Witchcraft has always been a predominant superstition among the North American Indians. It is one of the most impregnable barriers to be overthrown on the door[-]step of civilization, for a deep-rooted belief that generates suspicion and terror in the nature of an otherwise grandly courageous manhood, is as difficult to expunge as an hereditary physical blemish.
The faith in things supernatural is, among the Iroquois, a strange admixture of hideousness and beauty, and few are the legends, and little the folklore, that has not been constructed upon some reasonable basis. Religiously, the native belief is a poem, practically savouring too strongly of the magician's wand to be plausible in theory. But the secret of all things marvellous and miraculous lies within the hollow of the “Medicine Man's” hand.
He it is who commands the invisible forces of this world and the next, whose voice can charm anything from a plenteous harvest to a fell disease,—he is prophet, avenger and conjurer combined; witches are servile to him, evil spirits are his play-things, and wisdom in all things is his, beyond dispute.
Whatever his power may be, or however he exercise it, whether nefariously of philanthropically,—it most assuredly is a power beyond the understanding of greater men than he, whether his success in healing the sick or foretelling events is due to the fact that he may be a naturally born scientist, or, indeed, as his people believe, in touch and tune with witches his craft is one of undoubted acquirement, which even the most sceptical must acknowledge.
Years ago when, as a little child, I sat at my grandfather's feet, listening, with wide-eyes curiosity, and a shrinking, timid awe, to his wondrous tales of still more wondrous witchcraft, I conceived an overpowering desire to see the “Medicine Men,” or, as he called them, “Witch Doctors,” but the first one I saw was monstrous enough to satisfy this longing for many years to come. He was a huge man, wrapped from head to foot in a buffalo skin, and wearing an alligator's head atop of his own. He moved about the room with a slow, shuffling tread, dancing occasionally, first on one foot then on the other,—chanting the while with a peculiar nasal intonation never used in religious festivals. In his hand he carried a shovel filled with ashes, which he tossed through the room, up to the rafters, about the walls, over the patient,—everywhere. Then he turned us all out, closed the door, and parleyed with the witches over the unfortunate invalid for an hour. It was a fever case, and the man recovered.
My grandfather used to tell of a very marvellous “doctor” who visited the Grand River Reserve (which district this article refers exclusively to). He came from the St. Clair River, and was an eminent “practitioner” in his own tribe.
The first person to employ him was a woman, who was “bewitched” and bed-ridden for months. She declared he used no mightier means of effecting a cure than the magical bone of a loon's leg, which was hollowed, and polished very highly. Through this he extracted, from the back of her neck, a coarse horse hair, that had a wampum bead fastened at either end, and in the centre. After that she got well, and the fame of the St. Clair medicine man went abroad.
Any morning, at dawn, the early fisherman could see this strange miracle worker, flitting like a shadow through the heavy fogs on the river shore, chanting softly his uncanny songs, and invoking supernatural aid from the spirits he seemed so familiar with.
But he and his kind have long ceased to exist among the Six Nations of Brant County. The “medicine man” of to-day works more on the faith cure plan and imposes less upon his patient's credulity, inasmuch as he has long since abandoned the practice of extracting ill-shaped bones, beads, and all manner of impossible things from the witch- worried invalid.
Sometimes he sets out with three or four of his associates to tramp across the Reserve—on miraculous cures intent. They seldom take the roadway, but cut through the heart of the bush, walking slowly and in Indian file. Far through the loneliness of the sparsely settled forest and swamp land, their strange hollow voices float in a wierd cry that plays an intonation of two half notes in a high key. Few people even get a glimpse of the odd-looking group going their rounds, each carrying a staff, and wearing the most atrocious masks, made of wood, painted, chiseled into hideous human features, and fringed with lengths of grey and black hair. On they go, their figures bent forward, almost to a right angle, striking the earth periodically with their staffs, with always that evil call, and a peculiar slight motion of the feet, that is both a dance and a shuffle.
By-and-by a woman opens the door of a distant log house; with an inverted broom handle she strikes the door-step a number of times; it is a signal for the “medicine men” to visit the house; there is a sick person there.
Their song ceases then, and, entering, they strew ashes about the room, which signifies a cleansing of the house from evil spirits that have brought the disease.
The chief “doctor” then goes into a room by himself to mix the medicine, which is a concoction that he alone knows the ingredients of. They always assert that they can tell by the appearance of the medicine, and the manner in which it compounds, whether the patient will recover or die. “The witch” within the medicine speaks to them, they say, and its decree is infallible.
The head “medicine man” then enters the sick room, turns out all the relatives and visitors, shuts himself up with the patient, in silence administers his “witch herbs,” chants a little, scatters ashes over the sick bed, and then leaves the house, having given instructions that none but three elderly persons in the tribe are to see or speak to the patient for ten days.
He goes to his home,—perhaps five miles distant,—puts on his false face, and sits up alone all night in a darkened room, chanting to himself and taking no food whatever until the following morning; for ten nights he does this, and at the same time the members of his household and his neighbours keep up a constant dancing in another part of the house.
Sometimes at midnight he bids the entire company into the darkened chamber, and while still wearing the painted wooden mask he gives them a “witch powder,” which they eat in silence, then leave him again to resume their dance outside, while he chants once more to himself the long night through.
After the allotted time—generally ten days—he starts forth to his patient's house, who, needless to state, is by that time dead or convalescent.
The practice of employing these men is not by any means confined to the Pagans; the belief in charms and witchcraft is prevalent among many of the educated, as well as the civilized Indians. Love charms, spirit charms, medicine charms—they all exist in the faith and imagination of a people whose own greatest charm lies in their exquisite beliefs, their seeing of the unseen, and their touch of the poetic in nature, which is, of all things, the most beautiful.