hoffman] CEREMONIAL INNOVATIONS 63 



required by the unsuccessful hunter, the disconsolate lover, or the 

 unlucky gambler. 



No organization exists between the different pers ms of this class, 

 each practicing his art, or pretensions, as best he may. A tambourine 

 drum is necessary as an accompaniment to the chant, as the personal 

 manido is thus invoked for aid in the accomplishment of whatever task 

 may have been assigned to the performer. More specific mention of 

 the method of practice of these shamans will be presented under the cap- 

 tion of "The Wa'beno." 



Siuce the advent of the Paiute messiah, " Jack Wilson," a new 

 society has been organized, designated the "Dreamers' society," i. e., 

 a society for indulgence in drumming, dancing, and exhortation by cer- 

 tain designated persons, to form the order of exercises. Some of the 

 initii'wok, who, for various reasons, have left the Medicine society, claim 

 that the Dreamers' society is founded on a ritual specially granted by 

 Kisba' Ma/nido as a substitute for the former, that being alleged to 

 have become degraded and debased by the introduction of innovations. 

 Inquiry into the history of the society seems to indicate, however, that 

 the performances by the Dreamers' society are a remote imitation of 

 the Ghost dance, which originated several years since when the Paiute 

 messiah made his appearance, and when many discontented and bellig- 

 erent young men of various tribes took advantage of the craze to 

 further their own designs. 



Some Menomini Indians more communicative than others have inti- 

 mated that a time would surely come when the whole country would be 

 restored to the Indian as it once was, when the heads of all the whites 

 would be severed from their bodies as a scythe cuts the wheat. This 

 belief has always had a greater or less number of believers who were in 

 a state of expectancy', so that when a delegation of Sioux and other 

 Menomini river Indians arrived among the Menomini to preach the 

 doctrine of the messiah and to give instruction in the dance, the expect- 

 ant ones were ready to accept almost anything that appealed to their 

 indefinite and unformed tradition. The ceremony conducted at these 

 dances is not of the same character as that of the Ghost dance of the 

 prairie Indians, sufficient change having been wrought since its intro- 

 duction to prevent any apparent analogy between the two. 



To further illustrate the quickness with which such advautages for 

 deception may be embraced by designing and deceitful Indians, I shall 

 only recur to Sitting Bull of the Sioux nation, a medicine man of no 

 mean order — as viewed by his people — but not a chief in the full sense 

 of the word, as generally supposed from the newspaper notoriety given 

 him. During my residence among these Indians in 1872-73, I had 

 ample opportunity to become well acquainted with him, particularly 

 after acquiring the language and an ultimate adoption into the " Buffalo 

 society," by which means a "brotherhood" was formed with Punning 

 Antelope, then orator of the northern Sioux aud chief of the Uncpapa 

 branch of that tribe. 



