M. R. HARRINGTON — SACRED BUNDLES OF THE SAC AND FOX INDIANS. 245

buffalo hide, one of parchment-like material, and one of cloth, each containing a mixture of herbs and roots.
Six pieces of gypsum.
Nine bits of roots.
One straight and three bent twigs from some shrub.
A little packet of the magic mixture of herbs and paint was attached to the edge of the woven sack forming the outer cover.
While most of the medicines in this bundle are probably for hunting, as stated by the widow of its former owner, there seems to be at least one other kind also, as was before remarked. Weasels and woodpeckers (see pp. 218, 226) are frequently used in hunting bundles, both creatures being notably successful in that line, and therefore imparting desirable powers to the bundle owner. The gun flints were undoubtedly tied up with herbs to make them lucky.
As for the fossil bones and mica, they probably represent the bones and scales of mythic animals, but as I have never seen them before in a hunting bundle, I cannot even guess at their use.
Porcupine quills, imbedded in medicine can be only used for two purposes, according to any information I can find — witchcraft and hunting. In witchcraft the sorcerer takes a quill from the medicine, names the man he wishes to injure, and the part — head, heart, stomach or whatever is to be affected — then flips it away with his fingers.
The victim, wherever he may be, immediately feels pain in the place indicated, so the Indians believe, and his suffer- ings may be made greater or less at the will of the sorcerer. In hunting, an animal instead of a person is named before “shooting” the quill, with the result that the hunter will soon find an animal of the sort named, lagging and crippled as if with pain and consequently easy to kill.
The preceding may all be hunting medicines, but the contents of the brass thimble constitute a love medicine, pure
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246 UNIVERSITY MUSEUM — ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUBLICATIONS VOL. IV.
and simple: the hair tied round the packet was secretly taken from the head of the maiden the man wished to win, and the magic paint was to put on his face when he went courting her. Very likely the hair had been taken from the head of the very woman from whom we bought the bundle, and had been kept there by her husband unknown to her, for many years.
Bundle 2/8597.
This hunting bundle, a somewhat different variety from the last, was bought from the same Fox woman. It is called Ca we thi tci gun, and was used to spoil the luck of rival hunting parties; but the exact modus operandi was unfor- tunately not given. Enough was said or hinted, however, to show that this “medicine” involved practices even nearer witchcraft than the last bundle, for the supposed powers of this one were actually turned against human beings with malevolent intent.
The cover consists of two sacks woven of cords of some native fibre, perhaps “Indian hemp,” with patterns worked out in buffalo wool yam and blanket ravelings, the outside sack, which is in bad shape, measuring 10£" x 1 \" \ the inner, nearly perfect, 9 \" x 6|".
Contents. — Two pieces of gypsum, each deeply grooved on one side.
Two cloth packages containing gypsum crystals.
Piece of gypsum, wrapped with herbs in a piece of bladder-like skin.
Piece petrified wood.
Piece fossil bone, rolled in cloth.
Cloth package of bits of fossil bone mixed with red down, herbs and roots.
Cloth package containing bits of soft and chalky bone.
Package of bladder-like skin, containing bit of bone, much scraped.
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