The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1926, Page 122

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122

THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

of the lad was molded for good or evil, according to
natural bent, and yielded to the control of good or
evil spirits.

“Ta-mahn-a-wis”’ is used as noun, adjective, or
verb, and there were four principal ta-mahn-a-wis
ceremonials, as well as numerous lesser ones. The
sick ta-mahn-a-wis was practised for bodily healing ;
the spirit ta-mahn-a-wis for spiritual blessings; the
red, or pil-pil (blood), ta-mahn-a-wis, a winter
pastime, invoked material success or prosperity,
or chronicled traditional and historic events; the
black, or Klail (devil) ta-mahn-a-wis was a very
secret observance, a kind of Indian Freemasonry,
whose dreadful mysteries can only be surmised.
Hach ceremonial had its own peculiar practises,
masks, and body-paintings, as well as dances.

The sick ta-mahn-a-wis was presided over by
a medicine-man, who held despotic sway over the
superstitious Indians. These conjurers combined
some knowledge of natural remedies, with more
diabolic abominations, and kept their subjects in
abject terror. To propitiate them or to pay them
for practising sick ta-mahn-a-wis, the Indians gave
them gifts galore. Some medicine-men used natural
remedies, but many were possessed by demoniac
powers, past masters in hypnotism, mesmerism, and
witchcraft. They could concoct poison so deadly
that an atom would cause death. And they had
other decoctions, which so disfigured or affected
their unfortunate victims that death would have
been a merciful release. Woe to the man or woman
who offended them or refused to give allegiance to
them! Each medicine-man had his secret and pe-
culiar death-box, containing all sorts of gruesome
objects, dried portions of human or animal bodies,
poison sacs of snakes, and other articles supposed
to possess devilish powers.

Very strange diagnoses were made by these
“devil doctors,” for they attributed most ailments
to some evil “spirit”? which had taken possession of
the sick one, or to some foreign object “thrown”
into him by an enemy. After locating the trouble,
the next step was to catch and expel it. Noise
appeared to bear a prominent part in the medicine-
man’s practises, and his incantations were accom-
panied by lusty beatings of tom-toms and drums,
and by sticks struck sharply upon resounding boards.
Neighbors and relatives of the patient assisted in
this mad pandemonium, crowding the house and
vociferating in wild chorus. Stripped to the waist,
the medicine-man had everything that could rattle
attached to his medicine belt —‘wristlets and ank-
lets, claws, shells, hoofs, and nails, all rattling in

sharp accompaniment to his wild dancings and
antics. In his hand his own ta-mahn-a-wis rattle
bore prominent part in his performances. Pran-
cing and dancing about the sick one, he postured
grotesquely, varying proceedings by occasionally
pouncing upon him, pummeling, kneading, and
squeezing the afflicted part, and sucking it until
blood was drawn through the skin. This was
evidently the sign that he had trailed the “spirit”
and was drawing it out.

Sometimes he declared that a bit of bone, wood,
or feather had been “thrown into” the sick one, and
after great proceedings he professed to have secured
this and held it up triumphantly before his awed
audience. This he had produced craftily by sleight-
of-hand, not from “up his sleeve” as he was nearly
naked, but from his matted hair or medicine belt.
When he had secured the troublesome “devil,” he
proceeded to “drown” him in a vessel of water,
making prodigious struggles as if it required his
whole strength. Sometimes the “gnawing spirit”
which had caused lung trouble or rheumatism was
drawn out by the medicine-man’s inhaling it with
vigorous suckings, and then he rushed to the door
and expelled it in great puffs, blowing it far out
into space or over the sea. The sick ta-mahn-a-wis
was sometimes continued for days, until the poor
patient cither recovered or, as was more often the
case, died.

In Indian villages remote from civilization the
chant of the medicine-man and the monotonous
beat of tom-tom and drum are often heard, and
often they are succeeded by the woeful “wailings”
for the dead. Like many Oriental peoples, the In-
dians have this custom of wailing the dead and
sometimes hired “mourners” perform this function.
I have seen many an Indian woman sitting in the
dust, her hair cut short in token of mourning, and
filling the air day and night with her wailings.

Among the savage tribes of the west coast of
Vancouver Island, some medicine-men, called the
Elites, were demoniac in their horrible practises.
At certain seasons of the year they went into the
wilds to perform their fastings and self-tortures to
receive greater power in their evil arts. The mani-
acal yells announcing their return sent every Indian’
into hiding, for the crazed demoniacs would seize
the first animals or persons they met and bite and
tear them horribly. I have seen old women still
bearing scars inflicted by Elites, and one chief car-
tied to his grave the terrible scars inflicted by mad
fanatics when he interposed between them and his
people. S. E. Ozer, in Christian Herald.