These specialists have most commonly been termed shamans, for example by Spier (1930:107) and Stem (n.d.:45). However, as applied to the Klamath (or to any tribe of the region) the term requires qualification. Hultkrantz, in his study of American Indian religions, has contrasted two forms of supernatural curer, which he termed the visionary and the ecstatic:
we may distinguish , two main types of medicine man: the visionary, whose trance is light and whose clairvoyance is distinctive, and the ecstatic, who may converse with the spirits or depart from his own body in deep trance… Only the latter should really be called a shaman. (Hultkrantz 1979:87)
Shamanism in its strict sense describes a religious complex “in which specialists undertake to heal, guide, and prophesy through trance behavior and mystical night” (R. Winthrop 19911 s.v “shamanism”), a pattern best known from the circumpolar cultures, notably of Siberia. In the distinction posed by Hultkrantz, the qyoqs is a visionary, not an ecstatic. His (or her) key ability is possession of spirit songs, not entry into trance and mystical flight (see Spier 1930:109; cf Eliade 1964).
Klamath beliefs regarding the qyoqs (variously termed by Gatschet “conjurer” and “medicine-man”) are nicely summarized in the following text:
Once man long ago spoke thus: over there is my bewitched wife, having fallen sick; you bewitched (her). Then an old man he sent out to call a conjurer [qyoqs]; and he started, the old man, to fetch the conjurer, and to call him out, helloed; and he heard the magic songs, conjurers’ songs on the mountain, far away are these songs. Then goes the conjurer to treat (her), to the spot where she lies bewitched. Now he works on her, and sucks. A big thing comes out through (his) mouth; he orders (those present) to sing, while he would suck on with (his) mouth. Then he sucks out, and feels choked, and throws up again his sucked-out article; his expounder [lularkish = shaman’s assistant] swallows (it). Now (after) he has swallowed (it), worse that (patient) being treated, in spite of, (she) is worse, she almost looks toward the spirit land. The conjurer starts to leave. wanting to retire because she turned worse, (and) the food not passing through (bowels). Hereupon he speaks thus whose own wife is sick for being bewitched, to the conjurer: “you have bewitched her.” But the conjurer opposes denial [argues]: “not I did bewitch (her)! She had become sick (before)!” conjurer then so said. Now dies the woman. They struck (and) killed the conjurer for this woman being bewitched (and) having died. And the people [maklaks] cremated the woman killed by the conjurer; the conjurer they brought him back to (his) lodge and cremated (him). (2)
Shamans were ambiguous figures: capable of curing, but equally of turning their powers in malevolent directions. Here a man suspects his wife’s illness to be the result of a shaman’s sorcery. He finds the shaman, and brings him to his wife. For the Klamath, illness was assumed to result from intrusion of foreign objects, for example through a sorcerer’s magic; accordingly, the shaman’s cure involves “sucking out” such objects, which are conspicuously exhibited in the course of treatment. However, the patient turns worse and dies, confirming the husband’s suspicions. The shaman is killed, and–in keeping with Klamath practice–both bodies are cremated.
1 For examples of spirit songs, see Gatschet 1890: Pt. 1 151-72.
2 Adapted from Gatschet’s interlinear translation (Gatschet 1890: Pt. 1 GR-69)
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