t" may be deemed
applicable to him. He is also a "prophet" in so far as he is, in a
limited degree, an instructor; but he does not claim to possess the gift
of foretelling future events.

A person is selected to join the fraternity of the "Medicine-man" by
those already initiated, chiefly on account of some skill or sagacity
that has been observed in him. Sometimes it happens that a person who
has had a severe illness which has yielded to the prescriptions of one
of the members, is considered a proper object of choice from a sort of
claim thus established.

When he is about to be initiated, a great feast is made, of course at
the expense of the candidate, for in simple as in civilized life the
same principle of politics holds good, "honors must be paid for." An
animal is killed and dressed, of which the people at large
partake--there are dances and songs and speeches in abundance. Then the
chief Medicine-man takes the candidate and privately instructs him in
all the ceremonies and knowledge necessary to make him an accomplished
member of the fraternity. Sometimes the new member selected is still a
child. In that case he is taken by the Medicine-man so soon as he
reaches a proper age, and qualified by instruction and example to become
a creditable member of the fraternity.

Among the Winnebagoes there seems a considerable belief in magic. Each
Medicine-man has a bag or sack, in which is supposed to be inclosed some
animal, to whom, in the course of their _pow-wows_, he addresses
himself, crying to him in the note common to his imagined species. And
the people seem to be persuaded that the answers which are announced are
really communications, in this form, from the Great Spirit.

The Indians appear to have no idea of a retribution beyond this life.
They have a strong appreciation of the great fundamental virtues of
natural religion--the worship of the Great Spirit, brotherly love,
parental affection, honesty, temperance, and chastity. Any infringement
of the laws of the Great Spirit, by a departure from these virtues, they
believe will excite his anger and draw down punishment. These are their
principles. That their practice evinces more and more a departure from
them, under the debasing influences of a proximity to the whites, is a
melancholy truth, which no one will admit with so much sorrow as those
who lived among them, and esteemed them, before this signal change had
taken place.

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