In the Ojibwa-Menominee ceremonies the shooting ritual is always associated with the admission of a new member. This includes, of course, also the initiation of individuals into higher degrees, wherever such exist. The shooting is done principally by the newly initiated individual, because he is supposed to be trying his powers. There occurs, besides this, a general shooting, in which all members indulge, and which is supposed to increase their shooting powers. The strengthening of their power is supposed to resist the effects of the shot. Among the Omaha this general shooting is unassociated with initiation, while among the Winnebago it is found associated both with initiation and with the basic ceremony. It is therefore of considerable importance to understand what relation this general shooting ritual bears to the specific shooting associated with initiation. Shooting is either an element primarily associated with initiation, and afterwards separated, or it is some general element that has become associated with any of a large number of other cultural elements. In order to determine this, we have next to examine with what elements shooting becomes associated. Among the Kwakiutl[19] there is a dance in which an individual (mā′maq’a) throws disease into the people. This disease is represented by some object, either a stick or a harpoon-head. The shooting has precisely the same effect as in the Medicine Dance. No association of shooting of any kind occurs with initiation into a society. The Kwakiutl example brings up the real question involved in the shooting. To what extent is the shooting ritual of the Medicine Dance of the Winnebago merely one of the forms of disease-throwing which is so common a practice of sympathetic magic? The Central Algonkin Midewiwin are really loose associations of men and women, whose powers are obtained more from individual revelations obtained outside of the Midewiwin than from the benefits of membership in that society. Shamanistic practices appear to form an integral part of this society. But apart from this, the shooting of disease, or of any malignant power, at an enemy, is an extremely common feature among the Central Algonkin as it is among all other American shamans. The question that presents itself is, whether the shooting, as found in the Ojibwa-Menominee and Winnebago Medicine Societies, is not one aspect of this same general shamanistic practice.