American Indian life. Various
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were so ancient, and so clouded by vocables, that nothing but their general meaning was remembered even by the brethren. These passed for songs in a secret, magic language. Some chants were in other languages, particularly Ojibway, and all ended with the mystic phrase “we-ho-ho-ho-ho,” which meant “so mote it be.” The songs had titles, but these names too, were magic, and often gave no inkling of the meaning or wording of the song, and most of them avoided naming the animals or gods to which they referred, except by circumlocution, or by merely mentioning some prominent characteristic or attribute of the creature.
There were songs for the “shooting of the medicine”—an act which was so secret and mysterious that the candidate was as yet kept in the dark as to its meaning—and others for dancing, for thanksgiving and for dedication.
When the third elder had ended his synopsis of the songs, which the candidate had later to purchase and learn at leisure, the fourth and last past master took him in hand. His part, he said, was short, yet important. He showed the candidate certain articles which would be ceremonially given to the candidate at the proper time and place. Among these articles was the tanned skin of an otter, the nostrils of which were stuffed with tufts of red-dyed hawk-down, the under surfaces of the four feet and tail being adorned with fringed rectangles of blue-dyed doe leather, embroidered with conventional flower designs in colored porcupine hair and quills. This was to be the medicine bag of the new member. Through an opening, a slit in the chest of the otter, one could thrust a hand, and find in the little pouch made by the skin of the left forefoot of the animal, a small sea shell, called the konäpämîk, or medicine arrow, by which the essence of all the sacred objects contained in the bag was ceremonially “shot” or transferred to the bodies of the Lodge brethren during the performance of the ritual.
Three other medicines the otter-skin contained. There were sacred, blue face-paint, the color of the sky; a mysterious brown powder holding a seed, wrapped in a packet with a fresh water clamshell; and another mixture of pounded roots called “Reviver,” or Apisétchikun.
The clamshell was a sacred, ancient cup, in which the accompanying powder and seed were placed with a little water, and given to all candidates to drink. The mystic seed was supposed to be the badge of the Medicine Lodge, and was to remain in the candidate’s breast, forever, even until he had followed the Pathway of the Dead along the Milky Way. The “Reviver” was a powerful drug for use at all times when life ebbed low, through sickness or magic.
“These then,” said the last instructor, “are the ways and sacred things of Mä’näbus, given us Indians to have and use, as long as the world shall stand!”
So saying, he in turn retired, and the party rolled in their blankets to sleep before the sun could look in through the smoke hole of the wigwam.
III
THE INITIATION
It was the season when buds burst, and the young owls, hatched while the snow was yet on the ground, were already taking their prey. The discordant croaking of the frogs came as a roar from the marshlands. The arbutus was blooming.
Perched on the top of a warm, sunny knoll, was an oblong, dome-roofed structure of poles, covered with bark and rush mats. It was oriented east and west, and its length, a full hundred feet, contrasted oddly with its breadth of twenty.
It was the evening of the fourth day of the Mitäwiwin, or Medicine ceremony. The preceding three days and nights had been spent by the four masters, led by Terrible-eagle, in preparing Little-wolf within a room, formed by curtaining off one end of the lodge proper; in giving him his ceremonial sweat bath of purification; and in hanging the initiation fees, four sets of valuable goods—clothing, robes, weapons, copper utensils—on the ridgepole at the eastern end of the lodge; and in dedicating them.
As the sun set, the four old men and the candidate entered the lodge, followed by the men and women of the tribe who were already members of the society. Going in at the eastern door, the procession filed along the north side, and passing once regularly around, the people seated themselves on the right of the door, with the candidate on the west side of them, next to Terrible-eagle.
The night having largely passed in quiescence and instruction, towards dawn an officer of the lodge approached Little-wolf, and stood before him, facing the east. Thrusting his hand into his medicine bag he drew forth his sacred clamshell cup and the powder containing the seed, which he compounded into a drink, while he sang a song called “What Otter Keeps.”
“I am preparing the thing that was hung [the little seed],
And that which was hung shall fall!”
When he had finished, and Little-wolf had swallowed the draft, this officer retired, and another came forward and took his place, singing. As he ended, he stooped over, coughed and retched violently until he cast forth a sea shell, which he held in the palm of his hand, and, chanting, displayed to the east, west, south, and north, after which he caused Little-wolf to swallow it, that it might remain in his body forever: the symbol of immortality, and the badge of a lodge member. When this had been accomplished the assistant gave place to a third, who sang his four songs and painted the candidate’s face with the sacred, blue paint. Then a fourth and last assistant came before the candidate and the masters, bearing an otter-skin, medicine bag, which he laid at Little-wolf’s feet, while he sang four songs concerning Otter, the most famous of which was entitled Yom Mitäwakeu, or “This Medicine Land,” but which held no reference to otters whatever!
Now the old men conducted the candidate, four times regularly around the lodge, while they related to him somewhat of the story of the ancient Master Mä’näbus, whom he now represented. On the last circuit Terrible-eagle led him to a seat near the western end of the lodge, and there placed him, facing the east; remaining with the candidate standing behind, and holding his shoulders.
The men and women seated around the walls of the lodge sat tense. The silence was unbroken save for woodland sounds, for the great, dramatic moment had arrived.
The four assistant masters, who had just performed before Little-wolf, now assembled in the east, facing him, and the first, taking his medicine bag in his two hands, and holding it breast high before his body, sang, to the rapid beat of the drum, a song entitled “Shooting the New Member.” At its end he gave the usual sacred cry “oh we ho ho ho ho!” blew on the head of the otter-skin, and rushed forward as though to attack the candidate.
In front of the neophyte impersonator of the ancient hero the attacker paused, and jerked the head of his otter upward, crying savagely, “Ya ha ha ha ha!” The magical essence of the bag supposedly striking the candidate, he staggered slightly, but was steadied by a companion, only to meet the feigned attacks of the second and third assistants, at each of which he reeled once more. But the charge of the fourth fellow was so violent that the candidate fell flat on the ground. Stooping, the last man laid the medicine bag across the back of the apparently unconscious brother, to be his, thereafter. At a sign from Terrible-eagle, the four assistants approached the prostrate candidate, and raising him to his feet, shoo__ him gently to remove their shots and restore him to life.
And now all was rejoicing. Steaming earthen kettles were carried in, filled with delicious stews and soups of bear and turtle flesh, partridges, and young ducks. Laughing, jesting, and good-natured banter filled the lodge until the last wooden bowl was scraped clean, when the utensils and scraps were carried out, and the drummer struck up a lively dancing tune. After the men and women had had each four sets of songs, a general dance took place, wherein the members circled the lodge, the new brother among them, shooting each other promiscuously with jollity, vying with each other to rise and point their bags or fall prone on the earth. All the time a loud and lively chant was sung:
I
“I pass through them! I pass through them! I pass through even the chief!”
II
“Ye Gods take part, invisible though ye be beneath