100 



POPULAR SCIENCE NEWS, 



[July, 1888. 



having the branches remaining and rising a little 

 beyond its fellows, this being the indication of a 

 Jossakeed as distinguished from a Made lodge. 

 The interior diameter was less than four feet. The 

 frame, which was inclined to the centre, was then 

 filled in with intertwined twigs, and covered with 

 blankets and birch-bark from the ground to the 

 top, leaving an orifice of about a foot in diameter 

 open for the ingress and egress of spirits and of the 

 objects to be mentioned, but not large enough for 

 the passage of a man's body. 



" At one side of the bottom wrapping a flap was 

 left for the entrance of the Jossakeed or Shaman. 



' ' A committee of twelve was selected to see that 

 no communication was possible between the Jos- 

 sakeed and confederates. These twelve men were 

 reliable people, one of them being the J^piscopal 

 clergyman of the reservation. The spectators were 

 several hundreds in number, but stood off, not be- 

 ing allowed to approach. 



" The Jossakeed then removed his clothing, until 

 nothing remained upon his person but the breech- 

 cloth. Beaulieu then took a rope (of his own selec- 

 tion for the purpose), and first tied and knotted 

 one end about the ankles; the knees were then 

 securely tied together; next the wrLsts ; after which 

 the arms were passed over the knees, and a billet 

 of wood passed under the knees, thus securing and 

 keeping the arras down motionless. The rope was 

 then passed around the neck again and again, each 

 time tied and knotted, so as to bring the face down 

 upon the knees. 



" A flat river-stone of black color — which was 

 the Jossakeed ^Manedo, or amulet — was left lying 

 upon his thighs. The Jossakeed was then carried 

 to the lodge, placed inside upon a mat on the 

 ground, and the flap covering restored so as com- 

 pletely to hide him from view. 



" Immediately loud thumping noises were heard, 

 and the framework began to sway from side to 

 side with great violence ; whereupon the clergyman 

 remarked that tliis was the work of the Evil One, 

 and it was no place for him: so he left, and did not 

 see the end. After a few minutes of violent move- 

 ments and swaying of the lodge, accompanied by 

 loud inarticulate noises, the motions gradually 

 ceased, when the voice of the juggler was heard 

 telling Beaulieu to go to the house of a friend near 

 by, and get the rope. Now, Beaulieu, suspecting 

 some joke was to be played upon him, directed the 

 committee to be very careful not to permit any one 

 to approach while he went for the rope, which he 

 found at the place indicated, still tied exactly as 

 he had placed it about the neck and extremities of 

 the Jossakeed. He immediately returned, laid it 

 down before the spectators, and requested of the 

 Jossakeed to be allowed to look at him, which was 

 granted, but with the understanding that Beaulieu 

 was not to touch him. 



" When the covering was pulled aside, the Jossa- 

 keed sat within the lodge, contentedly smoking his 

 pipe, with no other object in sight than the black 

 stone Manedo. 



" Beaulieu paid his wager of one hundred dol- 

 lars. An exhibition of similar pretended powers, 

 also for a wager, was announced a short time later 

 at Yellow-Medicine, Minn., to be given in the pres- 

 ence of a number of army people; but at the threat 

 of the grand medicine-man of Leech Lake bands, 

 who probably objected to interference with his lu- 

 crative monopoly, the event did not take place, and 

 bets were declared off. 



" At Odanah, on the Bad River Reservation, and 

 at Bayfield, both in AVisconsin, I obtained some 

 variants of the above performance as seen at differ- 

 ent times and places and by several witnesses. For 

 instance: the Shaman at one time was tied up much 

 as before mentioned, but witli all of his clothes on; 



a fish-net, however, being tied above his clothes, 

 enveloping the whole person ; and horse-bells were 

 attached to his body, so as to indicate any motion. 

 When examined afterwards, the clothing had been 

 entirely stripped from his person, the nets and 

 ropes and bells placed in a separate pile in the 

 lodge, and the clothing itself was found by direc- 

 tion under a designated tree a mile off ; the Indians 

 of the committee, one of whom was my informant, 

 running from the lodge at their highest speed to 

 the tree, and there finding the clothing, and stating 

 the impossibility of its being transported by any 

 human agency in advance of their arrival. In an- 

 other case, occurring at night, two lodges were 

 built about twenty feet apart. About a hundred 

 Indians surrounded the space occupied by the two 

 lodges with lighted torches giving the brightness of 

 day, and a line of bonfires was built and kept in 

 flame over the space intervening between the two 

 lodges. The levitation in this case was by the 

 bound Shaman in one lodge being found unbound 

 in the other. 



" It should be noted that these stories relate to a 

 time some forty or fifty years ago, before the tricks 

 similar to those of the Davenport brothers had be- 

 come known in the civilized portions of the United 

 States. It is a still more important fact that the 

 French missionaries in Canada, and the early set- 

 tlers of New England, describe substantially the 

 same performances when they met the Indians, all 

 of whom belonged to the Algonkin stock So re- 

 markable and frequent were these performances of 

 jugglery, that the French, iu 1613, called the whole 

 body of Indians on the Ottawa River, whom they 

 met at a very early period, 'the sorcerers.' They 

 were the tribes afterwards called Nipissing, and 

 were the typical Algonkins. No suspicion of jug- 

 glery in the sense of deception appears to have 

 been entertained by any of the earliest French and 

 English writers. The severe Puritan and the ar- 

 dent Catliolic both considered that the exhibitions 

 were real, and the work of the Devil. It is also 

 worth mentioning that one of the derivations of 

 the name ' Mic-mac ' is connected with the word 

 meaning ' sorcerer; ' so that the known practices of 

 this character having an important effect upon the 

 life of the people extended from the Great Lakes 

 to the extreme east of the continent. It was obvi- 

 ous to me, in cross-examining the various old men, 

 that the performances of jugglery were in each 

 case an exhibition of the pretended miraculous 

 power of an individual, whereby he obtained a 

 reputation above his rivals, and derived subsistence 

 and authority by the selling of charms and super- 

 human information. The charms of fetiches, 

 which still are sold by a few who are yet believed 

 in, are of three kinds, — to bring death or disease 

 on an enemy, to lure an enemy into an ambush, 

 and to create sexual love." — Science. 



considered tlie best ; that from Yunnan ; that from 

 Assam ; and the Kabartine musk, from Russia and 

 Siberia. 



It appears, notwithstanding the opinion of 

 Cuvier, that many other species of this family are 

 provided with a musk-pouch, which may explain 

 the differences jiresented by the various samples 

 met with in commerce. 



The price of musk is from eight to twenty dol- 

 lars an ounce in the natural pouches. This high 

 price is a strong temptation to fraud ; and the musk 

 is often found mixed with lead, iron, copper, sand, 

 dried blood, or even paper and rags, to increase 

 the volume and weight. After the introduction of 

 the foreign bodies, the pouches are closed up again 

 in so ingenious a manner, that only the eye of an 

 expert can discover the fraud. The purest musk, 

 and that most valued by the Chinese themselves, is 

 that voided by the animal upon stones or trees. 



The odor of musk is perhaps the strongest of 

 all known perfumes. Only a minute quantity is 

 necessary to perfume a large quantity of other ma- 

 terial. It is of an incalculable divisibility. If one 

 opens a bottle containing this perfume, the whole 

 surrounding air is saturated with its odor, which 

 may be carried by the wind for long distances. 



Musk was well known to the ancients, and was 

 highly prized by them as a medicine, as it still is 

 among the Oriental nations. About six hundred 

 pounds are annually consumed iu the United 

 States, of which ninety-eight per cent is used in 

 perfumery, and the remainder in medicine. 



[Translated from Le Franco Americain.] 

 THE ORIGIN OF MUSK. 



BY W. p. UNGEREn. 



Every one knows the odor of musk, but every 

 one does not know that it is the product of a se- 

 cretion of the musk-deer. 



This animal is regarded by certain naturalists as 

 a species of gazelle ; it is about the size of a roe- 

 buck, and of a gentle and timid nature. Its move- 

 ments are quick, lively, and graceful; but it is 

 especially distinguished by a little sac situated 

 near the navel, and containing the much-prized 

 musk, which is secreted as a kind of clotted and 

 fatty humor of a brown color, much resembling 

 dried blood. It is only found in adult males. 



Four kinds of musk are distinguished in com- 

 merce, — that from China or Touquin, which is 



SCIENTIFIC BREVITIES. 



Speed oi" Telegraphy. — When the first elec- 

 tric telegraph was established, the speed of trans- 

 mission was from 4 to 5 words a minute with the 

 five-needle instruments; in 1849 the average rate 

 for newspaper messages was 17 words a minute; 

 the present pace of the electric telegraph between 

 London and Dublin, where the Wheatstone in- 

 strument is employed, reaches 463 words: and thus 

 what was regarded as miraculous sixty years ago 

 has multiplied a hundred-fold in half a century. 



Meteorites. — From an exhaustive study of 

 the very large collection of meteorites at Harvard 

 College, the conclusion has been arrived at that 

 many of the masses of meteoric iron now known 

 are cleavage crystals, broken off, probably, by the 

 impact of the mass against the atmosphere. It is 

 found that these masses show cleavings jiarallel to 

 the planes of all the three fundamental forms of 

 the isometric or regular system. From all that 

 appears, the theory has come to be entertained, in 

 respect to the origin of meteorites, that the masses 

 were thrown off from a sun among the fixed stars, 

 and that they were slowly cooled while revolving in 

 a zone of intense heat. 



A Reasoning Lohster. — A curious story is 

 told by Willard Nye, jun., in the Bulletin of the 

 United States Fish Commission. The sagacious 

 crustacean's home was under a rock in Buzzard's 

 Bay, in water about five feet deep. The author 

 carefully adjusted a noose over the hole, and 

 baited it with a piece of menhaden. The lobster 

 passed its claw through the noose to get the bait ; 

 and the noose was drawn upon the claw, butslipjied 

 off when the animal had been pulled half out of 

 his hole, and he escaped. The noose was fixed 

 again; but this time, instead of putting out his 

 claws, as before, the lobster first put his feelers 

 through the noose, felt the string all the way 

 around, and then pushed one claw under the string 

 and seized the bait. The experiment was repeated 

 several times; but every new setting of the trap 

 was met in the same deliberate way, as if by one 

 who had tliought the matter out. 



