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(7) The medicine-bag presented to the initiate was not a new one, but had belonged 
to. a deceased ex-member. Such bags were always carefully guarded by the 
priests. They were made not only from otter skin, but from the skins of weasel, 
mink, muskrat, squirrel, skunk, and copperheaded snake. 
(8) The .new member did not make the circuit of the lodge, “ shooting ” all the 
medes with his medicine-bag, but shot one only. All the medes then “ shot ” 
one another, an incident not mentioned by Hoffman. 
(9) The priests coughed up their shells before displaying them to their fellows, 
not after. 
(10) The Ghost Lodge described by Hoffman, like the three higher degrees, was 
unknown. 
How shall we interpret these differences? Does the simple ritual 
brought to Georgian bay half a century ago by Potawatomi Indians from 
the United States adhere more closely to the original form of the Grand 
Medicine Society than the elaborate ceremonies of the Minnesota Ojibwa 
recorded by Hoffman? This seems very improbable. The society has a 
long history among the Ojibwa, for it antedates the visits of Europeans to 
the Great Lakes region in the seventeenth century. The very crudity of 
the Parry Island ritual, and the ignorance of the meanings that should 
attach to its various incidents, indicate quite plainly its decadence. The 
society had already lost its old vitality, and when transplanted to Parry 
island, failed to take root and draw to itself new adherents. 
FUNCTIONS OF MEDE 
The Grand Medicine Society may be quite properly defined as a secret 
medical organization garbed in the mantle of religion. Its legendary 
founder, Nenibush, or, as he was usually called in this connexion, Mede 
Manido, filled the role of spiritual patron, assigned to this duty by the 
Great Spirit, Kitchi Manido. The members, who were mostly men, but 
included also some women, specialized in “ botany,” in the knowledge and 
use of plants for curing sickness and fabricating charms. Older members 
instructed newly initiated ones, so that their esoteric science travelled down 
from one generation to another. Although they usually practised individu- 
ally, the society stood entrenched at their backs, giving them such influence 
and prestige that in districts where the organization flourished the true 
medicine-men who based their power on visions, the wabeno, kusabindugeyu , 
and djiskiu , nearly always found it advisable to seek enrolment in their 
ranks. On special occasions, indeed, the medes united to treat a patient 
whose malady yielded to no other cure. They carried the sick man inside a 
medicine-lodge, and consulted over him exactly as would a group of 
European doctors. Then they administered whatever medicine they had 
agreed upon and immediately initiated the patient into their order. 
“ Occasionally a kusabindugeyu would diagnose a young man's sickness as caused 
by his unconscious longing to become a mede. Members of the society then carried 
him into the medicine lodge and initiated him. Such cases, however, were rare ” 
(Jonas and Tom King). 
" Eight medes bore the patient into the medicine lodge, smoked, discussed the 
procedure to be followed, and slowly danced four times around the lodge. It is said 
that if the patient was fated to recover he rose and joined them at their fourth 
circuit" (Jim Nanibush). 
4294—6 
