“Listen, my dream—­” This is the key to most of the Blackfoot medicine practices.  These doctors for the most part effect their cures by prayer.  Each one has his dream, or secret helper, to whom he prays for aid, and it is by this help that he expects to restore his patient to health.  No doubt the doctors have the fullest confidence that their practices are beneficial, and in some cases they undoubtedly do good because of the implicit confidence felt in them by the patient.

Often, when a person is sick, he will ask some medicine man to unroll his pipe.  If able to dance, he will take part in the ceremony, but if not, the medicine man paints him with the sacred symbols.  In any case a fervent prayer is offered by the medicine man for the sick person’s recovery.  The medicine man administers no remedies; the ceremony is purely religious.  Being a priest of the Sun, it is thought that god will be more likely to listen to him than he would to an ordinary man.

Although the majority of Blackfoot doctors are men, there are also many women in the guild, and some of them are quite noted for their success.  Such a woman, named Wood Chief Woman, is now alive on the Blackfoot reservation.  She has effected many wonderful cures.  Two Bear Woman is a good doctor, and there are many others.

In the case of gunshot wounds a man’s “dream,” or “medicine,” often acts directly and speedily.  Many cases are cited in which this charm, often the stuffed skin of some bird or animal, belonging to the wounded man, becomes alive, and by its power effects a cure.  Many examples of this might be given but for lack of space.  Entirely honest Indians and white men have seen such cures and believe in them.

THE BLACKFOOT OF TO-DAY

In the olden times the Blackfeet were very numerous, and it is said that then they were a strong and hardy people, and few of them were ever sick.  Most of the men who died were killed in battle, or died of old age.  We may well enough believe that this was the case, because the conditions of their life in those primitive times were such that the weakly and those predisposed to any constitutional trouble would not survive early childhood.  Only the strongest of the children would grow up to become the parents of the next generation.  Thus a process of selection was constantly going on, the effect of which was no doubt seen in the general health of the people.

With the advent of the whites, came new conditions.  Various special diseases were introduced and swept off large numbers of the people.  An important agent in their destruction was alcohol.