hoffmax] CAKVER ON JUGGLERY 143 



Every eye was again fixed by turns on me and on the lake; when, just as the sun 

 had reached his zenith, agreeable to what the priest had foretold, a canoe came 

 round a point of land about a league distant. The Indians no sooner beheld it than 

 they sent up an universal shout, and by their looks seemed to triumph in the interest 

 their priest thus evidently bad with the Great Spirit. 



In less than an hour the canoe reached the shore, when I attended the king and 

 chiefs to receive those who were on board. . . . The king inquired of them 

 whether they had seen anything of the traders? The men replied that they had 

 parted from them a few days before, and that they proposed being here the sec- 

 ond day from the present. They accordingly arrived at that time, greatly to our 

 satisfaction. . . 



This story I acknowledge appears to carry with it marks of great credulity in 

 the relator. Hut no one is less tinctured with that weakness than myself. The cir- 

 cumstances of it I own are of a very extraordinary nature; however, as I can vouch 

 for their being free from cither exaggeration or misrepresentation, being myself a 

 cool and dispassionate observer of them all, I thought it necessary to give them to 

 the public, . . . but leaving them to draw from it what conclusions they please. 



Thus it 'will be observed that the juggler, after having been carefully 

 wrapped and tied, was placed within his tshi'saqkan or jugglery, which 

 in Carver's description is likened to a chest or a coffin. The juggler, at 

 this day, enters his jugglery alone and unassisted, although it is 

 reported that some of the Ojibwa performers will permit themselves to 

 be securely tied, placed within the jugglery, and a moment later be at 

 liberty and the cords at some otber locality. Further information in 

 regard to this subject, as relating to the Ojibwa, has already been pre- 

 sented in a paper entitled "The Mide'wiwin or Grand Medicine society 

 of the Ojibwa," published in the seventh annual report of the Bureau 

 of Ethnology. 



The power of prophecy and prevision is claimed by the juggler, and 

 the citation of an instance of this, from the work of Peter Jones, 1 may 

 not be without interest. The author mentioned was a Protestant Epis- 

 copal clergyman and a member of the Misasauga tribe of the Ojibwa 

 nation, of Canada. He thus remarks: 



I have sometimes been inclined to think that, if witchcraft still exists in the world, 

 it is to be found among the aborigines of America. They seem to possess a power 

 which, it would appear, may be fairly imputed to the agency of an evil spirit. 



The conjurers not only pretend to have the powers already specified, but they pro- 

 fess also to have the gift of foretelling future events. The following curious account 

 on this subject I received from a respectable gentleman who had spent most of his 

 life in the Indian country, and who is therefore well acquainted with their character 

 and pretensions. He is now one of the Government Indian agents in Upper Canada. 



The following account is then given by this author: 



In the year 1804, wintering with the Winnebagoes on the Rock river, I had occasion 

 to send three of my men to another wintering house for some flour which I had left 

 there in the fall, on my way up the river. The distance being about one and a half 

 days' journey from where I lived, they were expected to return in about three days. 

 On the sixth day after their absence, I was about sending in quest of them, when 

 some Indians, arriving from the spot, said that they had seen nothing of them. I 

 could now use no means to ascertain where they were. The plains were extensive, 



1 Hist, of the Ojebway Indians, p. 147 et seq., London, [1843 >]. 



