Tooker] 



ETHNOGRAPHY OF THE HURON 99 



was passed in assembling the company [medicine society?] of about 

 80 people including 6 women [from other villages]. Although 

 fasting was thought to give the eyes the ability to see things far re- 

 moved, the new ohi did not see the distant objects correctly : he said 

 the members of the company were 2 leagues from the village, but actu- 

 ally they had not yet set out. When they did arrive within musket- 

 range, they stopped and began to sing and the people of the village re- 

 plied. In the evening, while he was in the middle of the house on a 

 mat, the company danced in order to find the cause of his illness. The 

 dance ended when he fell over backward and vomited and was then 

 declared a member of the brotherhood. (The brethren were called 

 atirenda.) They then danced for the cure, a dance called otah- 

 rendoiae. In it, they killed each other with charms, bears' claws, 

 wolves' teeth, eagles' talons, certain stones, and dogs' sinews. After 

 having fallen under the charm and having been wounded, blood poured 

 from their mouths and nostrils or was simulated by a red powder they 

 took by stealth. The members of this society often avenged their 

 injuries and gave poison to their patients instead of medicine. They 

 were skilled in healing ruptures. Their medicines could not be 

 recognized or their secret discovered if they were to be successful, 

 and took "pleasure, so to speak, in silence and darlmess." The cere- 

 mony was given because he asked for oatarra^ a little idol in 

 the form of a doll, from a dozen sorcerers who had come to see him in 

 order to be cured ; after he put it into his tobacco pouch, it began to 

 stir inside, and ordered the feasts and other ceremonies of the dance 

 (JE 10: 199-209). 92 



Another medicine man, it was reported, said the following about 

 himself : 



I am a spirit. I formerly lived under the ground in the house of the spirits, 

 when the fancy seized me to become a man; and this is how it happened. 

 Having heard one day, from this subterranean abode, the voices and cries of 



*2 The description of this ceremony suggests the Midewiwin ceremonies of the various 

 Upper Great Laltes Indians (Kinietz 1940 : 160). One of the distinguishing characteristics 

 of the Mid6 Society ritual Is that the members of the society are magically killed and 

 revived. Initiation into the society for curing purposes is not a distinctive trait : initiation 

 into the various Iroquois medicine societies, and into similar societies in other Indian cul- 

 tures is often part of the curing procedure of that society. Although dolls may figure in 

 various ceremonies (as, for example, In the Idos Society ritual, Parker 1909: 172), a doll 

 does figure in the Mid§ ritual (see Dockstader 1961 : pi. 225 for a doll that formed part of a 

 Saulteux Mid6 Society headman's bundle). The Wyandot seem also to have this cere- 

 mony (Finley 1840 : 50-51), but its introduction may have been late. The Jesuit statement 

 that the ceremony had not been performed before among the Bear tribe of the Huron adds 

 to the suspicion that this ceremony is that of the Mld6 : the prevalence of this ritual In the 

 Upper Great Lakes area and its absence in other areas make it a ceremony that could be 

 introduced to adjacent peoples. 



Certain parallels to this Huron ceremony are to be found among the rituals of the Iroquois 

 medicine societies, particularly in certain ceremonies of the Idos Society (and see Fenton 

 1942 b : 21 for a mention of the "throwing" or "shooting sharp objects" by members of 

 the Society of Medicine Men). Interestingly, Parker (1909: 172) says that the Iroquois 

 Idos Society was introduced from the Huron (but in 1913 : 29 n. says it was introduced by 

 the Nanticoke). Certain of the Idos rituals may be older. 



