The two eyes are about 6 inches in diameter and 4 inches apart and the nose about 9 inches long. It is said to have been made by some man a long time ago, who felt very badly, and went and sat on the rock, and with another stone hammered out the eyes and nose. For a long time they believed that if the rock was shaken it would cause rain, probably because the thunder bird was angry.
Graphic representations of Atotarko and of the Great Heads are shown in Mrs. Erminnie A. Smith’s Myths of the Iroquois, in the Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology. Mythic Personages are also presented in aboriginal drawing by Mr. Charles G. Leland in his work, the Algonquin Legends of New England, etc. Boston, 1884.
SHAMANISM.
The term Shamanism is a corrupted form of the Sanscrit word for ascetic. Its original application was to the religion of certain tribes of northern Asia, but in general it expresses the worship of spirits with magic arts and fetich-practices. The Shaman or priest pretends to control by incantations and ceremonies the evil spirits to whom death, sickness, and other misfortunes are ascribed. This form or stage of religion is so prevalent among the North American Indians that the adoption of the term Shaman here is substantially correct, and it avoids both the stupid expression “medicine-man” of current literature and the indefinite title priest, the associations with which are not appropriate to the Indian religious practitioner. The statement that the Indians worship one “Great Spirit” or single overruling personal god is erroneous. That philosophical conception is beyond the stage of culture reached by them and was not found in any tribe previous to missionary influence. Their actual philosophy can be expressed far more objectively and therefore pictorially.
Many instances of the “Making Medicine” are shown in the Dakota Winter Counts; also graphic expressions regarding magic. Especial reference may be made to American-Horse’s count for the years 1824-’25 and 1843-’44, in the Corbusier Winter Counts.
Figure 110 was copied from a piece of walrus ivory in the museum of the Alaska Commercial Company, of San Francisco, California, by Dr. Hoffman, and the interpretation is as obtained from an Alaskan native.
Fig. 110.—Shaman exorcising Demon. Alaska.
1, 2. The Shaman’s summer habitations, trees growing in the vicinity.