202 BULLETIN, PUBLIC MUSEUM, MILWAUKEE [Vol. 19 



of eighty miles, or, where the patient could be moved he was taken to 

 Flambeau. A Potawatomi, well known for his conjuring abilities, makes 

 the rounds of the Chippewa Reservations exercising his skill in the role of 

 "guest artist." In one case which I had the opportunity to observe, a woman 

 offered to pay all traveling expenses if I would drive her and her ailing 

 son to a doctor of the St. Croix band some sixty miles away. She had 

 already made one trip there to arrange for the ceremony. The time and 

 expense involved in such procedures is often considerable, and serves to 

 demonstrate their faith in the practice, but the art seems fated to die in the 

 hands of the present practitioners. The following is a description of the 

 ceremony I witnessed in 1942: 



"Laurence Butler, about 25 years old, was working in a defense plant in Detroit 

 for a year and a half, until he was called into the army. His examination showed 

 incipient tuberculosis. He went to the Municipal Sanitorium in Chicago and stayed 

 there for six weeks. His mother, Mrs. John Butler, wrote him a letter and asked 

 him to come home and to go to this Indian doctor, John King at Sand Lake, a 

 I jiziki'w/n/'ni. Laurence came home Sunday, and Tuesday we were asked to drive 

 them down to Sand Lake. 



"We got there about 2 P.M. Wednesday, and sat around waiting for dusk. 

 Mrs. Butler told John King what she wanted him to do. Talking to Laurence, we 

 learned that he had never seen a ji'ziksn shake and did not know much about it. 

 He didn't believe much in the efficacy of the jiziki w/n/'ni and was apparently going 

 through the whole thing mostly to please his mother, although he said he had heard 

 of people being cured by these doctors, and he admitted that he had nothing to 

 lose by it. 



"We were told, at first, that we wouldn't be allowed to watch the curing, that 

 they never allow any white people around. John King said he couldn't work with 

 people of another race around (gawe*sa' — I can't do it). Mrs. Butler talked to him, 

 and told him that we had brought them down, so he changed his mind and consented 

 to our watching, providing we gave tobacco and didn't take any pictures or tell any 

 other white people about it. 



"At dusk, about 8 P.M. Charley Littlepipe, the skabe'wis or runner, went out to 

 fix up the ji'zikan. Charley Littlepipe had been invited to come up by Mrs. Butler, 

 who had gone down to his house about seven o'clock, and had given him a package 

 of standard tobacco, and told him what was going to happen. The framework was 

 already built and had been used previously. It consisted of six ironwood saplings 

 I set into the ground and six smaller pieces going around. The ironwood stakes were 

 [ set about a foot and a half into the ground, bent over the top and tied to the opposite 

 stake about half way down. They were IV2 inches thick at the base. Six ironwood 

 branches, three-fourths inch in diameter, were bound onto these, starting about a 

 foot and a half up from the ground. They were about four inches apart and left 

 a gap of about 2 feet at the top. 



) "The structure was just about 6 feet high and 21/2 to 3 feet in diameter at the 



I base. It was tied together with wi'gop — basswood twine, and shook rather easily. 

 John said no dogs were allowed near it; they were all shut in the house. 



"Charley shook the framework to test it and replaced some of the wi'gop, binding 

 it at various places on the framework. Then he bound bands of sleigh bells on 

 four of the uprights near the top. He tied them tightly with wi'gop and tied one big 

 leather band with some larger bells across the top (on the two remaining uprights). 



