MALLERY. ] COSMOLOGIC CHART. ~ 205 
The juggling trick of removing disease by sucking it through tubes 
is performed by the Midé/ after fasting and is accompanied with many 
ceremonies. 
THE ORIGIN OF THE INDIANS. 
Sikas’sigé, one of the officiating priests of the Mide’ society of the 
Ojibwa at White Earth, Minnesota, gives the following explanation of 
Fig. 173, which is a reduced copy of a pictorial representation of a tra- 
dition explaining the origin of the Indians: 
In the beginning, Ki'tshi Man‘idd—Dzhe Man’id6, a—made the Mide’ Man ‘idos. 
He first created two men, } and c, and two women, d and e, but they had no power 
of thought or reason. Then Dzhe Man’idd made them reasoning beings. He then 
took them in his hands so that they should multiply; he paired them, and from this 
sprung the Indians. Then, when there were people, he placed them upon the earth; 
but he soon observed that they were subject to sickness, misery, and death, and 
that unless he provided them with the sacred medicine they would soon become 
extinct. 
Between the position occupied by Dzhe Man‘ido and the earth were four lesser 
spirits, f, g, h, and i, with whom Dzhe Man‘ido decided to commune, and to impart 
the mysteries by which the Indians could be benefited; so he first spoke to a spirit 
at f, and told him all he had to say, who in turn communicated the same information 
to g, and he in turn to h, who also communed with i. Then they all met in council 
and determined to callin the four wind gods atj, k,/,andm. After consulting as 
to what would be best for the comfort and welfare of the Indians, these spirits 
agreed to ask Dzhe Man‘id6é to communicate the mystery of the sacred medicine to 
the people. 
Dzhe Man ‘ido then went to the Sun Spirit (0) and asked him to go to the earth and 
instruct the people as had been decided upon by the council. The Sun Spirit, in the 
form of a little boy, went to the earth and lived with a woman (p) who had a little 
boy of her own. 
This family went away in the autumn to hunt, and during the winter this woman’s 
son died. The parents were so much distressed that they decided to return to the 
village and bury the body there; so they made preparations to return, and as they 
traveled along they would each evening erect several poles upon which the body 
was placed to prevent the wild beasts from devouring it. When the dead boy was 
thus hanging upon the poles the adopted child—who was the Sun Spirit—would 
play about the camp and amuse himself, and finally told his adopted father he 
pitied him, and his mother, for their sorrow. The adopted son said he could bring 
his dead brother to life, whereupon the parents expressed great surprise and desired 
to know how that could be accomplished. 
The adopted boy then had the party hasten to the village, when he said, ‘‘ Get the 
women to make a wig/iwam of bark (q), put the dead boy in a covering of birch 
bark and place the body on the ground in the middle of the wig/iwam.” On the 
next morning, when this had been done, the family and friends went into this lodge 
and seated themselves around the corpse. 
After they had all been sitting quietly for some time they saw, through the door- 
way, the approach of a bear (r), which gradually came toward the wig’iwam, entered 
it, and placed itself before the dead body, and said hii’, hii’, hii’, hii’, when he passed 
around it toward the left side, with a trembling motion, and as he did so the body 
began quivering, which increased as the bear continued, until he had passed around 
four times, when the body came to life and stood up. Then the bear called to the 
