outfit doctor

English

Noun

outfit doctor (plural outfit doctors)

1. (anthropology) A doctor (shaman) in certain cultures who was a doctor by virtue of their magical paraphernalia and the techniques they learned, rather than from supernatural experiences such as dreams and visions.
   • 1926, Edwin M. Loeb, “Pomo Folkways”, in University of California Publications in Anthropology, Archaeology & Ethnology, volume 19, number 2, page 326:

     An outfit doctor was initiated by the relative whose place he was to take and whose outfit he inherited.

   • 1935, Cora Du Bois, “Wintu Ethnography”, in University of California Publications in Anthropology, Archaeology & Ethnology, volume 36, number 1, page 88:

     There was none of the specialization of shamans found in adjacent areas. The social pattern demanded no rattlesnake shamans, no weather shamans, no bear shamans, no outfit doctors, no exclusive poisoners.

   • 1936, Harold E. Driver, “Wappo Ethnography”, in University of California Publications in Anthropology, Archaeology & Ethnology, volume 36, number 3, page 197:

     Outfit doctor: No supernatural experience required. Technique "picked up" by watching such a doctor practice or serving as one of his seconds. Outfit: feather headdress; antidotes such as rocks, parts of snakes and frogs, feathers of hawk, eagle, crow, or owl (hawk feathers especially potent); cocoon rattle (4 cocoons, handle 1 ft. long); double crane-bone whistle; no clothing except headdress.