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CHAPTER V 
MAN’S CONTACT WITH THE SUPERNATURAL WORLD 
The present-day Parry Islanders describe their early religion before 
the coming of the whites as menidokewin, “ manido rule or rule by super- 
natural spirits.” “ Just as Christians approach God for favours through 
his ministers or churches, so the Indian approached the servants of the 
Great Spirit, the manidos, and sought their aid” (Mary Sugedub). Now 
the Great Spirit gave the Indians the blessing of approaching the super- 
natural world, and of acquiring knowledge and power, through dreams, 
when the body sleeps and the soul is freed from all the problems that 
beset it during the hours of wakefulness. The Ojibwa, therefore, paid 
great attention to dreams, and abandoned without hesitation the most 
important enterprises if some dream or vision seemed to portend misfor- 
tune. They derived from dreams the names they gave their children, 
and attributed to the same source most of their “ medical ” lore. Some 
man dreamed, for example, that a certain herb would cure rheumatism, 
and established himself as a specialist in this complaint, handing on his 
secret remedy to his children. Corn and tobacco came to the Indians 
through dreams: 
"The parents of a boy placed him in a hut to fast so that he might obtain 
a blessing from the Great Spirit. The boy prayed constantly for his blessing, and 
at last the Great Spirit appeared to him. Contrary to its usual custom, however, 
it did not grant him a blessing for his own exclusive use, but said * I have appointed 
different manidos to help you. Do not overstrain this blessing, do not call on them 
for help unless you are in special danger or distress. You have done well to pray 
to me during your passage from boyhood to manhood. Through you I shall impart 
to all mankind a blessing, a blessing that you must conserve and hold sacred for 
ever. No girl or woman must see it until it multiplies and men throughout the 
land have feasted upon it. Only then may you give it to your women and 
children. You shall call it mandamin: * com.’ So the boy obtained com, and the 
men planted it and kept it secret until it multiplied. 
Similarly another boy received seed and a bundle of tobacco leaves from the 
Great Spirit. Like the com, no girl or woman might behold it until it multiplied. 
Moreover, the Indians were to hold it sacred for ever, and to use it whenever they 
approached the mados for aid” (Mary Sugedub). 
There were dreams that foretold the future: 
“A girl had a dream which foretold the coming of white men. She announced 
to her people that a strange man had landed with a cross in one hand and a sword 
in the other. In another dream her manido carried her all over the continent and 
showed her the railways and cities that were to be. These also she foretold to her 
people” (Mary Sugedub). 
In one way or another dreams exercised a powerful influence in shap- 
ing the life of every Ojibwa. Owing to a dream (nearly always a dream 
that came to him in youth, during his period of fasting) one Indian would 
abstain all his days from eating the tongue of the moose, another from 
