Assignment for Monday, February 3, 2020.

So here are some snippets from that book.  I wanted some bits about how they obtained the texts, and then I wanted some bits that expressed the ethnological significance of the material.  

Here's your task:  Read through this stuff carefully, and then compose an argument.  You can argue that it is morally OK (permissible) for people like us, in a class like this, to read this book.  Or you can argue that it would be immoral.  The point is to give reasons and explain them.

  

I'm asking you for no more than 1.5 typed pages, single spaced.  So you need to be very efficient with your words.  And you need to get to a printer before the last minute!  This is due at the beginning of class on Monday.  Read carefully!

000

On first visiting the reservation in the summer of 1887, I devoted

considerable time to collecting plants used by the Cherokees for food

or medicinal purposes, learning at the same time their Indian names

and the particular uses to which each was applied and the mode of

preparation. It soon became evident that the application of the

medicine was not the whole, and in fact was rather the subordinate,

part of the treatment, which was always accompanied by certain

ceremonies and “words.” From the workers employed at the time no

definite idea could be obtained as to the character of these words.

One young woman, indeed, who had some knowledge of the subject,

volunteered to write the words which she used in her prescriptions,

but failed to do so, owing chiefly to the opposition of the half-breed

shamans, from whom she had obtained her information.

000

Some time afterward an acquaintance was formed with a man named

A‘yû[n]´inĭ or “Swimmer,” who proved to be so intelligent that I

spent several days with him, procuring information in regard to myths

and old customs. He told a number of stories in very good style, and

finally related the Origin of the Bear[1]. The bears were formerly a

part of the Cherokee tribe who decided to leave their kindred and go

into the forest. Their friends followed them and endeavored to induce

them to return, but the Ani-Tsâ´kahĭ, as they were called, were

determined to go. Just before parting from their relatives at the

edge of the forest, they turned to them and said, “It is better for

you that we should go; but we will teach you songs, and some day when

you are in want of food come out to the woods and sing these songs

and we shall appear and give you meat.” Their friends, after learning

several songs from them, started back to their homes, and after

proceeding a short distance, turned around to take one last look, but

saw only a number of bears disappearing in the depths of the forest.

The songs which they learned are still sung by the hunter to attract

the bears.

When Swimmer had finished the story he was asked if he knew these

songs. He replied that he did, but on being requested to sing one

he made some excuse and was silent. After some further efforts the

interpreter said it would be useless to press the matter then as there

were several other Indians present, but that to-morrow we should have

him alone with us and could then make another attempt.

The next day Swimmer was told that if he persisted in his refusal it

would be necessary to employ some one else, as it was unfair in him to

furnish incomplete information when he was paid to tell all he knew.

He replied that he was willing to tell anything in regard to stories

and customs, but that these songs were a part of his secret knowledge

and commanded a high price from the hunters, who sometimes paid as

much as $5 for a single song, “because you can’t kill any bears or

deer unless you sing them.”

He was told that the only object in asking about the songs was to put

them on record and preserve them, so that when he and the half dozen

old men of the tribe were dead the world might be aware how much the

Cherokees had known. This appeal to his professional pride proved

effectual, and when he was told that a great many similar songs had

been sent to Washington by medicine men of other tribes, he promptly

declared that he knew as much as any of them, and that he would give

all the information in his possession, so that others might be able to

judge for themselves who knew most. The only conditions he made were

that these secret matters should be heard by no one else but the

interpreter, and should not be discussed when other Indians were

present.

As soon as the other shamans learned what was going on they endeavored

by various means to persuade him to stop talking, or failing in this,

to damage his reputation by throwing out hints as to his honesty or

accuracy of statement. Among other objections which they advanced

was one which, however incomprehensible to a white man, was perfectly

intelligible to an Indian, viz: That when he had told everything this

information would be taken to Washington and locked up there, and thus

they would be deprived of the knowledge. This objection was one of

the most difficult to overcome, as there was no line of argument with

which to oppose it.

These reports worried Swimmer, who was extremely sensitive in regard

to his reputation, and he became restive under the insinuations of

his rivals. Finally on coming to work one day he produced a book from

under his ragged coat as he entered the house, and said proudly:

“Look at that and now see if I don’t know something.” It was a small

day-book of about 240 pages, procured originally from a white man, and

was about half filled with writing in the Cherokee characters. A brief

examination disclosed the fact that it contained just those matters

that had proved so difficult to procure. Here were prayers, songs,

and prescriptions for the cure of all kinds of diseases--for chills,

rheumatism, frostbites, wounds, bad dreams, and witchery; love charms,

to gain the affections of a woman or to cause her to hate a detested

rival; fishing charms, hunting charms--including the songs without

which none could ever hope to kill any game; prayers to make the corn

grow, to frighten away storms, and to drive off witches; prayers for

long life, for safety among strangers, for acquiring influence in

council and success in the ball play. There were prayers to the Long

Man, the Ancient White, the Great Whirlwind, the Yellow Rattlesnake,

and to a hundred other gods of the Cherokee pantheon. It was in fact

an Indian ritual and pharmacopoeia.

After recovering in a measure from the astonishment produced by this

discovery I inquired whether other shamans had such books. “Yes,”

said Swimmer, “we all have them.” Here then was a clew to follow up. A

bargain was made by which he was to have another blank book into which

to copy the formulas, after which the original was bought. It is now

deposited in the library of the Bureau of Ethnology. The remainder of

the time until the return was occupied in getting an understanding of

the contents of the book.

000

On returning to the reservation in July, 1888, another effort was made

to get possession of the Gatigwanasti manuscripts and any others of

the same kind which could be procured. By this time the Indians had

had several months to talk over the matter, and the idea had gradually

dawned upon them that instead of taking their knowledge away from them

and locking it up in a box, the intention was to preserve it to the

world and pay them for it at the same time. In addition the writer

took every opportunity to impress upon them the fact that he was

acquainted with the secret knowledge of other tribes and perhaps could

give them as much as they gave. It was now much easier to approach

them, and on again visiting Wilnoti, in company with the interpreter,

who explained the matter fully to him, he finally consented to lend

the papers for a time, with the same condition that neither Swimmer

nor anyone else but the chief and interpreter should see them, but

he still refused to sell them. However, this allowed the use of

the papers, and after repeated efforts during a period of several

weeks, the matter ended in the purchase of the papers outright,

with unreserved permission to show them for copying or explanation

to anybody who might be selected. Wilnoti was not of a mercenary

disposition, and after the first negotiations the chief difficulty was

to overcome his objection to parting with his father’s handwriting,

but it was an essential point to get the originals, and he was allowed

to copy some of the more important formulas, as he found it utterly

out of the question to copy the whole.

000

It is impossible to overestimate the ethnologic importance of the

materials thus obtained. They are invaluable as the genuine production

of the Indian mind, setting forth in the clearest light the state of

the aboriginal religion before its contamination by contact with the

whites. To the psychologist and the student of myths they are equally

precious. In regard to their linguistic value we may quote the

language of Brinton, speaking of the sacred books of the Mayas,

already referred to:

    Another value they have,... and it is one which will be

    properly appreciated by any student of languages. They are,

    by common consent of all competent authorities, the genuine

    productions of native minds, cast in the idiomatic forms of

    the native tongue by those born to its use. No matter how

    fluent a foreigner becomes in a language not his own, he can

    never use it as does one who has been familiar with it from

    childhood. This general maxim is tenfold true when we apply

    it to a European learning an American language. The flow of

    thought, as exhibited in these two linguistic families, is

    in such different directions that no amount of practice can

    render one equally accurate in both. Hence the importance of

    studying a tongue as it is employed by natives; and hence the

    very high estimate I place on these “Books of Chilan Balam” as

    linguistic material--an estimate much increased by the great

    rarity of independent compositions in their own tongues by

    members of the native races of this continent.[2]

000

These formulas furnish a complete refutation of the assertion so

frequently made by ignorant and prejudiced writers that the Indian had

no religion excepting what they are pleased to call the meaning less

mummeries of the medicine man. This is the very reverse of the truth.

The Indian is essentially religious and contemplative, and it might

almost be said that every act of his life is regulated and determined

by his religious belief. It matters not that some may call this

superstition. The difference is only relative. The religion of

to-day has developed from the cruder superstitions of yesterday, and

Christianity itself is but an outgrowth and enlargement of the beliefs

and ceremonies which have been preserved by the Indian in their more

ancient form. When we are willing to admit that the Indian has a

religion which he holds sacred, even though it be different from

our own, we can then admire the consistency of the theory, the

particularity of the ceremonial and the beauty of the expression.

So far from being a jumble of crudities, there is a wonderful

completeness about the whole system which is not surpassed even by the

ceremonial religions of the East. It is evident from a study of these

formulas that the Cherokee Indian was a polytheist and that the spirit

world was to him only a shadowy counterpart of this. All his prayers

were for temporal and tangible blessings--for health, for long life,

for success in the chase, in fishing, in war and in love, for good

crops, for protection and for revenge. He had no Great Spirit, no

happy hunting ground, no heaven, no hell, and consequently death had

for him no terrors and he awaited the inevitable end with no anxiety

as to the future. He was careful not to violate the rights of his

tribesman or to do injury to his feelings, but there is nothing to

show that he had any idea whatever of what is called morality in the

abstract.

000

As the medical formulas are first in number and importance it may be

well, for the better understanding of the theory involved, to give the

Cherokee account of

THE ORIGIN OF DISEASE AND MEDICINE.

In the old days quadrupeds, birds, fishes, and insects could all talk,

and they and the human race lived together in peace and friendship.

But as time went on the people increased so rapidly that their

settlements spread over the whole earth and the poor animals found

themselves beginning to be cramped for room. This was bad enough,

but to add to their misfortunes man invented bows, knives, blowguns,

spears, and hooks, and began to slaughter the larger animals, birds

and fishes for the sake of their flesh or their skins, while the

smaller creatures, such as the frogs and worms, were crushed and

trodden upon without mercy, out of pure carelessness or contempt. In

this state of affairs the animals resolved to consult upon measures

for their common safety.

The bears were the first to meet in council in their townhouse in

Kuwa´hĭ, the “Mulberry Place,”[4] and the old White Bear chief

presided. After each in turn had made complaint against the way in

which man killed their friends, devoured their flesh and used their

skins for his own adornment, it was unanimously decided to begin war

at once against the human race. Some one asked what weapons man used

to accomplish their destruction. “Bows and arrows, of course,” cried

all the bears in chorus. “And what are they made of?” was the next

question. “The bow of wood and the string of our own entrails,”

replied one of the bears. It was then proposed that they make a bow

and some arrows and see if they could not turn man’s weapons against

himself. So one bear got a nice piece of locust wood and another

sacrificed himself for the good of the rest in order to furnish a

piece of his entrails for the string. But when everything was ready

and the first bear stepped up to make the trial it was found that

in letting the arrow fly after drawing back the bow, his long claws

caught the string and spoiled the shot. This was annoying, but another

suggested that he could overcome the difficulty by cutting his claws,

which was accordingly done, and on a second trial it was found that

the arrow went straight to the mark. But here the chief, the old White

Bear, interposed and said that it was necessary that they should have

long claws in order to be able to climb trees. “One of us has already

died to furnish the bowstring, and if we now cut off our claws we

shall all have to starve together. It is better to trust to the teeth

and claws which nature has given us, for it is evident that man’s

weapons were not intended for us.”

[Footnote 4: One of the High peaks of the Smoky Mountains, on the

Tennessee line, near Clingman’s Dome.]

No one could suggest any better plan, so the old chief dismissed the

council and the bears dispersed to their forest haunts without having

concerted any means for preventing the increase of the human race. Had

the result of the council been otherwise, we should now be at war with

the bears, but as it is the hunter does not even ask the bear’s pardon

when he kills one.

The deer next held a council under their chief, the Little Deer, and

after some deliberation resolved to inflict rheumatism upon every

hunter who should kill one of their number, unless he took care to ask

their pardon for the offense. They sent notice of their decision to

the nearest settlement of Indians and told them at the same time how

to make propitiation when necessity forced them to kill one of the

deer tribe. Now, whenever the hunter brings down a deer, the Little

Deer, who is swift as the wind and can not be wounded, runs quickly up

to the spot and bending over the blood stains asks the spirit of the

deer if it has heard the prayer of the hunter for pardon. If the reply

be “Yes” all is well and the Little Deer goes on his way, but if the

reply be in the negative he follows on the trail of the hunter, guided

by the drops of blood on the ground, until he arrives at the cabin in

the settlement, when the Little Deer enters invisibly and strikes

the neglectful hunter with rheumatism, so that he is rendered on the

instant a helpless cripple. No hunter who has regard for his health

ever fails to ask pardon of the deer for killing it, although some

who have not learned the proper formula may attempt to turn aside the

Little Deer from his pursuit by building a fire behind them in the

trail.

Next came the fishes and reptiles, who had their own grievances

against humanity. They held a joint council and determined to make

their victims dream of snakes twining about them in slimy folds and

blowing their fetid breath in their faces, or to make them dream of

eating raw or decaying fish, so that they would lose appetite, sicken,

and die. Thus it is that snake and fish dreams are accounted for.

Finally the birds, insects, and smaller animals came together for a

like purpose, and the Grubworm presided over the deliberations. It was

decided that each in turn should express an opinion and then vote on

the question as to whether or not man should be deemed guilty.

Seven votes were to be sufficient to condemn him. One after another

denounced man’s cruelty and injustice toward the other animals and

voted in favor of his death. The Frog (walâ´sĭ) spoke first and

said: “We must do something to check the increase of the race or

people will become so numerous that we shall be crowded from off the

earth. See how man has kicked me about because I’m ugly, as he says,

until my back is covered with sores;” and here he showed the spots

on his skin. Next came the Bird (tsi´skwa; no particular species is

indicated), who condemned man because “he burns my feet off,” alluding

to the way in which the hunter barbecues birds by impaling them on a

stick set over the fire, so that their feathers and tender feet are

singed and burned. Others followed in the same strain. The Ground

Squirrel alone ventured to say a word in behalf of man, who seldom

hurt him because he was so small; but this so enraged the others that

they fell upon the Ground Squirrel and tore him with their teeth and

claws, and the stripes remain on his back to this day.

The assembly then began to devise and name various diseases, one after

another, and had not their invention finally failed them not one of

the human race would have been able to survive. The Grubworm in his

place of honor hailed each new malady with delight, until at last they

had reached the end of the list, when some one suggested that it be

arranged so that menstruation should sometimes prove fatal to woman.

On this he rose up in his place and cried: “Wata´[n] Thanks! I’m glad

some of them will die, for they are getting so thick that they tread

on me.” He fairly shook with joy at the thought, so that he fell over

backward and could not get on his feet again, but had to wriggle off

on his back, as the Grubworm has done ever since.

When the plants, who were friendly to man, heard what had been done by

the animals, they determined to defeat their evil designs. Each tree,

shrub, and herb, down, even to the grasses and mosses, agreed to

furnish a remedy for some one of the diseases named, and each said: “I

shall appear to help man when he calls upon me in his need.” Thus did

medicine originate, and the plants, every one of which has its use if

we only knew it, furnish the antidote to counteract the evil wrought

by the revengeful animals. When the doctor is in doubt what treatment

to apply for the relief of a patient, the spirit of the plant suggests

to him the proper remedy.

THEORY OF DISEASE--ANIMALS, GHOSTS, WITCHES.

Such is the belief upon which their medical practice is based, and

whatever we may think of the theory it must be admitted that the

practice is consistent in all its details with the views set forth

in the myth. Like most primitive people the Cherokees believe that

disease and death are not natural, but are due to the evil influence

of animal spirits, ghosts, or witches. Haywood, writing in 1823,

states on the authority of two intelligent residents of the Cherokee

nation:

    In ancient times the Cherokees had no conception of anyone

    dying a natural death. They universally ascribed the death of

    those who perished by disease to the intervention or agency of

    evil spirits and witches and conjurers who had connection with

    the Shina (Anisgi´na) or evil spirits.... A person dying by

    disease and charging his death to have been procured by means

    of witchcraft or spirits, by any other person, consigns that

    person to inevitable death. They profess to believe that their

    conjurations have no effect upon white men.[5]

[Footnote 5: Haywood, John: Natural and Aboriginal History of East

Tennessee, 267-8, Nashville, 1823.]

On the authority of one of the same informants, he also mentions

the veneration which “their physicians have for the numbers four and

seven, who say that after man was placed upon the earth four and seven

nights were instituted for the cure of diseases in the human body and

the seventh night as the limit for female impurity.”[6]

[Footnote 6: Ibid., p. 281.]

Viewed from a scientific standpoint, their theory and diagnosis

are entirely wrong, and consequently we can hardly expect their

therapeutic system to be correct. As the learned Doctor Berendt

states, after an exhaustive study of the medical books of the Mayas,

the scientific value of their remedies is “next to nothing.” It must

be admitted that many of the plants used in their medical practice

possess real curative properties, but it is equally true that many

others held in as high estimation are inert. It seems probable that in

the beginning the various herbs and other plants were regarded as so

many fetiches and were selected from some fancied connection with the

disease animal, according to the idea known to modern folklorists as

the doctrine of signatures. Thus at the present day the doctor puts

into the decoction intended as a vermifuge some of the red fleshy

stalks of the common purslane or chickweed (Portulaca oleracea),

because these stalks somewhat resemble worms and consequently must

have some occult influence over worms. Here the chickweed is a fetich

precisely as is the flint arrow head which is put into the same

decoction, in order that in the same mysterious manner its sharp

cutting qualities may be communicated to the liquid and enable it

to cut the worms into pieces. In like manner, biliousness is called

by the Cherokees dalâ´nĭ or “yellow,” because the most apparent

symptom of the disease is the vomiting by the patient of the yellow

bile, and hence the doctor selects for the decoction four different

herbs, each of which is also called dalânĭ, because of the color of

the root, stalk, or flower. The same idea is carried out in the tabu

which generally accompanies the treatment. Thus a scrofulous patient

must abstain from eating the meat of a turkey, because the fleshy

dewlap which depends from its throat somewhat resembles an inflamed

scrofulous eruption. On killing a deer the hunter always makes an

incision in the hind quarter and removes the hamstring, because this

tendon, when severed, draws up into the flesh; ergo, any one who

should unfortunately partake of the hamstring would find his limbs

draw up in the same manner.

There can be no doubt that in course of time a haphazard use of

plants would naturally lead to the discovery that certain herbs are

efficacious in certain combinations of symptoms. These plants would

thus come into more frequent use and finally would obtain general

recognition in the Indian materia medica. By such a process of

evolution an empiric system of medicine has grown up among the

Cherokees, by which they are able to treat some classes of ailments

with some degree of success, although without any intelligent idea

of the process involved. It must be remembered that our own medical

system has its remote origin in the same mythic conception of disease,

and that within two hundred years judicial courts have condemned

women to be burned to death for producing sickness by spells and

incantations, while even at the present day our faith-cure professors

reap their richest harvest among people commonly supposed to belong

to the intelligent classes. In the treatment of wounds the Cherokee

doctors exhibit a considerable degree of skill, but as far as any

internal ailment is concerned the average farmer’s wife is worth all

the doctors in the whole tribe.

The faith of the patient has much to do with his recovery, for the

Indian has the same implicit confidence in the shaman that a child has

in a more intelligent physician. The ceremonies and prayers are well

calculated to inspire this feeling, and the effect thus produced

upon the mind of the sick man undoubtedly reacts favorably upon his

physical organization.