have been under more or less restraint by the United States Indian agents and the missionaries. Representatives of various totems or gentes may therefore be found upon a single reservation,

where they continue to adhere to traditional customs and beliefs, thus presenting an interesting field for ethnologic research.

The present distribution of the Ojibwa in Minnesota and Wisconsin is indicated upon the accompanying map, Pl. II. In the southern portion many of these people have adopted civilized pursuits, but throughout the northern and northwestern part many bands continue to adhere to their primitive methods and are commonly designated “wild Indians.” The habitations of many of the latter are rude and primitive. The bands on the northeast shore of Red Lake, as well as a few others farther east, have occupied these isolated sites for an uninterrupted period of about three centuries, as is affirmed by the chief men of the several villages and corroborated by other traditional evidence.

Father Claude Alloüez, upon his arrival in 1666 at Shagawaumikong, or La Pointe, found the Ojibwa preparing to attack the Sioux. The settlement at this point was an extensive one, and in traditions pertaining to the “Grand Medicine Society” frequent allusion is made to the fact that at this place the rites were practiced in their greatest purity.

Mr. Warren, in his History of the Ojibwa Indians,1 bases his belief upon traditional evidence that the Ojibwa first had knowledge of the whites in 1612. Early in the seventeenth century the French missionaries met with various tribes of the Algonkian linguistic stock, as well as with bands or subtribes of the Ojibwa Indians. One of the latter, inhabiting the vicinity of Sault Ste. Marie, is frequently mentioned in the Jesuit Relations as the Saulteurs. This term was applied to all those people who lived at the Falls, but from other statements it is clear that the Ojibwa formed the most important body in that vicinity. La Hontan speaks of the “Outchepoues, alias Sauteurs,” as good warriors. The name Saulteur survives at this day and is applied to a division of the tribe.

According to statements made by numerous Ojibwa chiefs of importance the tribe began its westward dispersion from La Pointe and Fond du Lac at least two hundred and fifty years ago, some of the bands penetrating the swampy country of northern Minnesota, while others went westward and southwestward. According to a statement2 of the location of the tribes of Lake Superior, made at Mackinaw in 1736, the Sioux then occupied the southern and northern extremities of that lake. It is possible, however, that the northern bands of the Ojibwa may have penetrated the region adjacent to the Pigeon River and passed west to near their present location, thus avoiding their enemies who occupied the lake shore south of them.

From recent investigations among a number of tribes of the Algonkian linguistic division it is found that the traditions and practices pertaining to the Midē´wiwin, Society of the Midē´ or Shamans, popularly designated as the “Grand Medicine Society,” prevailed generally, and the rites are still practiced at irregular intervals, though in slightly different forms in various localities.

In the reports of early travelers and missionaries no special mention is made of the Midē´, the Jes´sakkīd´, or the Wâbĕnō´, but the term sorcerer or juggler is generally employed to designate that class of persons who professed the power of prophecy, and who practiced incantation and administered medicinal preparations. Constant reference is made to the opposition of these personages to the introduction of Christianity. In the light of recent investigation the cause of this antagonism is seen to lie in the fact that the traditions of Indian genesis and cosmogony and the ritual of initiation into the Society of the Midē´ constitute what is to them a religion, even more powerful and impressive than the Christian religion is to the average civilized man. This opposition still exists among the leading classes of a number of the Algonkian tribes, and especially among the Ojibwa, many bands of whom have been more or less isolated and beyond convenient reach of the Church. The purposes of the society are twofold; first, to preserve the traditions just mentioned, and second, to give a certain class of ambitious men and women sufficient influence through their acknowledged power of exorcism and necromancy to lead a comfortable life at the expense of the credulous. The persons admitted into the society are firmly believed to possess the power of communing with various supernatural beings—manidos—and in order that certain desires may be realized they are sought after and consulted. The purpose of the present paper is to give an account of this society and of the ceremony of initiation as studied and observed at White Earth, Minnesota, in 1889. Before proceeding to this, however, it may be of interest to consider a few statements made by early travelers respecting the “sorcerers or jugglers” and the methods of medication.

In referring to the practices of the Algonkian tribes of the Northwest, La Hontan3 says:

When they are sick, they only drink Broth, and eat sparingly; and if they have the good luck to fall asleep, they think themselves cur’d: They have told me frequently, that sleeping and sweating would cure the most stubborn Diseases in the World. When they are so weak that they cannot get out of Bed, their Relations come and dance and make merry before ’em, in order to divert ’em. To conclude, when they are ill, they are always visited by a sort of Quacks, (Jongleurs); of whom ’t will now be proper to subjoin two or three Words by the bye.

A Jongleur is a sort of Physician, or rather a Quack, who being once cur’d of some dangerous Distemper, has the Presumption and Folly to fancy that he is immortal, and possessed of the Power of curing all Diseases, by speaking to the Good and Evil Spirits. Now though every Body rallies upon these Fellows when

they are absent, and looks upon ’em as Fools that have lost their Senses by some violent Distemper, yet they allow ’em to visit the Sick; whether it be to divert ’em with their Idle Stories, or to have an Opportunity of seeing them rave, skip about, cry, houl, and make Grimaces and Wry Faces, as if they were possess’d. When all the Bustle is over, they demand a Feast of a Stag and some large Trouts for the Company, who are thus regal’d at once with Diversion and Good Cheer.

When the Quack comes to visit the Patient, he examines him very carefully; If the Evil Spirit be here, says he, we shall quickly dislodge him. This said, he withdraws by himself to a little Tent made on purpose, where he dances, and sings houling like an Owl; (which gives the Jesuits Occasion to say, That the Devil converses with ’em.) After he has made an end of this Quack Jargon, he comes and rubs the Patient in some part of his Body, and pulling some little Bones out of