Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1886-07-21
AN UNSUCCESSFUL SEANCE.
The Difficulties Of IN Indian Spirit In
TAlking In His Own Language.

Some years ago party of young men
visited Mrs. Powell, the spirit medium,
to test her power. She went through
the usual old rigmarole of going into
trance and becoming possessed by an
Indian spirit whose Indian vocabulary
was limited to ''wampum," ''squaw,"
''brave," and ''many moons" It so
happened that one of the young men
had been living in the West since boy
hood, at least twelve years of his life
having been spent in Dakota. He had
= great aptitude for languages, and
while there became conversant with the
dialect of the Ogallala Sioux, Pawnee
and Arapahoe. He was a quiet young
fellow, and when the medium arose
from her seat and approached him with
what was presumed to be an Indian
grunt, he looked somewhat astonished.
me like paleface, said Mrs. Powell.
me see old gentleman standing beside
you. He seem sad" "Ugh!" "O!
said the young man. '.you are an Indian
spirit?' ugh! Me great Indian. Me
been in happy hunting-grounds many
moons" ''Indeed!' said the young
man, with Western irreverence; ''what
tribe Gid you belong to before you
croakedp" ':Me Sioux Indian" was the
reply.
ticularly interesting one. The young
man got on his feet and launched. forth
a gutteral avalanche of sound that
seemed to come from his boots. The
medium looked dumfounded and made
no attempt to reply. The young man
turned to one of his friends and said:
':Maybe this Indian understands anoth-
er dialect of the same nation. I'll try
it, anyhow" Again did he gable like
a man with fishbone in his throat, but
it had no other effect than to make Mrs.
Powell shiver, blink her watery eyes,
and suddenly come out of the trance.
She affected not to know what had
taken place, and when informed bland
~ explained that as the spirits were
compelled to use another organism to
convey their ideas, the individuality of
that organism was to some extent alb
sorbed, hence the difficulty an Indian
spirit found in speaking in his own
language through the vocal organs of a
person not conversant with the Ian
guage. The young man sighed sadly and
said nothing. To divert their minds
Mrs. Powell introduced her son and his
slate and his wonderful finger. He
went through the slate-writing perform
ance after his finger had been washed
with ordinary soap and water and wrote
a moral lecture about something or
other and signed it ''Tecumseh. As
he placed his finger on the slate one of
the sceptics noticed that he always
scratched himself on the back of the
neck first, and this sceptic, on coming
closer. discovered just under the medi-
um's ear some minute specks sticking
to his flesh.
Under pretense of whispering some
thing in Powell's ear the sceptic with a
moistened finger removed one of these
visible particles and found it to be a
spetk of slate pencil. Nothing was said
at the time. and Powell probably never
knew that the trick was discovered.
Mrs. Powell then went into another
trance and pretended to become possess
ed by the spirit of Archer, the Ridge
avenue halter, who was killed some
years ago by an unfortunate blow at
Tenth and Callowhill streets. You
probably remember the occurrence.
The exhibition became so disgusting
that the investigators retired, leaving a
company of about dozen persons sit
ting in the room listening to the old
woman's twaddle. When the young
men got downstairs one of them, to be
revenged for the waste of time, took
the key from the inside door, and
after his companions had reached the
sidewalk he locked the door from the
outside, and the party retired to the
other side of Ninth street to await re-
suits. In about twenty minutes the
seance came to conclusion and the
people began to come downstairs.
There was great hubbub and a scam
pering upstairs again. In few
moments the window of the room look
ing out on Ninth street was lifted and
young gentleman in short sack coat
and a mild expression of countenance
climbed carefully out on the awning and
slid down the crossbar to the upright
pole and thence Skinned down to the
sidewalk, unlocked the door and releas-
ed the indignant party of believers
Philadelphia News.