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Primitive Medicine is timeless. It is as old as the Paleolithic cave-dwellers. It
is as new as today. Early evidences of its practice can be traced back 10,000 years.
Yet it is being practiced in some part of the world at this very hour-in certain
remote areas of Africa, Asia, and South America, Australia, the islands of the Pacific;
or among some of the Indian tribes and Eskimos in North America. The pace of advancement
of medicine from its beginnings has not been even. In some societies living in today’s
world, cultures remain at near Stone Age levels; and it is reasonable to assume
that in their medical practices they have retained many characteristics of their
prehistoric predecessors.
Members of primitive society do not distinguish between medicine, magic and religion.
They, first of all (very much as do we), will deal with disease in a matter-of-fact
way, using various household the remedies, without special theories or employment
of parishioners. But when these measures fail, they will resort to measures very
different from those we would take. While we assume that disease and death result
from natural causes, primitive men regard them almost entirely as work of supernatural
agents: gods, holy people, ghosts, or sorceress. Spirits and ghosts are provoked
into action by neglect, or by the breaking of one of the sacred rules (taboos),
either by the patient or by one of his family.
It follows logically that diagnosis of disease from such supernatural causes cannot
be made by mere observation and examination of the patient. The medicine man must
use supernatural techniques.
It follows with equal logic that treatments to combat, to placate or to overcome
such super naturalistic causes, must themselves be primarily supernatural, magic-religious
ceremonies. As a rule, they consist basically or prayers and incantations. However,
they contain also elements which we would designate physiotherapeutic and psychotherapeutic,
although they are interpreted in magic- religious terms. Primitive man is extraordinarily
subject to suggestion, which explains his strong response to spells, to charms,
and to other magic; and his fears of violation of taboos.
Unquestionably, primitive medicine achieves no small part of its results through
psychotherapy. Confession and suggestion, which loom large in native practice, lately
have enjoyed a considerable comeback in our own medical system. Primitive medicine
does not differentiate between bodily and mental disease. Certainly, the patient
must derive considerable sense of security from magic and religious ceremonies,
both with family and with community participation. Corresponding improvement in
morale and in physical response might well be expected; and, with upsurge of the
body’s own defense mechanisms, perhaps even bacterial invaders might be somewhat
thwarted.
The medical practitioner in primitive society, the medicine man, is primarily priest
or shaman. He is a learned man, comparatively speaking, because he knows more than
other people about the transcendental world, so much so that he sometimes has power
over it. He very often is the only professional man in an undifferentiated society.
He is neither fraud nor psychopath, as sometimes has been assumed erroneously. His
magic or illusionary practices are done symbolically and in keeping with a strict
code and well-established ritual. What he does, he do in sincerity; anthropologists
believe he is just as sincere as the modern doctor.
All elements of primitive medicine- religion, sacred dances, magic, prayers, hymns,
mythology, together with certain rational elements are to be found today in the
beautiful, colorful, sacred song ceremonials which have been practiced, virtually
unchanged, for at least a century, possibly more; by the Navaho Indians of the Southwestern
United States.
Navahos are a deeply religious people of Athabascan stock (closely related to many
tribes of northwestern Canada) who ranged down from the north into what is now the
southwestern part of the United States around 1000 A.D. According to one school
of anthropologists, Navahos, like all North and South American Indian tribes, are
descendants of people who crossed a land bridge from Asia and Siberia, beginning
some 10,000 years ago. At present, Navahos lives principally in a semi-arid region
located in part of New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah.
Most Navaho rituals are performed with certain aims in mind: restoration of health,
and insuring immunity to further disease. With these rituals they hope to supplicate,
propitiate, or coerce the Holy people- supernatural Beings who have great powers
over people on earth.
Navaho chant, or “sings,” always have mythological sanction. Each ceremonial
has certain songs, prayers, and herbal medicines peculiar to it; and many of these
have their own particular sand paintings. Around 600 different sand paintings have
been recorded, each representing certain divinities or associated events in Navaho
mythology. Technically, these pictures, made on a clean sand base, or occasionally
on a buskin or cloth substitute, usually inside a Hogan (the Navaho dwelling, or
on occasion, specially- built medicine hut), perhaps should be called dry paintings,
for various crushed minerals and vegetable materials also are used for certain types
of ceremonials. Patterns, retained in memories of medicine men, or “singers,”
are handed down from one to another. Many years of apprenticeship and study are
required of the Navaho tribesman who aspires to become a practitioner of religious
ritual.
Though the chants may vary greatly as to songs, prayers, and sand paintings, the
Navaho’s basic procedure is nearly always the same: family and friends gather
in the Hogan; they participate with the patient in ceremonies; when a sandpainting
has been done, the patient sits down upon it, and treatment by the singer begins,
to the accompaniment of song and of prayer. When treatment is completed, the patient
leaves the Hogan, the sand painting is destroyed, and the sands carried out and
disposed of according to ritual.
Of Navaho healing “sings” or ceremonials, one of the more elaborate
and colorful is the Mountain Chant, or the Mountain Top Way. Dr.Washington Matthews
described this chant in great detail in a report to the Director of the Bureau of
Ethnology of the Smithsonian Institution, published in 187.
Of the mountain Chant ceremony, Dr. Matthews says its purposes are various. “Its
ostensible reason for existence is to cure disease; but it is made the occasion
for invoking the unseen powers in behalf of the people at large for various purposes….
It would appear that it is also designed to perpetuate their religious symbolism…The
last night… is an occasion when the people gather and have a jolly time.
The patient pays the expenses and, probably in addition to the favor and help of
the gods and the praise of the priesthood, hopes to obtain social distinction by
his liberality.”
The first four days ceremonies (of nine in the Mountain Chant) are perhaps less
colorful than the others. Early each morning, before eating, the patient, the singer,
and all others who desire, men and women, enter the ceremonial Hogan. Seated around
a fire, they take a hot emetic infusion of many different kinds of plants mixed
together, and sweat profusely. Small sandpaintings sometimes are made around the
fire, and other procedures, such as aspersing with a fragrant herb lotion, are involved.
On the fifth day, according to Washington Mathews’ description, the first
of the holy pictures was drawn in sand and pigment on the floor of the Hogan. On
the sixth day, another sandpainting was made. One of the more interesting paintings
was made on the seventh day. The painters’ work began soon after 6 A.M. and
was not completed until 2 pomp. About a dozen men assisted the medicine man, who
did little of the manual labor but watched the work and frequently criticized and
corrected it. When the painting, featuring four “tall gods,” was finished,
the singer applied sacred corn pollen to brow, mouth, and chest of each of the gods.
A whistle was blown, the sick woman and a companion entered and cast corn meal on
the floor. The patient took off her moccasions and upper garments and sat on the
form of the white god, and the singing and rattling resumed. Without interrupting
his song the chanter sprinkled the picture with a cold decoction of herbs he had
previously prepared. He then applied the moistened sprinkler to each of the gods,
then administered the decoction to his patient in two draughts, to her companion,
to himself in the same manner, then gave the dregs to the onlookers to pass from
one to another. He applied pigments from different parts of the figures to corresponding
parts of the patient. This was followed by fumigation rites by sprinkling pungent,
aromatic herbs on hot coals.
A less elaborate sandpainting followed on the eighth day (although in some ceremonies
the last painting is the most elaborate), accompanied by rituals much like those
of the of the preceding three days. While this was going on inside the medicine
Hogan, a great stack of wood was being assembled in the center of the corral outside.
At this time, too, a great number of people began to assemble. Much food was prepared,
and games developed for pastime. On the ninth day, until sunset, preparation of
certain properties for use in the coming ceremonies went on. Just after sunset,
the old chanter posted him in the east of the corral and began a song. The corral
itself, a huge circle, was built of branches. Then people assembled inside the corral,
the great fire was lighted, and many dances, remarkable for their daring and endurance,
followed. At least a dozen dances took place, lasting throughout the night- and
the singer chanted on through it all!
Shortly after sunrise, the corral was razed. The chanter packed his sacred utensils
and left. The patient greeted and thanked her friends for having attended and aided
in her treatment.
The technique of sandpainting is an art. Pictures are drawn to an exact system.
According to the medicine men, designs are transmitted from teacher to pupil, and
for each ceremony are unaltered from year to year and from generation to generation.
Colored powders are taken from bark trays or other containers into the painter’s
palm and allowed to pass out between his thumb and forefinger. The degree of accuracy
achieved by this freehand method is astounding.
Logic of primitive man differs from ours. While his medicine appears strange, if
not absurd, to modern observers, in the framework of the outlook upon life of a
native society it is meaningful and logical. It is effective enough, too, to be
retained by many primitive peoples even when in competition with modern medical
concepts brought to them by medical missionaries, government clinics or administrators.
THE PICTURE
A moment in ceremonies of the nine –day Navaho Mountain Chant is captured
in the painting. American Indians made much of primitive medicine and ancient sand
painting ceremonials of the Navahos are among the more colorful. These ceremonies
embody all elements of primitive medicine- religion, magic, chants, physiotherapeutic,
and painting has been completed, the patient is seated upon it. The medicine man,
or “singer,” chants, sings, prays, and utilizes magic-religious artifacts
and sacred powders in the ritual. The patient is given draughts of decoctions of
various herbs, which are shared by the medicine man and by spectators. Later, bits
of pigments are applied to the patient’s body, and fumes of aromatic herbs
sprinkled on hot coal are inhaled. Family and friends witness and join in the ceremonies,
conducted in a medicine “Hogan.”
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