(Prescription.)--(This is to use) when they are sick with the great chill. Take a decoction of wild cherry to blow upon them. If you have Tsâ'l-agayû'nlï ("old tobacco"--Nicotiana rustica) it also is very effective.

EXPLANATION.

Unawa'stï, "that which chills one," is a generic name for intermittent fever, otherwise known as fever and ague. It is much dreaded by the Indian doctors, who recognize several varieties of the disease, and have various theories to account for them. The above formula was obtained from A`yûnni (Swimmer), who described the symptoms of this variety, the "Great Chill," as blackness in the face, with alternate high fever and shaking chills. The disease generally appeared in spring or summer, and might return year after year. In the first stages the chill usually came on early in the morning, but came on later in the day as the disease progressed. There might be more than one chill during the day. There was no rule as to appetite, but the fever always produced an excessive thirst. In one instance the patient fainted from the heat and would even lie down in a stream to cool himself. The doctor believed the disease was caused by malicious tsgâ'ya, a general name for all small insects and worms, excepting intestinal worms. These tsgâ'ya--that is, the disease tsgâ'ya, not the real insects and worms--are held responsible for a large number of diseases, and in fact the tsgâ'ya doctrine is to the Cherokee practitioner what the microbe theory is to some modern scientists. The tsgâ'ya live in the earth, in the water, in the air, in the foliage of trees, in decaying wood, or wherever else insects lodge, and as they are constantly being crushed, burned or otherwise destroyed through the unthinking carelessness of the human race, they are continually actuated by a spirit of revenge. To accomplish their vengeance, according to the doctors, they "establish towns" under the skin of their victims, thus producing an irritation which results in fevers, boils, scrofula and other diseases.

The formula begins with a song of four verses, in which the doctor invokes in succession the spirits of the air, of the mountain, of the forest, and of the water. Galûnlatï, the word used in the first verse, signifies, as has been already explained, "on high" or "above everything," and has been used by translators to mean heaven. Ûnwadâ'hï in the second verse is the name of a bald mountain east of Webster, North Carolina, and is used figuratively to denote any mountains of bold outline. The Cherokees have a tradition to account for the name, which is derived from Ûnwadâ'lï, "provision house." Nâ'tsihï' in the third verse signifies "pinery," from nâ'`tsï, "pine," but is figuratively used to denote a forest of any kind.

In the recitation which follows the song, but is used only in serious cases, the doctor prays to the whirlwind, which is considered to dwell, among the trees on the mountain side, where the trembling of

{p. 362}

the leaves always gives the first intimation of its presence. He declares that a small portion of the disease still remains, the spirits invoked in the song having already taken the rest, and calls upon the whirlwind to lay down a path for it and sweep it away into the swamp on the upland, referring to grassy marshes common in the small coves of the



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