal religion, ritual, and science dies with him ….

Nearly four decades have passed since Olbrechts wrote the above; a period of time that has seen a steadily accelerating attrition of the old culture, especially in the main body of the tribe in Oklahoma that in the days of Mooney and Olbrechts, and before, was far more highly acculturated than its minority segment in the mountains of North Carolina.

While there are but few medicine men practicing among the Cherokees of Oklahoma today, the most reputable of them serve a sizable patronage. A medicine man is seldom repudiated on religious grounds alone by the Christians among his people; indeed, he is as likely as not to be a Christian himself.⁴ The average Cherokee sees little inconsistency in professing Christianity while also availing himself of the best therapy that he can obtain. In his mind this necessitates going to the United States Public Health Service hospital for, let us say, a case of gallstones, in the treatment of which his medicine man, by his own admission, is likely to be of small benefit. He is apt to take a case of carcinoma to a shaman, however, since he feels that the White man’s treatment for this affliction is inferior to that of the Indian. And, as one might suspect, there are Cherokee sophisticates who have little faith in any medicine. Other Cherokees tend to avoid institutionalized medicine, White or Indian, and doctor themselves. The traditional priestly function of the shaman, largely as the result of the militant opposition of his Christian tribesmen or because of the Christian scruples of the shaman himself, has diminished to a small, largely sentimental vestige of what it once was.

The geographical segmentation of the Cherokee people at the contact period was a reality, but the cultural compartmentation of the tribe along geographical lines, into Upper, Middle, and Lower entities, is the invention of anthropologists. There are perhaps as many as six or seven dialects spoken in Oklahoma, and the material published in Sequoyan in The Cherokee Phoenix (1826–1834) strongly suggests that they existed prior to the Removal. Even today, subsequent to a century and a quarter of intermarriage between residents of one community and inhabitants of another, this or that culture trait of a given group is likely to be regarded as exotic by all its neighbors. We are of the opinion that a comprehensive study of the corpus of Western Cherokee medicomagical practice would reveal its descent through divers streams of tradition.

One must therefore exercise caution in assuming that the medicomagical lore studied by Mooney and Olbrechts ever had anything approaching an exact counterpart in the West, or that there existed any total similarity of techniques employed by any two medicine men there. There exists much evidence to indicate that the idiosyncratic factor was ever a large one, and that the cultural climate and the geography of Oklahoma have served but to conserve and to intensify shamanistic individualism. Certainly the Western Cherokee texts that we have perused exhibit a great variety of approaches to fundamental situations.

Fogelson (1961, p. 217) is doubtless correct in his definition of the ethos of shamanism in North Carolina:

Medicomagical beliefs and practices seem to have assumed a more rigid, doctrinaire cuality among the surviving Eastern Cherokee. The Removal separated the remaining Cherokee from most of the creative and spiritual leadership of the Nation. Among the 18,000 or so who emigrated West were most of the highly esteemed medicine men, as well as other guardians and interpreters of traditional belief. The shock of removal and the separation from the main body of their Nation, eventuated in some culture loss, but also resulted in a more compulsive adherence to those items of medicomagical belief which remained.

In contradistinction to those of the East, the texts of the West are sparing in their adjunctive indications as to what materia medica are used, how they are administered, and what the patient should do (or not do) in order to expedite recovery. In short, they frequently lack what in North Carolina is usually called the digo:sisí:sgi (the one that expounds them), and in Oklahoma is frequently referred to as the igart:n(e)dhi (to be done, it). Captions are frequently omitted. The Western texts—often in a poor state of preservation to begin with—teem with cabalistic abbreviations, eccentric spellings, and dialectal variants, in addition to occasional archaisms that not even a shaman can now fully understand.

The texts under consideration here are, from the Cherokee viewpoint, “dead”; of no effect.⁵ Their power passed with their owner. Unfortunately, the full knowledge of how he implemented them was also lost. However, we have available to us the testimony of his son-in-law, who, upon occasion, witnessed Ade:lagh(a)dhí:ya at work, and the authority of fundamental Cherokee medicomagical tenets, which each shaman recognizes and respects.

ABBREVIATIONS USED IN THE TEXTS

comp-------------------------

completely

cond--------------------------

conditionally

dist--------------------------

distributively

exc---------------------------

exclusive

flex--------------------------

flexible quality

gran--------------------------

granulated quality

hab---------------------------

habitually

imp---------------------------

imperative

inan--------------------------

inanimate

inc---------------------------

inclusive

lg----------------------------

long quality

lg. and lp--------------------

long and limp quality

liq---------------------------

liquid quality

m.a---------------------------

multiple actions

pi----------------------------

plural

ser---------------------------

seriatim

sol---------------------------

solid quality

w.p.k------------------------

without personal knowledge

Texts

1. TO DOCTOR FOR “INSECTS”

FREE TRANSLATION

To Doctor for “Insects”

Now! “Insects”! Ha, then! It was certainly in the wood that they resided, here and there.

Now! “Insects”! Ha, then! It was certainly in the stone that they resided, here and there.

Now! “Insects”! Ha, then! It was certainly in the earth that they resided, here and there.

Now! “Insects”! Ha, then! It was certainly in the water that they resided, here and there.

COMMENTARY

While this is a conjuration that could be used in the treatment of inflammation of almost any sort, it would have special applicability to an infected wound, an abscessed tooth, or an earache.

In a tactful “aside,” the reciter of the conjuration reminds the ghosts of the “insects” that, when they were in a corporeal state, lived in their proper elements. Presumably the ghosts take the hint and return to their proper elements.

A set of four entities, presented in an ascending or descending scale of degree of some quality such as hardness, size, or the like, is a familiar motif in Cherokee medical and magical idi:gawé:sdi.¹¹ The entities mentioned above—(1) wood, (2) stone, (3) earth, and (4) water—would appear at some time to have experienced a transposition, for stone is harder than wood. There is a published conjuration for a cut wound (Kilpatrick, 1964, pp. 217–218) wherein the entities are ranged in the more logical order: (1) stone, (2) wood, (3) earth, and (4) water.

The botanical employed as an adjunctive to the above conjuration would be tobacco. Ade:lagh(a)dhí:ya probably used the sacred wild tobacco (Nicotiana rustica L.), which the Cherokees call tso:lagayart:li (tobacco, ancient, it), but a contemporary medicine man would almost certainly use the plug or twist commercial variety. Seemingly within the past two or three decades there has arisen in Cherokee society a feeling that a stigma attends the growing, or even the possession, of tso:lagayart:li, a well-nigh indispensable element in some of the more nefarious of the magical ceremonies—a di:dagale:n(v)dhoʔdí:yi (to separate them with, one), for example, or one designed to take human life.

If a wound is to be treated by the use of the foregoing conjuration, the medicine man masticates a small amount of tobacco, and then expectorates saliva impregnated with it upon the laceration. He then covers with a cloth the bowl of a pipe in which more of the tobacco has already been set alight, applies the bowl to his mouth, softly recites (or merely thinks) the conjuration, and blows smoke out through the pipestem upon the wound. Inasmuch as four is the minor sacred number and the medical problem with which he is dealing is a relatively insignificant one, both reciting and blowing are done a total of four times.

The procedure for treating an abscessed tooth differs slightly from that for a wound; the stem of the pipe is placed directly against the tooth that is infected.

In treating earache, the tobacco smoke is blown into the canal of the ailing ear.

2. TO DOCTOR “THE RAINBOW BLACK”

FREE TRANSLATION

To Doctor “The Rainbow Black”

Now! You Provider! Very quickly divert it!

Now! Very quickly uncover it!

Ha! Ya! Very quickly!

“Relief!” He has just come to say.

COMMENTARY

Mooney (1890, p. 365) defines “the black” or, more properly, “the black yellow,” as a subtype of that great trunk from which, in Cherokee semeiology, so many pathological conditions branch: the dalo:ni (yellow). He informs us that “… the navel and abdomen of the patient swell, the ends of his fingers become black, dark circles appear about his eyes, and the throat contracts spasmodically and causes him to fall down suddenly insensible.” Mooney and Olbrechts (1932, p. 224) add to the foregoing list of symptoms as follows: “The patient feels faint and giddy on rising suddenly from his seat. The medicine man further states that as the disease progresses the lips and circles round the eyes turn black, and in extreme cases red blotches appear on the face, especially about the mouth.”

The Oklahoma Cherokees recognize four subtypes of “the black” (Kilpatrick and Kilpatrick, MS.a):

Type 1. An infantile variety, usually designated with the addition of some such qualifying word as diniyo: hli (small ones, they). Among its salient symptoms are: sleeping with the eyes half-open, crying out while asleep, and a blueness about the mouth.

Type 2. An undifferentiated, but ordinarily not severe, adult species.

Type 3. U:nvgho:ladhi (rainbow), sometimes called gi:gagé:i (red). Seeing “rainbows” or “bright lights” during a dizzy spell is considered to be diagnostic.

Type 4. Gv:hnágeʔ ú:dhan(a) (black, big), sometimes called tsun(a)da:invdí:ha (which knocks them down). This type, which produces syncope, is held to be of special gravity.

All four types of “the black” are preferentially treated with the root of gv:hnágeʔ ú:dhan(a) (Cassia marilandica, L.), said to be so named because of its use in Type 4, in the following manner (ibid.):

A small crushed root of wild senna is soaked in a cup or glass nearly filled with ama iʔtsé:i (water, new = cool, freshly drawn water, preferably from a vigorously flowing stream). The resultant infusion is blown upon the patient in one of several acceptable fashions. The manner adopted depends upon the physical position of the patient and the idiosyncratic practice of the shaman. A very common procedure is this: The medicine man recites a conjuration sotto voce, takes some of the infusion into his mouth and then blows the liquid upon the top of the head of the seated patient; he then goes counterclockwise to the front of the patient, repeats the conjuration, takes more fluid from its container into his mouth and blows it upon the patient’s face; the conjuration is then delivered for the third time, more of the preparation is taken into the mouth of the medicine man, and the patient’s hands are blown; the conjuration is said a fourth time, the medicine man takes a sip of the infusion and blows it upon the feet of the patient. During this treatment the patient sits facing east, the “fortunate’’ compass point.

The above therapy is administered subject to certain options deriving from the basic precepts of Cherokee medical practice: it may be applied only once; it may be applied four times in the course of one day; it may be applied once per day for four consecutive days; it may be applied four times per day for four consecutive days. In conjunction with the treatment, the drinking of the infusion may be prescribed for the patient, in which case the medicine is taken on some schedule predicated upon the bases that have just been listed.

In a severe and sudden seizure of gv:hnágeʔ, especially of gv:hnágeʔ ú:dhan(a), the medicine man may have insufficient time to prepare an infusion of wild senna root, in which case he uses fresh water alone in the physical phase of his therapy, at least for his initial, emergency treatment.

Conjurations for the various types of “the black” are frequently encountered in the manuscript literature of the Western Cherokees. A large proportion of them incorporate the motif to be seen in the example above; that of an appeal to the Provider to “uncover” the darkness which has enveloped the patient under treatment.

The conjurations for “the black” or the “black yellow” reported by Mooney (1890, pp. 364–366) and by Mooney and Olbrechts (1932, pp. 222–224), despite their labeling, are not for this specific condition, bu for ills related to it—dalo:ni itself, and tsuni:waduno: h(i) (their veins). A true conjuration for “the black” is recorded in Kilpatrick and Kilpatrick (1965a, pp. 92–93).

3. FOR ARTHRITIS

FREE TRANSLATION

For Arthritis

Now! Watermelon! Gv:ʔ Pumpkin! Gv:ʔ! Corn! Gv:ʔ! Bean! Gv:ʔ!

Now! Watermelon! Gv:ʔ Pumpkin! Gv:ʔ! Corn! Gv:ʔ! Bean! Gv:ʔ!

Now! Watermelon! Gv:ʔ Pumpkin! Gv:ʔ! Corn! Gv:ʔ! Bean! Gv:ʔ!

Now! Watermelon! Gv:ʔ Pumpkin! Gv:ʔ! Corn! Gv:ʔ! Bean! Gv:ʔ!

Now! “All of you just relieved it!” I will be saying.

Now! “All of you just relieved it!” I will be saying.

Now! “All of you just relieved it!” I will be saying.

Now! “All of you just relieved it!” I will be saying.

COMMENTARY

In a general sense, the term unv:le:sdv is applied to any form of arthritic affliction; in a restricted sense it is perhaps most often applied to cervical arthritis. In the commonest treatment of the latter the patient is placed prone upon his stomach, facing east. The medicine man takes a small bite from a plug of commercial tobacco and masticates it. He then expectorates upon his hands and warms them over a panful or shovelful of coals—preferably those that are the residue of a fire made from lightning-struck wood—as he recites an i:gawé:sdi suitable to the therapeutic situation. He then presses his hands firmly against the locus of the pain until the heat from them has become dissipated. The ritual is enacted four times successively.

Within the memory of individuals still living, the plug tobacco employed by medicine men was prepared as follows: holes were burned in a hardwood log and into them cured tobacco leaf was tamped; honey or sirup was poured over the tobacco and the holes were stopped with wooden plugs. After a month or so of seasoning, the tobacco was ready for use.

There is a clue in Mooney and Olbrechts (1932, p. 65) as to why the specific four vegetable spirits are referred to in the above conjuration: “… the one visited with watery blisters should abstain from all juicy fruit and vegetables, etc.” Arthritic afflictions are attended by swellings, swellings are watery; in order to reduce them, one must drive the water out of them. The vegetables are named in a descending order of juiciness inherent to each: in other words; the water in a swelling, and therefore the swelling itself, is gradually reduced.

Dietetic taboos (insofar as manuscripts inform us) seemingly were always of far less importance in the therapeutic practice of the Oklahoma Cherokees than they were in the healing activities of the North Carolina Cherokees. Nevertheless, the vegetables named above, under conditions conveyed verbally to the patient, would be prohibited by the medicine man employing the foregoing conjuration.

From the literature published and unpublished, from folk belief and from observation, one gathers that arthritis was and still is a major health problem to the Cherokee people. Unpublished prescriptions for the relief of it are numerous, and treatments for it are in print in Mooney (1890, pp. 345–351) and in Mooney and Olbrechts (1932, pp. 196, 291–294, 301–302).

4. TO MAKE TOBACCO WHEN THEY ARE HURTING SOMEWHERE

FREE TRANSLATION

To Make Tobacco When They Are Hurting Somewhere

Listen! Brown Person! You and I have just come together to unite our efforts.

You and I are Great Wizards.

You and I are to fail in nothing.

Each of the Seven Clan Districts is not to climb over You and me!

Listen! Brown Whirlwind Itself! You and I have just come together to unite our efforts.

You and I are Great Wizards.

You and I are to fail in nothing.

Each of the Seven Clan Districts is not to climb over You and me!

COMMENTARY

The use of tobacco as an agency for the conveyance and distribution of supernatural power would appear to constitute a motif of somewhat greater moment in the medicine and magic of the Western Cherokee than in that of their North Carolina kinsmen. The tobacco is “made” or “remade” in a ceremony which varies somewhat in accordance with the specific use to which it is to be put and the preference of the individual who prepares it, but the rite typically will incorporate these elements: enactment at dawn with the participant facing east at the brink of a flowing stream; the tobacco, held in the left hand, will be kneaded with a counterclockwise rolling motion of the right hand while an appropriate i:gawé:sdi is being delivered; the tobacco is expectorated upon at the conclusion of each of four recitations of the i:gawé:sdi.

As one may see, the preparation of tobacco in the ceremony reported by Kilpatrick and Kilpatrick (1964 c, p. 387) is not effected in the above manner; the purpose of its preparation is one of extraordinary moment.

Ordinarily, when the caption of a medical text reads to the effect that the ensuing prescription is for the purpose of treating pains in various loci in the body, especially if the word which means “hurting about” is employed, one assumes that the treatment is for a “simulator” or “ordeal” disease; one of those complaints that Mooney and Olbrechts (1932, p. 33) define as “… caused by the machinations of a human agent. They are the most dreaded of the many complaints the Cherokee knows.” (For the treatment of a “similar” disease, see ibid., pp. 215–217.) The conjuration above does not appear to be for the purpose of infusing tobacco for use against a “simulator” malady, but merely for a neuritic twinge of any localization whatever. The physical aspects of the therapy utilizing tobacco prepared with the foregoing, or a simulator text, would be essentially the same as that detailed in No. 3 above.

“Brown Person” is the spirit of the tobacco that is being “remade”; “Brown Whirlwind” (if such is the correct reading) is the spirit of the smoke of that tobacco.

5. (TO HELP ONESELF WITH)

FREE TRANSLATION

Now! Listen!

Ha! Red Garter Snake!

Above, in the very middle of Your Place of Repose, You Great Wizard, both sides of You are equally strong!

Nothing is to climb over You.

Very quickly You have just come to hear.

Now You have just brought down the Pathway.

Ha! Now You and I have just come to remake the Brown Tobacco.

Ha! Those persons who dwell—Ha!—on earth—Ha!— You block.

You are a bypasser of their souls there in the Clan Districts.

You and I now have just come to hold up the Tobacco Smoke.

Ha! You block them over there.

They are without the ability to speak.

They are unable to pass under you.

You will be walking to and fro everywhere in the White Place of Repose Above.

In the Place where the Ancient One³⁰ holds up the

Smoke, let us, You and I, hold it up!

COMMENTARY

In addition to magical procedures to ensure protection in a specific circumstance—such as when going to war, when traveling, or when attending a gathering of people among whom there might be personal foes— the Cherokees know and practice measures for the guarding of an individual against an unknown enemy or an unforeseen danger. The texts of incantations used for the general purpose of protection are often provided with some caption such as owá:sv ahl(i)sde: hl(v)doʔdi (oneself, to help with, i.e., to help oneself with). They are, generally (possibly invariably), either “going to the water”³¹ or tobacco-preparing texts.

There is evidence to show that laymen know and use the simple idi:gawé:sdi of this genre, especially those employed in “going to the water,” but the complex and more puissant texts are the exclusive property of the professionals. Indeed, the medicine men have special need of them: in addition to using them for the benefit of clients, they employ them to protect themselves. Shamans consider themselves to be the principal targets of magical workers of evil.

At the outset of a typical tobacco-preparing ceremony, the preparer states his name and clan or, if the tobacco is destined for the use of a client, the name and clan of the client. At the conclusion of some tobacco-preparing rituals, especially those enacted for socially sanctioned purposes, the tobacco is first held in both hands at extended arms length, after which it is slowly brought up and then down across the face of the rising sun. Western Cherokee medicomagical theory holds that while tobacco impregnated by the rays of the rising sun is “strengthened” beyond what it would be otherwise, the primary and essentially self-sufficient source of its authority is the power bestowed upon it by the i:gawé:sdi.

Tobacco vitalized through the employment of the above text, or some cognate text, can be stored against a necessity arising for its use—such as the onset of a vague sensation of uneasiness or an inexplicable feeling of physical malfunction, both possible indications of the effects of sorcery of an unknown source. Moreover, general-purpose “protection” tobacco may be used to guard a house that its owner may be compelled to leave vacant for an appreciable length of time, or to shield an ill person from witchcraft to which, as the result of his physical weakness, he is peculiarly vulnerable.

“Remade” tobacco kept in one’s household must be protected against influences that could “break” it, nullify its power—the presence of a pregnant or menstrual woman, a corpse, or an individual who has touched a corpse and not yet taken purificatory measures.

6. (TO ATTRACT A WOMAN)

FREE TRANSLATION

Now! I appeared over there!

Crow, I talk very well!

Now! Now I will go under the Sunrays.

I just laid down the Pathway at the Treetops.

I am attired in Red.⁴²

I have my Red Neckpiece lying spread out.

I have just come to draw out Eyes.

They will be in my body.

You are to face toward my back.

(This is your name:————; [these are your people:————].)

Now! The Little White Dog⁴³ has just come to fondle your soul.

My Yellow Footprints were made, He has just to state to you.

You are not to desist.

“Ghaʔ! Ghaʔ! Diʔ! Diʔ!⁴⁴

COMMENTARY

Erotic incantations that are for general utility in attracting a woman are conventionally captioned age:hyv (or anige:hyv) ugart:wahli (a woman [women], for the purpose of). Although the foregoing i:gawé:sdi bears no title, its classification cannot be in question; for it is patently a not very widely divergent variant of a text published in Kilpatrick and Kilpatrick (1965, pp. 25–27):⁴⁵

The symbol of the crow as a hated rival has been reported by Mooney (1890, pp. 375–377). In the present example the incantator rhetorically informs his opponent of the preternatural force of his, the incantator’s, speech: possessed of the power to invest himself with the magical “Red” of the sun, he is able to dictate his own future (Pathway). The figure wherein the incantator extracts eyes and places them in his own body is a stereotype signifying the magical acquisition of admiring or envious attention.

The implementation of the text is an open question. Its length rules out its having been designed to be merely said, as is the case with many erotic idi:gawé: sdi. It bears no internal evidence of being for the purpose of preparing tobacco. It is surely therefore an ama:yi atsart:sdoʔdí (water-place, to go and return with), a “going to the water” text. Its length would tend to indicate that it is a shaman’s professional incantation, even had it not been discovered among the effects of a shaman. It is axiomatic that the Cherokees lean toward the point of view that anyone may put to use any knowledge, no matter how esoteric, that he possesses. Nevertheless, a layman would be quite unlikely to know a text as relatively complex and, from the standpoint of his workaday language, as comparatively obscure as is this one.

The “going to the water” ritual that incorporates an i:gawé:sdi of the nature of the foregoing is likely to be a fairly simple one, although the exact details of the procedure would be subject to personal preferences of the medicine man. The client traditionally stands at dawn at the verge of running water, facing east. The medicine man, standing directly behind his client, states the latter’s name and clan and then in a low voice recites the text, after which the client stoops and laves his hands and face. This procedure is enacted four times. The entire ceremony is performed upon four consecutive mornings.

7. IF THEY HAVE GASHED THEMSELVES OR HAVE BEEN SHOT

FREE TRANSLATION

If they have gashed themselves or have been shot Le-tsi-yo-le!

COMMENTARY

Any Western Cherokee i:gawé:sdi captioned to the effect that the patient to whom it is applicable has been “shot” may be suspected of not being intended for the treatment of a gunshot wound; for its label may be metaphorical. In medicomagical parlance, the “shooting” of an individual signifies the introducing into his body by witchcraft of some foreign object such as a bit of wood, a piece of string, or an insect. The intruded object, the ga:dhidv,⁴⁶ is customarily removed either by the application of a poultice, or by the application of a poultice and a subsequent chirurgical procedure whereby the locus of affliction is first ceremonially incised and then sucked by means of a section of deer antler (cf. Kilpatrick and Kilpatrick, 1965a, p. 98 n. 3). But there exist true gunshot wound treatments: inasmuch as the caption of the text above informs us that the remedy it prefaces is for cuts and bullet wounds both, we may accept its utility at face value.

Conjurations for knife and ax gashes are numerous among both branches of the Cherokee people, and are widely known to the laity. A typical layman’s i:gawé:sdi previously reported (Kilpatrick, 1964, pp. 217–218), is cast in this format:

I just chopped stone; I just chopped wood; I just chopped earth; I just chopped water. It will not become inflamed.

The reciter of this charm symbolically transfers his cut to substances not subject to swelling, as is human flesh ….

The shamanistic formulas for cuts are usually little, if any, different from those employed by the laity. The shaman, however, blows the wound with chewed hickory bark in addition reciting a charm. The layman is apt to make a bit of mud by expectorating upon earth and then apply it to his injury. Earth from under a shelter—a porch, a shed, or a log—is considered best for this purpose.

The dual purpose of Ade:lagh(a)dhí:ya’s conjuration would in itself be justification for its lack of any resemblance to the i:gawé:sdi just quoted, but it in no way explains the peculiar features of the former. In the manuscript, each of the four syllables of the text is followed by a period (le. tsi. yo. le.) which is sometimes used in the Sequoyah syllabary, just as it is in English, to indicate an abbreviation. However, if we deal here with a series of incipits, the syllables do not form the beginnings of words that constitute any phase with which we, or knowledgeable individuals who have examined the manuscript, are familiar. Moreover, since conjurations of this type are generally among the least esoteric of all idi:gawé:sdi, it is difficult to perceive any reason for a desire to produce obfuscation.

We are of the opinion that the syllables are those of a medicine song, and that they derive from getsiyo:le, the short form of “shot they, by them (w.p.k.).” The initial syllable has possibly experienced a mutation in the interests of ease in singing, or else is the result of the elision of a word once existing plus getsiyo:le, possibly alegetsiyo:le or, in free translation, “And they are shot!”

All conjurations for gunshot wounds were, of course, originally for injuries from arrows. And such seems to have been the purpose of the one under consideration here. But the Western Cherokees hold that a given text may be of use in any medical situation for which its wording qualifies it; inasmuch as cuts are far more frequent than wounds from bullets, the caption mentions the latter incidentally.

The Eastern Cherokee shot-wound treatment recorded in Mooney and Olbrechts (1932, pp. 271–273) significantly also incorporates a song; but the physical aspects of the therapy administered by Swimmer differed somewhat from those applied by Ade:lagh(a)dhí:ya. Upon a wound the former blew the chewed inner bark of hickory (Carya tomentosa [Poir.] Nutt.) through a buzzard quill or the hollow stalk of a species of Gerardia; the latter probably used neither quill nor stalk, but blew directly upon the wound, after which he applied buzzard down as a styptic.

8. AND THIS IS TO “GO TO THE WATER” EARLY IN THE MORNING

FREE TRANSLATION

And this is to “Go to the Water” early in the morning

When one is stopped by Wizards⁵¹ and has given up, and when everything has gone thoroughly wrong, this is to alter the situation and to rid oneself of the evil.

COMMENTARY

Even the most cursory inspection of the text above would inevitably lead to some degree of uncertainty as to precisely what it is, but several possibilities as to its nature come to mind:

Hypothesis 1: It is an i:gawé:sdi.

Argument: While the text bears no resemblance to any other i:gawé:sdi that we have inspected, this fact, of itself, is of small consequence. But the circumstance that it incorporates none of the traditional elements, such as a device to command attention, an address to a spiritual force, and a quadripartite or septempartite structure, militates strongly against its being a true i:gawé:sdi.

Hypothesis 2: It is the digo:sisí:sgi of an i:gawé:sdi.

Argument: No i:gawé:sdi follows it in the manuscript. It is succeeded by a series of crosses, which is one of the conventional indications of the termination of a prescription. The text that follows thereafter is not a “going to the water” i:gawé:sdi. Moreover, it is not likely to be the digo:sisi:sgi of some text that for some reason was not committed to writing, for it provides no procedural information.

Hypothesis 3: At the time the manuscript was written, Ade:lagh(a)dhí:ya was still a neophyte shaman and doubtlessly under the tutelage of a master. The text is therefore a “lecture note,” so to speak.

Argument: Even a Cherokee child of Ade:lagh(a)dhí:-ya’s generation knew the various purposes for “going to the water.” The text does not contain information of the sort that would warrant the trouble taken to record it.

In our opinion the text under consideration is almost certainly an element in Cherokee medicomagic that, to our knowledge, has not yet been reported: the invocation to the spirit of running water which is prefatory to any “going to the water” rite. It is an entity unto itself, and is said by the shaman upon every occasion that he approaches a stream for a formal purpose. We have reason to believe that any shaman may possess a repertoire of these invocations, from which he may select an example suitable for use on a specific occasion. We quote a short specimen of one of these water invocations which is in our possession (Kilpatrick and Kilpatrick, MS.b):

Free Translation:

Now! Long Person!⁵³

Now to Your Place of Repose I have just come.

9. (TO PUT A WOMAN TO SLEEP)

FREE TRANSLATION

Now! You woman! I have just come to put you to sleep!

You just lent me bones,

You just lent me small bones,

I have just come to lie atop them: I am a Long-eared Owl!

COMMENTARY

Among the species of erotic incantations that have somehow failed to come to the attention of ethnologists is the type generally designated diga:dhliʔdhadi:sdi:yí (to put them to sleep, one). Even the very knowledge of one of the sleep-producing spells, not to mention the use of it, is held by the average Cherokee to be reprehensible. Because of this attitude, and possibly also because the working of sleep-magic is and always was, within the time range of the manuscript literature, infrequent, written examples of diga:dhliʔdhadi:sdí:yi texts are seldom encountered. The readiness of the Cherokees to attribute to their Creek neighbors the widespread use of soporific magical practice may not spring entirely from tribal chauvinism; for we have heard Creeks themselves deplore its common and increasing utilization.

Insofar as purpose is concerned, diga:dhliʔdhadi:sdí:yi magic falls into one or the other of two classifications:

1. To induce somnambulism in a desired woman, so that she will unobtrusively leave the home of her husband or her parents in order that her lover may be free of the opposition of both the members of her household and the will of the victim.

2. To put to sleep the family of the desired woman so that her lover may freely enter her house. The small size of the typical Cherokee dwelling, two or three rooms, normally offers small opportunity for clandestine erotic adventures.

Soporific incantations may be used to “remake” tobacco (tso:lagayartli is preferred), or they may be merely recited. The smoke of the tobacco is blown surreptitiously upon the victim, or else projected four times toward her residence. If an incantation is used alone, it is said four times, and after each delivery of it the incantator blows his breath toward the home of the victim.

10. (FOR A SPIDER BITE)

FREE TRANSLATION

Blue Spider! White Spider!

Now! Both of You!

COMMENTARY

Among the rarest of all conjurations represented in the manuscript literature are those for centipede stings and spider bites. The only published specimen of the former, to our knowledge, is the one in Kilpatrick (1964, p. 217), and apparently no example of the latter has ever appeared in print.

As Mooney and Olbrechts (1932, p. 19) have pointed out, “As a rule the spirit who has caused a disease is never prevailed upon to take the disease away; the office of another, rival, spirit is called upon to do this.” The i:gawé:sdi for a spider bite that appears here cannot be offered in contradiction to this statement: it was not a spirit spider that created the condition that made therapeutic measures necessary, but a real arachnid.

As is the case of the conjuration for the centipede sting, this is a text that any layman might know. We have already seen that a Cherokee medicine man does not restrict his jottings to professional information, but is likely to record any material that he feels may be of use to him. We have seen transcribed in shamans’ notebooks sporadic prescriptions that require as materia medica ingredients introduced by the Whites— kerosene, vinegar, turpentine, and the like—which were undoubtedly learned from White neighbors. They have, of course, no adjunctive conjurations. Occasionally shamans record, in a curious mixture of Sequoyan and Roman letters (the latter being necessary chiefly because Cherokee has no labials), conjurations in corrupt Creek and Natchez. Creek is spoken today as a first language by a sizable number of Indians who for the most part are of mixed Creek, Natchez, and Cherokee ancestry, but among whom are fullblood Cherokees, who live in the Oklahoma counties of Sequoyah and Muskogee. Natchez was spoken, up until a few years ago, by some members of this group.

The curing procedure which incorporates the foregoing i:gawé:sdi may be effected by the victim of the spider bite himself, and it is similar to that for a centipede sting: the therapist recites the conjuration four times, and then expectorates upon and rubs with saliva the locus of the bite. Tobacco is not used, and the treatment is customarily administered only once.

The significance of the colors attributed to the spider spirits appears to be this: there is progression—in fact, quick transition—from blue, the symbol of trouble and illness, to white, the symbol of relief and well-being.

11. TO TURN ONE ASIDE WITH

FREE TRANSLATION

To turn one aside with

Now! Listen!

Red Panther, You have just come to make one radiant shadow.

Ha! Quickly!

Ha! Quickly you have just come to hear it.⁶⁰

(I will be hearing it.)⁶¹

We have just come to elbow them aside.

(They are not to find it out.)

They are to be covered with a Great Black Loneliness.⁶²

They are not to be trailed and found.

(We just interred them over there in the mud.)

Ha! The Clan Districts are not to be able to revile me about!

Gv:ʔ! Gv:ʔ! Gv:ʔ! Gv:ʔ!⁶³

COMMENTARY

While the Eastern Cherokee theory on the causation of disease as expounded by Mooney and Olbrechts (1932, pp. 17–39) would, in a general way, agree with that entertained by the Western Cherokees of Ade:lagh(a)dhí:ya’s time, there would be a lack of correspondence between the two in the matter of the relative weight assigned to component details. In Oklahoma, the concept of violated taboos as a cause of disease, except in regard to menstruant and pregnant women, has become greatly eroded. Hunting taboos, and the vengeance of animal ghosts who punish their nonobservance, are largely forgotten. But the microbe has by no means replaced malicious human agency as the explanation for a large, perhaps the major, portion of human ills.

Even a casual comparative inspection of the Eastern Cherokee medicor-eligious manuscripts in the Smithsonian Institution and the American Philosophical Society Library and the Western Cherokee writings in our collection, all of which were written over the approximate span of the last hundred years, reveals the emphasis placed by the Oklahomans upon the ané:li:sgi (those who think purposefully), antisocial human beings who, through the power of the mind, project evil upon other human beings. An animal or bird spirit may be the actual missile, but it was loosed by, and the guilt of its destructive effects belong to, the evil human intellect.

The caption of the above text might lead one to suspect that it be a euphemism, and that the actual purpose of the i:gawé:sdi it heads might be for the taking of human life (see No. 13); in Oklahoma, as well as in North Carolina, “bad” texts are sometimes camouflaged by misleading labels (Mooney and Olbrechts, 1932, pp. 154, 158). But the tenor of the text shows that the incantation is a protection charm. Judging from its septempartite form and its wording, it is an exceedingly powerful one such as a shaman would resort to in order to defend himself against sorcerers working against him personally, not against a client of his. It would appear to be a “going to the water” i:gawé:sdi.

12. (TO REMOVE ANGER)

FREE TRANSLATION

[Your name is————; your people are————.]⁶⁷

The Red Man is deep within my heart.

I have just come to pacify you.

I have just come to make an image of you out of Black Wood.

(Ha! His body is heavy!)

I have just come to fill you up!

Gv:ʔ Gv.ʔ Gv:ʔ Gv:ʔ⁶⁸

COMMENTARY

Incantations of the class to which the above belongs are customarily headed with some wording to the effect of an(a)dá:n(a)gwa:dhihí yv:wi yí:gi (holders of anger, they [persons] if it is); or, in other words, “to use against those who hold grudges.” The purpose in employing one of these texts would not be to injure those who harbor ill-will against one, but simply to remove animosity from their minds. In this respect, anger-removing idi:gawé:sdi are cognate with another genre of incantations, those usually labeled digv:ghé:hw(i) sdoʔdhí:yi (to make one forget (m.a.) with, one). The former, however, are far more potent than the latter.

A simple “forgetting” text is ordinarily merely said, or thought; anger-removing magic usually entails the “remaking” of tobacco. However, the tobacco is prepared and utilized in the conventional manner.

In the above text the incantator derives his authority from Thunder Himself, “The Red Man” (cf. Mooney and Olbrechts, 1932, pp. 23–24), the Being who is subordinate only to the Provider, and who is the special friend and protector of the Cherokee people (cf. Kilpatrick and Kilpatrick, 1964d, pp. 50–56). The color black is symbolic not only of misfortune and death, but also of forgetfulness. The soul of the anger-bearer is transformed into a ligneous and therefore rigid, and black, and therefore nonremembering image of its former self. The body of that individual, having been made preternaturally heavy (having been “filled up” with weight) will be lethargic and nonaggressive.

Anger-removing texts are fairly numerous in the unpublished literature of the Western Cherokees, but we are not cognizant of any published examples of them.

13. (TO DESTROY A RIVAL IN A LOVE AFFAIR[?])

FREE TRANSLATION

Blue Crow!

The Crow is not to ask me.

(“You have been put to sleep in the ground,” You⁷³ and I are to say.)

Now! Bluebird!

Now perhaps the Crow has all of us in this condition.

Red Spider!

You and I have just come to blow right here on the Pathway.

Right here upon the Pathway You will be sitting, with Your Back visible.

You are a Wizard.

Crow, You are not to overcome Earth!

Seven Clan Districts, all of us come from over there at the Sun-settings.

(The Evil Mind is to climb over him [her]!)

One is to eat Black forever!

One is to eat Earth!

(He [she] will be tormented by them until he [she] dies!)

Crow, you are not to overcome Earth!

COMMENTARY

Writing of incantations designed to take human life, Mooney and Olbrechts (1932, p. 154) state: “Of all the ‘bad’ formulas, this is the worst kind, and rarely a medicine man will own that he knows one, or even that he has one in his possession.” The same may be said of Oklahoma shamans, who label their lethal incantations with such euphemistic titles as “to change one,” “to lower one’s soul,” and the like.

Mooney (1890, pp. 391–395) describes in detail how his informant, the medicine man Swimmer, implemented a destroyer incantation. The procedure would be inapplicable here. A shaman himself would not employ this incantation, but rather use it to “remake” for a client tobacco with which to exterminate a personal enemy. The smoke from it is blown upon, or in the direction of the victim.

The “Crow” in reference above is not a bird spirit, but a metaphor for an enemy (cf. No. 6). The “Bluebird” is frequently seen as an erotic symbol, a figurative allusion to a lover in whom the “Crow” has an interest. In short, this text would appear to be for the purpose of eliminating with finality a rival in a love affair. It could be used by a woman as well as by a man.

14. (TO PROTECT AGAINST THINKERS)

FREE TRANSLATION

Now! This is my name:————

Now! These are my people:————

Now! Since I went under the Star, I am as much as a Wizard.

Now! Since I went under the Blackjack Oak, I am as much as a Wizard.

Now! Since I went under the Ground, I am as much as a Wizard.

Now! You Seven Clan Districts!

All of you partake of the Blue!

All of you partake of U:Ya!

Now! This is my name:————

It is not necessary for me to say, “Blue”!

It is not necessary for me to say, “U:ya”!

COMMENTARY

The foregoing appears to be the i:gawé:sdi of a ritual for the purpose of protecting a shaman against “thinkers.” Since septempartite texts are seldom used without accompanying implementing measures, it is safe to assume that the example here, while effective in the “remaking” of tobacco, is primarily for “going to the water.”

The metaphorical concept of the incantator who burrows under entities in a gamut of descending altitudes symbolizes the secretiveness of the magician’s endeavors. Why the blackjack (Quercus marilandica Muench.), rather than some other variety of oak, is specified is not clear. To our knowledge, the blackjack has no particular magical significance.

Embedded in Cherokee ritualistic texts are the designations for several spiritual beings, the qualities and powers of whom even shamans have but the vaguest concepts. U:ya, sometimes called U:yaga, is one of the more ubiquitous of these. “An evil earth-spirit” is as close to a definition of this being as any shaman of our acquaintance has ever been able to arrive. Any spiritual force being intrinsically evil is a motif that is weakly represented in Cherokee theology, but (insofar as we know) U:ya is invariably opposed to the forces of right and light. We have yet to encounter a layman who has even heard the name of this spirit.

15. (TO MAKE A WOMAN LONELY)

FREE TRANSLATION

Listen! Quickly It⁸¹ has just come to descend to your heart.

[Your name is_________; your people are_________.]⁸²

Ha! I have just gathered so much of the Brightness of the Blue Tobacco as to cause something to happen in the Large Thicket.⁸³

I truly went under the Seven!⁸⁴

COMMENTARY

One observes here an erotic incantation for the purpose of “remaking” tobacco for use in inducing in a woman the incantator desires the emotional state known as uhí:soʔdí (Kilpatrick and Kilpatrick 1965b, pp. 10–11):

Although we have consistently translated the term uhí:soʔdí as “lonely” or “loneliness,” in reality it is an exceedingly difficult word to define. Mooney (1890, p. 377) observes that it is “… a very expressive word to a Cherokee and is of constant recurrence in the love formulas. It refers to that intangible something characteristic of certain persons which inevitably chills and depresses the spirits of all who may be so unfortunate as to come within its influences.” We point out (1964 d, p. 191) that it is “… a state of ecstatic yearning, an otherworldly melancholia peculiarly Cherokeean. It is generally attributed to the sorcery of an enemy.”

A subtype of the attraction charm is the incantation to produce uhí:soʔdí in a woman. The excruciating lovesickness that results from the use of such magic causes a woman to be repelled by her familiar associations and surroundings, and drives her to seek surcease in the arms of her enchanter. Several North Carolina uhí:soʔdi producing idi:gawé:sdi are recorded in Mooney (1890, pp. 375–380). Like other “attraction” incantations, they may be either said or sung, employed in “going to the water,” or utilized in tobacco “remaking.”

There are seven Western Cherokee erotic uhí:soʔdí incantations appearing in translation in Kilpatrick and Kilpatrick (1965b, pp. 58–76), and there is an exceedingly beautiful example of this type of charm in Kilpatrick and Kilpatrick (1965a, p. 70).

Through the use of the above text, tobacco is “remade” in the conventional manner: either by a medicine man for a client, or by the client himself after having learned from a professional the proper procedure for preparing it. The tobacco is then utilized as described in No. 9.

16. (?)

FREE TRANSLATION

Ugv:tsawi!

Ugv:tsawi!

Ugv:tsawi!

Ugv:tsawi!

I arose from over there!

Ige:tsaga!

Ige:tsaga!

Ige:tsaga!

Ige:tsaga!

I arose from over there

Ga:natsu:hnv!

Ga:natsu:hnv!

Ga:natsu:hnv!

Ga:natsu:hnv!

I just went there and returned!

Na:tsawi!

Na:tsawi!

Na:tsawi!

Na:tsawi!

I just went there and returned!

“Relief!” I will then be saying!

COMMENTARY

There is no internal clue as to the purpose of this text, although the cliché with which it concludes (“Relief!” I will then be saying!) would point toward its being a healing conjuration.⁸⁵

The four terms which we cannot translate are, in the opinion of the son-in-law of Ade:lagh(a)dhí:ya and also in ours, ritualistic designations for the cardinal points of the compass, and it is logical to assume that they are to be sung. “While the terms Ugv:tsawi and Na:tsawi bear a resemblance to the names, occasionally seen in ini:gawé:sdi, of the Two Little Men (in the myth concerning the origin of death) who went to the Nightland and brought back from there the body of the girl who was the first victim of mortality (cf. Kilpatrick and Kilpatrick, 1966), and while Ige:tsaga per se has a definite meaning (they just ate you), and Ga:-natsu:hnv conceivably could be derived from the stem-ga:hnaw-(to warm), we are not convinced that an exegesis of these terms is now possible.

The symbolic origin of the reciter of a medical or magical text in some locus that is a poetic concept, or his figurative ability to commute to some point un-attainable by the average human being, is rather frequently found in Cherokee idi:gawé:sdi, both Eastern and Western.

17. ONE IS TO USE FOUR BLACK ROOTS

FREE TRANSLATION

One is to use four black roots

Now! Listen! You Provider, You Straightener of Souls, You Helper of a Person!

You face in Both Directions!⁹³

Now! Ice!

Ice!

Ice!

Ice!

Bear!

Bear!

Bear!

Bear!

Bear!

Bear!

Bear!

Bear!

He is supplied with food!

He is supplied with food!

He is supplied with food!

He is supplied with food!

He is supplied with food!

He is supplied with food!

He is supplied with food!

He is supplied with food!

He [she] pains!

He [she] pains!

He [she] pains!

He [she] pains!

Not!

Not!

Not!

Not!

Live Water, Long Water, You originated Up There in the Seven Heavens!

“It is to help you with!” You stated, and You have come to live upon the Seven Earths!

COMMENTARY

If the foregoing be for some type of “the black,” as its caption would imply, it deviates significantly from the many other idi:gawé:sdi of its general class that we have seen. The appeal to the Provider Himself, with which the example opens is, to be sure, a standard motif in conjurations for “the black,” although seldom does one encounter one of these supplications which, in poetic quality, can bear comparison to the above. And it is perhaps not coincidental that the two terminal lines appear to be cut out of the same choice literary cloth. In fact, one is led to suspect that the first two and the last two lines of the text constitute a beautiful quadripartite conjuration into the middle of which a septempartite song has been interpolated.

We (Kilpatrick and Kilpatrick, 1965b, p. 5) made no attempt to be exhaustive in our discussion of interpolations into medicomagical texts, and a song is as legitimate in insertion as are the entities designated here:

And while it is true that the Cherokee shaman is no more at liberty to alter phraseology than is the celebrant of the Eucharist, certain interpolations, analogous to the tropes of the Middle Ages, are admissable.

Most commonly these extraneous elements take the form of: the repetition of a key word the sacred four times; the interjection of the supremely sacrosanct numeral seven; the insertion of the pronoun ayv (I); and a hiatus in which the reciter thinks intently upon the purpose of the ritual. These are not introduced with complete freedom, but only at certain junctures approved by custom, and they are usually indicated in manuscripts texts by symbols—crosses, numerals, a series of vertical dashes, and the like.

The text of the interpolated song, if song it be, will be perceived to incorporate two patterns based upon “four” within an overall framework predicated upon “seven” (see chart, facing column).

There is nothing in the wording of this portion of the complete text that would indicate any special appropriateness to treating “the black.” For example, none of the various manifestations of this condition is characterized by a febrile state, and it would appear that the cooling powers of ice would be of small service to a sufferer from “the black.” We have yet to see any other conjuration for “the black” that appeals to the bear spirit; and what significance attaches to this force being “supplied with food” is an obscurity. Moreover, “the black” typically is not an extraordinarily painful condition.

An Oklahoma Cherokee shaman feels that he has the license to employ a text known to him in any circumstances for which he deems it appropriate. One is driven to the conclusion that the appropriateness here derives not from wording, but from the uncommon power that accrues from its potent numerology.

18. (FOR DIVINING WITH A SUSPENDED OBJECT)

FREE TRANSLATION

[My name is ; my people are .]⁹⁴

Now! You Provider!

Now You will tell me.

It is not the passing thoughts of Thinkers, but a Person who has just come to inform me.⁹⁵

COMMENTARY

Divining is one of the duties of a dida:hnvwi:sg(i), for it is necessary that he inquire into the nature, origin, and prognosis of a client’s malady. Indeed, it is traditional that he refrain from accepting any individual as a client until such time as divination has been performed for the purpose of ascertaining whether or not he, as a healer, possesses the power to be of usefulness to the individual. If investigation reveals that some other shaman has superior qualifications for being of specific service to the sufferer, the latter is so informed.

In matters of no very great importance, one of the commonest methods of divining is the observing of the directional swing of a plummet; a coin or a ring suspended upon a string. (It is absolutely imperative that the suspended object be of some material, or derived from some material, that comes out of the earth; in former times it was a pebble or an arrowhead.) East, of course, is the favorable direction, and west the converse of it. Sometimes the suspended object is partially immersed in a bowl, which must be new, filled with water freshly drawn from a flowing stream. Sometimes the diviner prefers to perform at dawn beside a stream, using not a manmade ceramic artifact, but a bowl-sized depression, either of natural origin or one that he has scooped out himself.

An i:gawé:sdi such as the above is said, or thought, before each of four observances of the swinging of the suspended object.

19. SECOND ONE (FOR DIVINING WITH NEEDLES)

FREE TRANSLATION

Second One

[My name is : my people are ]¹

Now! I will question You, You Provider, My Provider of everything that is right.

You Foreseer, it is not in vain.²

You are to tell me everything that is right and good.

You Foreseer!

You Ancient One!

You Provider!

COMMENTARY

The above text is almost certainly primarily for use in divining with a needle or a pair of needles. Needle-divining is done in a new bowl, preferably about 6 or 8 inches in diameter and of white porcelain. After filling this receptacle with water freshly dipped from a flowing source, the medicine man places it upon the floor or ground. He then stoops down, facing east, and if he is using a single needle, he places it upon the middle finger of his right hand, recites an i:gawé:sdi four times, and blows his breath upon the needle after each of the deliveries. He then slowly immerses his finger until the needle floats upon the surface of the water.

The direction in which the needle comes to rest is the chief interpretive omen, but the length of time it floats is also of significance. In determining the longevity of the client, for example, the latter is of special importance: if the needle sinks rapidly, the client has not long to live; if it floats for an appreciable length of time, the client has many years of life remaining to him.

Divination with a needle is also sometimes employed for the purpose of learning in what direction lost or stolen property is to be found.

Divining with a pair of needles is resorted to chiefly for the purpose of obtaining a prognosis of a client’s illness. The shaman places the needles in the palm of his hand, then recites, blows, and introduces the first of the two needles in the manner detailed above. The second needle, balanced upon the middle finger of his left hand, is then set afloat upon the surface of the water at a distance of about 4 inches from the first. If the needles keep this distance, or drift farther apart, the prognosis is good; if however, the lefthand needle should drift over and touch the dextral one, especially if it should strike headfirst, the prognosis is poor. Should the righthand needle sink as the result of the contact, the prognosis is well-nigh hopeless.

20. (FOR DIVINING WITH STONES)

FREE TRANSLATION

Now! Now You Provider, who made the Stones alive, I have just come to question You.⁴

COMMENTARY

There is a simple Western Cherokee method of divining whereby a direct answer may be obtained to a question involving such clearcut opposites as “yes and no,” “good and bad,” “do and do not,” and the like. The divining apparatus consists of two round pebbles which are approximately the size of acorns. In using them, the diviner tightly clenches a stone in each hand, delivers an i:gawé:sdi (such as the above) four times, opens his hands, and then studies the movement of the objects. If the stone in his right hand is observed to change its position, a favorable or positive answer has been received; the converse is true if the pebble in the left hand is seen to move.

21. (FOR “GOING TO THE WATER” TO ENSURE LONGEVITY)

FREE TRANSLATION

Now! Listen!

Long Person!

You have just come to hear.

“Feed him [her]!” You and I have just come to say to each other.

Ha! They will be living with You.

(You are not to release them from Your Hand.)

They have just come to stand upon the very middle of Your Body.

(You are not to release them from Your Hand.)

Ha! He⁹ has just come to aim the White Cloth at his [her] soul.

He has just come to aim the White Chair at his [her] soul.

He will be aiming the White Walkingstick at his [her] soul.

(You and I have just come to put it into his [her] hands.

His [her] soul is able to live unto White Hair.)

Ha! You and I have just come to elevate him [her] far above to the Place of Utter Wizardry—Seven!—to the place of Utter Wizardry!

The Way is Opened through the Seven Clan Districts.

Ha! The Way is Opened through the Seven Clan Districts.

Ha! He has just come to aim his [her] soul at the Utmost Seven Heights.

He has just come to aim his [her] soul at where the White Chair is resting.

Ha! You and I have just come to elevate him [her] there to the Seven Distant Heights!

COMMENTARY

Western Cherokee “going to the water” prayers to ensure longevity tend to be both longer and more poetic than other types of idi:gawé:sdi. There is a shorter than ordinary but very beautiful example of one translated in Kilpatrick and Kilpatrick, (1965a, pp. 80–81). These texts display much stereotyped but noble imagery: the water spirit bestows upon the communicant various symbols of a “white” (and therefore serene and revered) old age—a cloth, a chair, a walkingstick, and hair.

Some longevity rituals do not require the services of a shaman. An individual, a pair of mates, or a family group begins the recitation of a longevity prayer upon leaving home, and terminates it upon reaching the brink of running water. (Most Cherokee homes are built within a short distance of a creek or a spring.) There follows a ceremonial laving of the hands and face, or else immersion.

The present prayer is clearly a professional one. It is spoken four times by a shaman as his client stands at dawn, facing east, by flowing water. Judging by the wording of the text, immersion follows each recital of the prayer.

22. (TO HELP ONESELF WITH)

FREE TRANSLATION

Now! Listen!

Red Garter Snake!

Above, in the very middle of Your Place of Repose, You Great Wizard, both sides of You are equally sharp!

Nothing is to climb over You.

Very quickly You have just come to hear.

Now You have just brought down the Pathway.

Ha! Those persons who dwell—Ha!—on earth—Ha!— You block.

You are a bypasser of their souls there in the Clan Districts.

You and I now have just come to hold up the Tobacco Smoke.

Ha! You block them over there.

They are not to speak.

They are unable to pass under you.

You win be walking to and fro everywhere the White has been Reposed Above.

In the Place where the Ancient One holds up the Smoke, let us, You and I, hold it up!

COMMENTARY

As will be perceived, the text above is a slightly different version of No. 5.

In a society as numerically large and as widely distributed geographically as that of the Oklahoma Cherokees, and in an institution (such as their shamanism) lacking so many elements that would tend to make for centralization of authority, it is to be expected that any given ritualistic text found among them would have variants. We have seen as many as 10 or 12 different versions of some examples; it is not unusual for a shaman to inscribe 2 or 3 in one notebook.

23. (FOR BLISTERS[?])

FREE TRANSLATION

Listen! Red Person Above, You have just come to hear.

You are a Great Wizard.

You are to fail in nothing.

The Sun is to cause it to hurt.

It will be happening that You are to go over there and get It.

Listen! Red Eagle Above, You have just come to hear.

You are a Great Wizard.

You are to fail in nothing.

The Sun is to cause it to hurt.

… over there and get it …

COMMENTARY

This is an unsuccessful attempt to transcribe No. 24. A comparison of the above with the latter reveals the negating omissions that made a new start necessary.

24. (FOR BLISTERS[?])

FREE TRANSLATION

Listen! Red Person Above, You have just come to hear.

You are a Great Wizard.

You are to fail in nothing.

The Sun is to cause it to hurt.

It will be happening that You are to go over there and get It.

(He holds the Great Evil in His Hands!)

Very quickly!

Listen! Red Eagle Above, You have just come to hear.

You are a Great Wizard.

You are to fail in nothing.

The Sun is to cause it to hurt.

It will be happening that You are to go over there and get It.

(He holds the Great Evil in His Hands!)

Very quickly!

Listen! Red Fishinghawk Above, You have just come to hear.

You are a Great Wizard.

You are to fail in nothing.

The Sun is to cause it to hurt.

It will be happening that You are to go over there and get It.

(He holds the Great Evil in His Hands!)

Very quickly!

Listen! Red Kingfisher Above, You have just come to hear.

You are a Great Wizard.

You are to fail in nothing.

The Sun is to cause it to hurt.

It will be happening that You are to go over there and get It.

(He holds the Great Evil in His Hands!)

Very quickly!

I am a Wizard!

You are there!

You are there!

You are there!

You are there!

The Stream is still there!

COMMENTARY

Mooney and Olbrechts (1932, pp. 20–21), writing in reference to North Carolina Cherokee medical theory, state what would appear to be equally true in regard to the philosophy of the Oklahoma Cherokee shamans: a few maladies are attributed by them to the effects of the sun—blisters, and some fevers and headaches. Mooney and Olbrechts (ibid.) record two treatments for the former, defined as “the burning and festering ‘fever blisters,’ which according to the medicine men are worst in the hottest part of summer and upon children” (p. 211), and which “are caused, according to the medicine man, by the heat of the sun” (p. 250). In the conjurations involved in these ministrations, cooling spiritual forces, with patent logic, are invoked (Frost, Little Fog, ibid. p. 210, Blue Man from the Cold Land, p. 250).

If the above conjuration be for blisters, fever, or headache, it bears little resemblance to others that we have seen for these ills. It alludes to the sun as a causative agency, but the spirits appealed to are not those to whom are usually attributed qualities that would be of efficacy against heat. In short, the purpose of the i:gawé:sdi is problematical.

We assume the words beginning with “I am a Wizard,” to be the text of a song appended to the independent conjuration itself. The song would appear to partake somewhat of the nature of an invocation to the spirit of running water, a circumstance which strongly suggests that after each recitation of the conjuration and delivery of the song, the patient is blown with “live water.”

25. (FOR ATTENDING A GATHERING AT WHICH WOMEN ARE PRESENT)

COMMENTARY

The layman’s charm for attracting the notice of women, or for gaining the affection of a particular woman, is typically uncomplicated in structure. Very frequently, it is a quatrain molded into a pattern that is basically repetitive and therefore easily committed to memory. Such is the present example, one that apparently is chiefly applicable to a situation where the incantator is upon the point of attending a social gathering at which eligible young women are present. It is merely said, or thought, four times, after each projection of it the incantator blows his breath toward the gathering that he is about to enter.

In various connotations, water, earth, wood and stone occur in Cherokee medicomagical texts (cf. No. 1). In the i:gawé:sdi here the calling to the attention of the fundamental environmental verities enumerating the masculinity of the reciter has the force of: “I serve notice upon all creation that I am now very much a man.”

FREE TRANSLATION

Now! Listen! I am a young man, Wood!

Now! Listen! I am a young man, Water!

Now! Listen! I am a young man, Stone!

Now! Listen! I am truly a young man!

26. TO MAKE TOBACCO WHEN THEY ARE HURTING SOMEWHERE

FREE TRANSLATION

To make tobacco when they are hurting somewhere

Listen! Brown Person! You and I have just come to live with Them.²⁷

You and I are Great Wizards.

You and I are to fail in nothing.

Each of the Seven Clan Districts is not to climb over You and me!

Listen! Brown Place of the Whirlwind[?]! You and I have just come to live with Them.

You and I are Great Wizards.

You and I are to fail in nothing.

Each of the Seven Clan Districts is not to climb over You and me!

COMMENTARY

This is an obvious variant of No. 4 (p. 89) and departs from it only in relatively minor details. Our observation has been such as to lead us to believe that shamans have slight inclination to ascribe canonical status to any particular version of a text known to them in several variants. However, they sometimes feel that in a given situation one variant would be more appropriate than another would be. Choices are frequently made through inspiration.

27. MEDICINE FOR THE SIDES

FREE TRANSLATION

Medicine for the sides

The Kingfisher just licked you!

The Green Frog just licked you!

The Dragonfly just licked you!

The Wind just licked you. (To be said four times.)

COMMENTARY

From the point of view of the White man’s symptomatology, a pain in one’s side, or sides, might be accepted as evidence of the existence of any one of a large number of pathological states as dissimilar from each other as appendicitis is from pneumonia, but the Cherokee medicine man considers the condition to be a distinct ailment. A good many dini:sgwagé:ni treatments, North Carolina and Oklahoma both, exist in manuscript, and two of these therapeutic procedures are published in Mooney and Olbrechts (1932, pp. 236–239, 267–269). Neither of these published texts bears much resemblance to Ade:lagh(a)dhí:ya’s example.

Mooney and Olbrechts (ibid., pp. 268–269) record the physical measures of the therapy as “… a simple rubbing with the warm hands. The medicine man recites the formula during the rubbing, and blows his breath four times upon the body [of the patient] at the end of each paragraph. The rubbing at first is easy on account of the soreness of the patient, but the medicine man gradually increases the pressure of his hands.” In Oklahoma, the procedure in dini:swagé:ni therapy is, as a rule, somewhat different from the foregoing, and quite similar to that for unv:le:sdv (cf. No. 3): the medicine man chews a small amount of plug tobacco, spits it into his left hand, then kneads it with a counterclockwise rolling motion of the extended fingers of his right hand as he recites an i:gawé:sdi such as the above. He then warms his hands over coals, after which he firmly presses them to the site of the pain until they become cool. This is done four times; if the case is a severe one, treatment is administered upon four occasions in a series.

A medicine man may elect to omit tobacco from his therapy. If he does so, he says an applicable conjuration while warming his hands over coals, after which he applies his hands to his patient in the manner stated above, and with the same adherence to numerological fiat.

The figure of a spirit coming to lick away pain is occasionally seen in Cherokee idi:gawé:sdi. One wonders, however, what the four spirits that offer their good offices to the patient under treatment with the above conjuration have in common. It is true that the kingfisher, the green frog, and the dragonfly are primarily denizens of an aqueous environment, yet the wind is not. The clue to the selection of the spirits may be in their very diversity: the kingfisher is a bird, the green frog an amphibian, the dragonfly an insect, and the wind a natural force.

28. MEDICINE FOR THE BACKS OF THEIR NECKS

FREE TRANSLATION

Medicine for the backs of their necks

Cricket Frog, You like to eat it!

Toad Frog, You like to eat it!

Green Frog, You like to eat it!

Mink, You like to eat it! (To be said four times.)

COMMENTARY

This is a conjuration specifically for cervical arthritis and the therapy adjunctive to it is as in No. 3. The affinity of the burning of the pain and fever of the malady under treatment to the spirit inhabitants of cool loci is patent.

29. (FOR “REMAKING” TOBACCO FOR USE IN GAMBLING)

FREE TRANSLATION

In the deep forest I was in the Treetops.

In the deep forest I just came to descend from a Treetop.

Until I finish with them they are not to be stingy with their wealth.

All of you have just come to bring it to me in front of the Seven Clan Districts.

(You³⁷ have just come to put the money in my hand!)

The Peewee just came and went.

He observed the “insect”!³⁸

COMMENTARY

The text seen here is for “remaking” tobacco (as described in No. 4) for use in influencing the outcome of a game of chance. Idi:gawé:sdi applicable to gambling and those employed for gaining property are not identical, although one type bears a general resemblance to the other. Both are reported in Kilpatrick and Kilpatrick, 1967.

The smoke from “remade” smoking tobacco is blown upon one’s opponents while gaming: “remade” chewing tobacco is masticated, and minute quantities of saliva impregnated with it are applied to the fingertips.

30. (FOR TONSILLITIS)

FREE TRANSLATION

Now! Now Deer, eat the tonsil-swelling!

Ha! “Relief!” I wall then be saying!

Now! Now Tobacco Moth, eat the tonsil swelling!

Ha! “Relief!” I will then be saying!

COMMENTARY

The word dhule:tsi is a somewhat difficult one to define. Mooney (1900, p. 516) states that it means “‘kernels’, a goitrous swelling upon the throat”; Olbrechts (MS.) understands it to be a term for scrofula: to the Oklahoma Cherokee shaman it is the external swelling which results from tonsillitis. His usual treatment for it is this: he first heats an old, well-weathered corncob upon hot ashes; he then “remakes” the corncob as if it were tobacco (by saying a conjuration as he rolls it counterclockwise, and then expectorating upon it); finally, it presses it against the swelling. The therapy consists of four such applications upon four occasions seriatum. Between ministrations the patient beats and applies the corncob to himself ad libitum.

A treatment which is a variant of the foregoing is sometimes used: the warmed hands of the medicine man are substituted for the corncob.

Why the specific spirits are invoked for the purpose of “eating”—and thus reducing—the swelling is not entirely clear, but there may be some connection between the nervous deer and the fluttery moth and the patient who is chilling from severe bacterial infection (cf. Mooney and Olbrechts, 1932, p. 299).

31. MORE “THEY HAVE BEEN SHOT” MEDICINE

FREE TRANSLATION

More “they have been shot” medicine

Tsi-na-du!

Tsi-hna-wa!

COMMENTARY

As in the case of No. 7, this appears to be the text of a song to be sung in the treatment of a gunshot wound, the therapeutic approach to which would be precisely as previously stated.

The vocalizations Hi-na-du! and O-ha-na-du!, which we have seen in various manuscripts, are, according to shamanistic opinion, symbolic of the voice of Thunder. We, therefore, assume Tsi-na-du! to be another form of this vocalization—possibly one with the presence of the first person objective pronominal prefix tsi. Tsi-hna-wa! appears to derive from utsi:hna-wa (relief, it).

32. TO DOCTOR ARTHRITIS

FREE TRANSLATION

To doctor arthritis

Now! Blue Squirrel, You reside Above!

(Now, after leaping, He is to be clinging to him [her] over there!)

Yellow Squirrel, You reside Above!

(Now, after leaping, He is to be clinging to him [her] over there!)

Black Squirrel, You reside Above!

(Now, after leaping, He is to be clinging to him [her] over there!)

White Squirrel, You reside Above!

(Now, after leaping, He is to be clinging to him [her] over there!)

COMMENTARY

The Eastern Cherokee practice of treating arthritic conditions by scratching the skin of a painful joint is fully reported in Mooney and Olbrechts (1932, pp. 196, 203–204). While one gets the impression that scratching, both ceremonial and medical, was never employed in Oklahoma to the extent used in North Carolina, it nevertheless was, and is, practiced.

Because of the wording of the conjuration under examination here, we offer the opinion that it constitutes the text of a scratching i:gawé:sdi. The four squirrel spirits leap down from the heavens, enter the scratching implement (a brier, a snaketooth, a piece of flint or glass), and cling with their sharp claws to the diseased part of the patient’s body.

The shaman says a conjuration four times before incising the skin of the patient with four parallel scratches. The direction of the incisions symbolically leads the malady out of the body: for example, if the arthritis is located in an elbow, the scratching would be directed downward toward the hand. The ceremony is enacted but once, and an herbal preparation may or may not be applied to the area under treatment subsequent to the scratching of it.

The colors attributed to the squirrel spirits clearly symbolize a general progression from “bad” to “good”, as one might expect, they are in such an order that white, the color of peace and relief, is the terminal hue.

33. (FOR “THE BIG BLACK”)

FREE TRANSLATION

It was the Black Crow.

It was just the Rainbow.

He thrust It⁴² into the very middle of your head.

Now! Live Water! Long Water! (One is to use “new” water)

COMMENTARY

Despite the reference to the Rainbow in the text itself, the primary purpose of this conjuration would appear to be to treat a case of gv:hnágeʔú:dhan(a), not of “the rainbow.” One notes that water alone is to be used; the inference is therefore strong that we have here therapy for a situation wherein there exists no time to prepare an infusion of wild senna roots (cf. Nos. 2 and 17).

34. (FOR GASTRIC DISTENSION)

FREE TRANSLATION

He just expelled for him [her] the air from his [her] intestines, He says.⁴⁴

“I just expelled the air from my intestines!” he [she] says.⁴⁵

He just expelled for him [her] the air from his [her] intestines, He says.

“I just expelled the air from my intestines!” he [she] says.

He just expelled for him [her] the air from his [her] intestines, He says.

“I just expelled the air from my intestines!” he [she] says.

COMMENTARY

Conjurations used for the gastric distension and flatulency resultant from overeating are usually captioned with some form of verb deriving from the stem— yalé:dhi:s—. The present text, although unlabeled, is indubitably a surfeit—i:gawé:sdi.

One of the commonest treatments for the gastric distress following upon overindulgence is this: with the extended forefinger of his right hand, the medicine man describes a counterclockwise circle upon the abdomen of his patient. He then chews a small portion of plug or twist tobacco, spits it upon the palm of his left hand, and rubs his hands together in a counterclockwise rotation while he softly recites a conjuration. After warming his hands over coals, he massages the patient’s abdomen with a counterclockwise circular movement. He finishes with a clutching gesture upon the skin of the sufferer, says Hiʔaʔ! (This!), and symbolically throws the malady away. The ritual is enacted four times.

The format of the text seen here is puzzling and one wonders if a final pair of lines is not missing.

35. (FOR “THE BIG BLACK”)

FREE TRANSLATION

Tso-su-wa! So-su-wa!⁴⁸

He [she] and I just came from the West over there.

He [she] and I go toward the East over there.

Get up: you and I always go!

Now “Relieved’” he has just come to say.

COMMENTARY

We see here another conjuration for “the big black.” In it, the voice of a spirit (presumably that of the Provider) reminds the comatose patient that he has been brought back from the West, in Cherokee theology the abode of departed souls, and that, in company with his Rescuer, is progressing toward the East, the realm of life and hope. The spiritual voice then commands the sufferer to arise, as it comforts him with the reminder that he has the power to do so. (Cf. Nos. 2, 17, 36, and 40.)

36. FOR “THE BIG BLACK”

FREE TRANSLATION

For “the big black”

Run, You Provider!

Uncover him [her]!

“I just handed the Blue to you.”

You move!

You move!

You move!

You move!

COMMENTARY

Conjurations for “the big black” that request the removal of the darkness that has overwhelmed a patient, seemingly are routinely directed to the Provider Himself—a circumstance which provides insight into how grave the medical situation is considered to be.

The line “I just handed the Blue to you” is almost certainly the Voice of the Provider, but whether it is the shaman or the patient who is granted possession of, and thus mastery over, the illness (the Blue), is not clear. We surmise that it is the former (cf. Nos. 2, 17, 33, and 35).

37. CHICKEN REMEDY

FREE TRANSLATION

Now! Spunkwater in a red oak.⁵⁴

(Chicken remedy)

COMMENTARY

This does not appear to be a medicomagical text, but a memorandum of a remedy, possibly borrowed from the White people, for some disease of barnyard fowls. Spunkwater is reputed to be utilized by some Cherokees, probably laymen, in certain treatments (for which we have no information) for arthritis. Girls also employ it as a hair rinse in the belief that it ensures especially luxuriant and black hair, resistant to turning gray. Mooney and Olbrechts (1932, p. 57) report but do not specify its use in North Carolina: “ ‘Stumpwater’ [synonym for spunkwater] is but rarely referred to, and its use, together with the belief in its marvelous properties, may have been borrowed from the whites.”

Cherokee medical approaches to diseases in domestic animals and fowls have attracted very little investigation (however, see Kilpatrick and Kilpatrick, 1964b).

38. TO DOCTOR THEM FOR “THE BLACK”

FREE TRANSLATION

You and the Sun are Twins!

You and the Moon are Twins!

(To doctor them for “the black”)

COMMENTARY

Some conjurations for gv:hnágeʔú:dhan(a) incorporate the conceit that while the unconscious patient is temporarily “the Twin of Night,” the ministrations of the medicine man return him to consciousness and thus make him “the Twin of Day.” The wording of the present text appears to bear a misleading resemblance to such a concept. The inference here is that although the patient is momentarily oblivious, he is actually capable of consciousness, “full of light,” so to speak, the very twin of the heavenly bodies that shine both by day and by night (cf. Nos. 2, 17, 35, and 36).

39. FOR FEVERISHNESS AND HEADACHE

FREE TRANSLATION

For feverishness and headache

Now! Very quickly, Snow, You have just come to step down!

Now! Very quickly, Frost, You have just come to step down!

Now! Very quickly, Ice, You have just come to step down!

Now! Very quickly, You have just come to cool it! (To be said four times.)

COMMENTARY

There is a certain degree of interchangeability in conjurations for feverish headaches and minor burns; heat is the offending agency, and cooling entities— wind, water, snow, frost, rime, and ice—are invoked to nullify its force. Frequently, these conjurations appeal to cooling in an ascending scale of frigidity, as does the above specimen. (Cf. Kilpatrick, 1962, p. 3; 1964; and Kilpatrick and Kilpatrick, 1964a, pp. 17–20.)

In treating a feverish headache, Oklahoma Cherokee shamans usually place a sufferer from it in a chair in a doorway, facing east, and then blow “new water” upon the top of his head subsequent to each of four recitations of some conjuration such as the present example.

40. (FOR “THE RAINBOW BLACK”)

FREE TRANSLATION

The Red Rainbow thrust the point in the very middle of your head.

Now very quickly!

Now very quickly!

Now very quickly!

Now very quickly!

Your Provider, crawl about upon it!

Very quickly He has just come to say, “Relieved!” (to be said four times).

COMMENTARY

Although this text is patently for “the rainbow black” (cf. No. 2), its resemblance in format to No. 41, a burn conjuration, is no less obvious. Occasionally one sees an i:gawé:sdi the construction of which strongly suggests the juxtaposition of elements drawn from other conjurations not necessarily for the same malady

41. (FOR A SEVERE BURN)

FREE TRANSLATION

NOW! You and I have just come to put Cold under the very middle of the spot.

(Now You said it was very evil, You Evil Spirit.)

Now very quickly, You Provider, crawl about upon it!

Now very quickly, You Provider, crawl about upon it!

Now very quickly, You Provider, crawl about upon it!

Now very quickly, You Provider, crawl about upon it!

Very quickly He has just come to say, “Relieved!” (To be said four times).

COMMENTARY

Relative to burn therapy, the authors have written (Kilpatrick and Kilpatrick, 1964a, p. 17):

Of all the conjurations known by the laity of the Oklahoma Cherokees, those for burns are probably the most ubiquitous. Yet they are but rarely to be found in writing. Medicine men, being largely concerned with matters weightier than burns, seldom take the trouble to record them, and household remedy notebooks, in which they are frequently written down, ordinarily do not survive their authors ….

The customary adjunctive physical treatment for a burn is simple, and involves only the use of iʔtseʔ ama (new water, i.e., freshly drawn, preferably flowing, water). A small quantity of this liquid is taken into the mouth, and after each of four recitations of the conjuration some of it is blown directly upon the burn. The patient may do this for himself, or someone may do it for him.

There is no fundamental difference between the therapy for a burn that a medicine man employs and that used by a layman; however, the ministration of the former, due to professional authority and superior spiritual power, is held to be the more efficacious.⁶⁰

The above text is an example of the very infrequently seen shaman’s professional idi:gawé:sdi for treating severe burns. When using it, the practitioner says it prior to blowing “new water” upon the burn as he successively faces east, north, west, and south. He stands as far from the patient as he can and still function: to perform in close proximity to the sufferer is held to cause the burn to heal rapidly upon the surface while remaining unhealed underneath.

42. WHEN HIS [HER] INTESTINES BECOME ALIVE

FREE TRANSLATION

Now! Yellow Velvettail Rattlesnake!⁶⁴

Your Places of Repose are far up in the Treetop.

You have just come to bring a bundle of the Yellow Sticks in Your Hand.

“Relief!” I will then be saying!

(When his [her] intestines “become alive”)

COMMENTARY

This is for intestinal griping, a condition that the Cherokees fear far more than do White people inasmuch as they hold that it is conducive to other diseases and, if not corrected, can lead to a fatal blocking of the alimentary canal. A comparison of the above with a conjuration in a manuscript in our possession reveals that Ade:lagh(a)dhí:ya set down only the last half of an i:gawé:sdi, one that in various versions comes close to being the specific text for the condition to which it is applicable.

The affinity of the snakelike writhing of the intestines of the patient to the snake spirit is patent. The handful of “Yellow Sticks” provides one of the rare instances wherein reference is made in a curing text to the botanical employed concomitantly with that text: Rhamnus carolinianus Walt. (Buckthorn, or Indian cherry), which the Cherokees call adaʔ dalo:nige:i (wood, yellow). Stems of this plant are cut into short lengths and made into a bundle by binding them with the bark of the shrub. This package, consisting of seven individual pieces, is then boiled in making a brew for the patient to drink.

Sometimes, either through the unavailability of adaʔdaloʔnige:i or because of the personal preference of a medicine man, the plant used is Symphoricarpos orbiculatus Moench. (coral-berry, or Indian currant), which the Cherokees call digv:no:sa:sdi (to sweep [m.a.], one). Seven pieces of the stem of the shrub, each from a separate plant, are bundled together and soaked in cold water to prepare an infusion which the patient drinks at intervals of a half-hour or so.

Because of the gravity of the ailment, the ritual for treating tsuli:gh(i)si dunv:hne:hiʔse:hv is usually performed seven instead of four times. The medicine man chews a small piece of commercial tobacco, warms his hands over coals, expectorates a bit of the tobacco upon them and, as he rubs them together in a counterclockwise motion, says a conjuration. He then massages the abdomen of the patient in a manner that the Cherokees describe as “the way they feel,” i.e., along the course of a discernable external protrusion or in the area of a rigidity.

43. (FOR A SNAKEBITE)

FREE TRANSLATION

Yv-da-du-hwa!⁶⁵

Sami:! Sami:! Sami:! Sami:!⁶⁶

Ghaʔ! Ghaʔ! Ghaʔ! Ghaʔ!⁶⁷

You have just come to administer relief!

COMMENTARY

Venomous snakes of the family Crotalidae—the water moccasin, the copperhead, and several species of rattlesnakes—are fairly numerous in the rocky and brushy Cherokee Hills of Oklahoma. Bites from the copperhead, which boldly enters barns, sheds, and even houses in search of rodents, are especially common and particularly dreaded.

Snakebite therapy is widely used, and it is not surprising that instructions for its administration are frequently committed to shamans’ notebooks. A shaman will not discuss a snakebite treatment, even with another shaman, except in the late autumn and winter, at which time snakes are in hibernation. At other times of the year conversation pertaining to a snakebite remedy might be overheard by snakes, who would display their displeasure by attacking the individuals who discussed a cure for snakebite. A residue of the traditional Cherokee reverence for rattlesnakes, thoroughly reported in the published literature, exists among Oklahoma conservatives who employ idi:gawé:sdi for turning these reptiles away and who refrain from harming them except under emergency conditions.

The foregoing conjuration is for a real snakebite, not one that has been dreamed (cf. Mooney and Olbrechts, 1932, pp. 175–178, 197–198). In dealing with it, a medicine man expectorates a bit of chewed plug or twist tobacco upon the site of the bite and, as he recites an i:gawé:sdi, passes over the wound the jawbones of a rattlesnake. The ritual is enacted four times in immediate succession.

44. (FOR MUSCULAR CRAMPS)

FREE TRANSLATION

Now! Listen!

You Ancient One!

Lick it!

Lick it!

Lick it!

Lick it!

Ha! I still Walk!

You Ancient One!

You are a Great Wizard!

You are a Great Wizard!

You are a Great Wizard!

You are a Great Wizard!

Ha! Without stating so, while on my way I⁷² have just brought by relief!”

COMMENTARY

As Mooney and Olbrechts (1932, p. 90) point out, arteries, sinews, and tendons all have the same name in Cherokee. The above is a tendon-conjuration for the muscular cramps which are conjunctive with arthritis, or else a further development of one of the forms of “the black.” Muscular-cramp idi:gawe:sdi are quite numerous among the Western Cherokees. There is an exceedingly poetic one translated in Kilpatrick and Kilpatrick (1965a, pp. 48–50).

Muscular cramps are treated in diverse ways. If, in the opinion of the medicine man, the condition derives from “the black,” an infusion of wild senna is blown upon the top of the head, the face, the hands, and the feet of the patient (see No. 2). Sometimes the treatment is identical with that administered in arthritis (see No. 3); in other cases the medical pestle is employed (see No. 48). While using the above conjuration, the shaman wets his thumbs with saliva as he recites the text, after which he simulates the act of licking by applying his thumbs to the site of the patient’s discomfort. The ritual is enacted four times.

45. (?)

FREE TRANSLATION

Taken out soil, taken out.

COMMENTARY

Inasmuch as this text is preceded in the manuscript by a “break” sign, a circle, it seemingly stands alone; but if it is the whole of an i:gawé:sdi, it and its purpose are unfamiliar to us. Moreover, if it is a direction for the use of earth in a healing procedure, we cannot be certain as to what medical situation it is applicable. As reported in Kilpatrick (1964, p. 218), moldy earth from under a porch, shed, or log is sometimes applied to a cut, but the earth is not “galé:da”: this term implies that it was removed from a container of some sort, or perhaps a refilled excavation.

46. (FOR TONSILLITIS [?])

FREE TRANSLATION

Now! Listen! Let us, You and I, eat them!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“All of You just relieved it!” I will be saying.

COMMENTARY

This is obviously an abbreviated i:gawé:sdi, the unwritten portion of it being represented in the manuscript by two crosses. While we are unable to say with certainty what specific medical situation it is for, we offer the suggestion that it is a tonsillitis conjuration. It is impossible to say why Ade:lagh(a)dhí:ya did not write out the complete text. Perhaps because he knew it so well, he wished to spare himself unnecessary labor.

47. (?)

FREE TRANSLATION

Now! Listen! [For?] all of the ———— I cry.

COMMENTARY

The brackets seemingly signify that material is missing between them, but we cannot conjecture as to what it might be. Possibly a reconstitution of the conjuration or incantation would reveal that the whole text was originally a somewhat brief one, but also that it probably was not a typical layman’s i:gawé:sdi. The style of its opening, “Now! Listen!,” bespeaks more formality than is characteristic of texts that are applied to simple ills.

48. ONE IS TO USE A NEW PESTLE ON THEIR “VEINS”

FREE TRANSLATION

One is to use a new pestle on their “veins.”

Now! Age:hy a Gu:gv, from over there You have just come to raise up his [her] soul!

Now! Now You Evil Spirit!

(We⁷⁸ have just come to put His Soul⁷⁹ somewhere deep in the stream!) Now! It is not to appear!

COMMENTARY

This, like No. 44, is a conjuration for muscular cramps (tsuni:waduné:hi).

The “new pestle” is a small stamper that must be newly made of persimmon wood for each case in which it is used. Many instances could be cited wherein the Oklahoma Cherokees, traditionally the progressive branch of their people, have retained what their North Carolina kinsmen, the conservative branch, have lost. Olbrechts, for example, writing of the medical pestle, states:

The persimmon-wood stamper is an object that has fallen into complete desuetude. It was used in certain manipulations closely related to, if not identical with, massage. Mooney, as appears from his notes, found it mentioned during his first visit [circa 1887], but even then the object was no longer in actual use; after repeated vain efforts he was able to locate a man who was still able to make a specimen, which now forms part of the collections of the Division of Medicine, United States National Museum, Washington, D.C.

If I had not found the reference to this object in Mooney’s notes I would not have suspected that it was ever in use, as only a couple of the oldest medicine men could painstakingly recall it— its name is completely lost [see above]—but no one could be found who was able to carve a specimen. Neither of the two medicine men who vaguely remembered its having been in use could describe the procedure; they could not tell me whether it was used to rule, to stamp, or to press the sore spot. [Mooney and Olbrechts, 1932, p. 59.]

In Oklahoma, the pestle is warmed over a fire while a conjuration is being said. It is then pressed until it cools upon the seat of pain. This simple ritual, is, of course, enacted four times.

A description of the use of the medical pestle in treating rheumatism, a condition cognate with tsuni:waduné:hi, is found in Mooney and Olbrechts (ibid., p. 293).

49. (FOR TOOTHACHE)

FREE TRANSLATION

Pileated Woodpecker, very quickly You have just come to make it resound.

You have just come by to get out the White “Insect.”

Hairy Woodpecker, very quickly You have just come to make it resound.

You have just come by to get out the White “Insect.”

Great Crested Flycatcher,—Ha!—very quickly You have just come to make it resound.

You have just come by to get out the Red “Insect.”

Red-headed Woodpecker,—Ha!—very quickly You have just come to make it resound.

You have just come by to get out the Red “Insect.”

COMMENTARY

Possibly as the result of a deficiency of certain chemical properties in the soil of the area in which they live, the Oklahoma Cherokees suffer much from caries and dental abscesses. Toothache conjurations are widely known to the laity (cf. Kilpatrick, 1962, pp. 3–4).

The commonest procedure for the treating of a toothache by the patient himself is this: the sufferer lights a pipeful of commercial tobacco, says a conjuration applicable to his problem, and then places the stem of the pipe against his aching tooth. This is done four times. If a medicine man treats a patient for toothache, he may “remake” in the conventional way the tobacco he uses, and blow the smoke of it upon the aching tooth by applying the bowl of the pipe, covered with a cloth, to his mouth (see No. 1).

A ubiquitous motif in toothache conjurations is the assurance that various insect-eating bird spirits have come to pluck out the ts(i)sgo:ya from the dental abcess. In the present example, the phrase “to make it resound” is descriptive of the vigor with which the avian spirits will go to work extracting the offending insect spirits, just as real birds make a hollow tree or log reverberate when they drill into it. One observes that two of the “insects” are “white,” i.e., contented with their unnatural environment in the swelling, and two are “red,” i.e., victorious, albeit temporarily so, over the patient.

50. (FOR A SNAKEBITE)

FREE TRANSLATION

Black Snake-jawbone, You have just come by to take It⁸⁵ away.

Red Snake-jawbone, You have just come by to take It away.

Yellow Snake-jawbone, You have just come by to take It away.

Blue Snake-jawbone, You have just come by to take It away.

COMMENTARY

The conceit of a snake jawbone, passed over a snakebite nullifying the effects of venom (cf. No. 43) is structured into the wording itself of this conjuration. But the color symbolism to be seen here is not self-explanatory. The order in which the four colors are presented—black, red, yellow, and blue—does not constitute progression from “bad” to “good,” or from “good” to “bad.” In fact, it does not appear to imply any progression. All of the colors, with the exception of red (“victorious” or “strong”), are intrinsically “bad.” Perhaps the meaning of the imagery is this: the evil colors do not overcome evil, but merely attract it by affinity.

Literature Cited

FOGELSON, RAYMOND D.

1961. Change, persistence, and accommodation in Cherokee medicomagical beliefs. In “Symposium on Cherokee and Iroquois Culture,” edited by W. N. Fenton and John Gulick, no. 21, pp. 213–224. Bur. Amer. Ethnol. Bull. 180, Washington.

KILPATRICK, JACK FREDERICK

1962. The Sìquaníd’ Dil’ tidégi Collection. Southern Methodist Univ., Bridewell Library. Dallas, Tex.

1964. Folk formulas of the Oklahoma Cherokees. Journ. Folklore Institute, vol. 1, no. 3, pp. 214–219.

1965. Christian motifs in Cherokee healing rituals. Perkins School of Theology, Jour., vol. 18, no. 2, pp. 33–36.

KILPATRICK, JACK F., AND KILPATRICK, ANNA G.

——. The Cherokee treatment for “the black”: a correction. MS.a, library of the authors.

——. Uwo:díge:í Collection. MS.b, library of the authors.

1964a. Cherokee burn conjurations. Journ. Graduate Research Center, vol. 33, no. 1, pp. 17–21.

1964b. A Cherokee conjuration to cure a horse. Southern Folklore Quart., vol. 28, no. 3, pp. 216–218.

1964c. “The foundation of life”: the Cherokee national ritual. Amer. Anthropol., vol. 66, no. 6, pt. 1, pp. 1386–1389.

1964d. Friends of Thunder: folktales of the Oklahoma Cherokees. Dallas, Tex.

1965a. The shadow of Sequoyah. Social documents of the Cherokees, 1862–1964. Univ. Oklahoma. Civilization of the American Indian Ser., no. 81. Norman, Okla.

1965b. Walk in your soul: love incantations of the Oklahoma Cherokees. Dallas, Tex.

1966. Eastern Cherokee folktales. Bur. Amer. Ethnol. Bull. 196, Anthropol. Pap. no. 80. Washington.

1967. Run toward the nightland: magic of the Oklahoma Cherokees. Dallas, Tex.

MOONEY, JAMES

1890. Sacred formulas of the Cherokees. In, Bur. Amer. Ethnol. 7th Ann. Rep., pp. 302–397. Washington.

1900. Myths of the Cherokee. In, Bur. Amer. Ethnol. 19th Ann. Rep., pp. 3–576. Washington.

MOONEY, JAMES, AND OLBRECHTS, FRANS M.

1932. The Swimmer manuscript. Bur. Amer. Ethnol. Bull. 99. Washington.

OLBRECHTS, FRANS

——. Papers relating to the studies of the Cherokee of North Carolina, ca. 1926–1931. MS. no. 4600. Smithsonian Office Anthropol. Archives.

THOMAS, ROBERT K.

1961. The Redbird Smith movement. In, “Symposium on Cherokee and Iroquois Culture,” edited by W. N. Fenton and John Gulick, pp. 159–166. Bur. Amer. Ethnol. Bull. 180. Washington.

¹ Ade:lv (var. ade:la), originally a term for “bead(s)” is the presently employed word for “money”; agh(a)dhí:ya signifies “he (she) watches over it”: hence Ade:lagh(a)dhí:ya=“he (she) watches over the bead(s) [money].” In contemporary usage the term equates with “treasurer.” The disagreement as to precisely what bird in Oklahoma should be called ga:n(i)sgawi is evidence that the avian called thusly is not native to the country of the Western Cherokee. The true ga:n(i)sgawi is undoubtedly an aquatic bird of the bittern type.

² See Thomas, 1961.

³ “One who cures (m.a.) them, he (she).”

⁴ See Kilpatrick, 1965.

⁵ The restoration of the powers of medicomagical writings whose original owner has died is accomplished by a previously unreported ritual whereby the materials, polluted by the death of the one who possessed them, are taken to running water and ceremonially cleansed.

⁶ “ ‘Tsgâya [ts(i)sgl:ya]’ is a generic term for all small insects, larvae, and worms, excepting intestinal worms. These ‘tsgâya’ are very numerous, having colonies in the water, in the earth, on the foliage of trees, and in every decaying log, and as they are constantly being crushed, burned, or otherwise destroyed by the human race, they are constantly actuated by a spirit of revenge. To accomplish their purpose, the ghosts of the slain ‘tsgâya’ ‘form settlements’ in the bodies of their victims, usually just under the skin, and thus cause malignant ulcers, watery blisters, and swellings, all of which are generally ascribed to the ‘tsgâya.’ The ‘tsgâya’ doctrine of the Indian practitioner is thus the equivalent of the microbe theory of the white physician.” [Mooney and Olbrechts, 1932, p. 291.]

⁷ Contraction of a:hnart:wo:dí:yi.

⁸ This attention-getting interjection has no exact equivalent in the English language. As we have previously pointed out (Kilpatrick and Kilpatrick, 1965a, p. S, n. 1), it is also employed in initiating a new thought.

In manuscripts, this ritualism is sometimes provided with a period between the first and the second of the Sequoyan symbols employed in representing it.

⁹ Apparently the purpose of the mark is to prevent the confusion of haʔdí:na (haʔ+adí:na) with hadí:na (not).

¹⁰ In contemporary Cherokee this form would be di:né:hi.

¹¹ “To be said, they,” the Cherokee’s own term for medical or magical texts. The singular form is i:gawé:sdi.

¹² As it stands here, “black” is a noun, the designation for a medical condition; it is pronounced, therefore, with a rising pitch upon the second syllable. Employed adjectively, the word “black” is pronounced gv:hnageʔ, with a rising pitch upon the last syllable, a circumstance which, being predictable, makes the application of any special marking unnecessary.

¹³ “While the manuscript medico-religious literature indisputably proves the contention of Mooney and Olbrechts (1932, p. 20) that the aboriginal Cherokees believed in a Supreme Being, it offers little in support of their equation of this Force with the sun. Their translation of une:hlanv:hl (provider, he; cf. provider, you, above), the most commonly employed designation for the Supreme Being as ‘He has apportioned, allotted, divided into equal parts,’ which, say they, is in reference to the time-diving role of the sun, is… faulty. The term comes from the verb ‘to provide.’ “ (Kilpatrick and Kilpatrick, 1965b, p. 72.)

¹⁴ In most of the Oklahoma Cherokee dialects, this word (in everyday speech, at least) would be hu:dhlegl. Dlay(i)gé:hi (jay-place), the dialect predominant in the area in which Ade:lagh(a)dh:íya was born and reared, would likely, upon thorough investigation, prove to have affinity to some of the North Carolina dialects wherein s sometimes equates with dhl in most of the Oklahoma dialects. While one cannot be absolutely certain as to whether the word as written here is an archaism or a faithful reflection of the writer’s speech, the latter case is the more likely.

¹⁵ This interjection has no particular significance.

¹⁶ Long form: unv:le:sdart:i.

¹⁷ It is possible that the literal meaning of this word, “able to eat it, one,” derives from the circumstance that the watermelon, a cucurbit introduced by Europeans, bears a resemblance to the native gourd which is inedible. The original Cherokee designation may very well have been something approaching “the gourd that is edible.”

¹⁸ This interjection is commonly employed as an onomatopoeia for the footsteps of a spirit, or, as in the present Instance, the arrival of a spirtual force.

¹⁹ There exists manuscript evidence to indicate that, for at least a century, the forms tso:lv and tso:la have been in free alternation.

²⁰ This attention-getting interjection, which has no exact equivalent in the English language, is somewhat more commonly employed in the idi:gawé:sdi of North Carolina than in those of Oklahoma.

²¹ While the meaning of this term is conjectural, Ade:lagh(a)dhí:ya’s son-in-law was of the opinion that the word is a rare ritualism standing for a:galû:gá. We call attention, nevertheless, to Its similarity to dehi:halû:nagwú (you have just blocked them, just). If we have here a copyist’ error, and the latter is the correct reading, then the pertinent line in the free translation should read: “Listen! Brown One, You have indeed just blocked them! Etc.”

²² The idi:gawé:sdi seen in manuscript abound in examples of the use of the long form of a word in a given Instance, and of its short form in a corresponding circumstance, or vice versa. Needless to say, these minor differences appear to be scrupulously observed in the reciting of a text. If the alternate reading suggested in note 21 be accepted, then the word here would not bo uwo: digeʔ, but uwo:dígeʔ.

²³ “ ‘Seven Clans’ and ‘Seven Clan Districts’ are commonly employed as figures of speech to signify the whole of the Cherokee people, and are sometimes used as a symbol of the entire world.” [Kilpatrick and Kilpatrick, 1965b, p. 19.]

²⁴ We can offer no logical explanation for this term for a garter snake (Thamnophis). Perhaps it has a forgotten mythological significance.

²⁵ By extension, “world.” This is not a ritualism.

²⁶ Possibly a ritualism for dehf:halû:gá.

²⁷ One of the several commonly seen ritualistic forms of the word.

²⁸ Possibly a ritualism for gé:dehi:halû:gá.

²⁹ Long form, usaʔladart:i.

³⁰ The Provider.

³¹ “Bathing in the running stream, or ‘going to the water’, as it is called, is one of their most frequent medico-religious ceremonies, and is performed on a great variety of occasions, such as at each new moon, before eating the new food at the green corn dance, before the medicine dance and other ceremonial dances before and after the ball play, in connection with the prayers for a long life, to counteract the effects of bad dreams or the evil spells of an enemy, and as a part of the regular treatment in various diseases. The details of the ceremony are very elaborate and vary accordingly to the purpose for which it is performed, but in all cases both shaman and client are fasting from the previous evening, the ceremony being generally performed just at daybreak. The bather usually dips completely under the water four or seven times, but In some cases it is sufficient to pour water from the hand upon the head, and breast.” (Mooney, 1890, p. 335.)

³² In the manuscript, the fourth syllable of this short form appears to be an erroneously written mi.

³³ In conversational Cherokee, “good”—whether it be serving in the function of an adjective or an adverb—ordinarily has no pronominal prefix.

³⁴ Now commonly tsiwó:niá.

³⁵ “There is no equivalent in English for the Cherokee term that means the glow of the morning sky, the Morgenrōte, just before the sun rises; for built into the word is the connotation that this auroral phenomenon is impregnated with miraculous creative power.” (Kilpatrick and Kilpatrick, 1965b, p. 26).

³⁶ In ritualistic sense, “treetops.”

³⁷ In everyday speech, agwatsanart:hi.

³⁸ Ade:lagh(a)dhí:ya’s son-in-law was uncertain as to whether this was some ritualism unknown to him, or merely a copyist’s error. We offer the hypothesis that it is a ritualistic form of gadart:dv, and therefore means an ornament or dress of a collarlike nature.

³⁹ Long form, tsiye:lart:i.

⁴⁰ Obsolescent, but still in use.

⁴¹ A curious ritualism, but a readily intelligible one. The color yellow has a somewhat sinister connotation (Kilpatrick and Kilpatrick, 1965b, p. 8).

⁴² The color of victory, success, and good fortune (cf. Mooney, 1890, pp. 342–343).

⁴³ The dog as an erotic symbol, especially when standing for constancy, is a fairly ubiquitous one (cf. Kilpatrick and Kilpatrick, 1965b, pp. 26–27, 30 ff., 66, 68, 109 ff.). The dog spirit appears here in his “white” or happy aspect.

⁴⁴ Onomatopoeia for the barking of a dog.

⁴⁵ Ade:lagh(a)dhí:ya’s variant omits the following beautiful lines incorporated in the published version (Kilpatrick and Kilpatrick, 1965b, p. 26):

You will be unable to glance away.

Your thought is not to wander.

At my back upon the Eternal White Road will be the sound of your footsteps.

I have just come to draw away your soul!

⁴⁶ See Kilpatrick and Kilpatrick, 1964c, pp. 1383, 1391, n. 6.

⁴⁷ Ritualistic form of ani:da:wé:hi.

⁴⁸ One would expect the final syllable to be da.

⁴⁹ Seemingly a ritualism for, or archaic form of, tsigo:yé:hisdé.

⁵⁰ Probably a dialectal form of adayé:sdoʔdí. The final syllable is omitted in the manuscript.

⁵¹ An ada:wé:hi, “a wizard,” may be a human being as well as a disembodied spirit, as long as almost limitless power is possessed. The connotation here is that opponents are human.

⁵² Long form, tsa:hl(i)dho:hisdart:i.

⁵³ The personification of running water.

⁵⁴ The long-eared owl (Asio wilsonianus) is held to be the commonest form into which witches and sorcerers transform themselves, and the bird is hated and feared. Since the colloquial term for a witch or a sorcerer is the name of the bird, ts(i)sgill, this line, with a validity equal to the rendering that we have made, might have been translated: “I have just come to lie atop them; I am a Sorcerer!” For a parallel instance, see Kilpatrick and Kilpatrick, MS.b, p. 5.

⁵⁵ We know of no ritualistic form of the word for spider; in medicine and magic, as well as in everyday speech, the term is ghanane:sgi. We therefore assume that Ade:lagh(a)dhf:ya’s spelling reflects some dialectal pronunciation unfamiliar to us.

⁵⁶ The third syllable appears to be dialectal for go.

⁵⁷ In the everyday speech in most dialects, the penult would be dho.

⁵⁸ Ritualistic form of dhalawo:dhú:hi.

⁵⁹ Ade:lagh(a)dhí:ya’s son-in-law is our authority for the translation of this term which is unfamiliar to us. The third from the last syllable, however, he reads as ni.

⁶⁰ I.e., “my petition.”

⁶¹ I.e., “your answer to my petition.”

⁶² Uhi:soʔdi is “… a state of ecstatic yearning, an otherworldly melancholia, peculiarly Cherokeean. It Is generally attributed to the sorcery of an enemy.” (Kilpatrick and Kilpatrick, 1964d, p. 191, II. 30.) (See No. 15.)

⁶³ See No. 3, II. 18.

⁶⁴ Long form, iyart:i.

⁶⁵ In most dialects, the fourth syllable is si.

⁶⁶ Long form, aye:lart:i.

⁶⁷ A line such as this would be Improvised; however, it might follow the text rather than precede it.

⁶⁸ See No. 3, n. 18.

⁶⁹ In everyday speech, tsagwo:lade.

⁷⁰ Long form, ga:dé:hi.

⁷¹ Ritualistic form.

⁷² The third syllable is erroneously written dv.

⁷³ The Red Spider.

⁷⁴ Probably dialectal for no:ghw(i)si. The word has no plural.

⁷⁵ The substitution of i for hi as a final syllable in all forms of the word “wizard” is commonly encountered dialectal variation.

⁷⁶ Noun.

⁷⁷ See the following “Commentary” for a discussion of U:ya.

⁷⁸ This long form is to be seen very infrequently.

⁷⁹ In most of the Oklahoma dialects, the final syllable would be hi.

⁸⁰ One would expect the last two syllables to be higwé or higwú, and it is possible that Ade:lagh(a)dhi:ya’s spelling is faulty, and therefore not the reflection of his pronunciation.

⁸¹ The smoke of the magical tobacco.

⁸² If a medicine man were preparing tobacco for a client, the rather standard procedure would be for him to state the name and clan of both the client and the desired woman, previous to each of the four recitations of the i:gawé:sdi, and following each recital the client would expectorate upon the tobacco. If the lover himself were “remaking” the tobacco, he would ordinarily state the name and clan of himself and of the woman, or else state his name and clan before each recitation and interpolate some such line as appears here.

⁸³ There are several references in Mooney and Olbrechts (1932, p. 186 ff) to this symbol of secrecy.

⁸⁴ The Seven Clans. The meaning here Is, “I truly circumvented all my opponents.”

⁸⁵ This occurs in hundreds of examples.

⁸⁶ The first syllable is erroneously written lv.

⁸⁷ The lack of agreement here between “soul” and “one who straightens, them, you,” leads one to suspect that through error “souls” was written “soul.”

⁸⁸ This full form is seldom used conversationally.

⁸⁹ The second syllable is erroneously written dh(v).

⁹⁰ In the manuscript ghaʔ is written twice, doubtlessly through a mistake.

⁹¹ The final syllable is erroneously written gi.

⁹² The second syllable appears to be an erroneously written u.

⁹³ “You can see both the past and the future.”

⁹⁴ In the event that the dida:hnvwi:sg(i) is inquiring into the problem of a client, or potential client, not a personal one, he adds here the name and clan of that individual.

⁹⁵ I.e., “My information comes directly from the Provider, not from the minds of mere human beings.”

⁹⁶ The third syllable is erroneously written gv.

⁹⁷ The first syllable is erroneously written yi.

⁹⁸ The final syllable is erroneously written hv.

⁹⁹ The third syllable is erroneously written ga.

¹ See No. 18 II 94.

² I.e., “My inquiry will certainly be answered.”

³ The second syllable Is erroneously written dv.

⁴ In delivering short invocations to the Supreme Being, the name and clan of the suppliant are frequently omitted. It is presumptious to identify oneself to the Power that is omniscient. Nor is such a petition invariably cast In a format incorporating sacred numerology, although the text itself is customarily delivered four times.

⁵ The final syllable Is erroneously written dv.

⁶ In the manuscript, the second and third syllables are transposed.

⁷ Long form, hiye:liʔ:l.

⁸ In everyday speech, aʔhnuwo:gi.

⁹ The water spirit.

¹⁰ In conversational Cherokee, digé:sdayí

¹¹ The first syllable is erroneously written ni.

¹² Probably as an attempt to represent the glottal stop, the syllable gi (i.e., gh(i)] follows hne.

¹³ The final syllable is erroneously written i.

¹⁴ The final syllable is erroneously written nv.

¹⁵ Sun=nv:doi:gaé:hi (“the heavenly body that resides in the day”); moon=nv:do sv:no:yi é:hi (“the heavenly body that resides in the night”).

¹⁶ In everyday speech, awo:hiʔla.

¹⁷ The short form of gigagé:i. The Red Person is Thunder.

¹⁸ One would expect the suffix here to be-gwalé:na or -gwalé:nv, but, as in several other instances, the spelling seen here doubtlessly is faithful to Ade:lagh(a)dhí:ya’s dialect.

¹⁹ One would expect the final syllable to be hi (see No. 1, II. 10, above).

²⁰ We assume that this symbol, written at the end of each of the four sections of the conjuration, serves the purpose of mere punctuation. If such be the case, the name and clan of the patient for whom the i:gawé:sdi is being said would be stated prior to each of four deliveries of the text. The next most likely explanation of the symbol Is that is an indication of the place to state the identity of the patient.

²¹ Aquila chrysoetus.

²² Pandion haliaetus carolinensis.

²³ Megaceryle alcyon alcyon.

²⁴ We cannot recall ever having previously seen or heard this exact form.

²⁵ The final syllable is erroneously written v.

²⁶ The final syllable is erroneously written yi.

²⁷ With authoritative spiritual forces.

²⁸ Rana clamitans.

²⁹ The everyday term is wa:dádu:gá.

³⁰ Acris gryllus.

³¹ Bufo sp.

³² The conversational term for mink is sv:ghi. We are not certain, therefore, whether the spelling here is in accordance with a ritualistic or dialectal pronunciation, or is an orthographic error.

³³ The translation of this word, unknown to us, we offer upon the authority of Ade:lagh(a)dhí:ya’s son-in-law.

³⁴ This word, when used with the force of “price” or “value” is pronounced tsugv: wahl(o)d(i).

³⁵ Contopus virens.

³⁶ In place of the final syllable, Ade:lagh(a)dhi:ya had erroneously written-sgwa.

³⁷ The bird spirit.

³⁸ The gambling stakes.

³⁹ Probably Protoparce sexta or Ephestia elutella.

⁴⁰ The squirrel appears with the utmost infrequency in Cherokee medicomagical texts. We are unable to say whether the spelling of the term for the animal here is archaic or ritualistic; the secular word for squirrel, in all dialects, is salo:ll.

⁴¹ “Now” in the sense that circumstances are permissive.

⁴² “The Black Crow thrust the Rainbow Into the very middle of your head.” The word “head” is assumed through context.

⁴³ In the everyday language, ga:saghi.

⁴⁴ “The Spirit [not named] says that He has just relieved the flatulent condition of the patient.”

⁴⁵ “The patient acknowledges that relief.”

⁴⁶ The first syllable is erroneously written gwv.

⁴⁷ The second syllable is erroneously written no.

⁴⁸ We are of the opinion that these two words, which we cannot translate, derive from some now-forgotten mythological source, and that they are to be sung, probably four times.

⁴⁹ In most of the Western dialects, this word would be hiyu:dhlegl.

⁵⁰ In most of the Western dialects, this word would be ha:nigwa.

⁵¹ In the manuscript there is a superfluous repetition of the word ha:niwa that follows the numeral.

⁵² The commonly accepted spelling of this word is tsadha:ga.

⁵³ The use of this colloquialism, possibly a loan-word from English, to some extent supports a supposition that the remedy it labels is possibly not of Cherokee origin.

⁵⁴ Quercus rubra L.

⁵⁵ In everyday speech, dhlʔdhlawi.

⁵⁶ One would expect this word to be spelled as it is usually pronounced: v:n(o)tsi.

⁵⁷ In everyday speech, hadlô:ʔsigá.

⁵⁸ The third syllable should be dla, and we suspect hli to derive from poor orthography, not ritualistic fiat. The use of the objective second person singular pronominal prefix hi implies that Snow, Frost, and Ice, addressed individually, have come together to form one body.

⁵⁹ The fourth syllable is erroneously written nl.

⁶⁰ In addition to the nine bum conjurations translated In the paper quoted from, there is another specimen hi Kilpatrick, 1964, p. 218.

⁶¹ This term is also used for a tree that has been felled, i.e., “timber,” “wood.”

⁶² Ade:lagh(a)dhí:ya’s spelling is garbled; his final four syllables are-sdhade:li:gá.

⁶³ Ade:lagh(a)dhí:ya’s spelling is garbled: tsi-wi-gwo-tsi.

⁶⁴ Crotalus horridus.

⁶⁵ This is probably sung, perhaps four times. As it stands it forms no word (or words) known to us, but it may derive from ivy:da du:ha [“over there/has them (sol.), he”].

⁶⁶ Onomatopoeia for the slithering of a reptile.

⁶⁷ Onomatopoeia for the rattling of a rattlesnake.

⁶⁸ The final syllable appears to be erroneously written gi.

⁶⁹ The final syllable appears to be an erroneously written wu.

⁷⁰ The first syllable la erroneously written i.

⁷¹ Ade:lagh(a)dhí;ya omitted the third and fourth syllables in this, one of the most difficult words to pronounce (or spell) in the Cherokee language.

⁷² The Provider.

⁷³ The second syllable is erroneously written da.

⁷⁴ “Mooney and Olbrechts [1932, p. 20] are probably correct In their assumption that the term ‘Age:hyv [or Age:hya, as written here] Gu:gv (?)’ is an ancient ritualistic designation for the sun. Their speculation that Gu: gv (sometimes both written and pronounce Gu: ga) might mean ‘very important,’ or ‘par excellence,’ being derived from the suffix—go:ga, is predicated upon less firm ground; for certainly the Cherokee shamans are convinced that the word means ‘beautiful.’ There is enough resemblance between Gu:gv and gu:g(u), the term for a bottle-shaped piece of pottery, to raise the suspicion that both of the words derive from some ancient common verb stem.” [Kilpatrick and Kilpatrick, 1965b, p. 24].

⁷⁵ The fifth syllable is erroneously written i.

⁷⁶ In contemporary speech, the third syllable, hni is omitted.

⁷⁷ In some of the Oklahoma dialects, at least, the last syllable would be hlv.

⁷⁸ The conjurator, in company with spiritual forces not specified.

⁷⁹ That of the Evil Spirit.

⁸⁰ Ceophloeus pileatus. The generally accepted spelling is g(a)gwo:ʔga.

⁸¹ Dryobates villosus.

⁸² Myiarchus crinitus boreus. The generally accepted spelling is gulí:sgulí.

⁸³ Melanerpes erythrocephalus.

⁸⁴ In everyday speech, the first syllable would be a.

⁸⁵ The venom from the snakebite.