In their quality of seers, however, they are more important, and frequently more successful persons, attaining, of course, various degrees of proficiency and reputation. An accomplished dreamer has a sure competency in that gift. He is reverently consulted, handsomely paid, and, in general, strictly obeyed. His influence, when once established, is more potent even than that of a war chief. The dignity and profit of the position are baits sufficient to command the attention and ambition of the ablest men; yet it is not unfrequently the case that persons otherwise undistinguished are noted for clear and strong powers of "medicine."
Of the three most distinguished medicine-men known to the writer, but one was a man of powerful intellect. Even this person preferred a somewhat sedentary, and what might be called a strictly professional life, to the usual active habits of the hunting and warring tribes. He dwelt almost alone on a far northern branch of the Saskatchewan River, revered for his gifts, feared for his power, and always approached with something of reluctance by the Indians, who firmly believed the spirit of the gods to dwell within him. He was an austere and taciturn man, difficult of access, and as vain and ambitious as he was haughty and contemptuous. Those who professed to have witnessed the scene told of a trial of power between this man—the Black Snake, as he was called—and a renowned medicine-man of a neighboring tribe. The contest, from what the Indians said, must have occurred about 1855.
The rival medicine-men, each furnished with his medicine-bag, his amulets, and other professional paraphernalia, arrayed in full dress, and covered with war-paint, met in the presence of a great concourse. Both had prepared for the encounter by long fasting and conjurations. After the pipe, which precedes all important councils, the medicine-men sat down opposite to each other, a few feet apart. The trial of power seems to have been conducted on principles of animal magnetism, and lasted a long while without decided advantage on either side; until the Black Snake, concentrating all his power, or "gathering his medicine," in a loud voice commanded his opponent to die. The unfortunate conjurer succumbed, and in a few minutes "his spirit," as my informant said, "went beyond the Sand Buttes." The only charm or amulet ever used by the Black Snake is said to have been a small bean-shaped pebble suspended round his neck by a cord of moose sinew. He had his books, it is true, but they were rarely exhibited.[E]
The death of his rival, by means so purely non-mechanical or physical, gave the Black Snake a pre-eminence in "medicine" which he has ever since maintained. It was useless to suggest poison, deception, or collusion, to explain the occurrence. The firm belief was that the spiritual power of the Black Snake had alone secured his triumph.
I mentioned this story to a highly educated and deeply religious man of my acquaintance. He was a priest of the Jesuit order, a European by birth, formerly a professor in a Continental university of high repute, and beyond doubt a guileless and pious man. His acquaintance with Indian life extended over more than twenty years of missionary labor in the wildest parts of the west slope of the Rocky Mountains. To my surprise, (for I was then a novice in the country,) I found him neither astonished, nor shocked, nor amused, by what seemed to me so gross a superstition.
"I have seen," said he, "many exhibitions of power which my philosophy cannot explain. I have known predictions of events far in the future to be literally fulfilled, and have seen medicine tested in the most conclusive ways. I once saw a Kootenai Indian (known generally as Skookum-tamahe-rewos, from his extraordinary power) command a mountain sheep to fall dead, and the animal, then leaping among the rocks of the mountain-side, fell instantly lifeless. This I saw with my own eyes, and I ate of the animal afterwards. It was unwounded, healthy, and perfectly wild. Ah!" continued he, crossing himself and looking upwards, "Mary protect us! the medicine-men have power from Sathanas."[F]
This statement, made by so responsible a person, attracted my attention to what before seemed but a clumsy species of juggling. During many months of intimate knowledge of Indian life,—as an adopted member of a tribe, as a resident in their camps, and their companion on hunts and war-parties,—I lost no opportunity of gathering information concerning their religious belief and traditions, and the system of medicine, as it prevails in its purity. It would be foreign to the design of this desultory paper to enter at large upon the history of creation as preserved by the Indians in their traditions, the conflicts of the Beneficent Spirit with the Adversary, and the Indian idea of a future state. With all these, the present sketch has no further concern than a mere statement that "medicine" is based upon the idea of an overruling and all-powerful Providence, who acts at His good pleasure, through human instruments. Those among Christians who entertain the doctrine of Special Providences may find in the untutored Indian a faith as firm as theirs,—not sharply defined, or understood by the Indian himself, but inborn and ineradicable.
The Indian, being thoroughly ignorant of all things not connected with war or the chase, is necessarily superstitious. His imagination is active,—generally more so than are his reasoning powers,—and fits him for a ready belief in the powers of any able mediciner. On one occasion, Meldram, a white man in the employ of the American Fur Company, found himself suddenly elevated to high rank as a seer by a foolish or petulant remark. He was engaged in making a rude press for baling furs, and had got a heavy lever in position. A large party of Crow Indians who were near at hand, considering his press a marvel of mechanical ingenuity, were very inquisitive as to its uses. Meldram, with an assumption of severity, told them the machine was "snow medicine," and that it would make snow to fall until it reached the end of a cord that dangled from the lever and reached within a yard of the ground. The fame of so potent a medicine spread rapidly through the Crow nation. The machine was visited by hundreds, and the fall of snow anxiously looked for by the entire tribe. To the awe of every Indian, and the astonishment of the few trappers then at the mouth of the Yellowstone, the snow actually reached the end of the rope, and did not during the winter attain any greater depth. Meldram found greatness thrust upon him. He has lived for more than forty years among the Crows, and when I knew him was much consulted as a medicine-man. His chief charms, or amulets, were a large bull's-eye silver watch, and a copy of "Ayer's Family Almanac," in which was displayed the human body encircled by the signs of the zodiac.
The position and ease attendant upon a reputation for medicine power cause many unsuccessful pretenders to embrace the profession; and it would seem strange that their failures should not have brought medicine into disrepute. In looking closely into this, a well-marked distinction will always be found between medicine and the medicine-man,—quite as broad as is made with us between religion and the preacher. I have seen would-be medicine-men laughed at through the camp,—men of reputation as warriors, and respected in council, but whose forte was not the reading of dreams or the prediction of events. On the other hand, I have seen persons of inferior intellect, without courage on the war-path or wisdom in the council, revered as the channels through which, in some unexplained manner, the Great Spirit warned or advised his creatures.
Of course it is no purpose of this paper to uphold or attack these peculiar ideas. A meagre presentation of a few facts not generally known is all that is aimed at. Whether the system of Indian medicine be a variety of Mesmerism, Magnetism, Spiritualism, or what not, others may inquire and determine. One bred a Calvinist, as was the writer, may be supposed to have viewed with suspicion the exhibitions of medicine power that almost daily presented themselves. And while, in very numerous instances, they proved to be but the impudent pretensions of charlatans, it must be conceded, if credible witnesses are to be believed, that sometimes there is a power of second-sight, or something of a kindred nature, which defies investigation. Instances of this kind are of frequent occurrence, and easily recalled, I venture to say, by every one familiar with the Indian in his native state. The higher powers claimed for medicine are, in general, doubtfully spoken of by the Indians. Not that they deny the possibility of the power, but they question the probability of so signal a mark of favor being bestowed on a mere mortal. Powers and medicine privileges of a lower degree are more readily acknowledged. An aged Indian of the Assinaboin tribe is very generally admitted, by his own and neighboring tribes, to have been shown the happy hunting-grounds, and conducted through them and returned safely to the camp of his tribe, by special favor of the Great Spirit. He once drew a map of the Indian paradise for me, and described its pleasant prairies and crystal rivers, its countless herds of fat buffalo and horses, its perennial and luxuriant grass, and other charms dear to an Indian's heart, in a rhapsody that was almost poetry. Another, an obscure man of the Cathead Sioux, is believed to have seen the hole through which issue the herds of buffalo which the Great Spirit calls forth from the centre of the earth to feed his children.