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Meaning of Midewin
|The name Midewin (also spelled Midewiwin and Medewiwin) is derived from the term for the Grand Medicine society of the Indians of the Great Lakes Region. Tribal groups who had such curing societies include the Ojibwa, Chippewa, Ottawa, and Potawatomi, the last of whom were prominent residents of the Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie region from the mid 1700s to the early to mid-1800s. According to the Potawatomi, Mide or Mida (pronounced mid-day), means mystic or mystically powerful (Landes, 1970). The curing rituals performed by the members of the Midewin relied heavily on a tradition that incorporated mystical elements arising from the beliefs about the spirits that protected the A-nish-in-a beg (term used by the Ottawa, Potawatomi, Ojibwa, and Menomonee to describe the original people,) (Hoffman, 1891).
The first historic mention of the Midewin is in connection with the Potawatomi who inhabited the Detroit region of Michigan in 1714 (Draper, et al. 1855 - 1911). The origins of the society, however, most certainly predate this time (Clifton, 1978). Hickerson (1963) suggests that the Midewin served as a unifying element among different tribes. There are descriptions of sorcerers, jugglers, and persons whose faith, influence, and practices are dependant on assistance of Manitous, or mysterious spirits, as early as 1642 in the Jesuit Relations (Hoffman, 1891), but the Midewin society is not specifically mentioned.
The Midewin consisted of a number of individuals who had been initiated into the society in a ceremony that took place in four stages. Each stage confered a greater level of power upon the initiate (Hoffman, 1891; Spencer, 1977). There was a cost associated with each stage, and not all individuals went beyond the first. Although the collective members of the Midewin had the power to cure, the individual did not (Spencer, 1977). Both the initiation ceremony and curing rituals incorporated reenactments of the story of the origin of the Midewin. The sick were treated with tobacco, drums, and rattles. A variety of herbs were also used in curing patients. For the most part, however, the curing ritual relied heavily on faith. The songs sung by the members of the Midewin for initiation and curing ceremonies were carefully preserved as pictographs or hieroglyphs - a series of symbols that served as mnemonic devices - carved into birch bark scrolls. These scrolls offer us insight into the origin and tradition of the Midewin.
Each member of the society owned a medicine bundle or bag, a pelt (usually an otter, after the origin myth), containing sacred objects. During a curing or initiation, an initiate or patient was shot with the medicine bag (the pelt of an otter or other animal), containing the sacred white shell in an elaborate ceremony. The patient then spit the shell out of his/her mouth at the end of the ceremony as an indication that supernatural power had been carried into their bodies (Spencer, 1977).
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