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sometimes find signs of the events impending in his own life, or in the lives 
of his neighbours. Here are a few of these omens, prefixed by two or three 
meteorological ones: 
(1) Whichever way a falling star travels the wind will follow. 
(2) A ring around the moon is a sign of bad weather. The old woman who dwells 
there is pulling a hood over her head, a white hood for frost or snow and a 
black one for rain or a sudden thaw. 
(3) The northern lights signify stormy weather, a strong wind that may come 
from any direction. Some Indians say that the northern lights are the waves 
of a sea in the south reflected in the sky. 
(4) If a patient is very ill, and at the crisis of his sickness the wind changes to 
the east, he will surely die, for his soul is already moving with the wind 
towards the land of the west. 
(5) A bite from a watersnake means that you will live to old age. 
(6) When a dog begins to bark a deer is near. Watch for it. 
(7) If you kill a spruce partridge that has twenty feathers in its tail instead of the 
usual seventeen or eighteen you will shortly kill a bear. If you find the eggs 
of the bird you will become a chief or leader in your community. 
(8) A noise in the ear may mean one of two things: either you are on the verge 
of trouble or danger, or the shadow of some relative needs food. If you think 
it means the latter, place a little food in the fire at the first opportunity. 
(9) If you are prevented by a storm from crossing a lake or bay, make a model 
of a birch-bark canoe, place a louse and a little tobacco in if and push it out 
into the water. If it upsets the wind will shortly subside. 
(10) A certain medicine called obsitchuan, which can be compounded by anyone 
who knows the proper root ingredients, will foretell the issue of a malady. 
Place it in water; if it sinks the patient will die, if it floats he will recover. 
In the latter case he should drink the medicine afterwards, for it has a 
power of its own that attaches itself to and strengthens the patient’s shadow. 
(11) The insects are the children of a great manido. When people die they often 
guide their souls to the home of the dead in the west. If you see them playing 
together like human children you may be certain that they are preparing 
to wage a stem battle against sickness and evil spirits. 
In addition to observing the taboos handed down from his forefathers, 
and noticing any omens that came in his path, the Indian could draw upon 
the powers that inhered in the natural objects around him, in so far as they 
were known to himself or to the medicine-men of his community. 
“ Medicines ” ( minishinowash ) derived from this source could ensure his 
success in hunting, protect him in war, and bring him prosperity and good 
fortune. Every Indian, therefore, carried one or more of them on his 
person, compounded either by himself from a formula taught him by 
another, or by some medicine-man for him. There were certain plants 
whose virtues were known to practically all, others that were known to a 
few only ; and the strongest medicines usually contained several ingredients. 
Some Indians believed that to be fully effective a medicine could not be 
compounded by a layman, but only by a medicine-man who knew the 
proper ceremony to perform over it. Its plant ingredients, they held, 
needed the ceremony to release their power; and though a layman might 
state his desires to the plants and offer the necessary tributes of tobacco, 
only the medicine-man knew the right song to chant over them with drum 
or rattle. Hence the sale of medicines was an important source of revenue 
to many medicine-men, especially when they were too far advanced in 
years to endure the fatigue of hunting deer and moose. There was one 
further requirement for the perfect efficacy of any medicine; its user must 
have absolute faith in its virtue. 
