Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 47.djvu/174



II. PHYSICIAN AND SURGEON.

LREADY, in Chapter II of the preceding part, have been given illustrations of the general truth that in rude tribes it is difficult to distinguish between the priest and the medicine-man. Their respective functions are commonly fulfilled by the same person. In addition to the instances there given, here are some others. According to Humboldt, "the Caribbee marirris are at once priests, jugglers, and physicians." Among the Tupis "the Payes, as they were called, were at once quacks, jugglers, and priests." Passing from South America to North, we read that the "Carriers know little of medicinal herbs. Their priest or magician is also the doctor;" and, of the Dakotahs, Schoolcraft says—"The Priest is both prophet and doctor." In Asia we meet with a kindred connection. In Southern India, the Kurumbas act as doctors to the Badagas, and it is said of them—"The Kurumbas also officiate as priests at their marriages and deaths." So is it among peoples further north. "Native doctors swarm in Mongolia. . . . They are mostly lamas. There are a few laymen who add medical practice to their other occupations, but the great majority of doctors are priests." It is the same on the other great continent. Reade tells us that in Equatorial Africa the fetishman is doctor, priest, and witch-finder; and concerning the Joloffs and Eggarahs, verifying statements are made by Mollien and by Allen and Thomson.

This evidence, re-enforcing evidence given in the preceding part, and re-enforced by much more evidence given in the first volume of this work, shows that union of the two functions is a normal trait in early societies.

The origin of this union lies in the fact before named that the primitive priest and the primitive medicine-man both deal with supposed supernatural beings; and the confusion arises in part from the conceived characters of these ghosts and gods, some of which are regarded as always malicious, and others of which, though usually friendly, are regarded as liable to be made angry and then to inflict evils.

The medicine-man, dealing with malicious spirits, to which diseases among other evils are ascribed by savages, subjects his patients partly to natural agencies, but chiefly to one or other method of exorcism. Says Keating of the Chippewas, "their mode of treatment depends more upon the adoption of proper