262 THE MENOMINI INDIANS [eth.ann.14 



When an animal is to be skinned for the purpose of making a medi- 

 cine bag, an incision is made in the breast, and through this the car- 

 cass is removed, leaving the skin of the head, feet, and tail entire. The 

 skin is then turned inside out and tanned, after which the fur side is 

 turned out and the eye-holes ornamented with beadwork. The bags are 

 wrapped with colored cords or with strings of beads, and the under side 

 of the tail is sometimes lined with a strip of red flannel, on which is 

 worked a design in beads (plates vm and ix, and figure 13). Sometimes 

 the flannel is decorated with small brass bells, with claws, or with tbe 

 rattle of a rattlesnake. One bag of this character, made of an otter 

 skin, was provided with a clever contrivance: By pressing on a small 

 rubber ball within the body, the air was forced through the tube into the 

 mouth, where a small whistle had been attached. The sound resembled 

 closely the voice of the otter, and the credulous firmly believed that the 

 sound was the voice of the shade of that animal. 



The writer's own medicine bag, given to him by his shamauistic pre- 

 ceptor, is made of a mink skin, neatly ornamented about the eyes with 

 beads, and with two small round steel bells attached to the nose. 

 These bags are used for holding various parcels of mystic remedies and 

 charmed objects employed by the shamans in the profession of incanta- 

 tion or exorcism. The bags are reputed as very dangerous to the 

 uninitiated, and, for the purpose of preventing trouble or danger, medi- 

 cine men frequently keep their sacks hidden outside of their domiciles, 

 so that no one not entitled to do so should have an opportunity of 

 touching them. 



The kind of medicine bag used by the rnita' T depends on the dream 

 which the individual may have had in his youth. Fasting is practiced 

 by the young man, or boy, to find favor with the ma'nidos. During the 

 fast he retires from the camp and abstains from all food until he 

 become so debilitated as to attain a delirious or ecstatic condition, in 

 which appear visions of various ma'nidos, either in human or in other 

 animate form. Dreams of birds or animals lead the faster to believe 

 that he will be invested with the same power of self-defense as is pos- 

 sessed by the animal of which he has dreamed. If it is possible, there- 

 fore, for the faster to procure a bag made of the skin or other part of 

 the animal which appeared to him in the vision, he will do his utmost 

 to possess it, even at the risk of great danger or the parting with any 

 of his possessions. 



An instance of the belief in the power of the peq'tshiku'na, or medi- 

 cine bag, is related as occurring among the neighboring Ojibwa. 1 It is 

 as follows: 



A canoe manned with warriors was once pursued by a number of others, all filled 

 with their enemies. They endeavoured to escape, paddling with all their might, 

 but the enemy still gained upon them; then the old warriors began to call for the 



' .Joins. History of the Qjebway Indians. London (1861). pp. 89-90. 



