carry me through a long life._

6 _I pray for a life like yours._

7 _I walk with people; ahead of me all is well._

8 _I pray for people to smile as long as I live._

9 _I pray to live long._

10 _I pray, I say, for a long life to live with you where the good people
are._

11 _I live in poverty._

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 Goshonne. 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 Chuganaai Skhin from Kuterastan to the Apache
people. This was the beginning of the present so-called messiah craze.

[Illustration: Maternity Belt - Apache]

Maternity Belt - Apache

_From Copyright Photograph 1907 by E.S. Curtis_

From the first there was promise of a battle to the end between Goshonne
and Das Lan. Goshonne 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 Goshonne, if he was to assume the leadership. Goshonne 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,