The Medicine-Men of the Apache. (1892 N 09 / 1887-1888 (pages 443-604)). Bourke John Gregory

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The belief was that a candle placed in a dead man's hand will not be seen by any but those by whom it is used. Such a candle introduced into a house kept those who were asleep from awakening.

      The superstition in regard to the "hand of glory" was widely diffused throughout France, Germany, Spain, and Great Britain. As late as the year 1831 it was used by Irish burglars in the county Meath.

      Dr. Frank Baker delivered before the Anthropological Society of Washington, D. C., a lecture upon these superstitions as related to the "hand of glory," to which the student is respectfully referred.161

      An Aztec warrior always tried to procure the middle finger of the left hand of a woman who had died in childbirth. This he fastened to his shield as a talisman.162 The great weapon of the Aztec witches was the left arm of a woman who had died in her first childbirth.163 Pliny mentions "still-born infants cut up limb by limb for the most abominable practices, not only by midwives, but by harlots even as well!"164

      The opinions entertained in Pliny's time descended to that of the Reformation —

      Finger of birth-strangled babe,

      Ditch-deliver'd by a drab.165

      "Scrofula, imposthumes of the parotid glands, and throat diseases, they say, may be cured by the contact of the hand of a person who has been carried off by an early death;" but, he goes on to say, any dead hand will do, "provided it is of the same sex as the patient and that the part affected is touched with the back of the left hand."166 A footnote adds that this superstition still prevails in England in regard to the hand of a man who has been hanged.

      The use of dead men's toes, fingers, spinal vertebræ, etc., in magical ceremonies, especially the fabrication of magical lamps and candles, is referred to by Frommann.167

      Grimm is authority for the statement that in both France and Germany the belief was prevalent that the fingers of an unborn babe were "available for magic."168

      In England witches were believed to "open graves for the purpose of taking out the joints of the fingers and toes of dead bodies … in order to prepare a powder for their magical purposes."169

      "Saint Athanase dit même, que ces parties du corps humain [i.e., hands, feet, toes, fingers, etc.] étoient adorées comme des dieux particuliers."170

      According to the sacred lore of the Brahmans "the Tirtha sacred to the Gods lies at the root of the little finger, that sacred to the Rishis in the middle of the fingers, that sacred to Men at the tips of the fingers, that sacred to Agni (fire) in the middle of the hand."171

      In the Island of Ceylon "debauchees and desperate people often play away the ends of their fingers."172

      Hone shows that "every joint of each finger was appropriated to some saint."173

      NECKLACES OF HUMAN TEETH

      A number of examples are to be found of the employment of necklaces of human teeth. In my own experience I have never come across any specimens, and my belief is that among the Indians south of the Isthmus such things are to be found almost exclusively. I have found no reference to such ornamentation or "medicine" among the tribes of North America, but there are many to show the very general dissemination of the custom in Africa and in the islands of the South Sea. Gomara says that the Indians of Santa Marta wore at their necks, like dentists, the teeth of the enemies they had killed in battle.174 Many of the Carib, we are told by a Spanish writer, ostentatiously wear necklaces made of strings of the teeth of the enemies whom they have slain.175 Padre Fray Alonzo Fernandez says of the Carib: "Traen los dientes con los cabellos de los que mataron por collares, como hazian antiguamente los Scitas."176 The people of New Granada "traen al cuello dientes de los que matavan."177 Picart says that the natives of New Granada and Cumana "portent au col les dents des ennemis qu'ils ont massacrez."178 The Spaniards found in the temple of the Itzaes, on the island of Peten, an idol made of "yesso," which is plaster, and in the head, which was shaped like the sun, were imbedded the teeth of the Castilians whom they had captured and killed.179

      "They strung together the teeth of such of their enemies as they had slain in battle and wore them on their legs and arms as trophies of successful cruelty."180

      Stanley says, referring to the natives of the Lower Congo country: "Their necklaces consisted of human, gorilla, and crocodile teeth, in such quantity, in many cases, that little or nothing could be seen of the neck."181

      "The necklaces of human teeth which they [Urangi and Rubunga, of the Lower Congo] wore."182 Again, "human teeth were popular ornaments for the neck."183 When a king dies they [the Wahŭma, of the head of the Nile] cut out his lower jaw and preserve it covered with beads.184

      Schweinfurth185 speaks of having seen piles of "lower jawbones from which the teeth had been extracted to serve as ornaments for the neck" by the Monbuttoo of Africa. "A slaughtered foe was devoured from actual bloodthirstiness and hatred by the Niam-Niams of Central Africa… They make no secret of their savage craving, but ostentatiously string the teeth of their victims round their necks, adorning the stakes erected beside their dwellings for the habitation of the trophies with the skulls of the men they have devoured. Human fat is universally sold."186

      The four front teeth were extracted by the men and women of the Latooka and other tribes of the White Nile, but no explanation is given of the custom.187

      In Dahomey, strings of human teeth are worn.188

      Freycinet saw in Timor, Straits of Malacca, "a score of human jawbones, which we wished to purchase; but all our offers were met by the word 'pamali,' meaning sacred."189

      In one of the "morais" or temples entered by Kotzebue in 1818, on the Sandwich Islands, there were two great and ugly idols, one representing a man, the other a woman. "The priests made me notice that both statues, which had their mouths wide open, were furnished with a row of human teeth."190

      The Sandwich Islanders kept the jaw bones of their enemies as trophies.191 King Tamaahmaah had a "spitbox which was set round with human teeth, and had belonged to several of his predecessors."192

      Among some of the Australian tribes the women wear about their necks the teeth which have been knocked out of the mouths of the boys at a certain age.193 This custom of the Australians does not obtain among the North American tribes, by whom the teeth, as they fall out, are carefully hidden or buried under some tree or rock. At least, I have been so informed by several persons, among others by Chato, one of the principal men of the Chiricahua Apache.

      Molina speaks of the

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