of the house, but within easy hearing distance, while the interpreter sat facing the doorway within a few feet of the sick man inside. Then began an animated conversation, Tsiskwa inquiring, through the interpreter, as to the purpose of the Government in gathering such information, wanting to know how we had succeeded with other shamans and asking various questions in regard to other tribes and their customs. The replies were given in the same manner, an attempt being also made to draw him out as to the extent of his own knowledge. Thus we talked until the old man grew weary, but throughout the whole of this singular interview neither party saw the other, nor was the gaktūnta violated by entering the house. From this example it must be sufficiently evident that the tabu as to visitors is not a hygienic precaution for securing greater quiet to the patient, or to prevent the spread of contagion, but that it is simply a religious observance of the tribe, exactly parallel to many of the regulations among the ancient Jews, as laid down in the book of Leviticus.

NEGLECT OF SANITARY REGULATIONS.

No rules are ever formulated as to fresh air or exercise, for the sufficient reason that the door of the Cherokee log cabin is always open, excepting at night and on the coldest days in winter, while the Indian is seldom in the house during his waking hours unless when necessity compels him. As most of their cabins are still built in the old Indian style, without windows, the open door furnishes the only means by which light is admitted to the interior, although when closed the fire on the hearth helps to make amends for the deficiency. On the other hand, no precautions are taken to guard against cold, dampness, or sudden drafts. During the greater part of the year whole families sleep outside upon the ground, rolled up in an old blanket. The Cherokee is careless of exposure and utterly indifferent to the simplest rules of hygiene. He will walk all day in a pouring rain clad only in a thin shirt and a pair of pants. He goes barefoot and frequently bareheaded nearly the entire year, and even on a frosty morning in late November, when the streams are of almost icy coldness, men and women will deliberately ford the river where the water is waist deep in preference to going a few hundred yards to a foot-log. At their dances in the open air men, women, and children, with bare feet and thinly clad, dance upon the damp ground from darkness until daylight, sometimes enveloped in a thick mountain fog which makes even the neighboring treetops invisible,

{p. 333}

while the mothers have their infants laid away under the bushes with only a shawl between them and the cold ground. In their ball plays also each young man, before going into the game, is subjected to an ordeal of dancing, bleeding, and cold plunge baths, without food or sleep, which must unquestionably waste his physical energy.

In the old days when the Cherokee was the lord of the whole country from the Savannah to the Ohio, well fed and warmly clad and leading an active life in the open air, he was able to maintain a condition of robust health notwithstanding the incorrectness of his medical ideas and his general disregard of sanitary regulations. But with the advent of the white man and the destruction of the game all this was changed. The East Cherokee of to-



Prev Home Next



index.htm  -   cherokee_formulas1.htm  -   cherokee_formulas2.htm  -   cherokee_formulas3.htm  -   cherokee_formulas4.htm  -   cherokee_formulas5.htm  -   cherokee_formulas6.htm  -   cherokee_formulas7.htm  -   cherokee_formulas8.htm  -   cherokee_formulas9.htm  -   cherokee_formulas10.htm  -   cherokee_formulas11.htm  -   cherokee_formulas12.htm  -   cherokee_formulas13.htm  -   cherokee_formulas14.htm  -   cherokee_formulas15.htm  -   cherokee_formulas16.htm  -   cherokee_formulas17.htm  -   cherokee_formulas18.htm  -   cherokee_formulas19.htm  -   cherokee_formulas20.htm  -   cherokee_formulas21.htm  -   cherokee_formulas22.htm  -   cherokee_formulas23.htm  -   cherokee_formulas24.htm  -   cherokee_formulas25.htm  -   cherokee_formulas26.htm  -   cherokee_formulas27.htm  -   cherokee_formulas28.htm  -   cherokee_formulas29.htm  -   cherokee_formulas30.htm  -   cherokee_formulas31.htm  -   cherokee_formulas32.htm  -   cherokee_formulas33.htm  -   cherokee_formulas34.htm  -   cherokee_formulas35.htm  -   cherokee_formulas36.htm  -   cherokee_formulas37.htm  -   cherokee_formulas38.htm  -   cherokee_formulas39.htm  -   cherokee_formulas40.htm  -   cherokee_formulas41.htm  -   cherokee_formulas42.htm  -   cherokee_formulas43.htm  -   cherokee_formulas44.htm  -   cherokee_formulas45.htm  -   cherokee_formulas46.htm  -   cherokee_formulas47.htm  -   cherokee_formulas48.htm  -   cherokee_formulas49.htm  -   cherokee_formulas50.htm  -   cherokee_formulas51.htm  -   cherokee_formulas52.htm  -   cherokee_formulas53.htm  -   cherokee_formulas54.htm  -   cherokee_formulas55.htm  -   cherokee_formulas56.htm  -   cherokee_formulas57.htm  -   cherokee_formulas58.htm  -   cherokee_formulas59.htm  -   cherokee_formulas60.htm  -   cherokee_formulas61.htm  -   cherokee_formulas62.htm  -   cherokee_formulas63.htm  -   cherokee_formulas64.htm  -   cherokee_formulas65.htm  -   cherokee_formulas66.htm  -   cherokee_formulas67.htm  -   cherokee_formulas68.htm  -   cherokee_formulas69.htm  -   cherokee_formulas70.htm  -   cherokee_formulas71.htm  -   cherokee_formulas72.htm  -   cherokee_formulas73.htm  -   cherokee_formulas74.htm  -   cherokee_formulas75.htm  -   cherokee_formulas76.htm  -   cherokee_formulas77.htm  -   cherokee_formulas78.htm  -   cherokee_formulas79.htm  -   cherokee_formulas80.htm  -   cherokee_formulas81.htm  -   cherokee_formulas82.htm