270 THE WINNEBAGO TRIBE [eth. ann. 37 



small piece of a root and tell him to chew and eat it. This the guest 

 would have to do, and from that time on he would never know when 

 he had had enough to eat. He would never get satiated. Whenever 

 the man who had been blessed gave the feast personally, no one was 

 ever known to leave anything upon his plate. While eating the 

 guests kept time. They never shook their plates, for if anyone did 

 .so the others would immediately give him whatever remained on 

 their plates. The}' would assume that anyone mIio shook his jilate 

 was the possessor of the stench-earth himself and that he intended 

 to eat up these extra portions with the aid of this medicine. If, 

 however, the shaking was done unintentionally and he failed to eat 

 up the extra portions placed on his plate, then he would make a 

 noise like a raven, and those who wished to help him consume this 

 food would also cry like the raven, approach him, and flap their 

 arms as the birds do their wings. Then all would eat. 



When the man who obtained these blessings died, he left all these 

 medicines that he had been the first one to use to another person. 

 With the medicines he of course left all the songs. All that he used 

 to do when he doctored a sick person he bequeathed to his successor. 

 The last man who had these medicines was not a holy man but he 

 knew all their uses and for that reason he was considered a powerful 

 and holy man. To-day only the poison medicines are remembered; 

 the good medicines are all gone. 



This is the end. 



How AN Indian Shaman Ctjkes His Patients^ 



"I came from above and I am holy. This is my second life on 

 earth. Many years before my present existence, I lived on this 

 earth. At that time everyone seemed to be on the warpath. I 

 also was a warrior, a brave man. Once when I was on the warpath 

 I was killed. It seemed to me, however, as if I had merely stumbled. 

 I rose and went right ahead until I reached my home. At home I 

 found my wife and children, but they would not look at me. Then 

 I spoke to my wife but she seemed to be quite unaware of my pres- 

 ence. 'What can be the matter,' I thought to myself, 'that they 

 pay no attention to me and that they do not even answer when I 

 speak to them.' All at once it occurred to me that I might, in 

 reality, be dead. So I immediately started out for the place where 

 I had presumably been killed and surely enough, there I saw my 

 body. Then I knew positively that I had been killed. I tried to 

 return to the place where I had lived as a human being but for four 

 years I was unsuccessful. 



"At one time I became transformed into a fish. However, the 

 life of the fish is much worse than ours. They are very frequently 



» The shaman is represented as in the lodge of the patient and as speaking to him and his rclitives 



