The Mide'wiwin or "Grand Medicine Society" of the Ojibwa: Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1885-1886, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1891, pages 143-300

In Short

This ethnological study examines the Midē´wiwin, or Grand Medicine Society, a secret religious and healing organization of the Ojibwa people. Documenting rites across four distinct degrees, the work details spiritual initiations, herbal remedies, sacred architecture, and mnemonic song charts recorded on birch bark. It traces how mythical figures like the Otter and Mi´nabō´zho established a framework for preserving community health and sacred wisdom. The text endures because it offers an authentic, meticulous record of Indigenous spiritual resistance and ritual arts during an era when external pressures threatened to dismantle Native American cultural traditions.

The Story

The text begins by correcting historical misunderstandings of Ojibwa spiritual life, noting how early European observers like Father Marquette mistook sacred ritual structures—such as the degree post of the Midē´wiwin—for Christian symbols. From this foundation of misread history, the work shifts to an internal perspective, tracing an individual's entry into the Grand Medicine Society. The journey starts in adolescence with a secluded forest fast. Weakened by starvation, the youth experiences visions of a personal guardian spirit, or man´idō. If this trance reveals a powerful deity, the vision inspires a lifelong commitment to join the Midē´wiwin.

Admissions require a lengthy apprenticeship. The postulant selects an experienced Midē´ priest as a preceptor, spending years gathering required fees, pelts, and trade goods while memorizing complex lore. The narrative follows this candidate into the physical spaces of initiation, starting with the sweat lodge for purification and moving into the Midē´wigân—an open-air structure framed with wooden saplings, leaves, and sacred posts. Before ceremonies proceed, priests perform implorations for clear skies, singing rain songs with sacred drums to propitiate Ki´tshi Man´idō when weather threatens the open-roofed enclosure.

As the initiation unfolds, candidate and preceptor enact ritual dramas. Central to this process is the "shooting" of the mī´gis—a sacred white cowrie shell—into the initiate's body to infuse spiritual life and power. The work ascends systematically through four distinct degrees. Each stage demands greater preparation, higher fees, and deeper ceremonial mastery. The lower degrees focus on therapeutic remedies, plant-based medicines like white oak bark or false spikenard, and fundamental chants. The fourth degree reaches the height of esoteric knowledge, dramatizing the ancient mythic interaction between the Bear Man´idō and the Otter. High-degree priests gain the authority to mix potent compounds, construct love powders, direct war chants, and perform magical distance cures.

The narrative extends beyond individual advancement to encompass communal preservation and grief. In describing the Ghost Lodge rites, the text illustrates how families initiate living substitutes to fulfill the spiritual obligations of deceased relatives, ensuring their spirits safely navigate the road to the afterlife carrying offerings of fruit and moccasins. Finally, the account concludes with an examination of Ojibwa arts—cataloging birch-bark pictographs, minor-key musical notations, and ceremonial dress—before assessing the society's future. It asserts that despite geographical dispersal from ancestral sites like La Pointe and Sandy Lake, the society's rituals remain a vital, resilient anchor for Ojibwa identity.

How It Unfolds

The vision quest An Ojibwa youth retreats alone to a secluded forest spot to fast until starvation induces trances and hallucinations. The first mammal, bird, or object appearing in these visions becomes a lifelong guardian spirit, frequently inspiring the faster to seek membership in the Grand Medicine Society.

The years of preparation Upon approval by senior leaders, the applicant contracts with a preceptor for instruction. Over several years, the candidate hunts and trades to accumulate peltries, blankets, kettles, and tobacco required for instructional fees and the lavish feast given to visiting priests.

Purification and the lodge Initiation occurs during late summer, commencing with vapor baths in the sweat lodge. Priests assemble in the Midē´wigân, an open grove enclosure built of saplings and leaves, where they chant rain songs with drums to request clear skies from Ki´tshi Man´idō before proceeding.

The shooting of the mī´gis The ritual reaches its climax as officiating priests symbolically shoot small white cowrie shells, or mī´gis, into the candidate's body. This dramatic act imparts spiritual energy, cures physical ailments, and formally grants the initiate entry into the first degree.

Ascension through higher degrees Members advance through four distinct grades, each demanding extensive gifts and deeper study of botanical therapeutics, such as white oak bark and seneca snakeroot. Fourth-degree priests master high magic, secret love powders, and the ritual reenactment of the sacred Otter's migration.

Rites of the Ghost Lodge When a member dies prior to advancement, the society conducts an initiation by substitution in the Ghost Lodge. A living proxy carries out ritual instructions, presenting moccasins and wild fruit to aid the deceased spirit on its journey along the road of the dead.

Recording the sacred arts The text ends with a thorough survey of Ojibwa pictography, minor-key musical notations, and ceremonial attire. Birch-bark scrolls etched with mnemonic symbols allow priests to preserve complex ceremonial chants across widely dispersed bands.

The People

Sikas´sigĕ is a second-degree Midē´ priest from Mille Lacs who settled at White Earth. Initiated at age ten in 1830 under the preceptorship of his father, Baiē´dzhĕk, Sikas´sigĕ seeks to preserve and transmit sacred tribal history. Though he never publicly advanced beyond the second degree, his intimate knowledge—supported by his wife’s status as a fourth-degree priestess—allows him to provide detailed birch-bark records illustrating ritual traditions and the migration of the Ojibwa people.

Mi´nabō´zho acts as the legendary benefactor and cultural hero of the Ojibwa. Desiring to protect humanity from illness and mortality, he receives the sacred rites of the Midē´wiwin from the Great Spirit and inscribes them upon white birch bark. Through his actions, he establishes the foundational ritual structure that human priests must faithfully reproduce.

The Otter Man´idō serves as the vital spiritual pioneer in Ojibwa tradition. After receiving the Midē´wiwin rites, the Otter dives beneath the waters and travels westward, reappearing at sites like Mackinaw, Sault Ste. Marie, and Sandy Lake. By guiding the Ani´shinâ´bēg along this path, the Otter establishes pure Midē´wigân lodges at each stop, shaping the geographic and ceremonial distribution of the society.

Ki´tshi Man´idō, the Great Spirit, dwells above the sky as the ultimate source of spiritual wisdom, healing power, and life-granting mī´gis shells. Priests constantly petition Ki´tshi Man´idō through drum songs and smoke offerings, seeking clear weather and divine inspiration to empower their earthbound rituals.

In Its Own Voice

Describing an early Jesuit missionary’s misinterpretation of Indigenous sacred symbols, the author notes the mistaken assumption made upon viewing an adorned timber:

"The erroneous conclusion that the cross was erected as an evidence of the adoption of Christianity, and possibly as a compliment to the visitor, was a natural one on the part of the priest, but this same symbol of the Midē´ Society had probably been erected and bedecked with barbaric emblems and weapons months before anything was known of him."

During the initiation rites, an officiating preceptor chants a traditional song while raising his hand toward the sky in supplication:

"I give you the other village, spirit that you are."

The text explains how high-degree priests claim spiritual immunity and mastery over mortal threats through their sacred shells:

"My mī´gis spirit, I overpower death with."

What It's Really About

Beneath its detailed cataloging of songs, plants, and lodge dimensions, the book is an inquiry into how a society preserves its spiritual core during periods of intense external pressure. It argues that the Midē´wiwin is neither a primitive superstition nor a derivative of Christian influence, but a sophisticated, self-contained religious and medical system. Through mnemonic pictographs etched on birch bark, the Ojibwa created a durable codex that safeguarded theology, history, and pharmacological knowledge across centuries. By documenting how rites adapt as bands disperse from historical centers like La Pointe to Sandy Lake, the work explores the balance between cultural continuity and change. Ultimately, it reveals how sacred ritual serves as a vessel for community resilience, spiritual authority, and collective memory.

Why Read It Today

This work will deeply absorb readers interested in Indigenous religions, ethnobotany, and North American history. Reading it feels like gaining access to a private archive; the text balances rigorous academic observation with direct transcriptions of sacred songs, botanical remedies, and birch-bark pictographs. It captures the rhythm of ceremonial life through meticulously transcribed lyrics and structural diagrams of the Midē´wigân.

However, readers should prepare for certain period difficulties. The narrative carries 19th-century ethnological terminology—such as referring to sacred items as "barbaric emblems"—and contains dense lists of plant names, phonetic transcriptions, and typographical diacritics that can slow the reading pace. The text also assumes patience as it systematically documents every degree, song variation, and ceremonial post.

What stays with you is the profound elegance of the Ojibwa mnemonic system and the dignity of its practitioners. Rather than viewing the Midē´wiwin as a relic of the past, the book leaves you with a lasting appreciation for a living tradition of healing and spiritual endurance that successfully guarded Ojibwa identity against historical fragmentation.