University of Virginia Library

INDIAN SPIRITUALISM.

There is a tradition among the Ottawa branch of the great Algonquin family, believed to this day, that, centuries ago, their first parents migrated westward from the sea-coast, near the mouth of the St. Lawrence River, and settled in the valley of the Ottawa River in Canada, where they lived for untold centuries, and that their main village was at a place they named Ke-tchi-nebis-sing, which name it still bears. There a daughter of the chief of the village went down to the lake to bathe one morning; leaving her infant boy tied to a flat piece of wood, as was the custom. On returning to the spot where she had left her child, he could nowhere be found. Distracted, she ran back to the village; frantically screaming that her child had been stolen. The villagers turned out and searched long and well; but not a trace of the child could be found.

A few days after this two young lovers sat on a mound near the spot where the child had been lost; and while they were kissing and making love, they were startled by hearing, deep in the ground beneath them, an infant crying and sobbing as if its heart would break. They ran in great haste to the village, and reported what they had heard. All the inhabitants believed that it was the lost child which had been heard crying underground. The old chief called together all the magicians,—as is the custom to this day, where the Indians are not under the influence of Christianity,—to hold a seance, for communion with the unseen spirits, to divine what had become of the child. I will here briefly describe the manner in which Indians proceed to receive communications from the spiritual world, as I have myself witnessed.

Poles, ten to twelve feet high, are set in the ground, in the form of a circle from six to eight feet in diameter. The top of the lodge is left open. The sides are tightly covered with birch-bark, or the skins of animals. A fire is built close to the ledge for the purpose of enabling the spectators to light their pipes, as they generally smoke during the strange performance. All being ready, a low, tinkling sound is heard, like several small bells at a distance. With a rush, on comes the leading performer, carrying a magician's little, flat rattle-box, somewhat like a tambourine. He sits down by the fire, and begins by telling his audience how he can call up spirits of the dead, as well as of those yet living in the world, and that any present can ask them questions and receive true answers thereto. He next sings a peculiar song, which can scarcely be understood. He then either goes into the lodge by crawling under, or sits outside with the audience; throwing his blanket or some other clothing over the top of it. Immediately the lodge begins to shake, like a creature of life with an ague chill. Then is heard in the lodge a sound like that of a distant, strong wind sweeping through leafless trees, and intermingled with strange voices. When questions are asked by anyone present they are always answered in an unknown tongue; but, luckily, among the spirits there is always a special interpreter to explain what the spirits say.

According to the tradition above referred to, when the performance closed a party was sent to the lake to dig near where the lost child was left by its mother. They did so; and, as deep down in the ground as they were tall, they found the remains of the child in a cavern, from which fled, through an underground channel into the lake, a spirit monster. The magicians then declared that the country was ruled by Mau-tchi Manito, the evil one, who was an enemy seeking to do them all the

harm possible; that all the misfortunes which had befallen them came from that source alone; and that their only means of safety was to seek a new land toward the setting sun. Thus it was, that those tribes of the great valley of the Ottawa moved westward along the northern limits of Lake Huron and Lake Michigan and all about Ot-chip-we-ki-tchi-gami (Lake Superior), where many of them remain to this day.