Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 29.djvu/668

650 unknown; for how frequently one encounters, in all ranks and classes of society, individuals who, in spite of refined teachings and surroundings, exhibit an unmistakable taste for charlatanism in some of its many forms, secular and spiritual!

"Medicine" as exemplified among the savage races and tribes of America is practically one and the same with the "shamanism" of the European and Asiatic nomad, the "fetich" of the native African, and the "obi-rites" and "voudoo-worship" of West India blacks and negroes of the Gulf States; a careful examination of all reveals not only a common origin, but a unity of purpose.

The "medicine" of the Indian is his religion and philosophy; and it comprises everything in life and Nature, real or imaginary, superstitious or occult; and withal it is a mystery so subtile in its many factors as utterly to defy specific definition, or perfect elucidation.

The "medicine-man" is no more a physician, in the modern and enlightened acceptation of the term, than an ape is a man because it chances to assume the erect posture and mimic the attributes of the human race; there is a blight analogy, but nothing more. The savage knows absolutely nothing of the relationships existing between cause and effect, of the action of remedies as remedies, of physiological conditions and phenomena, or indeed of any agency that is not directly born of the occult. He supposes the world and its circumambient ether to be permeated by spirits, good, bad, and indifferent, who determine the fortunes of men and regulate the phenomena of Nature in accordance with individual will and fancies; and who also bear some mysterious and indefinable relationship to each other, and to one "Great Spirit" or Supreme Power who figures under a variety of guises and titles, according to circumstances and surroundings, such as "The Old Man," "Nine-bouzche," "Si-ce-ma-ka," "Kitche-Manito," "Great Manito," etc. Manito, Manit, or Manitou, however, is not an appellation alone singular to the Supreme Power, but under certain conditions is equally applicable to any and all spirits; in other words, it may be used generically as well as specifically. Then, too, there are certain sprites or gnomes, "Little Men," invisible dwarfed inhabitants of portions of the earth, who would seem to be satellites of the spirits proper, but whose position in savage demonology is by no means satisfactorily defined.

Good spirits receive little attention, and are never objects of worship, since their acts, influence, and purposes are obviously for the best. But the evil and half-way malevolent demand constant supervision and placation, lest the smooth workings of Nature be interfered with, and the normal destinies of man perverted. A journey through the Indian country affords ample evidence of this belief in frequently recurring offerings suspended from trees, bushes, and wands, or conspicuously exposed upon rocks, knolls, and open places, such as broken