Abstract
Omaha Secret Societies, Dr. R. F. Fortune in a study of the Omaha and their secret societies (Columbia Univ. Contrib. Anthrop., vol. 14) supplements, expands and sometimes corrects the material of previous observers—in such matters, for example, as the hereditary character, at disposal in the male line, of membership of the differerit classes of Omaha society, of chieftainship (excepting the lesser chieftainships) and of membership in the secret societies. Consequentially it may be shown that Omaha society is essentially aristocratic under democratic forms. The Omaha have four important doctoring societies, each under its own special supernatural patron, each with its own individual mode of curing, and its own special group of disorders. The first society, however, is peculiar in having two supernatural patrons, the grizzly bear and the rattle-snake, each of which has its separate set of votaries dealing with its own group of disorders. The two sets of votaries, however, have their method of healing in common—extraction of the illness from the body of the patient by sucking. The grizzly bear votaries treat rheumatism and local body pains, except stomach trouble, which is the province of the rattle-snake votaries, this disorder being supposed to be due to rattle-snake poison in the stomach which has been wafted through the air by ‘influence’. The second society is the ghost society, of which the patrons are the human ghosts. They treat delirium, epilepsy and mental disorders, their method of healing being the sprinkling of warm water. The third society is that of the buffalo patron, which heals wounds only by blowing water from the mouth over the part affected. The fourth society, which has a water monster patron, treats any ailment not pre-empted by the other three, as well as specialities, such as child-birth. This society works by sleight of hand, removing material objects from the part in which the disease resides.
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Reserch Items. Nature 131, 331–332 (1933). https://doi.org/10.1038/131331a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/131331a0