64 THE MENOMINI INDIANS [eih.ann.14 



Sitting Bull was general director of the discontented element of the 

 Sioux nation, and acquired his influence by his audacious pretensions 

 and by the coincident occurrence of events of minor importance, as 

 well as by the occurrence of certain atmospheric changes which he had, 

 in part, prophesied. Attaining some distinction in this manner, he 

 cautiously pushed his claim to greater powers, stating that he was 

 enabled to foretell events affecting himself and his adherents. He pre- 

 tended that his deceased half-brother always appeared to him in the guise 

 of a gray wolf to warn him of any impending personal danger. In fact, 

 this man is said to have once gone so far as to allow himself to be discov- 

 ered by some officers talking to a wolf which had, in utter astonishment, 

 stopped to learn the source and nature of the peculiar noise which SO 

 suddenly broke the silence of the locality! 



When the attack was made upon our cavalry escort in 1873, in Yel- 

 lowstone valley. Sitting Bull was foremost in the approaching line, 

 chanting and "making medicine," but when one of his chief assistants 

 was shot down the line wavered and broke the moment the troops 

 charged. Later on, as the Ghost dance became a better means of 

 having his aids act the part of prophets, Sitting Bull's words were 

 promulgated through the mouths of the chief dancers who had appar- 

 ently fainted and readied an ecstatic state. In this wise the hostility 

 of a certain portion of the tribe was maintained and controlled, chiefly 

 tor personal gain, until the death of Sitting Bull, when the spell was 

 broken. 



Until quite recently it was customary for each Indian youth to pass 

 through a certain process of "fasting and dreaming,'' whereby he 

 might receive a manifestation from the Great Unknown as to what par- 

 ticular animate form he might adopt as his own tutelary daimon, as 

 termed by the Greeks, or, as more familiarly designated, his guardian 

 mystery. The course of procedure necessary tor the young aspirant 

 for honors to pursue was to leave the camp and go into the forest, there 

 to remain in meditation, abstaining from all food, until gradual exhaus- 

 tion produced that condition of ecstasy during which various forms of 

 animals, or birds, appeared to him. The first of these forms to clearly 

 impress itself on his mind was adopted as the special gift of the Great 

 Mystery, and was thereafter supposed to act as an adviser in times of 

 indecision; a monitor when the Indian was in danger, or an interces- 

 sor with the superior nia'nidos when special power or influence was 

 desired. During the period of probation the lad's friends or parents 

 would keep watch that no danger overtook him while in the forest, and 

 furthermore, that his fasting was not carried to the point of danger to 

 life and health. 



Among some of the Algonquian tribes the animal or bird forms that 

 may thus be adopted by an Indian are sometimes the same as the totem 

 of which he is a member. Under such circumstances the animal repre- 

 senting the totem, and the "familiar" or ma'nido, is seldom hunted or 



