What would tend to minimize our considering these features as in any way significant of the Medicine Dance, is the fact that there has been no tendency to develop or emphasize any specific aspect of magic, and that shamanistic practices are absent and appear entirely disassociated from the society.
The purpose of the Medicine Dance is in part the desire to attain a long life, a safe journey to the next world, and the possibility of a return to this life again, preferably in human shape. All these benefits may be obtained by taking an active part in the ceremony, and by performing to the best of one’s ability all the duties of a member. Although it is essential to participate in the entire ritual in order to obtain these benefits to the fullest extent, nevertheless the phenomena of shooting and being shot at play an especially important rôle in this connection.
Long life means essentially the life consisting of a normal length of years, with all the possessions of wealth, social and intellectual distinction, that would naturally be included. Among the Winnebago, this concept of years is very definite, because they believe that to each individual has been assigned a life containing a certain number of years, a certain amount of wealth, a certain number of enemies killed on the warpath, etc. If a man, therefore, dies before he has reached the end of his “predestined” life, the residue, it is hoped, will be distributed among his relatives.
When in the Medicine Dance they pray for long life, what they mean is the ability to surmount the crises of life. Whatever may be the nature of these crises,—whether they relate to family disasters, sickness, old age, etc.,—it is expected that they will be overcome by membership and active participation in the society. There seems to be no suggestion that this is attained through the influence of magic. It is mere membership and obedience to the society’s teachings, ambition to raise one’s status by purchasing more and more privileges, that accomplish the desired end in view. The safe journey to the future world and the belief in transmigration may be obtained in a similar way. If one performs his duties and rises to the highest distinction, he will have no difficulty in attaining his object and in successfully overcoming all the obstacles to his passage.
The prayer for long life is specifically addressed to the Rabbit, the mythical founder of the society, and indirectly addressed to Earth-Maker (man′’una), the spirit who sent him to clear the earth of the obstacles to man’s progress. It is the only prayer ever addressed to him. No supernatural communication is possible. As a matter of fact, it is only in this and in the Winter Feast that Earth-Maker is associated with this specific power of granting long life.
It would be quite erroneous to imagine that the prayer for long life, passage to the next world, and transmigration, are ideas specifically connected with the Medicine Dance. As a matter of fact, they constitute the characteristic cultural traits of the Winnebago, and crop out everywhere in the folk-lore and in the general rituals. The question of the safe passage to the next world is perhaps even more specifically associated with the Four Nights’ Wake. The purpose of the wake is to enable the deceased to successfully overcome the four great obstacles on the road to the spirit home of his clan. This is accomplished, first, by the performance of a definite ritual; and, secondly, by some warrior relating one of his exploits on the warpath and putting at the disposal of the deceased the spirit of the man he had killed, to act as a servant to him. The close relation between the ethical worth of the deceased and of the one who relates the exploit, on the one hand, and the safe journey to the spirit world, on the other, comes out as strongly here as it does in the Medicine Dance; but it seems unnecessary, for that reason, to predicate any historical connection between the two. They both reflect the cultural background around them.
Similarly the various elements that make up the life which the members of the Medicine Dance pray for,—the food-supply, the power of healing, success on the warpath, a normal quota of years,—these are all definitely associated with spirits and ceremonials. Success in war is associated, not with one society, but with a number of societies. It would, however, be manifestly erroneous and unnecessary to claim that it belongs essentially more to the one than to the other society, unless direct historical proof for such a statement were forthcoming.
6. Summary.—We are now in a better position to see in what the nature of the complete ceremonial complex consists. The unit it consists of is loose in the Ojibwa-Menominee, and strong in the Shell and Pebble Societies and in the Medicine Dance. The specific component elements are to a large extent different in each. It is utterly impossible now to discover the origin of the differences in the individual component elements; but it is quite clear that the forces tending to develop the larger ceremonial complexes have been, not those of a dissociation, but distinctly those of an association, of elements.
These associations may be of the most diverse kind. Certain features may always have been associated with certain other elements, such as medicinal herbs and medicines with the water-spirit, as in the case of the Omaha and Winnebago. This, then, is for all practical purposes an ultimate unit. If, consequently, we find an intimate connection between a vision from the water-spirit and the practice of medicinal herbs, we must not consider this as a secondary association that has come about through the influence of a ceremony.
In the same way, the connection of the buffalo with the magical renewal of the food-supply will probably have to be looked upon as such an ultimate unit.