2492 THE GREAT DENE RACE.

in this case takes the form of a single piece of bone or horn usually worn
at the neck (fig. 65).

The chronicler of these practices does not explain their real intent. That
it is identical with that of the corresponding customs in the north is evident
from the wording of a mystical formula recited on subsequent menstruations

Fig. 65.

in order to shorten to eight days the period of seclusion enjoined on the
woman. On the night of the eighth day from the beginning of her course,
she makes a small pool by the river to be used as a bath-room, and repeats
a long formula wherein, after marking a cross with a charred acorn on her
right arm, she says: “He will hunt deer without harm if he does eat what I
leave”, and again: “He who eats what I leave will kill deer the same as ever?.”
Among the Apaches of the far south, we find the very same scratching
stick and drinking tube or reed as mentioned above. The accompanying fig. 66,
Za copied from Capt. John G. Bourke’s “Me-
dicine-Men of the Apache”, represents both.
In his erudite paper, the author quotes on
their object and intent opinions which are,
to say the least, amusing, and betray a
remarkable ignorance of the mentality pe-
culiar to the Indian. Thus, speaking of the
scratcher, Kane declares that a Cree dares
not scratch his head “without compromising
his dignity” 2. Bourke states that the rule
EEE enjoined among the Apaches is that the
Fig. 66. first four times that a young man goes
to war, he must refrain from scratching
his head with his fingers, or letting water touch his lips*. Hence the two
above mentioned implements.

1 Goddard, “Hupa Texts”, p. 313.
? «Wanderings of an Artist in North America”, p. 399.
3 “Medicine-Men of the Apache” (Ninth Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethnol.).