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one of my friends who had been tapping some maple trees said to me ‘ I’ll see if I 
can help you when I get home.’ No sooner had he reached bis home than I began 
to kill game again and to catch all the fish I needed. So I know some med& or sorcerer 
had a grudge against me and sent this owl to molest me” (Pegahmagabow). 
It is pathetic to observe how universal is this fear of witchcraft among 
the present inhabitants of Parry island. Every man suspects his neighbour 
of practising the nefarious art to avenge some fancied grievance, and the 
older and more conservative the Indian, the more he is held in suspicion. 
Probably there is not a single adult on the island who has not been accused 
of sorcery at some time or other, and who has not himself suffered some 
misfortune which he attributes to the same cause. 
“My wife’s thigh became inflamed two years ago, and the plaster of roots and 
herbs which I laid over it extracted flies, tiny fragments of bone and pebbles, some 
pig and human hair, and other objects that a sorcerer had shot into her. Pig’s hair 
is the worst of all things to shoot into an enemy, because it grows and circulates all 
over the body, causing intense pain” (John Manatuwaba). 
“ Mrs. John Manatuwaba is herself a witch. Last winter my wife was very ill, 
and Jim Nanibush gave me a herbal medicine to sprinkle over the walls, doors, and 
windows of my house four days in succession to make the witchcraft recoil on the 
sorcerer’s own head. A fortnight later Mrs. Manatuwaba’s niece died, and soon 
afterwards her grandchild. Her own daughter-in-law then reproached her, saying 
‘ You have been trying to bewitch other people and your sorcery has recoiled on your 
own family”' (Pegahmagabow). 
“ My cousin, Bill King, who works at Depot Harbour, stayed and ate dinner at 
the hotel there the other day. His food was bewitched, so that as soon as he reached 
home he became violently ill and continued to vomit for two days” (Jonas King). 
“ A white man who was working one evening in his garden at Parry Sound 
saw flashes of light go by and recognized that it was James Walker travelling through 
the air. We do not know whom he was trying to bewitch that night” (Jonas King 
and Pegahmagabow). 
“ Johny Angus, who is a member of the Grand Medicine Society in Simcoe 
county, tried to borrow some money from me a few summers ago to take him home. 
I refused to lend him any, for I knew he would probably never return the loan; and 
he left me very angry. Late in the fall, while I was driving my cow, something hit 
me in the ear, and by the time I reached home I felt very ill. I was laid up all 
that winter; my hair turned white and my teeth began to fall out, for the medicine 
Angus shot into me circulated all over my body. My wife, who was alive at that 
time and was also a member of the Grand Medicine Society, gave me remedies that 
finally cured me. She met Angus five years later and openly accused him of bewitch- 
ing me. ‘It would serve you right if I killed you by witchcraft,’ she told him, Angus 
backed off from her without saying a word, and finally ’walked away” (Jonas King). 
“ During one period of the war in France I was a runner, and had a3 my fellow- 
runner a Norwegian named Oscar Lund. One evening we saw a black dog with a 
luminous mouth carrying what appeared to be a paper tied to its neck. Believing it 
to be a scout for the Germans Lund reported it to the adjutant, who took me with 
him in a motorcycle to look for it. However, we did not see it again” (Pegahmagabow). 
A sorcerer must carefully hide his evil medicines, not morely to escape 
suspicion, but because they are inherently dangerous. The Indians assert 
that he generally conceals them in a bag several feet underground beneath 
a huge rock or boulder. If he walks round the stone four times counter- 
sunwise it will rise of its own accord to allow the deposition or removal of 
the medicines. Should he then die without revealing their hiding-place 
they will remain in the ground for a period corresponding to the num- 
ber of years their owner lived and will then disintegrate. Once every 
year, however, the stone lifts, and flashes of light shoot forth that kill 
some Indian far away, or at least presage some one’s death. 
