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CHAPTER VI 
MEDICINE-MEN AND THEIR PRACTICES 
By fasting and dreaming, as we saw in the last chapter, every ado- 
lescent Ojibwa sought to establish contact with the supernatural world and 
to gain an increment of power for use in special emergencies. Only a small 
number, however, became genuine medicine-men as a result of this contact; 
only those, the Indians say, who received special blessings to this end from 
the supernatural world; or, as a psychologist might interpret it, only those 
who possessed the peculiar mentality necessary to obtain the 11 call ” and 
carry out the role in full sincerity. Parents could help their children to 
become medicine-men by encouraging expectations of definite types of 
dreams, by regulating the manner of their fasting, and by placing them 
under the tutelage of established medicine-men ; but all this was of no avail 
unless the child itself was mentally so constituted that it received a clear- 
cut vision confirming its conscious or unconscious aspirations. 
The Parry Island Ojibwa distinguish three kinds of medicine-men, who 
differed greatly in their methods. They were: 
(1) Wabeno: the healer and charm-maker; 
(2) Djiskiu: the conjuror; 
(3) Kusabindugeyu : the seer. 
These three professions were mutually exclusive, so that no individual could 
ever become both a djiskiu and a kusabindugeyu , or a kusabindugeyu and a 
wabeno. Although each practitioner received a special “ call ” in a vision 
at adolescence, he might not practise until he reached maturity. Even then, 
the Indians say, he could not use his powers continuously, but only about 
once a month. For the medicine-man exhausted himself physically and 
mentally whenever he practised his art; too frequent exertion overstrained 
his powers, antagonized the supernatural being who had granted him his 
blessing, and brought about his death. Once a month, however, the moon, 
which renews the mysterious power in women, likewise renewed the medi- 
cine-man’s power, so that he could safely peer into the future or effect one 
cure every four weeks. 
Certain natives gave a slightly different explanation of the reason 
why a medicine-man could perform only at infrequent intervals. Each 
day in the year, they claimed, was controlled by a special manido, and since 
the medicine-man’s powers were derived from and controlled by one of 
those supernatural beings, he could employ them only on the day or days 
his manido was functioning. This was partly the reason, they asserted, 
why the adolescent boy fasted one or two days the first month, two or 
three days the second, three or four days the third; for by this progression 
he would finally light on a day whose manido would consent to bless him. 
It explained, also, why no one ever thought of urging a medicine-man to 
practise his art on any particular day. If a woman had lost some treasured 
