All Indians believe in spirits. Some are good and help men who please
them; others are bad and always anxious to do harm. The spirits are all
about us. They are in plants, and trees, and rustling leaves; they are in
the wind and cloud and rain; they are in the mountain and in the brook. It
is spirits that cause trouble, suffering, and death. When a man is ill,
some bad spirit has taken away his soul or has entered into him.
It is not strange, then, that the Indians should wish to gain power over
these spirits. If a man knows some words, the saying of which will protect
him against them, he is fortunate; fortunate is he, too, if he knows some
object which, carried, will disarm them, or if he can perform some trick
which will put them to flight. Such knowledge is what the Indians mean by
“medicine” or “mystery.” Men who spend their lives in trying to gain such
knowledge are called medicine men, mystery men, or Shamans.
[Illustration.]