The Mide'wiwin or "Grand Medicine Society" of the Ojibwa: Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1885-1886, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1891, pages 143-300Hoffman, Walter James
Religion
The Mide'wiwin or "Grand Medicine Society" of the Ojibwa: Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1885-1886, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1891, pages 143-300
Hoffman, Walter James
Midéwiwin; Ojibwa Indians -- Religion; Ojibwa Indians -- Rites and ceremonies; Ojibwa Indians -- Societies, etc.; Secret societies -- North America
The chart represents the owner to have been a Midē´ of the second
degree, as indicated by the two outlines of the respective structures at
Nos. 1 and 2, the place of the sacred posts being marked at Nos. 3 and
4. Nos. 5, 6, 7, and 8 are Midē´ priests holding their Midē´ bags as in
the ceremony of initiation. The disks represented at Nos. 9, 10, 11, 12,
and 13 denote the sacred drum, which may be used by him during his
initiation, while Nos. 14, 15, 16, and 17 denote that he was one of the
four officiating priests of the Midē´wigân at his place of residence.
Each of these figures is represented as holding their sacred bags as
during the ceremonies. No. 18 denotes the path he has been pursuing
since he became a Midē´, while at Nos. 19 and 20 diverging lines signify
that his course is beset with temptations and enemies, as referred to in
the description of the Red Lake chart, Pl. III A.
The remaining objects found among the effects of the Midē´ referred to
will be described and figured hereafter.
The diagram represented on Pl. IV is a reduced copy of a record made by
Sikas´sigĕ, a Mille Lacs Ojibwa Midē´ of the second degree, now resident
at White Earth.
The chart illustrating pictorially the general plan of the several
degrees is a copy of a record in the possession of the chief Midē´ at
Mille Lacs in 1830, at which time Sikas´sigĕ, at the age of 10 years,
received his first degree. For a number of years thereafter Sikas´sigĕ
received continued instruction from his father Baiē´dzhĕk, and although
he never publicly received advancement beyond the second degree of the
society, his wife became a fourth degree priestess, at whose initiation
he was permitted to be present.
Since his residence at White Earth Sikas´sigĕ has become one of the
officiating priests of the society at that place. One version given by
him of the origin of the Indians is presented in the following
tradition, a pictorial representation having also been prepared of which
Pl. V is a reduced copy:
In the beginning, Dzhe Man´idō (No. 1), made the Midē´ Man´idōs. He
first created two men (Nos. 2 and 3), and two women (Nos. 4 and 5);
but they had no power of thought or reason. Then Dzhe Man´idō (No. 1)
made them rational beings. He took them in his hands so that they
should multiply; he paired them, and from this sprung the Indians.
When there were people he placed them upon the earth, but he soon
observed that they were subject to sickness, misery, and death, and
that unless he provided them with the Sacred Medicine they would soon
become extinct.
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