from a
gentleman who 'knew the Indians well, and was even related to them
through his wife'. He, and many other white people thirty years
before, saw a Jossakeed, or medium, crawl into such a lodge as Kohl
describes, beating his tambour. 'The entire case began gradually
trembling, shaking, and oscillating slowly amidst great noise. . . .
It bent back and forwards, up and down, like the mast of a vessel in
a storm. I could not understand how those movements could be
produced by a man inside, as we could not have caused them from the
exterior.' Two voices, 'both entirely different,' were then heard
within. 'Some spiritualists' (here is the weakest part of the
story) 'who were present explained it through modern spiritualism.'
Now this was not before 1859, when Kohl's book appeared in English,
and modern spiritualism, as a sect of philosophy, was not born till
1848, so that, thirty years before 1859, in 1829, there were no
modern spiritualists. This, then, is absurd. However, the tale
goes on, and Kohl's informant says that he knew the Jossakeed, or
medium, who had become a Christian. On his deathbed the white man
asked him how it was done: 'now is the time to confess all
truthfully'. The converted one admitted the premisses--he was
dying, a Christian man--but, 'Believe me, I did not deceive you at
that time. I did not move the lodge. It was shaken by the power of
the spirits. I could see a great distance round me, and believed I
could recognise the most distant objects.' This 'with an expression
of simple truth'. It is interesting, but the interval of thirty
years is a naked impossibility. In 1829 there were queer doings in
America. Joe Smith's Mormons 'spoke with tongues,' like Irving's
congregation at the same time, but there were no modern
spiritualists. Kohl's informant should have said 'ten years ago,'
if he wanted his anecdote to be credited, and it is curious that
Kohl did not notice this circumstance.

We now come to the certainly honest evidence of the Pere Lejeune,
the Jesuit missionary. In the Relations de la Nouvelle France
(1634), Lejeune discusses the sorcerers, who, as rival priests, gave
him great trouble. He describes the Medicine Lodge just as Kohl
does. The fire is put out, of course, the sorcerer enters, the
lodge shakes, voices are heard in Montagnais and Algonkin, and the
Father thought it all a clumsy imposture. The sorcerer, in a very
sportsmanlike way, asked him to go in h