[74] Sometimes the professionals even became possessed of a monomania themselves, as in witchcraft. Andree goes into this widespread disease or delusion (of the first century till late in the middle ages), p. 76 fol.: “The sick” ones would prowl about burial places at night, imagining themselves to be wolves or dogs, and go about barking and howling. In the middle ages such people would even kill children and grown people. When they came to themselves again, or were cured, they claimed to know nothing of what had happened. Ethn. Rep. 1888-89, p. 491: Amongst the Shamans feats of jugglery or pretended magic rivaling or surpassing the best of spiritualistic seances are recounted. Page 207: The use of robes made of the hides of buffalo and other large animals, painted with shamanistic devices, is mentioned. Page 235: The speaker terms himself a wolf spirit, possessing peculiar power.
[75] Notes [63], [64], [65], [66], [67], [69].
[77] Page 71.
[78] Andree, p. 69.
[79] Ethn. Rep. 1889-90, p. 263. gives the following story of the origin of the wolf: “The wolf was a poor woman, who had so many children that she could not find enough for them to eat. They became so gaunt and hungry that they were changed into wolves, constantly roaming over the land seeking food.”
[81] Ethn. Rep. 1885-86, p. 152: It is impossible to imagine the horrible howlings, and strange contortions that these jugglers (shamans) or conjurers make of their bodies, when they are disposing themselves to conjure.
[82] Page 71.
[83] Andree, p. 70, gives an account of the chief magician (Abyssinia), who demands as yearly tribute of his subordinate animal-men the teeth of the persons whom they have killed during the year, with which he decorates his palace. See also pp. 72, 75, etc.: Ethn. Rep. 1885-86, p. 151, about sorcery among American Indians: Societies existed. The purposes of the society are twofold; 1. To preserve the traditions of Indian genesis and cosmogony, etc. 2. To give a certain class of ambitious men and women sufficient influence through their acknowledged power of exorcism and necromancy to lead a comfortable life at the expense of the credulous. Page 162: “Each tribe has its medicine men and women, an order of priesthood consulted and employed in all times of sickness. It is to their interest to lead these credulous people to believe that they can at pleasure hold intercourse with the munedoos,” etc. Sometimes one family constitutes the class. See note [65]; Andree, p. 69.