In the Forbidden Land Part 24

Considering the nomadic habits of the Tibetans and the rough life they lead, they are comparatively immune from very bad accidents. Occasionally there is a broken arm or leg which they manage to set roughly, if the fracture is not a compound one, by putting the bones back in their right position, and by tightly bandaging the limbs with rags, pieces of cloth and rope. Splinters are used when wood is obtainable. A powder made from a fungus growing on oak-trees in the Himahlyas is imported and used by the Tibetans near the frontier. A thick layer of it, when wet, is rubbed and left upon the broken limb, over which the bandaging is afterwards done. In a healthy person, a simple fracture of the leg, which by chance has been properly set, takes from twenty to thirty days to heal, after which the patient can begin moving about; and a broken arm does not require to be kept in a sling more than fifteen or twenty days. If these cures are somewhat more rapid than with our more civilised methods of bone-setting, it is merely due to the wholesome climate and the fact that the natives spend most of their days out in the open air and in the sun, undoubtedly the best cure for any complaint of that kind; but, of course, it is but seldom that the bones are joined properly, and they generally remain a deformity. More satisfactory results are obtained with cases of dislocations by pulling the bones into their right position.

In case of wounds the bleeding is arrested by the application of a wet rag tightly bound over the wound. In most cases of unbandaged wounds that came under my notice the process of healing was a very slow one, the great changes in the temperature between night and day often causing them to open of themselves. They made good headway towards recovery in the beginning, but the skin was very slow in joining and re-forming.

Burns are treated by smearing b.u.t.ter over them; and a poultice of rhubarb is used to send down swellings of contusions as well as for the purpose of bringing boils, from which the Tibetans suffer much, to a speedy maturation.

Aconite is given for fever and rheumatism, and a rough kind of ma.s.sage is used to allay pain in the muscles of limbs. It is generally done by the women, who, as far as I could judge, practised it with no real knowledge but merely contented themselves with violent rubbing and pinching and thumping until signs of relief appeared on the sufferer's face. Whether, however, these manifestations were due to actual soothing of pain, or to the prospect of the ma.s.seuse bringing her treatment to an end, I could never properly ascertain. Tibetan fingers are not well adapted for such work, being clumsy and, compared with those of other Asiatic races, quite stiff and hard.

Cupping is adopted with success. Three or four small incisions are made close to one another and a conical cupping-horn about seven inches long, having a tiny hole at its point, is applied over them. The operator then sucks through this small aperture until the horn is full of blood, when it is removed and the operation begun again. With poisoned wounds the sucking is done by applying the lips to the wound itself.

Bleeding is used as a remedy for bruises and swellings, and for internal pain, also for acute attacks of rheumatism and articular pains. If it is not sufficient, the branding cure is resorted to, and if this should also fail, then the tinder cones, to be described later on, come into play and, the seat of the pain being encircled with them, they are set alight.

When even this remedy proves inefficacious, and the patient survives it, the illness is p.r.o.nounced incurable!

Natural abnormalities and deformities are frequent enough in Tibet, and some came under my notice in nearly every camp I entered. Deformities of the spine were common, such as displacement of the shoulder-blades; and I saw during my stay in Tibet many cases of actually humpbacked people.

There were frequent cases, too, of crookedness of the legs, and clubfoot was not rare, while one constantly met with webbed fingers and supernumerary fingers and toes, as well as the absence of one or more of them. Malformations of the skull, such as the two sides being of marked unequal shape or an abnormal distance between the eye sockets, were the two most common deformities that came under my notice.

The ears of men of the better cla.s.ses were much elongated artificially by the constant wearing of heavy earrings, which sometimes even tore the lobe of the ear.

The most frequent and curious of all was the extreme swelling of children's stomachs, caused by the umbilical cord not being properly tied at birth. The operation was generally performed by the mother and father of the newly-born or by some friend at hand. The infants had such enormous paunches that in some cases they were hardly able to stand; but, as they grew older, the swelling seemed to gradually abate and the body a.s.sumed its normal shape.

Deafness was common, but I never came across any dumb people, though I now and then encountered cases of painful stammering and other defects of articulation arising from malformation of the palate and tongue.

Occasionally, however, the difficulty of speech was caused by dementia, which seemed very common in Tibet, especially among the young men.

Whether it was caused by cardiac affection subsequent to organic vices, as I suspected, or by other trouble, I could not say for certain, but presently I based my suspicions on certain facts which I happened to notice, besides the presence of symptoms indicating great nervous depression and strain, extreme weakness of the spine and oscillations of the hands when spread horizontally with the fingers and thumbs wide apart. This may in one way be accounted for by the difficulty that men have in obtaining wives, owing to the scarcity of women. Apoplectic and epileptic fits and convulsions were not of very frequent occurrence, but they seemed severe when they did occur. The fire cure was usually applied in order to drive away the spirits that were supposed to have entered the body, but, all the same, these fits at times resulted in temporary or occasionally permanent paralysis, and much derangement and disfiguration of the facial expression, particularly about the eyes and mouth. I had occasion to study three very good specimens of this kind at Tucker, at Tarbar, north of the Brahmaputra River, and at Tokchim.

Much to my regret I never came across any violent cases of insanity during my stay in the country, though many times I observed strange peculiarities among the men, and signs of mania, more particularly religious.

In women I several times noticed symptoms of melancholia, caused no doubt by abuse of s.e.xual intercourse, owing to their strange laws of polyandry.

I was told that occasionally it led to suicide by drowning or strangulation. However, I was never able to keep any of the suspicious cases under close observation for any length of time, and, as our arrival into Tibetan camps generally created some amount of fear and sensation, and we usually left before they could be quite at home with us, I never had a chance of studying the subject more closely.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE TOKCHIM TARJUM]

CHAPTER XLIX

A Tibetan medicine-man--Lumbago, and a startling cure for it--Combustible fuses--Fire and b.u.t.ter--Prayers, agony, and distortions--Strange ideas on medicine.

STRANGE as the Tibetan remedies seemed to be, none came up, as far as interest went, to one I saw applied at a place called Kutzia. I had entered a camp of some twenty or thirty tents, when my attention was drawn to an excited crowd collected round an old man whose garments had been removed. He was tightly bound with ropes, and agony was depicted on his features. A tall, long-haired man with red coat and heavy boots knelt by the side of the sufferer and prayed fervently, twirling round a prayer-wheel which he held in his right hand.

My curiosity aroused, I approached the gathering, whereupon three or four Tibetans got up and signed to me to be off. I pretended not to understand, and, after a heated discussion, I was allowed to remain.

An operation was obviously being performed by a Tibetan medicine-man, and the suspense in the crowd round the sick man was considerable. The doctor was busy preparing combustible fuses, which he wrapped up carefully in silk paper. When cut in the centre they formed two cones, each with a little tail of twisted paper protruding beyond its summit. Having completed six or eight of these, the medicine-man made his patient, or rather his victim, a.s.sume a sitting posture. I inquired what ailed the sick man. From what they told me, and from an examination made on my own account, I was satisfied that the man was suffering from an attack of lumbago. The coming cure, however, interested me more than the illness itself, and the doctor, seeing how absorbed I was in the performance, asked me to sit by his side. First of all the man called for "fire," and a woman handed him a blazing brand from a fire near by. He swung it to and fro in the air, and p.r.o.nounced certain exorcisms. Next the patient was subjected to a thorough examination, giving vent to a piercing yell each time that the long bony fingers of the physician touched his sides, whereupon the man of science, pointing to the spot, informed his open-mouthed audience that the pain was "there." Putting on a huge pair of spectacles, he rubbed with the palm of his hand the umbilical region of the sufferer and then measured with folded thumb two inches on each side of, and slightly under, the umbilicus. To mark these distances he used the burning brand, applying it to the flesh at these points.

"_Murr, murr!_" ("b.u.t.ter, b.u.t.ter!") he next called for, and b.u.t.ter was produced. Having rubbed a little on the burns, he placed upon each of them a separate cone, and pressed until it remained a fixture, the point upwards. s.h.i.+fting the beads of a rosary, revolving the praying-wheel, and muttering prayers, the medicine-man now worked himself into a perfect frenzy. He stared at the sun, raising his voice from a faint whisper to a thundering baritone at its loudest, and his whole audience seemed so affected by the performance that they all shook and trembled and prayed in their terror. He now again nervously clutched the burning wood in one hand, and, blowing upon it with the full strength of his lungs, produced a flame. The excitement in the crowd became intense. Every one, head down to the ground, prayed fervently. The doctor waved the ignited wood three or four times in the air and then applied the flames to the paper tips of the combustible cones. Apparently saltpetre and sulphur had been mixed in the preparation of these. They burned fast, making a noise like the fuse of a rocket.

At this juncture the animation of the onlookers was not to be compared with the agitation of the patient, who began to feel the effects of this primitive remedy. The fire spluttered on his bare skin. The cure was doing its work. The wretched man's mouth foamed, and his eyes bulged out of their sockets. He moaned and groaned, making desperate efforts to unloose the bonds that kept his hands fast behind his back. Two stalwart men sprang forward and held him, while the medicine-man and all the women present, leaning over the prostrate form, blew with all their might upon what remained of the three smoking cones frizzling away into the flesh of the wretched victim.

The pain of which the man complained seemed to encircle his waist, wherefore the strange physician, having untied his patient's arms from behind, and retied them in front, began his measurements again, this time from the spinal column.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A MEDICINE-MAN]

"_Chik, ni, sum!_" ("One, two, three!") he exclaimed, as he marked the three spots in the same fas.h.i.+on as before, smeared them over with b.u.t.ter, and affixed the cones. Here ensued a repet.i.tion of the previous excitement; prayers, agony, and distortions, but the patient was not thoroughly cured, and more cones were subsequently ignited on both his sides, in spite of his protests and my appeals on his behalf. The poor fellow soon had a regular circle of severe burns round his body.

Needless to say, when, two hours later, the operation was over, the sick man had become a dying man. With a view to obtaining a few hints on Tibetan medicine from this eminent physician--the Tibetans held him in great esteem--I sent him a small present and requested him to visit me.

He was flattered and showed no desire to keep his methods a secret, but even pressed me to try some of his unique remedies.

According to him, fire would cure most illnesses; what fire could not cure, water would. He had, nevertheless, some small packets of variously coloured powders, for which he claimed extraordinary powers.

"I am afraid your patient will die," I remarked.

"He may," was the reply, "but it will be the fault of the patient, not the cure. Besides, what does it matter whether you die to-day or to-morrow?"

And with this unprofessional dictum he left me.

CHAPTER L

Tucker village--Chokdens--Houses--Flying prayers--Soldiers or robbers?--A stampede--Fresh provisions--Disappointment--Treachery--Shokas leave me--Observations--Five men, all counted!

WHEN I left the Gomba, having been salaamed to the ground by my new friends the Lamas, I walked about the village to examine all there was to be seen.

Along the water's edge stood a number of dilapidated Chokdens made of mud and stones, with a square base surmounted by a moulding, and an upper decoration in steps, topped by a cylindrical column. They were in a row at the east end of the village, and, as is well known, they are supposed to contain a piece of bone, cloth or metal, and books or parts of them, that had once belonged to a great man or a saint. Roughly drawn images are occasionally found in them. In rare cases, when cremation has been applied, the ashes are collected into a small earthenware urn, and deposited in one of the Chokdens. The ashes are usually made into a paste with clay, on which, when flattened like a medallion, a representation of Buddha is either stamped from a mould, or engraved by means of a pointed tool.

The interior of the houses at Tucker was no more pleasing than the exterior. Each habitation had a walled courtyard, and the top of the wall, as well as the edge of the flat roof, was lined with ma.s.ses of tamarisk for fuel. In the courtyard, sheep and goats were penned at night; and the human beings who occupied the rooms were dirty beyond all description. There were hundreds of flying prayers over the monastery as well as over each house, and as the people stood on their roofs watching us, laughing and chatting, the place had quite a gay aspect.

While I was strolling about some fifty or sixty men appeared on the scene, armed with matchlocks and swords, and I looked upon them with suspicion, but Kachi rea.s.sured me, and said they were not soldiers, but a powerful band of robbers encamped about half a mile off, and on very friendly terms with the Lamas. As a precaution, I loaded my rifle, which was quite sufficient to occasion a stampede of the armed crowd, followed, in the panic, by all the other villagers that had collected round us.

Like all Tibetans, they were a miserable lot, though powerfully built, and with plenty of bounce about them.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE PANKU GOMBA]

Early in the morning I had made inquiries about provisions, and had arranged for the purchase of two fat sheep and some 450 lbs. of food (flour, rice, _tsamba, ghur_, sugar, salt and b.u.t.ter), and several Tibetans stated that they could supply me with any quant.i.ty I required.

Among others was a trader from Buddhi, Darcey Bura's brother, who promised to bring me within an hour a sufficient quant.i.ty of food to last us ten men twenty-five days. I noticed, when these men left, that two of my Shokas ran after them, and entered into an excited discussion with them. Some two or three hours later, the traders returned, swearing that not an ounce of food could be obtained in the place. The way in which these men could lie was indeed marvellous to study. I suspected treachery, and reprimanded my Shokas, threatening to punish them very severely if my suspicions proved to be well founded.

The Shokas, knowing themselves discovered, and partly through fear of the Tibetans, were now again quite unreasonable and demoralised. It was no use keeping them by force and I decided to discharge them. From the moment I had entered the forbidden country I had been compelled to protect myself against them as much as against the Tibetans. I reflected, however, when I made up my mind to let them go, that these fellows had stood for my sake hards.h.i.+ps and privations which few men could stand; and in paying them off I therefore rewarded them suitably, and they undertook to bring back safely across the frontier part of my baggage containing photographs, ethnological collections, &c. With infinite trouble I then managed to purchase enough provisions to last five men ten days.

The whole party accompanied me three-and-a-quarter miles farther, where, in sight of the tumble-down Panku Gomba, a mile to the West of us, we halted in order to make the necessary arrangements for our parting, unseen by the Tibetans. I took observations for lat.i.tude and longitude.

The water of the hypsometrical apparatus boiled at 185 Fahr. fifty feet above the level of the lake, the temperature of the air being 76 and the hour 10 A.M.

We had a high snowy chain to the South of us, extending from 70 to 33 (b.m.), the direction of the range being approximately from South-West to North-East, starting at Nimo Namgil.

When everything was ready, the five Shokas, including Kachi and Dola, left me, swearing by the sun and all that they hold most sacred, that they would in no way betray me to the Tibetans, who so far had no suspicion as to who I was.

Bijesing the Johari and the Kutial Bura Nattoo agreed to accompany me as far as the Maium Pa.s.s, so that my party, including myself, now was reduced to only five.