Muxumsa's Ear Pipes
It is truly strange how your memories work as you get older. For example, the other night I was thinking about Humsa and his gift for healing, when I recalled something that had long lain dormant in my sleepy mind. It is hard to believe that I had forgotten it, for it was one of the things Humsa was renown for, his healing of infected ears.
I remember accompanying Humsa as he gathered the wood for his special healing pipes, which he called ear pipes.
He would go to a special box elder that grew deep in the woods. That this tree was special to him, there could be no doubt, for it was festooned with many of his prayer ties and offerings, and also had some very special bent branches. I watched as Humsa bent some of the young branches one day. He did it with great care and ceremony. First he would lay his hands upon the tree, talk to it and pray and then he would give its roots an offering of his, special tobacco. Then he would gently caress the branch and slowly and gently bend it about thirty or forty degrees to form an angle, then he would tie it in place with one of his prayer ties. It was these branches that he would harvest from the tree a year or two later to make into what he called ear pipes. One thing I do remember about those branches he cut, he never allowed them to touch the ground. I remember this particularly, because I was helping him one day and accidentally dropped one, and he left it lay where it had fallen only offering a pinch of tobacco over it. I remember this well now, for I felt bad about doing something wrong, even though I didn't understand what it was.
I remember watching Humsa as he fashioned the pipes. He would take a red- hot wire and burn out the pithy centers of these crooked branches and then whittle them down into what looked like a pipe. They tapered long and slender on one side of the crook, perhaps six or eight inches long, and on the other side, which was the thick end, the branch would be about three or four inches long with a larger hole bored into its end about a half to three quarters of an inch deep like a bowl of a pipe. And all the time that Humsa was doing this he would be very careful not to let them touch the earth, he had a deer skin with a piece of white cloth on top upon which these pipes were placed and wrapped. There they would lie until they would be used one time and one time only. It was a lot of work for a single use.
These ear pipes were very important back then, for there were at least two very dangerous ailments that happened to us children in the summer, one was abscessed teeth and the other was what was referred to as "Beeled ears". I know that there are probably a lot of different names for the ear infections that occurred, but this was what the people back then called it. It was an ear infection that made the ear turn yellow and abscess inside. I think the word "Beeled" came from the word bilious or biled, I'm not sure, but that is what they called it. If not treated it was very dangerous causing high fever and sometimes death. I know personally of one of my childhood friends dying from it. I know that I had it once. The pain of the earache was terrible and I was so sick that I don't remember much about Humsa healing me except for the fact he made the pain go away and did cure it. But I did see first hand how it was done to another, so I will try to describe it.
I remember going with Humsa to the home of one of my play mates, his name was Jimmy Johnson. Jimmy had "Beeled ears". Both of his ears were puffed and yellow looking and oozing puss. They were so swollen that it looked like he had two small yellow gourds growing from the sides of his head.
Jimmy was a little older than me, I remember this clearly, for at the time I thought it strange that he should be lying there, out of his head with pain and fever, mewing and crying like a new born baby. I know this sounds cruel, but that was the thought that prevails in my memory.
I remember that one of the first things that Humsa did was ask to be alone with Jimmy for a while, so I don't know what his primary steps were, but when he called me in to help him afterwards, I saw that he had his small smudge bowl lit and could smell the cedar that was among the many herbs that burned there, the room was smoky with it. I saw Humsa take out his stone pipe and carefully pack it with some special mix from a small pouch. I say special mix, because the pouch had a piece of red ribbon sewn to it. It was one of those that no one was allowed to touch. Any way he than took out two of his special ear pipes and rubbed bees-wax into the small end. He inserted one of the pipes into Jimmy's ear and than taking up his stone pipe took a big breath of its smoke and than blew it into the ear pipe into Jimmy's ear, then leaving that pipe in place, he filled the bowl of it with the special mix and lit it. After the mix had burned itself out, he removed the pipe, and it was filled with puss and he threw it into the fire to burn. After doing the same to the other ear, he then made up a bread and milk poultice, taking the doughy mix and filling each of Jimmy's ears with it until it looked like he was wearing ear-muffs, he then wrapped Jimmy's head in gauze. And when we left there Jimmy was sleeping like a baby.
I know first hand how powerful Humsa's special mix was, for it deadened all the pain. The next day we went back over and Humsa removed the two poultice, they were all greenish yellow, and were immediately burned. Then Humsa repeated the same things he had done the first day. On the third day Jimmy was sitting up and all Humsa did was remove the poultice's. Jimmy came out to play the fourth day. Humsa had used up four of his ear pipes and probably saved Jimmy's life or at very least his hearing.
A little more on Humsa's special mix. I really wish that he had taught me what it was. It was his secret. It was so strong that after he took in a mouthful of its smoke to blow in the patient's ears, he could not talk for a couple hours and the when he did he sounded like Donald Duck for the next two hours. I know for it would make Umati and I laugh to hear him and to see him grin I think he thought it funny too.
These small reminiscence's of those days may seem pretty trivial to some, but when I think back to those days without the antibiotics of today, of how we children played half naked and barefoot all summer, swimming and drinking from the rivers and creeks, eating all types of greens and fruits without washing them. Why it’s enough to make people now-a-days shudder in disbelief. It is when I look back that I thank God that we had our elders who knew such healing ways.
Blue Turtle
