7 _I walk with people; ahead of me all is well._
8 _I pray for people to smile as long as I live._
10 _I pray, I say, for a long life to live with you where the good people are._
12 _I wish the people there to speak of goodness and to talk to me._
13 _I wish you to divide your good things with me, as a brother._
14 _Ahead of me is goodness, lead me on._
While this prayer is worded as if uttered by the supplicant, it is in reality offered by the medicine-man in his behalf.
There are head medicine-men and medicine-men of lesser degree. The man who becomes influential enough to be considered the head medicine-man of the tribe is more of a politician than a doctor of diseases, and in important cases only is he called to treat in a healing ceremony. It requires a particularly capable Indian to attain the position of head medicine-man, for to do so he must not only make the people subservient to his will, but must wrest the leadership from some other and usually older medicine-man who is himself an influential character. Unfortunately it is apt to be the most crafty, scheming man who gains such power over his tribesmen.
A case in point was the recent strife between Das Lan and Goshonné. For some years the latter, an Indian of exceptional ability and withal apparently an honest man in his treatment of diseases, was the head medicine-man of the White Mountain Apache. Then it came to pass that the crafty old Das Lan of the Cibicu had his vision, in which was revealed a special message brought by Chuganaái Skhĭn from Kútĕrastan to the Apache people. This was the beginning of the present so-called messiah craze.
_From Copyright Photograph 1907 by E.S. Curtis_
From the first there was promise of a battle to the end between Goshonné and Das Lan. Goshonné well knew that if the new cult gained a firm footing he would lose his influence and at best be but a mediocre medicine-man. Das Lan, on the other hand, knew that he must break the power of such a man as Goshonné, if he was to assume the leadership. Goshonné scoffed and scorned, and would have none of the new belief. Still, he was an Indian, and the prophecies of his rival gradually filled him with superstitious fear, while his followers were either deserting him openly or were secretly joining the ranks of the enemy. Death was predicted for the members of Goshonné’s own family, and well could Das Lan make such prophecies, for Goshonné’s two brothers were already stricken with tuberculosis. First one died, then the other. Das Lan could now point to him and say, "That is what Kútĕrastan does to those who do not believe!" It was thus that Goshonné’s power finally was broken and Das Lan became a seer.