The old master then told the candidates that each of these animals had donated some special power to aid mankind. Thus the Weasel gave cunning and ferocity in war and the chase, the Snapping-turtle, probably one of the vague fourth group of Evil Powers, had given his heart, which beats long after it is torn from his bosom, to grant long life. Each animal had four songs sung in his honor during the session of the Lodge, said the elder, and the third instructor would teach these to the candidate.
The old master informed his pupil that in his opinion the Medicine Lodge and its rites were found far to the east, in the country by the Great Sea Where the Dawn Rises, for he had once met a party of warriors, from the far off Nottoway or Iroquois, who spoke of a society and its ritual, given them by the animals, which had for its object long life and immortality for men.
Dawn-woman now fetched steaming rice and fat venison, marrow-bones and dried berries, and the little party feasted. The hour was very late, yet none thought of sleep. After the feast, the third elder did his part.
He selected a calabash rattle, and, sometimes rattling, sometimes drumming an accompaniment, taught the songs of the Lodge to Little-wolf. There were songs of opening and songs of closing, as well as the animal songs, each repeated four times, the sacred number, and each in groups of four. Each was made obscure and unintelligible to eavesdroppers by the addition of nonsense syllables. Some, indeed, were so ancient, and so clouded by vocables, that nothing but their general meaning was remembered even by the brethren. These passed for songs in a secret, magic language. Some chants were in other languages, particularly Ojibway, and all ended with the mystic phrase “we-ho-ho-ho-ho,” which meant “so mote it be.” The songs had titles, but these names too, were magic, and often gave no inkling of the meaning or wording of the song, and most of them avoided naming the animals or gods to which they referred, except by circumlocution, or by merely mentioning some prominent characteristic or attribute of the creature.
There were songs for the “shooting of the medicine”—an act which was so secret and mysterious that the candidate was as yet kept in the dark as to its meaning—and others for dancing, for thanksgiving and for dedication.
When the third elder had ended his synopsis of the songs, which the candidate had later to purchase and learn at leisure, the fourth and last past master took him in hand. His part, he said, was short, yet important. He showed the candidate certain articles which would be ceremonially given to the candidate at the proper time and place. Among these articles was the tanned skin of an otter, the nostrils of which were stuffed with tufts of red-dyed hawk-down, the under surfaces of the four feet and tail being adorned with fringed rectangles of blue-dyed doe leather, embroidered with conventional flower designs in colored porcupine hair and quills. This was to be the medicine bag of the new member. Through an opening, a slit in the chest of the otter, one could thrust a hand, and find in the little pouch made by the skin of the left forefoot of the animal, a small sea shell, called the konäpämîk, or medicine arrow, by which the essence of all the sacred objects contained in the bag was ceremonially “shot” or transferred to the bodies of the Lodge brethren during the performance of the ritual.
Three other medicines the otter-skin contained. There were sacred, blue face-paint, the color of the sky; a mysterious brown powder holding a seed, wrapped in a packet with a fresh water clamshell; and another mixture of pounded roots called “Reviver,” or Apisétchikun.
The clamshell was a sacred, ancient cup, in which the accompanying powder and seed were placed with a little water, and given to all candidates to drink. The mystic seed was supposed to be the badge of the Medicine Lodge, and was to remain in the candidate’s breast, forever, even until he had followed the Pathway of the Dead along the Milky Way. The “Reviver” was a powerful drug for use at all times when life ebbed low, through sickness or magic.
“These then,” said the last instructor, “are the ways and sacred things of Mä’näbus, given us Indians to have and use, as long as the world shall stand!”
So saying, he in turn retired, and the party rolled in their blankets to sleep before the sun could look in through the smoke hole of the wigwam.