1897.] MORRIS — PEXTAG. DODECAHEDRON AND SHAMANISM. 1' 



RELATION OF THE PENTAGONAL DODECAHEDRON 

 FOUND NEAR MARIETTA, OHIO, TO SHAMANISM. 



BY J, CHKSTON MORRIS, M.U. 



(^Read April 23, 1S97.) 



I regret that I am unable this evening to present to the Society, 

 as I had hoped, a very intelligent and well-educated Nez Perce 

 Indian, Mr. Lewis D. Williams, who called upon me some two 

 months ago and read a paper which he had prepared on the educa- 

 tion and training an Indian boy receives in his native home. It 

 recalled vividly to me Dr. Brinton's communication to us two years 

 ago on the Nagual form of worship (Froc, Vol. xxxiii, pp. 4, ii, 

 73), and I had hoped to secure his presence. Unfortunately I 

 have lost trace of him (as he is no longer in the employ of the 

 Bureau of Am. Ethnology at Washington), and can therefore only 

 give a resume of it from memory. He left his tribe when about 

 fifteen years old, was educated at Carlisle and the University of 

 Pennsylvania, before entering the employ at Washington of the 

 Bureau of Am. Ethnology. He spoke of the boy's close observa- 

 tion of nature in the world around him and his companions, of the 

 inquiry which arises in all human hearts as to the meaning and 

 object of life, and the forces which are displayed, the means of 

 utilizing them, of obtaining success : of the belief in hidden 

 unseen powers controlling or directing or opposing our efforts : of 

 the brave hunters and successful warriors, of the older wiser rulers, 

 of the medicine men and the ceremonial dances and rites of the 

 tribe. He told of the time when the boy hitherto nameless must 

 take, or have given to him, a name. What shall it be ? He told the 

 myth that once on a time a wise medicine man had a sacred tepee ; 

 to him came the beings which became the various animals and birds, 

 each with its own ambition. One would come and say, '' I want 

 to be an eagle." "Well, let me see how you can fly." Off" he 

 soared, and came back after flying up toward the sun, and was 

 received with the encouragement, "All right, go and be an eagle." 

 Another v/anted also to be an eagle, but only fluttered a little way, 

 lit upon a tree and came back chattering, to be told, "No, you 

 can't be an eagle, you must be a bluejay." Another showed ability, 

 and was allowed to become, at his desire, a wolf. Yet another, try- 



