AMLLERY. ] MAGIC CHARMS. ' 501 
SECTION 4. 
CHARMS AND AMULETS. 
The use of material objects for the magic purposes suggested by this 
title is well known. Their graphic representation is not so familiar, 
though it is to be supposed that the objects of this character would be 
pictorially represented in pictographs connected with religion. The 
following is an instance where the 
use of a charm or fetich in action 
was certainly portrayed in a picto- 
graph. 
Fig. 706,drawn by the Dakota In- 
dians, near Fort Snelling, Minne- 
sota, exhibits the use as a charm or 
talisman of an instrument fashioned 
in imitation of a war club, though 
it is not adapted to offensive em- 
ployment. The head of the talis- 
man isa grooved stone hammer from 
an inch and a half to 5 inches in 
length. A withe is tied about the 
middle of the hammer, in the groove 
binding on a handle of from 2 to 4 
feet in length. The latter is fre- 
quently wrapped with buckskin or 
rawhide to strengthen it, as well as 
for ornamental purposes. Feathers 
attached bear designs indicating 
marks of distinetion, perhaps some- 
times fetichistic devices not under- 
stood. 
It is believed that these objects 
possess the charm of warding off an 
enemy’s missiles when held upright 
before the body, as shown in the 
pictograph. The interpretation was 
explained by the draftsman himself. 
“Medicine bags,” as they are 
termed by frontiersmen, are worn Fic. 707.—Medicine bag as worn 
as amulets, They are sometimes filled by the owner in obedience to the 
suggestions of visions, but more frequently are prepared by the shaman. 
They are carried suspended from the neck by means of string or buck- 
skin cords, as shown in Fig. 707, drawn in 1889 by I-teup/-de-ti, No- 
Shin-Bone, a Crow Indian, to represent himself with his insignia, and 
was extracted from a record kindly communicated by Dr. R. B. Holden, 
physician at the Crow Agency, Montana. 
