1953] RITZENTHALER, CHIPPEWA HEALTH 233 



connection with the Chief Dance and the ceremonial slaying of the straw 

 dummy. In both the Medicine Dance and Drum Dance concern for the 

 well-being of the group is expressed in the form of prayers to the ma'nidog 

 to keep the people well. 



Hallowell (1941, p. 872), in his study of anxiety among the Berens 

 River Chippewa of southern Manitoba, says: 



I "In Saulteaux society, it is not fear of the Gods or fear of punishment that is 



I the major sanction: it is the fear of disease. Or. putting in the termmology already 

 employed, the motivating factor is the effect connected with certain disease situations. 

 Individuals in Saulteaux society are highly sensitized to anxiet)' as an emotional reac- 

 tion to a danger signal, the precipitating cause being illness interpreted as punish- 

 ment. The manifest danger to which the anxiety is directed is the direct threat to 

 someone's well-being or even life." 



It is apparent that a pronounced healthy anxiety exists among these two 

 Canadian tribes comparable to the Wisconsin situation. 



While the lack of data precludes the possibility of an analysis of health 

 anxieties among the American Indians as a whole, there are, at least, some 

 areas that can be sampled on the basis of recent work touchmg on this 

 problem. 



Macgregor's (pp. 190-2) study of the Pine Ridge Sioux, for example, 

 sheds some light on health attitudes among the children of that tribe. The 

 results he obtained from giving the children the Emotional Response Test 

 and the Moral Ideology Test indicate that concern for well-being is an 

 important consideration among them. While the number of responses 

 "... suggest that the predominant behaviour and emotions of the children 

 are reactions to a world that seems to them hostile, the second largest 

 category of responses reveals the children to be concerned with self-interest 

 in pleasure or anxiet}- about their own well-being." "Self-concern o%'er being 

 sick and dying would not be thought unusual under these circumstances it 

 it were not the additional high anxiety over the death of others. Worry 

 about the possible death of other people, as measured by the frequency of 

 responses, is exceeded only by that caused by the potential or overt aggres- 

 sion of people and by the behavior of animals. Although the children have 

 strong affection 'for their relatives, worry about their death or sickness ap- 

 pears to be centered in apprehension about how such catastrophes will affect 

 the children themselves. This preoccupation is thrown into bolder relief by 

 the absence of any responses showing interest in the happiness or activities 

 of other people. Judging from Macgregor's material it is evident that health 



