Native Americans: 22 Books on History, Mythology, Culture & Linguistic Studies. James Mooney

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      Medicine Cap and Fetish - Apache

      Yólkai Nalí̆n is the favorite goddess from whom, in their belief, the Apache women are endowed with great beneficence. She lives in the skies, where all souls go. The prayer to her is, as to the others, "Save me from pain and let my child come as you did."

      Clouds at the feet of Nayé̆nĕzganĭ typify the bounties of the world into which it is hoped and prayed the child will be happily born.

      The prayers finished, hádĭntĭn is sifted over all the figures. Beginning at the left, the lightning line is followed into Stĕnátlĭhăn's abode, which is then encircled, and the sacred powder is liberally sprinkled around and over her body. Each figure is treated in like manner.

      The accompanying plate shows a medicine-cap made by Yotlú̆nĭ, a medicine-man, about forty years ago, to cure a boy of lightning stroke which had impaired his reason, and a small wooden image of a god recently made to be carried by a girl troubled with nervousness. On both these objects the gods and elements which cause afflictions and which alone can give relief are symbolically represented.

      The central figure on the cap pictures Ndídĭlhkĭzn, Lightning Maker, with lightning, hádĭlhkĭh, in zigzag lines above his head and beneath his feet. The broad arch indicates clouds with rifts in them, out of which the evil came and into which it may return. The cross of abalone, the small white bead, and the eagle feather are media through which Tu Ntĕlh (Wide Water), Yólkai Nalí̆n (White-Shell Girl), and Itsád Ndé̆yu (Eagle People) are supplicated.

      The cap was worn at night by the boy, whose parents each morning at sunrise prayed to the various gods and elements represented on it, invoking them to take back that which they had left with the boy, and adding: "Keep us even in temper and mild and clean in action. We do wrong at times, but that is not our wish. If our minds are kept clean we will do nothing bad. We wish to have good thoughts and to do good deeds. Keep our minds clear that we may think them and do them." After each prayer hádĭnĭn was sifted upon the symbol representing the deity addressed.

      As the boy soon recovered, the virtue of the cap was attested, and subsequently its owner often hired it to others.

      The little wooden image represents Hádĭnĭn Skhĭn, Pollen Boy, God of Health. The painted figures on the skin pouch in which it is carried are similar to those on the cap, and all are supplicated in the same manner. The medicine-man who made the image and pouch received a horse from the father of the patient in payment; but not the least interesting feature of the case for which these objects were made is that the god of the natives received all the credit for the efficient treatment given the afflicted girl for a year by the reservation physician.

      Dry-paintings, or figures drawn upon the ground with colored earths, were used in the Apache healing ceremonies, but never to a great extent, and of late years they have been practically abandoned. These paintings, compared with the beautiful, conventional productions of the Navaho, are crude; in making them the Apache always attempt to picture the objects literally rather than to represent them conventionally or symbolically.

      On the infrequent occasions when the dry-paintings are employed, the medicine-man in charge of the ceremony directs his assistants, at daylight, to begin the painting. When it is finished he takes his station close to the easternmost figure of the painting, on its northern side. At the right of the medicine-man sit twelve chosen singers with a drum. The four masked gáŭn, or gods, at the same time take their places at the cardinal points. The patient then enters from the east and sits down on the head of the large figure in the centre of the dry-painting. As he does so the medicine-man commences to sing, and is joined by the chorus at once. They may sing the song four times, or sing four different songs, or any multiple of four, at the pleasure of the medicine-man. When the songs are finished the four masked personages scrape the colored earths into a heap about the patient and rub them in handfuls over his body. If this ceremony proves to be ineffectual, it is believed to be the will of the gods that the patient be not cured.