The Midewiwin or Grand Medicine Society of the Ojibwa | Page 6

in that Condition approacha�?d and knew her unperceptibly. From which Approach she conceived two Children, which came forth out of one of her Ribs. But these two Brothers could never afterwards agree together. One of them was a better Huntsman than the other; they quarreled every day; and their Disputes grew so high at last, that one could not bear with the other. One especially being of a very wild Temper, hated mortally his Brother who was of a milder Constitution, who being no longer able to endure the Pranks of the other, he resolved at last to part from him. He retired then into Heaven, whence, for a Mark of his just Resentment, he causeth at several times his Thunder to rore over the Head of his unfortunate Brother.
Sometime after the Spirit descended again on that Woman, and she conceived a Daughter, from whom (as the Salvages say) were propagated these numerous People, which do occupy now one of the greatest parts of the Universe.
It is evident that the narrator has sufficiently distorted the traditions to make them conform, as much as practicable, to the biblical story of the birth of Christ. No reference whatever is made in the Ojibwa or Menomoni myths to the conception of the Daughter of Nokomis (the earth) by a celestial visitant, but the reference is to one of the wind gods. Mi?��nab??��zho became angered with the Ki?��tshi Man?��id?, and the latter, to appease his discontent, gave to Mi?��nab??��zho the rite of the Mid?��wiwin. The brother of Mi?��nab??��zho was destroyed by the malevolent underground spirits and now rules the abode of shadows,--the a�?Land of the Midnight Sun.a�
Upon his arrival at the a�?Bay of Puansa� (Green Bay, Wisconsin), Marquette found a village inhabited by three nations, viz: a�?Miamis, Maskoutens, and Kikabeux.a� He says:
When I arriva�?d there, I was very glad to see a great Cross set up in the middle of the Village, adorna�?d with several White Skins, Red Girdles, Bows and Arrows, which that good People had offera�?d to the Great Manitou, to return him their Thanks for the care he had taken of them during the Winter, and that he had granted them a prosperous Hunting. Manitou, is the Name they give in general to all Spirits whom they think to be above the Nature of Man.
Marquette was without doubt ignorant of the fact that the cross is the sacred post, and the symbol of the fourth degree of the Mid?��?��wiwin, as will be fully explained in connection with that grade of the society. The erroneous conclusion that the cross was erected as an evidence of the adoption of Christianity, and possibly as a compliment to the visitor, was a natural one on the part of the priest, but this same symbol of the Mid?��?�� Society had probably been erected and bedecked with barbaric emblems and weapons months before anything was known of him.
The result of personal investigations among the Ojibwa, conducted during the years 1887, 1888 and 1889, are presented in the accompanying paper. The information was obtained from a number of the chief Mid?��?�� priests living at Red Lake and White Earth reservations, as well as from members of the society from other reservations, who visited the last named locality during the three years. Special mention of the peculiarity of the music recorded will be made at the proper place; and it may here be said that in no instance was the use of colors detected, in any birch-bark or other records or mnemonic songs, simply to heighten the artistic effect; though the reader would be led by an examination of the works of Schoolcraft to believe this to be a common practice. Col. Garrick Mallery; U.S. Army, in a paper read before the Anthropological Society of Washington, District of Columbia, in 1888, says, regarding this subject:
The general character of his voluminous publications has not been such as to assure modern critics of his accuracy, and the wonderful minuteness, as well as comprehension, attributed by him to the Ojibwa hieroglyphs has been generally regarded of late with suspicion. It was considered in the Bureau of Ethnology an important duty to ascertain how much of truth existed in these remarkable accounts, and for that purpose its pictographic specialists, myself and Dr. W. J. Hoffman as assistant, were last summer directed to proceed to the most favorable points in the present habitat of the tribe, namely, the northern region of Minnesota and Wisconsin, to ascertain how much was yet to be discovered. * * * The general results of the comparison of Schoolcrafta�?s statements with what is now found shows that, in substance, he told the truth, but with much exaggeration and coloring. The word a�?coloringa� is particularly appropriate, because, in his copious illustrations, various colors were used freely with apparent significance, whereas,