It was the season when buds burst, and the young owls, hatched while
the snow was yet on the ground, were already taking their prey. The
discordant croaking of the frogs came as a roar from the marshlands.
The arbutus was blooming.
Perched on the top of a warm, sunny knoll, was an oblong, dome-roofed
structure of poles, covered with bark and rush mats. It was oriented
east and west, and its length, a full hundred feet, contrasted oddly
with its breadth of twenty.
It was the evening of the fourth day of the Mitäwiwin, or Medicine
ceremony. The preceding three days and nights had been spent by the
four masters, led by Terrible-eagle, in preparing Little-wolf within a
room, formed by curtaining off one end of the lodge proper; in giving
him his ceremonial sweat bath of purification; and in hanging the
initiation fees, four sets of valuable goods—clothing, robes, weapons,
copper utensils—on the ridgepole at the eastern end of the lodge; and
in dedicating them.
As the sun set, the four old men and the candidate entered the lodge,
followed by the men and women of the tribe who were already members of
the society. Going in at the eastern door, the procession filed along
the north side, and passing once regularly around, the people seated
themselves on the right of the door, with the candidate on the west
side of them, next to Terrible-eagle.
The night having largely passed in quiescence and instruction, towards
dawn an officer of the lodge approached Little-wolf, and stood before
him, facing the east. Thrusting his hand into his medicine bag he drew
forth his sacred clamshell cup and the powder containing the seed,
which he compounded into a drink, while he sang a song called “What
Otter Keeps.”
“I am preparing the thing that was hung [the little seed],
And that which was hung shall fall!”
When he had finished, and Little-wolf had swallowed the draft, this
officer retired, and another came forward and took his place, singing.
As he ended, he stooped over, coughed and retched violently until he
cast forth a sea shell, which he held in the palm of his hand, and,
chanting, displayed to the east, west, south, and north, after which
he caused Little-wolf to swallow it, that it might remain in his body
forever: the symbol of immortality, and the badge of a lodge member.
When this had been accomplished the assistant gave place to a third,
who sang his four songs and painted the candidate’s face with the
sacred, blue paint. Then a fourth and last assistant came before the
candidate and the masters, bearing an otter-skin, medicine bag, which
he laid at Little-wolf’s feet, while he sang four songs concerning
Otter, the most famous of which was entitled Yom Mitäwakeu, or “This
Medicine Land,” but which held no reference to otters whatever!
Now the old men conducted the candidate, four times regularly around
the lodge, while they related to him somewhat of the story of the
ancient Master Mä’näbus, whom he now represented. On the last circuit
Terrible-eagle led him to a seat near the western end of the lodge,
and there placed him, facing the east; remaining with the candidate
standing behind, and holding his shoulders.
The men and women seated around the walls of the lodge sat tense. The
silence was unbroken save for woodland sounds, for the great, dramatic
moment had arrived.
The four assistant masters, who had just performed before Little-wolf,
now assembled in the east, facing him, and the first, taking his
medicine bag in his two hands, and holding it breast high before his
body, sang, to the rapid beat of the drum, a song entitled “Shooting
the New Member.” At its end he gave the usual sacred cry “oh we ho
ho ho ho!” blew on the head of the otter-skin, and rushed forward as
though to attack the candidate.
In front of the neophyte impersonator of the ancient hero the attacker
paused, and jerked the head of his otter upward, crying savagely, “Ya
ha ha ha ha!” The magical essence of the bag supposedly striking the
candidate, he staggered slightly, but was steadied by a companion,
only to meet the feigned attacks of the second and third assistants,
at each of which he reeled once more. But the charge of the fourth
fellow was so violent that the candidate fell flat on the ground.
Stooping, the last man laid the medicine bag across the back of the
apparently unconscious brother, to be his, thereafter. At a sign from
Terrible-eagle, the four assistants approached the prostrate candidate,
and raising him to his feet, shoo__ him gently to remove their shots
and restore him to life.
And now all was rejoicing. Steaming earthen kettles were carried
in, filled with delicious stews and soups of bear and turtle flesh,
partridges, and young ducks. Laughing, jesting, and good-natured banter
filled the lodge until the last wooden bowl was scraped clean, when
the utensils and scraps were carried out, and the drummer struck up a
lively dancing tune. After the men and women had had each four sets
of songs, a general dance took place, wherein the members circled the
lodge, the new brother among them, shooting each other promiscuously
with jollity, vying with each other to rise and point their bags or
fall prone on the earth. All the time a loud and lively chant was sung:
I
“I pass through them! I pass through them! I pass through even the
chief!”
II
“Ye Gods take part, invisible though ye be beneath us!”
When all was over, and Keso, the Sun, was almost noon high, the four
assistants took down the invitation fees from the ridgepole, and
distributed them to the four old Masters and the others who had taken
prominent part in the ceremonial, and all the Indians filed out of the
western door, singing:
“You, my brethren, I pass my hand over you. I thank you.”
* * * * *
Muhwäsê, Little-wolf, watched the last of his companions strike their
camps; saw the coverings stripped from the lodge structure, saw the
last party vanish in the brush.
He was a Mitäo! A member of a great fraternal organization, who might
travel westward to the foothills of the Rockies, north to the Barren
Lands, south to the countries of the Iowa and Oto, east to the land
of the Iroquois, and find brethren who had traveled the same road, or
at least one fundamentally similar. He had shown his fortitude and
fidelity, those two great, cardinal virtues of the Medicine Lodge, and
he had come through the sacred mysteries alive and in possession of the
secret rites that had been handed down since the days when the Menomini
first came out of the ground.