4
him for eight additional days. After this, the medicinal student
is allowed to study on his own, but he is expected to return to
the medicine man who is in charge of his teaching on the first
month of the ensuing year for further instruction and to ask ques-
tions. In order to cure, one must learn the proper magical chants
of formulas. Hence, the teaching of the songs in connection with
each one of the various types of diseases undoubtedly forms a sig-
nificant part of the training of the new medicine man. A Seminole
has a decidedly different notion about medicine from that held by
whites. Whereas we think in terms of drugs, ointments, stimulants
or cathartics which will benefit the body in predictable fashion,
the Seminole relies on the actions of the medicine man. These
people have confidence in his power to cure diseases or to alleviate
mental suffering. The Indian medical doctor must also have his
patients consider life as supernaturally dangerous as possible.
The more fraught with danger he can make the affairs of everyday
life, the more clients he has and the more secure his position.
A common cause of disease is the loss of a ghost or soul.
The Seminole believes in the existence of a double soul. One
soul may leave the body in sleep and wander far afield, while the
other leaves the body only at death. The nightly adventures of
the first soul are revealed in dreams. To discover the cause of
sickness, a medicine man must analyze the dreams.
In order to explain the diagnosis through loss of a soul,
my informant drew a diagram on the ground to illustrate his con-
ception of the subject. He was trying graphically to show me the
Seminole theory of well-being, of disease, until the final death
and destruction of the soul. The world is considered as divided
into four cardinal directions: North, South, East, and West. West
is believed to be a ritually dangerous direction, since the dead
are thought to travel over the Milky Way--spirit or ghost road--
to the West. The designation of the Milky Way as the path of the
dead to the afterworld is an Indian idea which was found among
most of the Southeastern tribes, and even among some tribes on
the Great Plains.
First let us consider the situation at death. One soul or
ghost goes to the North and then continues around to the East.
If, when it gets to the East, the medicine man is not able to call
it back to its proper position--central--the ghost will go over the
Milky Way to the West, as the city of the dead is located in the
West. This happening indicates the death of a person. Four days
after death, the second soul or ghost follows the first at night-
fall. This accounts for the four day mourning period in which all
relatives of the deceased must stay in their camps to wait for the