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242 [Image]
Dakota Vapor Bath. (Haupt del).
As it is true among white men that there are practiced various systems of medicine so it is equally a fact that all indian "medicine" is not the same. Medicine to the white man in the usual acceptation of the term means when unqualified. the effect of certain substances. animal vegetable and mineral upon the physical nature of the individual taking the [?] into his system with the indian Medicine [?now?] correctly understood is the mystic or hidden influence exerted not only by the active herbs and nostrums by by entirely inert substance. The Dakota as well as the Oibway, when he has come to the [?] where it is proper for him so to do. [?] a long fast and falls into a trance during which the "Manito" reveals to him, his individual and special "Medicine". which upon his awaking the indian will without divulging what it is. search for and seek till he find it, and then carry with him as his medicine.. This medicine may and often has not the slightest connection with any thing medicinal as we know it; It may be a crystal of Gypsum or a barb from a thorn tree, or a feather. or a nugget of native copper. all these things and any more have been carried as medicine. The Dakota will go off at times to commune in secret with the Manito and "make medicine". to know if he shall engage in this or that enterprise. The medicine man is not simply one who dispenses the healing art but one who has command of secrete [sic] and mystic influences. and who operates by supernatural influence. If an indian fails in an enterprise it is because his medicine is bad. and he sets himself to rectify it by making new medicine. It is difficult of course in the treatment of disease among the white [?brethren?] to know how far this subtile mystic medicine recognized by the indian is coupled with and asserts the effect produced in the human system by the administration of medicine by the white physician. The Oibway have a ceremony called "Grand Medicine" which we will describe in Chapter VIII. in which the whole affair