LET US GO AFIELD 



decorated with red flannel, now almost vanished 

 through ravages of moth and natural decay, and 

 ornamented with beads such as you cannot buy 

 today. The deer hair in the pads is dust today, and 

 the buffalo hide cinch is hard as steel. You will not 

 find any such saddles today, for the Indians now 

 buy cow saddles as good as you yourself own. 



On yonder heavily studded belt like the one on 

 which sometimes you carry your hunting knife and 

 ax when you are after big game there is a little 

 packet of hide neatly folded and tied together. 

 What is it, and why is it there on the hunting belt? 

 It has always been there, and often I have been 

 asked by the curious what it was. Once, I think, it 

 was opened on the sly by a curious white man. That 

 was sacrilege an act wholly wrong. It was 

 promptly punished also ; for, although the fault was 

 not my own, I had hard hunting to get my moose, 

 and when I did, he had no horns ! Why was that ? 

 Obviously, because someone had been monkeying 

 with my "medicine." The aboriginal gods took 

 their revenge. 



The medicine bag was something sacred in the 

 Indian's lodge. To touch it, or to attempt to 

 unwrap the medicine bundle, was an insult to him 

 and his religion. It was a sacred thing. Each man 

 had his own medicine, and what it was was his 



300 



