The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1899-04-15

and replace it WIKI something more up1ift-
ing.
In the in which he fulfilled his
Office the medicine mar is no less interest
ing for study thar in the conditions that
afforded the reasons for his existence.
And here a distinction must be made be-
tween the various classes of medicine men,
for in this group, as understood by the
white men, there are classifications which
it is important to understand. The two
great institutions that pervade all the
North American Indian tribes, from the
Atlantic to the Pacific and from the gulf
of Mexico to the arctic circle, are the prac-
tice of arts of medical magic and prophecy.
These are distinctly separate, though CO.
ordinated through the one fact that the
Indian belief ascribes spiritual agency as
the chief cause of physical ills.
These are the great classes of medicine
men, but there have been among the In
dams, as in all races, false prophets, mes
siahs and quacks, and these, too, have
their names. In the Algonquin tribe, for
instance, different from the practitioner of
medical magic or of necromancy is the
high prophet, the jossakeed, who deals not
with material symbols, but holds COM
munion in solitary places with the Great
Spirit, whom he sees while in frances or
dreams and from whom he brings to the
people commands that are accepted as di-
vine. There is also the wabeno, who is
the bad medicine man, the wolf in sleeps
clothing, who exploits his false doctrines
in midnight orgies, using the tricks of
darkness with the aid of colored fires and
sleight of hand. He it is who alone of all
the classes of medicine men brings into his
nominations the themes of love and the
animal passions. To keep the young
braves and maidens of the tribe from fall
ing under his influence and from being
led thereby into immortality was one of
the chief offices of the good medicine men
in the early days of tribal organization.
In the latter days it has been an office
much more needed and much less prac-
ticed, for the tribe of the bad medicine
man increased, while the good medicine
man has become a rarity.
When war was threatened, when pesti-
lence seemed about to sweep away the
flower of the tribe, when the grasses on
the plains withered and the buffaloes were
departing, or when the spirit of the braves
seemed turning to water, it was the media
wininee, the magician and spiritual adj
wiser, whose good offices were required.
With his medicine sack, in which were
carefully concealed the small bits of bone,
metal, feathers, wood M colored materi-
ais which we're the implements of his craft,
he departed alone into his lodge to conjure
the good spirits and arm himself with
power to ward off impending evil. If he
said make war, the braves donned their
warpaint, and if he said to move to anoth-
er hunting ground tepees were taken down
and made ready for moving.
Gorgeously attired, with trumpery of
bears claws, buffalo horns, eagle feathers,
snakeskins and calumets of zone and
stone-and always with a pipe and a rat
tie no matter what his tribe-he went
among his people, the oracle of their gods
and the unquestioned arbiter of their COM
and goings. His was the duty, too,
of undertaking the cure of critical all
ments, but this he never undertook till
the master of medical magic, the user of
herbs and spittles, had given up his pa
tient as a candidate for the grave. If by
any chance the medawininee then effect
ed a cure, it was ascribed to his ,supernat-
ural powers; if not, there WAS excuse in
the fact the case was hopeless.
From this the limits of the field of oper-
ations of the muskewininee are already
His arts were partly those of the
physician, but largely those of a mystic
sort of medical magic, and he dealt only
with the sick.
In the treatment of desperate cases the
medawininee resorted to desperate ends, !
compared with which the trying ordeal of
q redhot Turkish bath is child's play.
For each case there must be built first a
.sweathouse, a sanctuary, in which the
evil spirit can be expelled from the sui