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eating porcupine flesh. Dreams inspired some men to become great 
warriors, and others to gain power and influence as medicine-men. 
Every dream, however insignificant it might appear, carried a mean- 
ing or a warning, although its interpretation generally remained obscure. 
For the soul had undergone some experience, and everything that affected 
the soul had its influence on the individual’s life. Pegahmagabow's elder 
boy, aged nine, dreamed about a flood, and an old man of whom the father 
took counsel interpreted it to mean that the boy would receive a present. 
He offered the same interpretation for a second dream, and warned 
Pegahmagabow that the boy would shortly receive a visitation and a 
blessing from the supernatural world. Dreams had an influence at every 
period of life. 
“ After I returned from the war I was ill and unable to do a hard day's work. 
One night I dreamed that Jesus approached me, clothed in a loin cloth and with 
bleeding wounds as He appears in pictures. I threw myself at His feet and asked 
for a blessing. Then I awoke, and told my friends that Jesus had blessed me 
and was restoring me to health. I recovered my health, and am now as strong as 
ever" (Pegahmagabow). 
It was not clear, even to the Indians themselves, apparently, whether 
the soul could sometimes acquire knowledge and potential power in dreams 
through its own inherent capacity, or whether that knowledge and power 
came only as a result of contact with beings of the supernatural world. 
In nearly all cases the Indians gave the latter explanation. Now know- 
ledge, and “ power ” or ability of some kind, were indispensable for 
success and happiness in life, and the Ojibwa held that the Great Spirit, 
or his intermediaries the manidos, imparted them in visions to each 
individual at the earliest possible age, that is to say, as soon as the soul 
and shadow were sufficiently awake to understand and appreciate them. 
Consequently, they carefully trained their children to make them receptive 
of these “ blessings.” They encouraged the children to dream, and to 
remember their dreams. Every morning, even now, Pegahmagabow lies 
beside his two boys, seven and nine years old, respectively, and asks them 
what dreams have come to them during the night. When he himself was 
about seven years of age his foster-parents made him swallow a little 
gunpowder so that his soul and shadow might become more alert and 
observant, and, therefore, more prepared for a visit and blessing from 
some manido a few years later. For the same purpose other lads had to 
swallow a mixture of charcoal and some other substances. Since fasting 
helps to liberate the soul from the body children were taught to fast 
progressively. So Jim Nanibush blackened his face when he was about 
eight years old and fasted for two days. A few months later he blackened 
it again and fasted for four days; then, a little later, for six days. 
There was a definite period or crisis in childhood, the Ojibwa believed, 
when the soul and shadow attained to the proper stage of awakeness or 
maturity for receiving the vision and revelation from the supernatural 
powers. Roughly the crisis coincided with adolescence; but often it 
arrived before that period, and sometimes, though much more rarely, a 
little after. The exact time seems to have depended on what we would 
term the psychological development of the child, which the parents studied 
