Se-non-ti-yah (the Blistered Feet), the Medicine or Mystery Man, was a highly important personage of the party, and held a high and enviable position, as physician, soothsayer, and magician, in his tribe.
These personages are found in every tribe, and so much control have they over the superstitious minds of their people, that their influence and power in the tribe often transcend those of the chief. In all councils of war and peace they have a seat by the chiefs, and are as regularly consulted by the chiefs, as soothsayers were consulted in ancient days, and equal deference and respect is paid to their advice or opinions, rendering them oracles of the tribe in which they live.
No. 9.
A good illustration of this was given by this magician, while on their voyage to this country, a few weeks since, when near the land, off the English coast. The packet ship in which the Indians were passengers, was becalmed for several days, much to the annoyance of the Indians and numerous other passengers, when it was decided, by the Indian chief, that they must call upon the Medicine Man, to try the efficacy of his magical powers in the endeavour to raise a wind. For this purpose he very gradually went to work, with all due ceremony, according to the modes of the country, and after the usual ceremony of a mystery feast, and various invocations to the spirit of the wind and the ocean, both were conciliated by the sacrifice of many plugs of tobacco thrown into the sea; and in a little time the wind began to blow, the sails were filled, and the vessel soon wafted into port, to the amusement of the passengers, and much to the gratification of the Indians, who all believed, and ever will, that the vessel was set in motion by the potency of the Doctor’s mysterious and supernatural powers.
Of the Warriors, Shon-ta-yi-ga (the Little Wolf) and Nu-ho-mun-ya (called the “Roman Nose”) were the most distinguished, and I believe the world will agree with me, that it would be an act of injustice on my part, should I allow the poor fellows to carry through this country, without giving them publication, the subjoined documents,[3] by which it will be seen that they saved, in a humane manner, and worthy of warriors of better caste, the lives of ten unarmed and unoffending enemies.
Okee-wee-me (the wife of the Little Wolf) is the mother of the infant pappoose, called Corsair. This child is little more than three months old, and slung in the cradle on the mother’s back, according to the general custom practised by all the American tribes, and furnishes one of the most interesting illustrations in the group.