Rocky Mountains. To my surprise,
(for I was then a novice in the country,) I found him neither
astonished, nor shocked, nor amused, by what seemed to me so gross a
superstition.

"I have seen," said he, "many exhibitions of power which my philosophy
cannot explain. I have known predictions of events far in the future to
be literally fulfilled, and have seen medicine tested in the most
conclusive ways. I once saw a Kootenai Indian (known generally as
Skookum-tamahe-rewos, from his extraordinary power) command a mountain
sheep to fall dead, and the animal, then leaping among the rocks of the
mountain-side, fell instantly lifeless. This I saw with my own eyes, and
I ate of the animal afterwards. It was unwounded, healthy, and perfectly
wild. Ah!" continued he, crossing himself and looking upwards, "Mary
protect us! the medicine-men have power from Sathanas."[F]

This statement, made by so responsible a person, attracted my attention
to what before seemed but a clumsy species of juggling. During many
months of intimate knowledge of Indian life,--as an adopted member of a
tribe, as a resident in their camps, and their companion on hunts and
war-parties,--I lost no opportunity of gathering information concerning
their religious belief and traditions, and the system of _medicine_, as
it prevails in its purity. It would be foreign to the design of this
desultory paper to enter at large upon the history of creation as
preserved by the Indians in their traditions, the conflicts of the
Beneficent Spirit with the Adversary, and the Indian idea of a future
state. With all these, the present sketch has no further concern than a
mere statement that "medicine" is based upon the idea of an overruling
and all-powerful Providence, who acts at His good pleasure, through
human instruments. Those among Christians who entertain the doctrine of
Special Providences may find in the untutored Indian a faith as firm as
theirs,--not sharply defined, or understood by the Indian himself, but
inborn and ineradicable.

The Indian, being thoroughly ignorant of all things not connected with
war or the chase, is necessarily superstitious. His imagination is
active,--generally more so than are his reasoning powers,--and fits him
for a ready belief in the powers of any able mediciner. On one occasion,
Meldram, a white man in the employ of the American Fur Company, found
himself suddenly elevated to high rank as a seer by a foolish or
petulant remark. He