a dream or a vision, or by some
strong impression made otherwise on the mind.

+535+. Among the Siouan Indians there are religious societies, each of
which bears the name of some animal and has a ritual composed of chants
and songs which, it is often claimed, have been received in a
supernatural manner.[893] The youth who aspires to become a member of
one of these societies goes off alone to the forest, and there, fasting
and meditating, waits for the vision of the sign. This comes usually in
the form of an animal, and the youth enters the society whose
distinguishing mark this animal is. First, however, he must travel until
he meets the animal he saw, when he must slay it and preserve the whole
or a part of it. This trophy is the sign of his vision and is the most
sacred thing he can possess, marking as it does his personal relation to
the supernatural being who has appeared to him.

+536+. A similar ceremony is found among the Kwakiutl in Northwestern
America.[894] The novice is supposed to stay some time with the
supernatural being who is the protector of his society. From this
interview he returns in a state of ecstasy, and is brought to a normal
state by the songs and dances and magical performances of the shaman;
but before he is permitted to take part in the ordinary pursuits of life
he must undergo a ceremonial purification. In these tribes, as is
remarked above, the totemic groups have been replaced by clans, and in
the winter ceremonial these clans (according to one report) are again
replaced by the secret societies, whose function is political only in
the sense that its members form a part of the aristocracy. Recently
societies of women have been established--a fact that illustrates the
divergence of the new system from the old.

+537+. The details of initiation or of acquisition of the guardian
spirit vary (for example, it is not always required that the youth kill
his patron animal), but in all cases there is recognition of the
emotional independence of the individual, and there is involved a
certain largeness of religious experience in the modern sense of the
term. The demand for the supernatural friend represents a germinal
desire for intimate personal relations with the divine world; and,
though the particular form that embodied the conception has given way
before more refined ideas, the conception itself has survived in higher
religions in the choice of patron saints.[895]

+538+. _Political condit