Fig. 699.—Held a ghost lodge.
Fig. 699. Cannaksa-Yuha, Has-a-war-club; from the Oglala Roster. This man has his father’s name “war-club,” and is therefore set by the ghosts in his stead as a warrior. He is supposed to be invulnerable to any mortal weapon, and the children and even women fear him as they would a ghost. He holds the war club before his face, as it partakes of the nature of insignia. In the original the whole of the man’s face is painted red. This is to show that he has a wakicagapi-ecokicoupe, which means that he has put up a ghost tent, concerning which there are many and complicated ceremonies and details narrated by Rev. J. Owen Dorsey in the American Anthropologist, II, 145 et seq.
Fig. 700.—Muzzin-ne-neen. Ojibwa.
John Tanner (g) gives an account of sorcery among the Ojibwa, with illustrations copied as Fig. 700, being nearly identical with those recently obtained by Dr. Hoffman, and published in the Seventh Ann. Rep., Bureau of Ethnology, as Figs. 20 and 21.
It was thought necessary to have recourse to a medicine hunt. Nah-gitch-e-gum-me instances where one Indian attempts to inflict disease or suffering on another. A drawing or a little image is made to represent the man, the woman, or the animal on which the power of the medicine is to be tried; then the part representing the heart is punctured with a sharp instrument, if the design be to cause death, and a little of the medicine is applied. The drawing or image of an animal used in this case is called muzzin-ne-neen, and the same name is applicable to the little figures of a man or women, and is sometime rudely traced on birch bark, in other instances more carefully carved of wood. These little images or drawings, for they are called by the same names, whether of carved wood or rags or only rudely sketched on birch bark, or even traced in sand, are much in use among several and probably all the Algonquin tribes. Their use is not confined to hunting, but extends to the making of love, and the gratification of hatred, revenge, and all malignant passions.
Fig. 701.—Muzzin-ne-neen. Ojibwa.
It is a prevailing belief that the necromancers, men or women of medicine, or those who are acquainted with the hidden powers of their wusks, can, by practicing upon the muzzin-ne-neence, exercise an unlimited control over the body and mind of the person represented. Many a simple Indian girl gives to some crafty old squaw her most valued ornaments, or whatever property she may possess, to purchase from her the love of the man she is most anxious to please. The old woman, in a case of this kind, commonly makes up a little image of stained wood and rags, to which she gives the name of the person whose inclinations she is expected to control; and to the heart, the eyes, or to some other part of this she, from time to time, applies her medicines, or professes to have done so, as she may find necessary to dupe and encourage her credulous employer.
But the influence of these images and conjurations is more frequently tested in cases of an opposite character, where the inciting cause is not love, but hatred, and the object to be attained the gratification of a deadly revenge. In cases of this kind the practices are similar to those above mentioned, only different medicines are used Sometimes the muzzin-ne-neence is pricked with a pin or needle in various parts, and pain or disease is supposed to be produced in the corresponding part of the person practiced upon. Sometimes they blacken the hands and mouth of the image, and the effect expected is the change which marks the near approach of death.