4. _Medicine Dance._—In the Winnebago Medicine Dance, membership does not depend upon supernatural communication of any kind, but must be purchased from the leader of one of the five bands. A long preparation is necessary, lasting in olden times as long as four years. The individual is then initiated into certain of the teachings of the society. It makes no difference into which of the five bands he is initiated. The knowledge he obtains will, to all intents and purposes, be the same, excluding certain songs. This does not mean, of course, that there may not be information belonging to the member as an individual, which is taught to the novice; but it is understood that any powers belonging specifically to an individual, and which the novice wishes to purchase, have primarily no connection with the society. As every leader is likely to be a prominent shaman as well as a member of the Medicine Dance, it would be quite impossible to draw a hard and fast line between what belongs specifically to him as a shaman, and what belongs to him as a member of the Medicine Dance. However, it is generally understood that a leader is initiating an individual into those powers that are the special property of the society. As among the Ojibwa-Menominee, initiation is accompanied by a formal transfer of a “shell” and of an otter-skin bag. Externally the general ceremony of the Medicine Dance might consequently be regarded as similar to the semi-public ceremony of the Midewiwin. There are two features, however, which stand out prominently in the general ceremony of the former, which must be explained before we can accept this external similarity as real. They are, first, the peculiar position of the initiation ritual of the general ceremony; and, secondly, the presence of another ritual, the basic ritual, and the importance it assumes.