The
commandments promulgated by this order were essentially the same as
the Mosaic Ten, so that it exerted a distinct moral influence, in
addition to its ostensible object, which was instruction in the
secrets of legitimate medicine.
In this society the uses of all curative roots and herbs known
to us were taught exhaustively and practiced mainly by the
old, the younger members being in training to fill the places of
those who passed away. My grandmother was a well-known and
successful practitioner, and both my mother and father were
members, but did not practice.
A medicine or "mystery feast" was not a public affair, as
members only were eligible, and upon these occasions all the
"medicine bags" and totems of the various lodges were displayed and
their peculiar "medicine songs" were sung. The food was only
partaken of by invited guests, and not by the hosts, or lodge
making the feast. The "Grand Medicine Dance" was given on
the occasion of initiating those candidates who had finished their
probation, a sufficient number of whom were designated to take the
places of those who had died since the last meeting. Invitations
were sent out in the form of small bundles of tobacco. Two very
large teepees were pitched facing one another, a hundred feet
apart, half open, and connected by a roofless hall or colonnade of
fresh-cut boughs.
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