The lines drawn across the face of this figure indicate poverty, distress, and sickness; the person is supposed to have suffered from the displeasure of the medicine man. Such is the religion of the Indians. Its boast is to put into the hands of the devout supernatural means by which he may wreak vengeance on his enemies whether weak or powerful, whether they be found among the foes of his tribe or the people of his own village. This Metai, so much valued and revered by them, seems to be only the instrument in the hands of the crafty for keeping in subjection the weak and the credulous, which may readily be supposed to be the greater part of the people.
_k._ I am such, I am such, my friends; any animal, any animal, my friends, I hit him right, my friends.
This boast of certain success in hunting is another method by which he hopes to elevate himself in the estimation of his hearers. Having told them he has the power to put them all to death, he goes on to speak of his infallible success in hunting, which will always enable him to be a valuable friend to such as are careful to secure his good will.
The following chart for the “Song for beaver hunting and the Metai,” is taken from the same author, loc. cit., and reproduced in Fig. 166, with interpretations as follows:
[Illustration: FIG. 166.--Song for beaver hunting.]
_a._ I sit down in the lodge of the Metai, the lodge of the Spirit.
This figure is intended to represent the area of the Metai-we-gaun, or medicine lodge, which is called also the lodge of the Man'idō, and two men have taken their seats in it. The matter of the song seems to be merely introductory.
_b._ Two days must you sit fast, my friend; four days must you sit fast, my friend.
The two perpendicular lines on the breast of this figure are read ne-o-gone (two days), but are understood to mean two years; so of the four lines drawn obliquely across the legs, these are four years. The heart must be given to this business for two years, and the constrained attitude of the legs indicates the rigid attention and serious consideration which the subject requires.
_c._ Throw off, woman, thy garments, throw off.
The power of their medicines and the incantations of the Metai are not confined in their effect to animals of the chase, to the lives and health of men; they control also the minds of all and overcome the modesty as well as the antipathies of women. The Indians firmly believe that many a woman who has been unsuccessfully solicited by a man is not only by the power of the Metai made to yield, but even in a state of madness to tear off her garments and pursue after the man she before despised. These charms have greater power than those in the times of superstition among the English, ascribed to the fairies, and they need not, like the plant used by Puck, be applied to the person of the unfortunate being who is to be transformed; they operate at a distance through the medium of the Miz-zin-ne-neens.