This initiation ritual, we know, is only the terminal element in a long course of instruction which the novice must go through. It is during this instruction that the specific teachings and practices of the Midewiwin are elucidated, and it is then that the symbolism used in the bark records is explained. These teachings and practices, apart from some ethical teachings of the most general nature, vary with each mide. In each case the novice is taught the mide’s individual songs, his particular tricks and practices, his specific herbs, and the uses to which he puts them. The bond connecting the teaching of the mides is of the loosest nature. When the instruction is over (and it is over as soon as the novice has exhausted the wealth he expects to spend in each particular case), the novice is ready for initiation. But into what is he really being initiated? It would seem purely into the powers purchased from a certain mide. If this particular mide did not chance to be a member of the Midewiwin, the same or an extremely similar method of transference of personal powers would be gone through. In other words, the novice is being initiated into the status of a mide. If one may speak of any formal initiation here, it consists in giving to the new mide some object which is generally regarded as a symbol of the preceptor’s power. It may be a medicine-pouch, or herbs, or anything, in fact. But is this not precisely what takes place at the initiation into the Midewiwin? There, a person is presented with the “migis” and otter-skin bag, which is symbolical of the powers of a certain type of shaman, the mide. The Midewiwin, from this point of view, is hardly a society at all. It does, nevertheless, possess some of the essential characteristics of a society: a number of individuals form a rather definite unit, owing to their possessing in common a number of ritualistic myths, a symbol and common status, in the eyes of outsiders. As a society, the Midewiwin presents no such unit as does the definite organization of the Winnebago Medicine Dance or the Omaha Shell and Pebble Societies. The bond of unity in the Midewiwin lies in the fact that all members are mide. An individual is a mide, however, not by reason of membership in the Midewiwin. The powers that make him a mide have nothing to do with the Midewiwin at all. They are purely personal. The Midewiwin is primarily, then, an association of mide; not of individuals who have become mide because they belong to that society. It is because of this fact that the individuality of the members is so potent a factor, and it is because of this fact that no strong ceremonial unit exists. It is for the same reason that initiation into the society presents, in all its essentials, the picture of a normal transference of individual mide power.