Blackfeet Sweat Lodge in Montana circa 1900, courtesy Library of Congress

Many Native Americans believed that illness came from evil spirits, so their rituals emphasized that aspect of healing.

The Shoshones believed that a ghost entering a person’s body caused sickness, and used incantations, prayer, drums, medicine whistles, and sweat lodges to prepare a patient to have the ghost extracted.

After preparation, the healer would form a tube with his hands and place them over the patient’s mouth. He then sucked until the patient vomited or belched out the evil spirit.

Ute Cheyenne would drive out evil spirits by spitting chewed herbs on the patient’s body, or by stretching the patient out and gashing him with an eagle’s claw as a group of men sang incantations.

Sometimes, medicine men undoubtedly came prepared with something to spit out or destroy in front of the patients. They knew that seeing the evil spirit physically destroyed would help in the healing process.