Abstract
ALTHOUGH there is a great similarity in the supernormal performances of witches and medicine men wherever recorded, the selection of certain alleged powers of West African magicians as the subject of a challenge by the local Council of the Christian Missions (see NATURE, June 11, p. 862) adds interest to the practices of certain members of the Bear gens of the Fox Indians of Oklahoma, to which reference is made in a recent publication of the Bureau of American Ethnology (Notes on the Fox Wopanowiweni: by Truman Michelson, Bull. 105). The bear, it may be mentioned, in parenthesis, is considered among the Fox to be the most dread form of witch. An Indian informant, who, significantly enough, wished to remain anonymous, stated that he himself had seen certain members of the gens remove stones or feathers from a box without touching it or its contents. Balls of fire were produced, and skins of snakes and cat and otter skins came alive and spoke. In the matter of the closed box the identity with the West African claim is noteworthy. Other performances resembled those of the spiritualistic medium. Stones ran round in a circle. The witches successfully called on the Wopanowi birds (spirits) to come; they handled red-hot coals without suffering harm, and plunging their bare arms into boiling water, took out meat with impunity. This last feat has been recorded among a number of the American Indian peoples.
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Magic and Medicine Men. Nature 130, 14–15 (1932). https://doi.org/10.1038/130014c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/130014c0