5
final passing of the second soul to the afterworld. At this time,
also, mourning chants are sung for the bereaved so that they may
be permitted to forget their loss and have life in the community
restored to normalcy as soon as possible.
B. If the soul simply wanders at night, goes to the North,
and then returns at dawn, the person has merely been dreaming.
This is in no sense an abnormal ghostly episode.
C. My informant explained that sometimes the ghost enjoyed
his nocturnal adventure so much that it refused to come back at
dawn. When this happened, the person who had dreamed suddenly
found his body become sick. Hence, the medicine man always asked
his patient first about his dreams. Upon learning from the dream
how the soul had been detained, the medicine man obtains the proper
herbs, mixes them in a pot, sings the proper chants beseeching the
soul to return. It is also important to blow his breath through
the medicine pipe--his "ammunition"--as the power of breath is
quaintly called. The medicine man believes that certain magical
power comes from himself through the pipe, and that this power is
sufficient in most cases to retrieve the wandering soul.
Dreaming about fire may cause fever, to their way of thinking.
To illustrate this: I once saw our medicine man friend sauntering
down the Tamiami Trail with his blowing pipe in his hand, gathering
herbs. When asked what he would use them for, he replied that
his wife had told him that she had dreamed of fire. He accordingly
was afraid that she might contract a bad fever. Medicine was neces-
sary to prevent this contingency from occuring.
Aside from diagnosis by dreams, there are many examples of
diagnosis through observing body symptoms. In these cases, the type
of disease is named after an animal. For instances, if the baby
cries and scratches and never stops, similar to the actions of a
monkey, he is thought to have the monkey disease. The treatment
is to sing a particular chant to the monkey, and supposedly the
child will be cured. The dog disease is considered to be caused
by both the dog and the buzzard; hence, the chants are sung till both
these creatures desist. The symptoms of this malady are stomach ache,
loss of appetite, vomiting and bad dreams. Along with the medicinal
chants, herbs are mixed and medicine prepared. Both together
should produce a cure. The phonograph records to be played shortly
contain examples of chants for deer sickness, sun sickness, brought
about largely through the recitation of certain formulas, by the
performance rites, and by the concoction of certain herbal med-
icines in a specific manner. The cure is magical--not strictly
medicinal, as among ourselves--though the Seminole herbal medicine
is, in itself, efficacious in some instances. The Seminole doctor's