Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 August 1878 — More Killed than Cared. [ARTICLE]

More Killed than Cared.

Gen. Sheridan has discovered that the “ medicine men” among the Navajo Indians tie their patients to trees, in some cases, and shoot stones into their bodies to cure them. The shooting, however, generally had exactly the opposite effect, and the soldiers who discovered the doctors at their work put; a stop to the

treatment and asked the doctors what they had to say. The medicine men replied that they had been taught the practice by a neighboring tribe, but that they had lost some of the medicine that should go on the stones, so that it “didn’t work very well.” A number of other “doctors” were accused, and some of them admitted that they had killed a good many patients in that way; but, being only “ Indians, not taxed,” they were let off on promising to abandon the practice.