June 22dc1, 1914. 
Canada 
Geological Survey 
Museum Bulletin No. 2. 
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SERIES, No. 2 
IV. — Some Aspects of Puberty Fasting Among the Ojibwa . 1 
By Paul Radin. 
INTRODUCTION. 
The subject of fasting among the North American Indians, 
although it has been touched upon frequently by a number of 
writers, has never been made the object of a special study as yet. 
In the present little essay the writer will make no attempt to 
study the subject of fasting in any exhaustive manner, but will 
merely attempt, on the basis of a number of some of the fasting 
experiences, to point out features that, in his opinion, seem 
distinctive of Ojibwa puberty fasts. He hopes to reserve a more 
exhaustive study of the same for his report on the ethnology of 
this tribe itself. 
The fasting experiences will be given first and the discussion 
will then follow. The writer has only selected a few of the 
accounts he has obtained, but the five chosen seem to contain 
all the characteristic features of the fast, although in certain 
details they, of course, differ from some of the others. 
It might be stated, before proceeding to give the accounts 
themselves, that in only two cases did the experience represent 
that of the informant himself, and that in the other cases they 
referred to relatives of the informants. I do not believe that 
this in any way detracts from their value, but, of course, it may 
have led to the omission of a detail here and there. 
i The following article is based entirely on notes collected by the writer among the 
Ojibwa of eastern and southeastern Ontario during the spring and summer of 1912, 
for the Geological Survey of Canada. 
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