Diagnosis.
The diagnosis of disease consists in the first place in discovering whether the sickness is due to the anger of an offended deity, a broken tabu, the presence of a spirit, the loss of the breath-body, shadow, kidney fat, blood, or what not; or to the presence of some foreign object introduced, by witchcraft or magic, into the patient's body. In the second place the medicine man must discover what offering will propitiate the deity or evil spirit; what charm, incantation, or good spirit will restore the lost part, or counteract the malevolent spell under which the patient is suffering; or by what means the foreign object may be extracted, or the spirit exorcised and made thenceforth harmless.
The ways in which these objects are accomplished is what most interests us. The methods to be pursued and the means to be used are almost always supernaturally discovered. In some cases a prophet advises the medicine man as to the method of procedure; in others a woman is put into the hypnotic state, or a clairvoyant or spiritualistic medium is employed to "see" the cause and report to the shaman; or he may himself, in an ecstasy or a dream, see the cause and have the remedy suggested to him.
A method which with some variations is used by nearly all our Indian tribes runs somewhat as follows : the medicine man, after a sweat bath and a stimulating drink, enters his medicine lodge where after much beating of drums and shaking of rattles, after prolonged dancing, shouting, groaning, screeching, beating of himself and invoking of his genius he works himself up into a condition favorable for the reception of the divine impulse, the spirits come and reveal to him the cause of the disease and a suitable remedy. Then, in the words of Charlevoix (18, 14th, p. 139), "full of his pretended divinity, and more like a person possessed by the devil than one inspired by Heaven, he pronounces in a positive tone of voice on the state of the patient, and sometimes guesses tolerably just."
Miracles of Healing
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By Charles W. Waddle (1909)
Primitive Christian Worship
Hereditary genius
