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It is not easy today to obtain accounts of actual visions incurred by 
living Indians, because they decline to reveal the details even to their 
nearest kinsmen through fear of losing the supernatural blessing. In earlier 
times, when the mental horizons of the Indians were more limited, visions 
seem to have conformed to a more or less stereotyped pattern. The manido 
appeared in human, or at least part-human, form, spoke to the Indian in 
his own tongue, offered him perhaps some meat that possessed supernatural 
qualities, forbade him to touch a certain kind of food, and showed him 
some object of which he must obtain a copy as a visible symbol of his 
blessing. The power or value of this blessing vaguely depended on the 
power of the manido who conferred it. Hence a blessing from thunder 
was one of the most desirable, because it enabled a man to summon to 
his aid the dreadful force of the lightning and the thunderbolt. Visitations 
from the sun and moon were also in high estimation, although an eclipse 
of the moon (provided he beheld it) brought death to the man who had 
been blessed by that manido. Most often, however, the Indian received 
his blessing from some animal or bird, not any individual animal or bird, 
visible perhaps by day in the vicinity of his wigwam, but a supernatural 
one that represented the entire species. 
In the accounts of visions received by earlier generations of Indians 
the visiting manido frequently takes the boy away to its home, or on a long 
journey from which he does not return for months or years. 
“ Nigankwan, 'Leading Thunder,’ carried off a lad to thunder-land. At times he 
forced the boy so close to the mountain crags that the lad saved himself from being 
dashed to pieces only by the use of a spear. The chief of the thunders said to him 
'Now you know all that lives. We shall bless you through our powers.’ Leading 
Thunder still carried him along until his spear was almost worn away from constant 
usage. He said to the thunder, ‘Now you will kill me, for my spear is worn down to 
my hand.’ But Thunder said, 'I shall not kill you. I am giving you a long life.’ 
Thunder then carried him back to the place from which he had ravished him and said, 
'It is one of your years since I carried you away. A year among human beings is but 
a day with us.’ The lad’s people had wandered off when he mysteriously disappeared, 
for they knew that a manido had spirited him away; but they returned to the place 
a year later and found him safe and well. 
A boy of about twelve years was playing with his bow and arrow. Suddenly 
he disappeared, abandoning his weapons beside a large pine tree. His people left 
them there, and revisited the place from time to time, suspecting that he had been 
carried away by a manido. Years later, when his parents were old and his brothers 
and sisters had married, the boy returned as a man, and told them that thunder had 
carried him all over the world, which was almost entirely surrounded with water ” 
(Mary Sugedub and Jim Nanibush). 
The Parry Islanders believe that similar experiences are possible even 
today, although generally the visiting manido is an animal that invites 
the lad to its home in the nether world. Before leaving his wigwam the lad 
pulls out a stake from the entrance and plants it on the opposite side of 
the door. This reveals to him the road he must travel to the manido’s 
home, where he may spend the entire winter. His father, seeing the dis- 
placed stake, will know what has happened, and patiently await his return. 
A hunter again, through the will of a manido, the bear perhaps or the 
porcupine, will light upon a strange wigwam from which smoke curls lazily 
through the open door. The manido comes out disguised as a man or a 
