62 
WABENO 
The word wabeno comes from waban: “the twilight that precedes the 
dawn ”; but the Indians interpreted it in two different ways. One man 
thought that it signified “ daylight comes/’ and referred to the strength 
of a man in the early morning. Another translated it as “ eastern man,” 
because a wabeno walks sunwise (i.e. clockwise) round a plant until he 
stands on its western side, facing the eastern sky, before he plucks the leaf 
or root he requires to make his medicine. Legend states that the first 
wabeno, Bidabbans : “Day-dawn,” received his power from the moon. 
“ Day-dawn’s child died, and the father wept aloud for it. Moon said to him, 
‘Do not weep, for your child shall come to life again. Call together ten men and ten 
women.’ He called the ten men and the ten women. Moon then gave him a drum, 
and inspired him with a song; and as he drummed and sang the ten men and the ten 
women danced. Day-dawn raised his head and looked at them. Behold, his dead 
child was alive again and dancing with them. ‘This is the blessing I have bestowed 
on you/ said Moon. ‘Hereafter you shall heal the sick. Had you not wept for your 
child, mankind would alw T ays return to life.’ Day-dawn regretted his error, but it was 
too late; man cannot now return from the grave. Nevertheless, the people brought 
a sick man to Day-dawn and he healed him” (Jim Nanibush). 
The wabeno was a healer of diseases, and a maker of love and hunting 
medicines. Like the herbalist and the mede, he specialized in plant medi- 
cines; but he had greater power and knowledge than these two classes of 
practitioners, because he had received a direct blessing (“ diploma ”) from 
some supernatural being during his boyhood fast. The earliest wabenos 
are reported to have learned the properties of the various plants from 
dreams. This source then became practically closed ; but the old knowledge 
was handed down from generation to generation, and youths aspiring to be 
wabenos apprenticed themselves to established practitioners, who for pay- 
ment would impart their secrets. Yet no one might offer himself as a 
candidate who had not first received the supernatural sanction during his 
period of fast; for the wabeno’s real power was deemed to reside less in 
the plants themselves than in the added virtues they acquired through his 
association with a manido. 
There was nothing formal about the apprenticeship. The novice 
merely visited his teacher from time to time and learned whatever the 
older man was willing to impart. He might purchase knowledge from a 
number of practitioners, as opportunities arose, until his final phar- 
macopoeia became a medley from several sources. With the outward 
technique of the profession he was already familiar from childhood; for 
it was a common pastime of the children to drum and dance and sing 
wabeno songs in imitation of the real medicine-men. Nevertheless, he 
could not “ graduate ” and set himself up in practice until he had given a 
public exhibition of his supernatural powers at a feast and dance held 
in conjunction with other wabenos. 
The wabeno was a highly honoured public official, in a sense, for 
he was the servant of his community, even though he was entitled to 
charge a fee for his services. Since his prestige depended partly on his 
popularity he generally gave a public feast and dance whenever a patient 
paid for the remedy that dispelled his sickness, or a hunter offered fitting 
compensation for the medicine that had delivered the game into his hands. 
These feasts and dances, unlike those of the Grand Medicine Society, 
