310 THE WINNEBAGO TKIBE [eth. ANN. 37 



In the fall of the year in wliich the man said this the people, as 

 usual, went out hunting and the man got lost and was forced to 

 camp out in the wilderness overnight. So he built a fire and sat 

 alongside of it. Suddenly he saw a man coming toward him. As 

 soon as the stranger came up to him he took a seat on the opposite 

 side of the fireplace. Then the stranger said, "I am the one whom 

 you threatened to kick off this earth whenever you met him. You, 

 furthermore, boasted that I could not kill you." Then he pointed 

 his finger in a line with the man's heart. But the man remained 

 seated near the fireplace without moving. Then he did this again, 

 yet the man still remained in his former position. Then the third 

 time he did it and said, "In the center of the heart." The man, 

 however, remained seated just as before. Tlien the stranger 

 exclaimed, "Who are you anyhow'^" and pointed his finger at him. 

 But the man did not move. Then the stranger (Disease-giver) 

 pleaded with the man to die so that it might not be said that he had 

 failed in the " mission" for which he had been created. He promised 

 the man that if he would oblige him and die he could come back to 

 earth again within four days. Finally the man consented. He 

 went home and told his folks that he was going to a certain place to 

 die for the space of four days and that they should, under no con- 

 ditions, go to see him there, for in that case he would surely die. 

 Then he dressed himself in his best clothes and went to the place 

 where he was to meet Disease-giver. (He rested his head against a 

 tree and died.) However, on the third day his wife could not resist 

 the desire to see him, so she went to the place where her husband 

 was leaning against the tree. Then he really died. After his death 

 a red spot was visible upon his forehead.^ 



Methods of Bringing the Spirits into Kelation with Man 



Fasting. — Fasting has been discussed before. There are two things 

 to be remembered in connection with it — first, that it is a method of 

 superinducing a religious feeling; and, secondly, that this religious 

 feeling in turn is bound up with the desire for preserving and per- 

 petuating socio-economic life values. Among the Winnebago the 

 desirability of the conditions superinduced by fasting lay' not so 

 much in the emotional pleasure it gave, although this is not to be 

 imderestimated, as in the belief wliich the shamans had developed, 

 that such a state was essential for placuag people in a position 

 enabling them to overcome certain crises in life, which it was reason- 

 able to believe might take place. 



Mental concentration. — To the religiously inclined Winnebago the 

 efficacy of a blessing, of a ceremony, etc., depended upon what they 



" This is not supposed lo be a myth but the real experience of a man named James Smith. 



