It was an hour after sunset. In the rear of the lodge sat
Terrible-eagle and three other old men, with Little-wolf at their left.
Before them lay the pile of valuable gifts, and, on the white-tanned
skin of an unborn fawn, stood the sacred towaka or deep drum, hollowed
by infinite labor from a short section of a basswood log, holding two
fingers’ depth of water to make its voice resonant, and covered with a
dampened membrane of tanned, buck hide. Across its head was balanced a
crooked drumstick, its striking end carved to represent a loon’s beak.
Before the drum, was placed a wooden bowl in the shape of a minature,
log canoe heaped with tobacco, and four gourd rattles with wooden
handles which shone from age and usage. A youth tended the fire and
kept the air redolent with incense of burning sweet grass and cedar.
Dawn-woman and Anäm, the dog, guarded the door.
Extending his hands over the sacred articles before them,
Terrible-eagle began a prayer of invocation, calling on the mythical
hero and founder of the Medicine Lodge, Mä’näbus, on the Great Spirit,
the Sun, and the Thunder-birds; on the good-god Powers or Manitous of
air and earth, and also upon the Evil Powers who dwell in and under the
earth and water and hidden in the dismal places of the world, to appear
in spirit and accept the tobacco offered them and to dedicate the fees
presented to the instructors.
When the prayer was ended, all those gathered in the wigwam ejaculated
“Hau,” and three of the elders smoked and listened while Terrible-eagle
began the instruction by relating the history of the origin of the
Medicine Lodge. Taking the drumstick in his hand, Terrible-eagle gave
four distinct strokes on the drum, and recited in a rhythmic and solemn
tone, hushing his voice to a whisper when it became necessary to
mention a great Power by name.
He told how Mätc Häwätûk, the Great Spirit, sat alone in the heavenly
void above the ever extending sea, and willed that an island (the
world) should appear there; how he further willed that there
should spring up upon this island, an old woman who was known as
“Our Grandmother, The Earth.” He recited how the Earth Grandmother
conceived, supernaturally, and gave birth to a daughter. How the Four
winds, desiring to be born as men, entered the daughter’s body and lay
as twins in her womb, and how, when the hour of their birth came, so
great was their power, they burst their mother, making women forever
after liable to death in travail.
“Then,” related Terrible-eagle, “our Earth Grandmother gathered up the
shattered pieces of her daughter, and placed them under an inverted,
wooden bowl, and prayed, and on the fourth day, through the pity of the
Great Spirit, the fragments were changed into a little rabbit, who was
named Mätc Wábus, or the Great Hare, since corrupted into ‘Mä’näbus,’
who was to prepare the world for human habitation.
“The rabbit grew, in human form, to man’s estate, when he was given,
as a companion and younger brother, a little wolf, but the Powers
Below, being jealous, slew the wolf brother. Then, Mä’näbus in his
wrath attacked the Powers below, and, as he was the child of the Great
Spirit, they could not resist him. In fear the Evil Powers restored his
younger brother to life, but, since he had been dead four days, the
flesh dropped from his bones and he stank, and Mä’näbus, in sorrow,
refused to receive him, and sent him to rule the dead in the After
World, at the end of the Milky Way in the Western Heavens. Hence, human
beings may not come back to life on the fourth day.
“At their wits’ end to appease Mä’näbus, the Evil Ones called on the
Powers Above who are of good portent. They erected a Medicine Lodge
on the high hilltops, oblong, rectangular, facing east and west. The
Power of the Winds roofed it with blue sky and white clouds. The pole
framework was bound with living, hissing serpents instead of basswood
strings, the food for feasting was seasoned with a pinch of the blue
sky itself. Then the Powers entered. The gods of Evil took the north
side where darkness and cold abide; the Good Powers Above sat on
the south. Then they all stripped off the animal natures with which
they were disguised, and hung them on the wall of the Lodge, and all
appeared in their true forms, as aged persons.
“In council, guided by the admonitions of the Great Spirit, they
decided to give to Mä’näbus the ritual of the Lodge, with its
secret—long life and immortality for mankind—as a bribe to cease his
molestation. But Mä’näbus refused to receive their message, until Otter
volunteered to fetch him. Then Mä’näbus came, and was duly instructed
and raised, by being slain and brought to life again, thus showing the
great potency of the Powers who owned the Lodge.
“This very ceremony, just as it was given Mä’näbus, and later
transferred to us, his uncles and aunts, with its rites, formulas,
and medicines, is the same,” concluded Terrible-eagle, “as we perform
to-day, as all the brethren and fellows have done who have passed
this way before us, since the Menomini came out of the ground, in the
past.” As he ended the old man struck the drum four times, crying, “My
colleagues, my colleagues, my colleagues, my colleagues!”
When Terrible-eagle had concluded his part, there was a recess for
refreshment and relaxation, which lasted until each had smoked, then
another old pushwäo or master took up the work. He it was who related
to the candidate the identity of the Powers Above and Below who had
given the Medicine Lodge to mankind, through Mä’näbus. There were, he
said, four groups of Evil Powers, who sat on the north side of the
Lodge. First were the Otter, Mink, Marten, and Weasel; second the Bear,
Panther, Wolf, and Horned Owl; third the Banded Rattlesnake, the little
Prairie Rattlesnake, the Pine Snake, and the Hog-nosed Snake. The
fourth group was composed of lesser birds and beasts. The Upper World
which had not offended Mä’näbus, was not so well represented, and was
composed of various predatory birds, such as the Red-shouldered Hawk
and the Sparrow-hawks. These sat on the south side, and, in ancient
days, human Lodge members had been seated according to the nature of
their medicine bags.
The skins of any of these animals might be used as containers or sacks
for the secret nostrums of the craft, but the Dog and Fox, which were
formerly associated with the Wolf, had, by their cunning and their
custom of eating filth and carrion, become too closely associated with
witchcraft, and were now tabu.
The old master then told the candidates that each of these animals had
donated some special power to aid mankind. Thus the Weasel gave cunning
and ferocity in war and the chase, the Snapping-turtle, probably one of
the vague fourth group of Evil Powers, had given his heart, which beats
long after it is torn from his bosom, to grant long life. Each animal
had four songs sung in his honor during the session of the Lodge, said
the elder, and the third instructor would teach these to the candidate.
The old master informed his pupil that in his opinion the Medicine
Lodge and its rites were found far to the east, in the country by
the Great Sea Where the Dawn Rises, for he had once met a party of
warriors, from the far off Nottoway or Iroquois, who spoke of a society
and its ritual, given them by the animals, which had for its object
long life and immortality for men.
Dawn-woman now fetched steaming rice and fat venison, marrow-bones and
dried berries, and the little party feasted. The hour was very late,
yet none thought of sleep. After the feast, the third elder did his
part.
He selected a calabash rattle, and, sometimes rattling, sometimes
drumming an accompaniment, taught the songs of the Lodge to Little-wolf.
There were songs of opening and songs of closing, as well as
the animal songs, each repeated four times, the sacred number, and
each in groups of four. Each was made obscure and unintelligible to
eavesdroppers by the addition of nonsense syllables. Some, indeed,
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.