280 My Dogs in the Northland 



" good " or " bad medicine." The two an- 

 tagonistic forces of good and bad are ever 

 at work and he is the object of love or hate. 



Hence without Divine Revelation, he 

 feels that, like a leaf blown hither and 

 thither, he is a victim between the two con- 

 tending forces. Hence, he is often in great 

 terror of coming disasters. Until the mis- 

 sions broke the power of the conjurers or 

 medicine men, the great majority of the 

 people lived in constant dread. 



The power and influence for evil, some of 

 these famous conjurers had over the masses 

 of the natives, was almost incredible. They 

 had made the people believe that by their 

 conjuring they could call down all sorts of 

 evils upon them, that they could take away 

 their loved ones or rob them of their health, 

 with a word. They arrogated to themselves 

 power over the game in the forest and the 

 fish in the lakes, could decide which hunter 

 should succeed and which should fail. So 

 deeply had they bound the people down un- 

 der this malignant power that they ruled 

 as despots over them and demanded and re- 

 ceived the best of everything the people 

 possessed. To enforce and retain this su- 

 perstitious power over the people they 



