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Show THE MANDANS-----DISEASES AND MEDICINES. 391 in the same manner as the Manitari chief, Kokoahkis, mentioned by Say. He went, one evening, wrapped up in his robe, into a hut of the hostile Arikkaras, as the young men of the village often do, ate with his face covered, so that he was taken for a young Arikkara; then laid himself down by the side of a woman, and afterwards cut off a lock of her hair, with which he retired. He might have killed the woman, as Kokoahkis did, but refrained from doing so. Wounds appear to be healed with remarkable ease. In cases of arrow wounds, they like to force the arrow quite through, that the iron head may not remain in the wound. Men and women are often scalped, in battle, who afterwards come to themselves, and are cured. Such a large wound on the head is rubbed with fat; the medicine man fumigates it, singing at the same time. Disorders are not uncommon among the Indians. The Mandans and Manitaries often suffer from diseases in the eyes; many are one-eyed, or have a tunicle over one eye. In inflammation of the eye they have a custom of scratching the inner eye with the leaf of a kind of grass, resembling a saw, which causes them to bleed very much, and this may often occasion the loss of the eye. Rheumatism, coughs, and the like, are frequent, because they go half naked in the severest cold, and plunge into ice water. Much benefit is often derived from their steam-baths, in a well closed hut, where a thick steam is produced by pouring water on hot stones. They then immediately go into the cold, roll themselves in the snow, or plunge into a river covered with drifting ice, but do not return to a warm hut, as the Russians do. Many Indians are said to have died on the spot by trying this remedy. Some suffer from gout; but all who survive these violent remedies are stronger and more hardy. Another remedy is trampling on the whole body, especially the stomach, as is practised also among the Brazilians. This operation is performed with such violence, as often to occasion hard swellings in the intestines, or ulcers, especially in the liver. The steam-bath is used as a remedy in all kinds of disorders. Vaccination, the application of which met with no difficulties among several nations on the great lakes, especially the Chippeways, is not yet practised among the Mandans and Manitaries. Spitting of blood is said to be frequent, but not pulmonary consumption. Gonorrhoea is very common ; they affirm that all venereal disorders came to them from the Crows beyond the Rocky Mountains. For such disorders they often seat themselves over a heated pot, but very frequently burn themselves. They cut open buboes, lengthwise, with a knife, and then run for a couple of miles as fast as they can. The jaundice is said not to occur among them. It appears that they are not acquainted with emetics, but, if they feel anything wrong in the stomach, they thrust a feather down the throat, and thus produce vomiting. Their purgatives are obtained from the vegetable kingdom. The poison-vine often produces swellings, especially in children. As rattlesnakes are rare in the vicinity of the villages, it is, of course, seldom that any one is bitten by them; these Indians are said, however, to have very good remedies against the bite. Frozen limbs are rubbed with snow. |