Chapter LXIX: Section 3: Shamanism

The term “shaman” is a corrupted form of the Sanscrit word meaning ascetic. Its original application was to the religion of certain tribes of northern Asia, but now shamanism is generally used to express several forms of religion which are founded in the supposed communion with and influence over supernatural beings by means of magic arts. The shaman or priest pretends to control by incantations and ceremonies the evil spirits to whom death, sickness, and other misfortunes are ascribed. This form or stage of religion was so prevalent among the North American Indians that the adoption of the term “shaman” here is substantially correct, and it avoids both the stupid expression “medicine man” of current literature and the indefinite title “priest,” the associations with which are not appropriate to the Indian religious practitioner. The statement that the Indians worship, or ever have worshiped, one “Great Spirit” or single overruling personal god is erroneous. That philosophical conception is beyond the stage of culture reached by them, and was not found in any tribe previous to missionary influence. Their actual philosophy can be expressed far more objectively and therefore pictorially.

The special feature of the notes now collected under the present heading relates to the claims and practices of shamans, but the immediately succeeding headings of “Charms and Amulets” and of “Religious Ceremonies” are closely connected with the same topic. It must be confessed that, as now presented, they have been arranged chiefly for mechanical convenience, to which convenience also in other parts of the present work scientific discrimination has sometimes been forced to yield without, it is hoped, much injury. Individual intercomparison, with or without cross references, is besought from any critical reader of this paper.

Feats of jugglery or pretended magic rivaling or surpassing the best of spiritualistic séances have been recounted to the present writer in many places by independent and intelligent Indian witnesses, not operators, generally of advanced age. The cumulated evidence gives an opportunity for spiritualists to argue for the genuineness of their own manifestations or manipulations as, in accordance with the degree of credence, they may be styled. Others will contend that these remarkable performances in which this hemisphere was rich before the Columbian discovery--the occidental rivaling the oriental Indians--belong to a culture stage below civilization. They will observe that the age of miracles among barbaric people has not expired, and that it still exists among outwardly civilized persons who are yet subject to superstition in its true etymologic sense of “remaining over from the past.”

The most elaborate and interesting of these stories which are known relate to a time about forty years ago, shortly before the Davenport brothers and the Fox sisters had excited interest in the civilized portions of the United States; but exhibitions of a magic character are still given among the tribes, though secretly, from fear of the Indian agents and missionaries. It is an important fact that the first French missionaries in Canada and the early settlers of New England described substantially the same performances when they first met the Indians, all of whom belonged to the Algonquian or Iroquoian stocks. So remarkable and frequent were these performances of jugglery that the French, in 1613, called the whole body of Indians on the Ottawa River, whom they met at a very early period, “The Sorcerers.” They were the tribes afterwards called Nipissing, and were the typical Algonquians. No suspicion of prestidigitation or other form of charlatanry appears to have been entertained by any of the earliest French and English writers on the subject. The severe Puritan and the ardent Catholic both considered that the exhibitions were real, and the work of Satan. It is also worth mentioning that one of the derivations of the name “Micmac” is connected with the word meaning sorcerer. The early known practices of this character, which had an important effect upon the life of the people, extended from the extreme east of the continent to the Great Lakes. They have been found later far to the south, and in a higher state of evolution.

It was obvious in cross-examining the old men of the Algonquians that the performances of jugglery were exhibitions of the pretended miraculous power of an adventurer whereby he obtained a reputation above his rivals and derived subsistence and authority by the selling of charms and pretended superhuman information. The charms and fetiches which still are bought from the few shamans who yet have a credulous clientele are of three kinds--to bring death or disease on an enemy, to lure an enemy into an ambush, and to excite a return to sexual love.

Among the Ojibwa three distinct secret societies are extant, the members of which are termed, respectively and in order of their importance, the Midē', the Jĕs'sakīd, and the Wâbĕnō. The oldest and most influential society is known as the Midē'wiwin', or Grand Medicine, and the structure in which the ceremonies are conducted is called the Midē'wigân, or Grand Medicine lodge.

The following statement of the White Earth Midē' shaman presents his views upon the origin of the rite and the objects employed in connection with ceremonies, as well as in the practices connected with medical magic and sorcery:

When Minabō'sho, the first man, had been for some time upon
the earth, two great spirits told him that to be of service to his
successors they would give to him several gifts, which he was to
employ in prolonging life and extending assistance to those who
might apply for it.

The first present consisted of a sacred drum, which was to be
used at the side of the sick and when invoking the presence and
assistance of the spirits. The second was a sacred rattle, with
which he was enabled to prolong the life of a patient. The third
gift was tobacco, which was to be an emblem of peace; and as a
companion he also received a dog. He was then told to build a lodge,
where he was to practice the rites of which he would receive further
instruction.

All the knowledge which the Midē' have, and more, Minabō'sho
received from the spirits. Then he built a long lodge, as he had
been directed, and now even at this day he is present at the Sacred
Medicine lodge when the Grand Medicine rite is performed.

In the rite is incorporated most that is ancient amongst them,
songs and traditions that have descended, not orally alone, but by
pictographs, for a long line of generations. In this rite is also
perpetuated the purest and most ancient idioms of their language,
which differs somewhat from that of the common, every-day use.

It is desirable to explain the mode of using the Midē' and other bark records of the Ojibwa and also those of other tribes mentioned in this paper. A comparison made by Dr. Tyler of the pictorial alphabet to teach children, “A was an archer,” etc., is not strictly appropriate in this case. The devices are not only mnemonic, but are also ideographic and descriptive. They are not merely invented to express or memorize the subject, but are evolved therefrom. To persons acquainted with secret societies a good comparison for the charts or rolls is what is called the trestle board of the Masonic order, which is printed and published and publicly exposed without exhibiting any of the secrets of the order, yet through its ideography it is practically useful to the esoteric members by assisting memory in details of ceremony and it also prevents deviation from the established ritual.

Fig. 690, from Copway (_d_), gives the Ojibway character for Grand Medicine lodge.

Fig. 171, supra, is a reproduction, with description, of a birch-bark record illustrating the alleged power of a Jĕssakkī'd, one who is also a Midē' of the four degrees of the Medicine Society.

Fig. 172, supra, represents, with explanations, a Jĕssakkī'd named Niwi'kki, curing a sick woman by sucking the demon through a bone tube.

When the method of procedure of a Midē' goes beyond the ordinary ceremonies, such as chanting prayers and drumming, the use of the rattle, and the administration of magic medicines and exorcisms, it overlaps the prescribed formulæ of the Midē'win and partakes of the rites of the Jĕssakkī'd or “Juggler.”

The lodge of the Midē' is represented as in Fig. 691, the shaman himself being indicated as sitting inside.

The Jĕssakkī'd represents his lodge or jugglery as shown in Fig. 692, the shaman being represented as sitting on the outside. The chief feature of the jugglery lodge is that the branch is always seen projecting from the top of one of the vertical poles, which peculiarity exists in no other religious structure represented in pictorial records.

The following group, including Figs. 693 to 697, gives several modes of illustrating the “making buffalo medicine” by the Dakotas and other tribes of the Great Plains. The main object was to bring the buffalo to where they could be hunted successfully, and incantations, with dancing and many ceremonies, were resorted to, as upon the buffalo the tribes depended not only for food but for most of the necessaries and conveniences of their daily life. The topic is referred to elsewhere in this paper, especially in Lone-Dog’s Winter Count for the year 1810-’11.

Fig. 693.--A Minneconjou chief named Lone-Horn made medicine with a white buffalo cow skin. The-Swan’s Winter Count, 1858-’59.

The horned head of the animal is connected with the man figure. An albino buffalo was much more prized for ceremonial purposes than any other. Lone-Horn, chief of the Minneconjous, died in 1874, in his camp on the Big Cheyenne.

Fig. 694.--A Minneconjou Dakota named Little-Tail first made “medicine” with white buffalo cow skin. The-Swan’s Winter Count, 1810-’11. Again the head of an albino buffalo.

Fig. 695.--White-Cow-Man. Red-Cloud’s Census. The mere possession of an albino buffalo conferred dignity and honor. To have once owned such an animal, even though it had died or been lost, gave specific rank.

Fig. 696.--Lone-Horn makes medicine. “At such times Indians sacrifice ponies and fast.” The-Flame’s Winter Count, 1858-’59. In this figure the buffalo head is black.

Fig. 697. Buffalo is scarce; an Indian makes medicine and brings a herd to the suffering. The-Flame’s Winter Count, 1843-’44.

Here the incantation is shown by a tipi with the buffalo head drawn upon it. It is the “medicine” or sacred tipi where the rites are held.

A curious variant of divination with regard to the use of songs in the removal of disease was found among the Choctaws. Each of the songs of this class bore reference to some herb or form of treatment, each of which was represented objectively or pictorially and produced simultaneously with the chanting of the appropriate song by the shaman. The remedy or treatment to be adopted was decided upon by the degree of pleasure or relief afforded to the patient by the respective songs.

Fig. 698. Cat-Owner was killed with a spider-web thrown at him by a Dakota. Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1824-’25. The spider-web is shown reaching to the heart of the victim from the hand of the man who threw it and two spiral wakan lines are also shown. Blood issuing from his nose, colored red in the original, indicates that he bled to death. It is a common belief among Indians that certain “medicine men” possess the power of taking life by shooting needles, straws, spider-webs, bullets, and other objects, however distant the person may be against whom they are directed.

It may be noted that the union line connecting the two figures at the base signifies that they belong to the same tribe which the hair on the figure of the left shows to be Dakota. The victim is not scalped, but has no hair or other designation, being shown only in outline.

Fig. 699. Cannaksa-Yuha, Has-a-war-club; from the Oglala Roster. This man has his father’s name “war-club,” and is therefore set by the ghosts in his stead as a warrior. He is supposed to be invulnerable to any mortal weapon, and the children and even women fear him as they would a ghost. He holds the war club before his face, as it partakes of the nature of insignia. In the original the whole of the man’s face is painted red. This is to show that he has a wakicagapi-ecokicoupe, which means that he has put up a ghost tent, concerning which there are many and complicated ceremonies and details narrated by Rev. J. Owen Dorsey in the American Anthropologist, II, 145 et seq.

John Tanner (_g_) gives an account of sorcery among the Ojibwa, with illustrations copied as Fig. 700, being nearly identical with those recently obtained by Dr. Hoffman, and published in the Seventh Ann. Rep., Bureau of Ethnology, as Figs. 20 and 21.

It was thought necessary to have recourse to a medicine
hunt. Nah-gitch-e-gum-me [a “medicine” maker] sent to me and
O-ge-mah-we-ninne, the best two hunters of the band, each a little
leather sack of medicine, consisting of certain roots pounded fine
and mixed with red paint, to be applied to the little images or
figures of the animals we wish to kill. Precisely the same method
is practiced in this kind of hunting, at least as far as the use
of medicine is concerned, as in those instances where one Indian
attempts to inflict disease or suffering on another. A drawing or
a little image is made to represent the man, the woman, or the
animal on which the power of the medicine is to be tried; then the
part representing the heart is punctured with a sharp instrument,
if the design be to cause death, and a little of the medicine is
applied. The drawing or image of an animal used in this case is
called muzzin-ne-neen, and the same name is applicable to the little
figures of a man or women, and is sometime rudely traced on birch
bark, in other instances more carefully carved of wood. These little
images or drawings, for they are called by the same names, whether
of carved wood or rags or only rudely sketched on birch bark, or
even traced in sand, are much in use among several and probably all
the Algonquin tribes. Their use is not confined to hunting, but
extends to the making of love, and the gratification of hatred,
revenge, and all malignant passions.

It is a prevailing belief that the necromancers, men or women
of medicine, or those who are acquainted with the hidden powers
of their _wusks_, can, by practicing upon the muzzin-ne-neence,
exercise an unlimited control over the body and mind of the person
represented. Many a simple Indian girl gives to some crafty old
squaw her most valued ornaments, or whatever property she may
possess, to purchase from her the love of the man she is most
anxious to please. The old woman, in a case of this kind, commonly
makes up a little image of stained wood and rags, to which she
gives the name of the person whose inclinations she is expected
to control; and to the heart, the eyes, or to some other part of
this she, from time to time, applies her medicines, or professes to
have done so, as she may find necessary to dupe and encourage her
credulous employer.

But the influence of these images and conjurations is more
frequently tested in cases of an opposite character, where the
inciting cause is not love, but hatred, and the object to be
attained the gratification of a deadly revenge. In cases of this
kind the practices are similar to those above mentioned, only
different medicines are used Sometimes the muzzin-ne-neence is
pricked with a pin or needle in various parts, and pain or disease
is supposed to be produced in the corresponding part of the person
practiced upon. Sometimes they blacken the hands and mouth of the
image, and the effect expected is the change which marks the near
approach of death.

The similarity, approaching identity, of these practices to those common in Europe during the middle ages and continuing in some regions until the present time will be noticed.

The same author, pp. 197, 198, gives an account of Ojibwa divination in the following address of a shaman, illustrated by Fig. 702.

For you, my friends, who have been careful to regard and obey
the injunctions of the Great Spirit, as communicated by me, to
each of you he has given to live to the full age of man: this long
and straight line a is the image of your several lives. For you,
Shaw-shaw-wa ne-ba-se, who have turned aside from the right path,
and despised the admonitions you have received, this short and
crooked line _b_ represents your life. You are to attain only to
half of the full age of man. This line, turning off on the other
side, is that which shows what is determined in relation to the
young wife of Ba-po-wash. As he said this, he showed us the marks
he had made on the ground, as below. The long, straight middle line
represented, as he said, the life of the Indians, Sha-gwaw-koo-sink,
Wau-zhe-gaw-maish-koon, etc. The short, crooked one below showed the
irregular course and short continuance of mine; and the abruptly
terminating one on the other side showed the life of the favorite
wife of Ba-po-wash.

Fig. 703 was copied from a piece of walrus ivory in the museum of the Alaska Commercial Company, of San Francisco, California, in 1882, by Dr. Hoffman, and the interpretation is as obtained from a native Alaskan.

_a_, _b_. The shaman’s summer habitations, trees growing in the vicinity. _c._ The shaman, who is represented in the act of holding one of his “demons.” These are considered as under the control of the shaman, who employs them to drive others out of the bodies of sick men. _d._ The demon or aid. _e._ The same shaman exorcising the demons causing the sickness. _f_, _g_. Sick men, who have been under treatment, and from whose bodies the “evil beings” or sickness has been expelled. _h._ Two “evil spirits” which have left the bodies of _f_ and _g_.

Fig. 704 was copied by Dr. Hoffman from an ivory bow in the same museum. The interpretation was also obtained at the same time from the same Alaskan.

The rod of the bow upon which the characters occur is here represented in three sections, A, B, and C. A bears the beginning of the narrative, extending over only one-half of the length of the rod. The course of the inscription is then continued on the adjacent side of the rod at the middle, and reading in both directions (sections B and C), toward the two files of approaching animals. B and C occupy the whole of one side.

The following is the explanation of the characters:

A. _a_, baidarka or skin boat resting on poles; _b_, winter habitation; _c_, tree; _d_, winter habitations; _e_, storehouse; _f_, tree. Between this and the storehouse is placed a piece of timber, from which is suspended fish for drying. _g_, storehouse. The characters from _a_ to _g_ represent a group of dwellings, which signifies a settlement, the home of the person to whom the history relates. _h_, the hunter sitting on the ground, asking for aid, and making the gesture for supplication. _i_, the shaman to whom application is made by the hunter desiring success in the chase. The shaman has just finished his incantations, and while still retaining his left arm in the position for that ceremony, holds the right toward the hunter, giving him the success requested. _j_, the shaman’s winter lodge; _k_, trees; _l_, summer habitation of the shaman; _m_, trees near the shaman’s home.

B. _n_, tree; _o_, a shaman standing upon his lodge, driving back game which had approached against his wish. To this shaman the hunter had also made application for success in the chase, but was denied, hence the act of driving back. _p_, deer leaving at the shaman’s order; _q_, horns of a deer swimming a river; _r_, young deer, apparently, from the smaller size of the body and unusually long legs.

C. _s_, a tree; _t_, the lodge of the hunter (A. _h_), who, after having been granted the request for success, placed his totem upon the lodge as a mark of gratification and to insure greater luck in his undertaking; _u_, the hunter in the act of shooting; _v-w_, the game killed, consisting of five deer; _x_, the demon sent out by the shaman (A. _i_), to drive the game in the way of the hunter; _y-bb_, the demon’s assistants.

The following description and illustration, Fig. 705, is kindly contributed by the Rev. M. Eells, of Skokomish, Washington:

Your figure of a shaman’s lodge in Alaska [Fig. 714 in this
work] reminds me of a drawing made of the same character on this
reservation by one of our best educated Indian boys. His description
of it is as follows: “When I was at Dr. Charley’s house (the shaman
or medicine man), they tamahnoused [performed incantations] over
[my brother] Frank. They saw that he was under a kind of sickness.
Dr. Charley took it, and just a little after that Frank shook and
became stiff, and while I sat I heard my father say that his breath
was gone. I went out, as I did not want to see my brother lay dead
before me. When I came back he was breathing a little and his
eyes were closed. Dr. Charley was taking care of his breath with
his own tamahnous [guardian spirit] and waiting for more folks to
come, so as to have enough folks to beat on sticks when he should
tamahnous and see what was the matter with Frank. So he went on and
saw that there was another kind of sickness besides the one he took
first. The other one went over Frank and almost killed him. Dr.
Charley took it again and went (travel) [in spirit] with another
kind of tamahnous to see where Frank’s spirit was. He found him at
Humahuma [18 or 20 miles distant], where they had camped [some time
previous]. So Frank got better after a hard tamahnous. From the
drawing you will see how Dr. Charley fixed the kind of sickness.
_b_ shows the first sickness which Dr. Charley took. It has tails,
which, when they come close to the sick person, makes him worse. _a_
is the way it goes when it kills a person and stays in his home. _c_
is the second one and is hanging over Frank, _d_. _e_ is another
sickness which is in Frank.”

In Kingsborough (_d_) is the following: “In the year of Eleven Houses, or in 1529, Nuño de Guzman set out for Yalisco on his march to subdue that territory. They pretend that a serpent descended from the sky, exclaiming that troubles were preparing for the natives, since the Christians were directing their course hither.” The illustration for this account is presented as Fig. 1224, Chap. XX, on Special Comparisons.