PUBERTY FASTING AMONG THE OJIBWA. 
77 
Let us return now to the nature of the control exercised by 
the parents over the faster. This takes two forms, a negative 
and a positive one. It sees to it first, that the youth observes 
the fast and the restrictions imposed on him during the fast, 
and secondly, that only certain blessings be accepted. Now if 
we knew exactly in what this latter positive control consisted, 
we would know likewise what part the individual faster and the 
controlling agency, the father, etc., plays. Judging from the 
fact that we learn from one of the experiences that the faster is 
directed to accept only that spirit who comes to him “with a 
great gust of wind,” we might argue that if the spirit by whom 
he is to be blessed is thus limited, other details might be equally 
dependent upon the suggestions of those who are in control. 
It might, of course, be said that owing to the extreme suggest- 
ibility of a child under the conditions imposed at the time of 
fasting, many details might be accounted for as due to this 
suggestibility. This is, of course, quite true, and this is probably 
responsible for many of the details that distinguish one experience 
from another, but it has no relation at all to the dream-experience 
formula, for the significant fact here is that the formula is always 
the same. However, even if we were to credit the controlling 
agency with a great influence in shaping the formal aspect of the 
experience, this must not be overrated, for that would be practic- 
ally saying that all the formal elements were given at the begin- 
ning and I hardly believe there is any evidence for this. 
We thus come face to face again with the central problem in 
the transmission of the dream-experience formula. Did the 
youth obtain the entire formula during his fast, or only part of it, 
or indeed any of it at all? And this brings us back to the 
question, did the youth obtain it? As I have stated before, we 
do not know what the form of the dream-experience, at the time 
of the experience itself, is, for no youth has ever told us. How- 
ever, I believe that we may safely assume that from the point 
of view of formalistic expression, the dream-experience as 
known to the mature man was different from that known to the 
youth. Considering the age of the boy while fasting and the 
nature of the instruction he received, I believe that it is justifiable 
to assume that the main element in the dream-experience was 
