illustrate it more forcibly to the reader, and is presented as follows:—
I was once standing near the entrance of an Ojibway Me-da-we-gaun, more commonly known as the "Grand Medicine Lodge," while the inmates were busy in the performance of the varied ceremonies of this, their chief medical and religious rite. The lodge measured in length about one hundred feet, and fifteen in width, was but partially covered along the sides with green boughs of the balsam tree, and the outside spectator could view without hindrance the different ceremonies enacting within. On a pole raised horizontally above its whole length were hung pieces of cloth, calico, handkerchiefs, blankets, etc.—the offerings or sacrifice of the novice who was about to be initiated into the mysteries of the Me-da-we society. The lodge was full of men and women who sat in a row along both of its sides. None but those who were members of the society and who had regularly been initiated, were allowed to enter. They were dressed and painted in their best and most fancy clothing and colors, and each held in his hand the Me-da-wi-aun or medicine sack, which consisted of bird skins, stuffed otter, beaver and snake skins.
The novice in the process of initiation sat in the centre on a clean mat facing the Me-da-wautig, a cedar post planted in the centre of the lodge, daubed with vermilion and ornamented with tufts of birds' down. The four old and grave-looking We-kauns, or initiating priests, stood around him with their medicine sacks, drums, and rattles.
As I partially understood, and could therefore appreciate, the meaning and objects of their strange ceremonies, and could partially understand their peculiar religious idiom, I stood, watched, and listened with a far deeper interest than could be felt in the mind of a mere casual observer, who is both unacquainted with the objects of the rites or
