DENSMORE] CHIPPEWA MUSIC 119 



1 . SONGS OF THE DOCTOR 



The Chippewa word dja'sakid is appHed to two cLasses of peo- 

 ple — doctors and jugglers. It is dillicult for us to recognize the 

 relation between these two, for we are accustomed to regard medicine 

 as a science and jugglery as an imposition, but to the Indian mind 

 both are direct demonstrations of supernatural power received and 

 maintained by means of dreams or trances. For that reason it is 

 natural that the same word should be applied to each.'^ 



The songs of a Chippewa doctor can not be bought or sold. Each 

 man must bear his own pain or endure his own fasting if he would ac- 

 quire power over pain in others. Sympathy and affection were very 

 real in the Indian wigwams. Definite knowledge of means for curing 

 the sick was very scanty, and in pathetic helplessness the Indian 

 turned to the supernatural for help. The methods used in the treat- 

 ment of the sick are repellent. For that reason it is good that we 

 firct consider the element of poetry which underlay the best attempts 

 of the old-school Indian doctors to relieve the suffering of their 

 friends. 



The fasts which were practised by the Chippewa doctors usually 

 lasted ten days, the time being spent on a mountain or a great rock, 

 or in a tree. A doctor frequently built a kind of nest to which he 

 retired and whither he believed the manido' came to give him the 

 power to do his work. 



The Chippewa doctor treats the sick b}' singing, shaking his rattle, 

 passing his hands over the body of the patient, and apparently swal- 

 lowing one or more bones, which are afterward removed from his 

 mouth. Each of these phases is considered indispensable to the treat- 

 ment. The rattle commonly used is shown in plate 1. It is made of 

 deer hide stretched over a wooden hoop and is 9^ inches in diameter 

 and one-half inch in thickness, and contains two or three small shot. 



The manner of holding the rattle is shown in plate 2. The dis- 

 coloration on the front of the rattle and a small hole on the back are 

 indications of its being used in this position. The hole on the back 

 is exactly where the deerskin would be pressed by the second finger. 

 This hole has been roughly patched. Tlie rattle was procured from 

 O'deni'gim, a man said to be especially skilled in the use of medicine, 

 who sang the Songs connected with Rare Afedicines, in the present 

 series (see p. 90). 



a The songs of the Chippewa doctor were recorded I>y Main'ilns (' 'IRtle wolf"), tlie younger, a man of 

 middle age, whose feet were frozen when he was a lad, and who walks on his knees. lie related to the 

 writer the story of his experience at the time his feet were frozen. Accompanied by his grandparents he 

 started to walk from one village to another, but a heavy snowstorm and intense cold overtook the little 

 party. Uis grandparents finally perished of cold and starvation, but he found his way to the village 

 with both feet frozen. Years of suffering followed. When the pain was most severe these songs. 

 Maifi ans said, one after another, " rang in his head.'' Tie spoke of the condition of intense pain as a 

 dream condition, implying that the intensity of the pain produced a state l)ordering on unconsciousness. 

 Tie said that years afterward lie became a doctor and these songs were his special " medicine songs" in 

 c.ring tlie sick. 



