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.[1] The good missionary, like Mr. Moffat in Africa, was convinced that the exercises of the Jossakeeds were verily supernatural. "Ces séducteurs ont un véritable commerce avec le père du mensonge."[2] Their political power was naturally great. This was denied by earlier and wiser Jesuit missionaries. 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.[3] According to Mr. Pond,[4] the native names of the Dacotah medicine-men, "Wakan," signify "god-men" and "god-dreamers." 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."[5] The wakanised man, like the Australian Birraark and the Zulu diviner, "dictates chants and prayers." In battle "every Dacotah warrior looks to
