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be found to follow from the superstition of magic among the Red Indians
of North America. The difficulty of writing about sorcerers among the
Red Indians is caused by the abundance of the evidence. Charlevoix
and the other early Jesuit missionaries found that the jongleurs,
as Charlevoix calls the Jossakeeds or medicine-men, were their chief
opponents. As among the Scotch Highlanders, the Australians and the
Zulus, the Red Indian jongleur is visited by the spirits. He covers
a hut with the skin of the animal which he commonly wears, retires
thither, and there converses with the bodiless beings.(2) The good
missionary like Mr. Moffat in Africa, was convinced that the exercises
of the Jossakeeds were verily supernatural. "Ces seducteurs ont un
veritable commerce avec le pere du mensonge."(3) This was denied
by earlier and wiser Jesuit missionaries. Their political power was
naturally great. In time of war "ils avancent et retardent les marches
comme il leur plait". In our own century it was a medicine-man, Ten Squa
Ta Way, who by his magical processes and superstitious rites stirred up
a formidable war against the United States.(4) According to Mr. Pond,(5)
the native name of the Dacotah medicine-men, "Wakan," signifies "men
supernaturally gifted". Medicine-men are believed to be "wakanised"
by mystic intercourse with supernatural beings. The business of the
wakanised man is to discern future events, to lead and direct parties on
the war-trail, "to raise the storm or calm the tempest, to converse with
the lightning or thunder as with familiar friends".(6) The wakanised
man, like the Australian Birraark and the Zulu diviner, "dictates chants
and prayers". In battle "every Dacotah warrior looks to the Wakan man
as almost his only resource". Belief in Wakan men is, Mr. Pond says,
universal among the Dacotahs, except where Christianity has undermined
it. "Their influence is deeply felt by every individual of the tribe,
and controls all their affairs." The Wakan man's functions are absorbed
by the general or war-chief of the tribe, and in Schoolcraft (iv. 495),
Captain Eastman prints copies of native scrolls showing the war-chief
at work as a wizard. "The war-chief who leads the party to war is always
one of these medicine-men." In another passage the medicine-men are
described as "having a voice in the sale of land". It must be observed
that the Jossakeed, or medicine-man, pure and simple, exercises a power
which is not in i