Indian Masonry PDF Download

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1907 edition. Excerpt: ... VII. OJIBWA GRAND MEDICINE LODGE. rTHE following two chapters of this book will be devoted to a consideration of the Grand Medicine Lodge of the Ojibwa Indians. Many years ago a treaty was made with these Indians by the United States Government, by which they relinquished about 4,000,000 acres of land and moved to the Red Lake and White Earth Reservations, where they took lands in severalty, and, under the treaty, became citizens and lost their tribal government. The chief Mide priests were well aware of this momentous change and its consequences, and foreseeing that such a change of habits would follow among their people that they could no longer continue the ceremonies of the so-called "pagan rites," they were persuaded and became willing to impart them to Dr. W. J. Hoffman, in order that a complete description might be made and preserved for the future information of their descendants. Dr. Hoffman was the duly authorized representative of the Bureau of Ethnology of the government and performed his task with the greatest fidelity as his account in these pages will clearly show. It is barely possible that there are a few very old Indians who even at this late day try secretly to perform some of the old ceremonies, but beyond such feeble attempts, the ancient glory of the Midewiwin is now but a tradition. I have spread out on these pages practically most of the detail, although by no means all of it, for the reason that I am sure a more perfect picture of the forms and ceremonies practiced will show wherein the Redman and the paleface have followed trails which ever and anon do approach each other, not only in speaking, but in touching distance, as they travel onward toward the same goal. These things will bear out the deductions I have...