Chapter LXX: Section 4: Charms and Amulets

The use of material objects for the magic purposes suggested by this title is well known. Their graphic representation is not so familiar, though it is to be supposed that the objects of this character would be pictorially represented in pictographs connected with religion. The following is an instance where the use of a charm or fetich in action was certainly portrayed in a pictograph.

Fig. 706, drawn by the Dakota Indians, near Fort Snelling, Minnesota, exhibits the use as a charm or talisman of an instrument fashioned in imitation of a war club, though it is not adapted to offensive employment. The head of the talisman is a grooved stone hammer from an inch and a half to 5 inches in length. A withe is tied about the middle of the hammer, in the groove binding on a handle of from 2 to 4 feet in length. The latter is frequently wrapped with buckskin or rawhide to strengthen it, as well as for ornamental purposes. Feathers attached bear designs indicating marks of distinction, perhaps sometimes fetichistic devices not understood.

It is believed that these objects possess the charm of warding off an enemy’s missiles when held upright before the body, as shown in the pictograph. The interpretation was explained by the draftsman himself.

“Medicine bags,” as they are termed by frontiersmen, are worn as amulets. They are sometimes filled by the owner in obedience to the suggestions of visions, but more frequently are prepared by the shaman. They are carried suspended from the neck by means of string or buckskin cords, as shown in Fig. 707, drawn in 1889 by I-teup'-de-tĭ, No-Shin-Bone, a Crow Indian, to represent himself with his insignia, and was extracted from a record kindly communicated by Dr. R. B. Holden, physician at the Crow Agency, Montana.

Fig. 708, drawn by the same hand, shows the same medicine bag temporarily hung on a forked stick. When the bag is carried on a war party it is never allowed to touch the ground. Also among the Ojibwa some of the bags which are considered to have the greatest fetichistic power are not kept in the lodges, as too dangerous, but are suspended from trees.

Capt. Bourke (_d_) gives the following account of the medicine hat of the Apache:

The medicine hat of the old and blind Apache medicine man,
Nan-ta-do-tash, was an antique affair of buckskin, much begrimed
with soot and soiled by long use. Nevertheless it gave life and
strength to him who wore it, enabled the owner to peer into the
future, to tell who had stolen ponies from other people, to foresee
the approach of an enemy, and to aid in the cure of the sick. * *
* This same old man gave me an explanation of all the symbolism
depicted upon the hat, and a great deal of valuable information in
regard to the profession of medicine men, their specialization,
the prayers they recited, etc. The material of the hat, as already
stated, was buckskin. How that was obtained I can not assert
positively, but from an incident occurring under my personal
observation in the Sierra Madre, in Mexico, in 1883, where our
Indian scouts and the medicine men with them surrounded a nearly
grown fawn and tried to capture it alive, as well as from other
circumstances too long to be here inserted, I am of the opinion that
the buckskin to be used for sacred purposes among the Apache must,
whenever possible, be that of a strangled animal, as is the case,
according to Dr. Matthews, among the Navajo.

The body of Nan-ta-do-tash’s cap was unpainted, but the figures
upon it were in two colors, a brownish yellow and an earthy blue,
resembling a dirty Prussian blue. The ornamentation was of the downy
feathers and black-tipped plumes of the eagle, pieces of abalone
shell and chalchihuitl, and a snake’s rattle on the apex.

Nan-ta-do-tash explained that the characters on the medicine
hat meant: A, clouds; B, rainbow; C, hail; E, morning star; F,
the god of wind, with his lungs; G, the black “kan;” H, the great
stars or suns. “Kan” is the name given to their principal gods. The
appearance of the kan himself and of the tail of the hat suggest the
centipede, an important animal god of the Apache. The old man said
that the figures represented the powers to which he appealed for aid
in his “medicine” and the kan upon whom he called for help.

The same author says, op. cit., p. 587:

The Apache, both men and women, wear amulets, called tzidaltai,
made of lightning-riven wood, generally pine or cedar or fir from
the mountain tops, which are highly valued and are not to be
sold. These are shaved very thin and rudely cut in the semblance
of the human form. They are in fact the duplicates, on a small
scale, of the rhombus. Like it they are decorated with incised
lines representing the lightning. Very often these are to be found
attached to the necks of children or to their cradles.

Four of the several winter counts described in the present work unite in specifying for the year 1843-’44 the recapture of a fetich called the great medicine arrow.

Fig. 709.--In a great fight with the Pawnees the Dakotas captured the great medicine arrow which had been taken from the Cheyennes, who made it, by the Pawnees. Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1843-’44.

The head of the arrow projects from the bag which contains it. The delicate waved or spiral lines show that it is sacred.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “The Great-medicine-arrow-comes-in winter.”

Battiste Good’s record gives the following for the same year:

“Brought-home-the-magic-arrow winter. This arrow originally belonged to the Cheyennes, from whom the Pawnees stole it. The Dakotas captured it this winter from the Pawnees, and the Cheyennes then redeemed it for one hundred horses.” His sign for the year is shown in Fig. 710. An attempt was made to distinguish colors by the heraldic scheme, which in this cut did not succeed. The upper part of the man’s body is sable or black, the feathers on the arrow are azure or blue, and the shaft, gules or red. The remainder of the figure is of an undecided color not requiring specification.

Fig. 711.--The great medicine arrow was taken from the Pawnees by the Oglalas and Brulés, and returned to the Cheyennes to whom it rightly belonged. American-Horse’s Winter Count, 1843-’44. The arrow appears to be in a case marked over with the lines meaning sacredness.

Another account of a magic arrow and illustrations of other fetichistic objects are in Chap. IX.

MANTLE OF INVISIBILITY.]

Pl. XXXIII is a copy of a cloak or mantle made from the skin of a deer, and covered with various mystic paintings. It was made and used by the Apaches as a mantle of invisibility, that is, a charmed covering for spies which would enable them to pass with impunity through the country, and even through the camp of their enemies. In this instance the fetichistic power depends upon the devices drawn. A similar but not identical pictographic fetich or charm is described and illustrated by Capt. Bourke (_e_) as obtained from a Chicarahua Apache which told when his ponies were lost, and which brought rain. The symbols show, inter alia, the rain cloud, and the serpent lightning, the raindrops and the cross of the winds of the four cardinal points.

Lewis and Clarke (_b_) say that the Chilluckittequaw, a Chinook tribe, had a “medicine” bag colored red 2 feet long, suspended in the middle of the lodge. It was held sacred, containing pounded dirt, roots, and such mysterious objects. From the chief’s bag he brought out fourteen forefingers of enemies--Snakes--whom he had killed.

A remarkable drawing in an Australian cave, described by Sir George Grey, in Worsnop, op. cit., was an ellipse, 3 feet in length and 1 foot 10 inches in breadth. The outside line of the painting was of deep blue color, the body of the ellipse being of a bright yellow dotted over with red lines and spots, whilst across it ran two transverse lines of blue. The portion of the painting above described formed the ground, or main part of the picture, and upon this ground was painted a kangaroo in the act of feeding; two stone spear heads, and two black balls; one of the spear heads was flying to the kangaroo, and one away from it; so that the whole subject probably constituted a sort of charm by which the luck of an inquirer in killing game can be ascertained. This cave drawing is copied in Fig. 712.

George Turner (_c_) gives account of hieroglyphic taboos, as he calls them, which are connected with the present subject:

The sea-pike taboo. If a man wished that a sea-pike might run
into the body of the person who attempted to steal, say, his bread
fruits, he would plait some cocoanut leaflets in the form of a
sea-pike, and suspend it from one or more of the trees which he
wished to protect.

The white-shark taboo was another object of terror to a thief.
This was done by plaiting a cocoanut leaf in the form of a shark,
adding fins, etc., and this they suspended from the tree. It was
tantamount to an expressed imprecation, that the thief might be
devoured by the white shark the next time he went to fish.

The cross-stick taboo. This was a piece of any sort of stick
suspended horizontally from the tree. It expressed the wish of
the owner of the tree, that any thief touching it might have a
disease running right across his body, and remaining fixed there
till he died.

The ulcer taboo. This was made by burying in the ground some
pieces of clam shell, and erecting at the spot three or four reeds,
tied together at the top in a bunch like the head of a man. This was
to express the wish and prayer of the owner that any thief might be
laid down with ulcerous sores all over his body.

The death taboo. This was made by pouring some oil into a small
calabash, and burying it near the tree. The spot was marked by a
little hillock of white sand.

The thunder taboo. If a man wished that lightning might strike
any who should steal from his land, he would plait some cocoanut
leaflets in the form of a small square mat, and suspend it from a
tree, with the addition of some white streamers of native cloth
flying. A thief believed that if he trespassed, he, or some of his
children, would be struck with lightning, or perhaps his own trees
struck and blasted from the same cause. They were not, however, in
the habit of talking about the effects of lightning. It was the
thunder they thought did the mischief; hence they called that to
which I have just referred the thunder taboo.