Foreword

This book represents a rich collection of writings about the reincarnation beliefs of North American Indians and the relationship of soul journeys, metamorphosis, and near-death experiences to reincarnation concepts. The collection draws from a wide array of writings on the topic both by American Indians, such as activists Charles Eastman of the nineteenth century and Thomas Sewid of today, and by ethnographers and researchers, including Franz Boas, Paul Radin, Knud Rasmussen, and others. The author presents a variety of writings on the traditional spiritual beliefs of many different American Indian peoples and the spiritual movements, such as the Ghost Dance and Shaker religion, that occurred in the wake of the takeover of the continent by European colonizers.

Most people are unaware of North American Indian reincarnation beliefs, and I welcome this book as a valuable contribution to making people more aware of how North American Indian spiritual beliefs include the view that all life forms reincarnate. When I began my studies of the spiritual beliefs of North American Indians, I had little knowledge of the depth and breadth of reincarnation concepts within their cultures. Even after taking courses in Indian spirituality at Harvard University, I was not aware of how widespread this belief was. It was not until 1964, when I went to the Beaver Indians of northeastern British Columbia, Canada, as a graduate student, that I learned how integral and vibrant the experience of reincarnation is among these Northern Athabaskan people. The experience of finding elders returned as babies among them was, and still is, very real for these people.

Finding the depth of the Beaver Indian experience, I began a search to learn how prevalent such concepts were among other North American Indian peoples. In fact, I found that the concepts are alive and well among many Native groups, despite the influence of Christianity. Reincarnation belief has continued, even if some Indian people have kept their views private or hidden because of the imposition of the Western worldview.

In this book the reader is offered a rich tapestry of accounts from a number of North American Indian peoples about death, dying, and returning to this life. Included are stories from the Inuit of the polar region; the Northwest Coast people, such as the Kwakiutl (Kwakwaka’wakw), the Gitxsan, the Tlingit, and the Suquamish; the Pueblo people of the Southwest, such as the Hopi and Cochiti; the Winnebago of the Great Lakes region; the Cherokee of the Southeast; and the Sioux people of the Plains areas.

While there are some differences between the concepts and experiences of the varied North American Indian peoples, many aspects of the experiences described for a particular Indian tribe in this tome can be found among other tribes as well. For instance, the depiction of crossing the divide from this world to the spirit world described for the Coastal Salish by Curtis is similar to accounts from other Indian groups; the attempt to bring back a deceased wife from the nether world is recounted among a wide variety of Native peoples; the role of the shamans in healing and bringing people back to life from near death, as in the case of Black Elk presented here, is a theme many North American Indian people would recognize; the pierced-ear marks found on the reincarnated person as described here for the Coastal Salish relate to similar experiences among the Blackfoot and the Gitxsan, among others; and the wailing for deceased relatives and the care taken to not mourn too long, lest the loved one be prevented from getting to the land of the dead, beautifully recounted in the examples presented in this book, have similar expressions among many North American and Inuit peoples.

There have been five hundred years of interpenetration of Western and indigenous concepts since first European contact. While most of the accounts presented here relate to the nineteenth century and early twentieth century, what is impressive is that Indian concepts and experiences about soul journeys, metamorphosis, near-death experience, and reincarnation have survived through this long and difficult history and are aspects of Indian life that continue to be experienced today.

The author suggests the southwestern Cochiti concept of punishment of a soul for an evil life is indigenous. I wonder if this represents an internalization of the judgmental bias Christianity adopted when the concept of reincarnation was made anathema at the second Council of Nicea in the fourth century AD. Perhaps the Cochiti account is an internalization of the Christian concepts of soul punishment combined with the Indian concept of soul journey to the spirit world.

The ethnological record indicates reincarnation beliefs are found among the indigenous peoples on all continents of this earth. And as this book demonstrates, they are also found in most of the world’s major religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, esoteric Judaism, the classical Greek tradition, early Christianity, and some sects of Islam. The author’s introductions to the writings that he has selected show that reincarnation concepts are a part of foundational human religious experience and are closely interrelated to shamanism.

I am grateful to Warren Jefferson for his great, pure effort in putting this information together in one volume. A book like this is long overdue and makes a valuable contribution to the study of comparative religion. My hope is that it will bring an increased awareness to the general public about the profound spiritual traditions of the North American Indians, traditions from which I think we could all learn a great deal.

—Antonia Mills, PhD

Professor, First Nations Studies, University of Northern British Columbia

The Initiation of Igjugarjuk as a Shaman

Inuit
The Inuit live in the Arctic region along the northern coast of North America, the north coast of Alaska, and the coast of Greenland. Their culture is quite diverse, with many subgroups and dialects, but they all share a common ancestry. The Inuit people developed different lifestyles according to the environments they faced. (At times this environment is so harsh that no white man has ever been able to live there without outside support.) Some bands were whale hunters, some hunted seals, and all hunted caribou. They traveled in skin kayaks on the sea and on dog sleds on the ice. While away hunting, they lived in igloos made of ice, but most of the time they lived in earth shelters with sod roofs.

In the early 1920s, the noted Danish Inuit scholar and explorer Knud Rasmussen led an expedition across Arctic America, from Greenland to Alaska. During this trek he met a number of Inuit shamans (Igjugarjuk, Najagneq, and Aggjartoq) and the woman named Kinalik, who told their amazing personal biographies and initiation stories. The passage that follows is my rendering of Rasmussen’s story.

The Initiation of Igjugarjuk as a Shaman
As a child, Igjugarjuk was disturbed by visions and dreams of strange beings. The dreams were quite vivid, and he could remember every aspect of them. His family was very concerned for him, and the shaman Perqanaoq was consulted. The shaman met with their son and determined that he was destined to become a shaman, and so the parents gave him over to Perqanaoq for training.

So began his initiation. In the depth of winter, when the temperature can drop to –40 degrees Fahrenheit, Perqanaoq put Igjugarjuk on a sled and took him far out into the Arctic wilderness. There he built a small igloo for the boy, just big enough for him to sit cross-legged in. He took Igjugarjuk off the sledge and deposited him in the hut on a small piece of animal skin. He was left there alone and told to think only of the Great Spirit.

After five days, Perqanaoq returned and gave the boy a drink of warm water and left. After fifteen more days, he returned and gave Igjugarjuk another drink of water and a small piece of meat. This was to last him another ten days. At the end of his ordeal, which lasted thirty days, he was brought back to the village, where he fasted and continued his training.

Igjugarjuk was a great shaman when Rasmussen met him. He told Rasmussen he thought he would die from the fasting and cold and said that at one point a young woman with a powerful presence appeared before him, hovering a few feet above the ground. He never “saw” her again, but from that time on she remained his helping spirit. Igjugarjuk was convinced that suffering and deprivation was the key to knowledge and power, for as he said, “The only true wisdom lives far from mankind, out in the great loneliness, and it can be reached only through suffering. Privations and suffering alone can open the mind of a man to all that is hidden to others.”

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Shamans and Medicine Men

Shamanism goes back to a very early time in human history. The literature on archaic societies shows that shamanism has a well-developed history of its own, and there is clear evidence of “shamanic elements in the religion of the Paleolithic hunters.” (Eliade 1964) Shamanism has been found in some form in Siberia, North America, South America, Indonesia, and Oceania.

It was the shamans who developed and held the myths of humankind during prehistoric ages and on into the modern age. At the turn of the twentieth century, the shaman complex was found among the Inuit in the Arctic and the people of Tierra del Fuego. Within these two groups, living at opposite ends of the vast twin continents of America, there is a strong tradition of shamanism and they share similar expressions of it.

Ancestors of the Fuegians are thought to have come from Siberia during the first wave of migration into North America about 50,000 years CE. Until the early part of the nineteenth century, they had lived an isolated and undisturbed existence. In the 1870s, Thomas Bridges established a mission among the Fuegians. His son Lucas wrote an account of life growing up among the Yahgan and Ona people entitled Uttermost Part of the Earth. In it he includes a number of fantastic and vivid descriptions of shamanic healing and magic sessions he witnessed. From these accounts and others we can get a unique and somewhat representative view into the metaphysical world of the primeval hunters and gatherers of North America. And what does their belief system include?

As was mentioned earlier, they had what some call a High God named Watauinaiwa, and they have a strong shamanic tradition. Their shamans exhibit extraordinary physical capabilities, including insensitivity to fire and other magical abilities. To them, as with many Indian people, illness is an intrusion into the body of an alien object or the loss of the soul and its imprisonment in another world realm. It is the shaman’s responsibility to remove the intruding object or to find and retrieve the lost soul. “The core of shamanism is the experience of going to a spirit world and being shown visions or given songs that are taken back and shared with one’s community in ceremony or used in individual healing rites.” (Mills in Walter 2004)

Shamans are sensitive individuals, philosophically and religiously gifted, the dreamers and visionaries of the group. Through natural ability and intense training under an instructor they become attuned to the subtler forces of the natural and supernatural world. Possessed, some think, with a touch of madness, they can enter a trance at will, during which time they become a conduit between this world, the spirit world, and the land of the dead. It is thought that these visionary trips formed the basis of the people’s ideas about the soul and the afterlife.

Shamanism in its purest sense is a technique of ecstasy, but not every ecstatic should be considered a shaman. Only a shaman can enter a trance at will. (Eliade 1964) Shamans cure the sick and can travel to realms beyond the ordinary senses, even into the land of the dead. Upon returning, they would tell incredible tales of adventure in which they used their clairvoyant vision to locate a soul, battle with spirits, and traverse barriers and obstacles to return to the world of the living with the rescued soul.

The following account from John Swanton describes how a Tlingit shaman cured sickness. The techniques explained here are representative of shamans in general.

How a Tlingit Shaman Cured Sickness
He cured by blowing or sucking, or by passing over the affected parts carved objects supposed to have power. Sickness was usually attributed to witchcraft, and after pretending to draw a spear or some other foreign object from the sick man, the shaman designated who had sent it into him. Shamans themselves had power to bewitch people. They could put spirits into inanimate objects and send them out to do mischief. It appears from various stories that eagle down and red paint were also use in curing, for they are employed in restoring the dead to life. (Swanton 1909)

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Soul

Throughout history, in all parts of the world, people have held a concept that in Judeo-Christian tradition is referred to as the soul and some other cultures refer to as the Double. The ancients had other names: to the Egyptians it was Ba; the Greeks called it Daimon and soul; the Romans referred to it as Genius for men and Iuno for women; and the Scandinavians called it Fylgja. It is the immortal portion of a person, for some time encased in a physical body, that transcends time and space and connects to the entire kosmos. (“Kosmos” is a Greek word meaning the whole of all existence, the physical, mental, and spiritual realms, as opposed to “cosmos,” which refers to only the physical aspect of existence.)

Most Indian people had a well-developed concept of the soul before Christian contact, but it was quite different from the Euro-American idea. The Judeo-Christian tradition teaches that a person’s soul is created at birth by God and is unique for all time. It lives out one lifetime and that is all.

In the Christian model, if a person has led a righteous life, at death his or her soul would go to heaven, a place above the sky, to be in the presence of God and the angels. If the person committed minor, or venial, sins the soul went to purgatory for a time to expiate their sins and then went to heaven. If the person led a wicked life and committed an unforgivable, or mortal, sin the soul went to hell, a place of perpetual fire beneath the earth, a realm of evil and suffering, where it would burn forever and never see the face of God.

Indian people believed the human soul to be preexistent, meaning that it existed before birth, and that souls come from the gods or the Great Spirit. Coming from the gods makes the soul supernatural, but the Indian soul is also sensual, connected to the body through the senses as well as the intellect, and local as opposed to a distant, abstract entity as in the Christian model.

In the Indian model, a soul could be reborn to live again in a newborn person. Some believed that a soul could reincarnate in more than one person at the same time, particularly a person of high social standing. They also believed that all living creatures possess a soul and that even inanimate objects have a soul, but that only humans are fully self-aware.

There are numerous accounts from shamans of fetal consciousness and soul activity during the embryonic period, such as precognition, prophetic vision, and clairvoyance. There is an account included in this book from a Winnebago medicine man recalling memories of time in his mother’s womb (see “T. C.’s Account of His Two Reincarnations,” pp. XX–XX).

According to Ake Hultkrantz, who wrote a seminal work on American Indian soul beliefs, many Indian groups thought that a person has within them two souls. While soul concepts vary widely among the various groups, the belief in a dual-soul was widespread in all regions of North America. The exception was the Pueblo people of the Southwest, who were influenced by the Mexican high culture’s concept of a unitary-soul. The dual-soul concept was also found through out pre-Christian Europe.

One of the souls in this duality is the free-soul, seen as the immaterial double of a person. The free-soul is fully emancipated, with a spiritual existence of its own. During deep sleep, trance, or in times of sickness or delirium, this free-soul is able to leave the body and travel to other realms. For the ordinary person, free-soul travel is random wandering, but a shaman can direct his free-soul travel and is even able to go to the land of the dead and return.

The free-soul stays with the person throughout his or her lifetime and at death the leaves the body either through the mouth or fontanel and begins its journey to the realm of the dead. The deceased retains his consciousness, or ego, in the realm of the dead but loses all carnal desire. In most groups, it is usually the free-soul that is reborn.

The second part of this duality is the body-soul, or life-soul, sometimes called the breath-soul. This soul animates the body and facilitates movement and consciousness. Among several groups, the life-soul is thought to reside in the chest, and many connect it with the heart. Quite possibly, the many rock drawings of animals and men found in the Southwest are the earliest representations of Native soul beliefs, for they show a lifeline running from the mouth to the heart. For many people, the heart was the seat of the soul, and the breath coming through the mouth in the form of words expressed a person’s soul.

At death, the life-soul can wander for a time in the land of the living as a malevolent ghost, but eventually the disincarnate life-soul dissipates and merges with the wind, the clouds, and sometimes the Great Spirit, or it just disappears and is gone forever. Some believe the soul goes to live in the Milky Way. While a person is alive, if the life-soul leaves the body and cannot return, the person dies.

The Indian soul is preexistent, but where does it reside before being incarnated on earth? The location varies widely among different groups. For the Pueblo people and most agrarian tribes, the unborn dwell in the land of the dead in the underworld, but in a different place from the dead. The Salish of Shoalwater Bay believed the souls of children came from the rising sun. The Chinook believed this as well. The Montagnais believed children come from the clouds; the Eastern Shawnee thought children live on little stars in the Milky Way. The Mandan believed babies are incarnated stars. The Oglala believed that Skan, the sky god, gave man his free-soul and life-soul. For the Fox Indians it was the Great Spirit that gave people their life-soul and the culture hero (an entity of mythological time who changes the world through intervention or discovery) their free-soul.


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That’s My Chair: The Gitxsan Reincarnation Case of Rhonda Mead

This contemporary rebirth story is by Antonia Mills, professor of First Nations studies at the University of Northern British Columbia, Canada. She has been doing research with First Nations of northern British Columbia since 1964, first with the Dane-zaa (Beaver Indians) and then with the Gitxsan, beginning in 1984, and the Witsuwit’en since 1985. She served as an expert witness for the landmark Delgamuukw land claims case. She is the author of Eagle Down Is Our Law: Witsuwit’en Law, Feasts, and Land Claims (1994), co-editor (with Richard Slobodin) of Amerindian Rebirth: Reincarnation Belief among North American Indians and Inuit (1994), and the editor of Hang Onto These Words: Johnny David’s Delgamuukw Evidence (2005). She is currently working on the book "That’s My Chair: Rebirth Experience of the Gitxsan and Witsuwit’en," assisted by a grant from the Aboriginal Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Rhonda Mead’s Story

Since the summer of 1984, I have been documenting reincarnation belief among the Gitxsan, a First Nation tribe whose ancestral home is in northern British Columbia, Canada. My first trip to the Gitxsan was at the invitation of Ian Stevenson, the pioneer of reincarnation studies, who had been investigating cases of reincarnation within the Gitxsan and other First Nation tribes in British Columbia and Alaska. Dr. Stevenson told me that there was a Gitxsan family that claimed an elderly relative had reincarnated as her own great-granddaughter.

This story had all the classic characteristics of being a Gitxsan rebirth case: the elder, Susan Albert, had made a prediction she would return after death; after she died, she appeared to several relatives in what are referred to as “announcing dreams”; the child, Rhonda Mead, fulfilled the conditions and desires of her maternal great-grandmother, Susan Albert, in her new life; Rhonda acted from the point of view of Susan Albert, and she recognized objects belonging to the elder as hers; finally, she had a birthmark on her arm similar to a tattoo on Susan Albert’s arm.

I first met Rhonda’s family and began to document this case when Rhonda’s mother, Cynthia, had brought her children to visit the grandparents, Margaret and Ed Elton। Susan Albert’s daughter Margaret, Rhonda’s grandmother, referred to her late mother as a Gitxsan princess—that is, someone well born into an important family: Susan Albert’s brother was the head chief of their matrilineal house।

In 1973, Susan Albert was around seventy-six years old and feeling her age. For some time she told her family that it was time for her to go. Margaret told me, “Whenever she got up to give her testimony [in church], she always asked the Lord if He would take her, and this is what [happened]. She had a stroke and she never regained consciousness.”

Susan Albert herself anticipated being reborn for some time before she passed on. Her daughter Margaret reported, “During the years, Mother [Susan Albert] always claimed she wanted [her granddaughter] Cynthia to be her mother when she came back.” Margaret said her mother was explicit about the qualities she wanted in her next life. According to Margaret, Susan said, “I want to be born beautiful, clever, and not poor anymore. And I’m going to have blond hair.”

When Susan Albert died, her granddaughter Cynthia was pregnant. Cynthia’s cousin Katie had thought that Cynthia was going to have a boy, until she dreamed of Susan Albert. She told Cynthia that she was going to have a girl, who would be the reincarnation of Susan Albert. That was the first announcing dream of Susan Albert as Rhonda.

As Cynthia’s expected due date approached, Susan Albert’s daughter Margaret flew to Vancouver to attend the birth. On the eve of the baby’s birth, Margaret dreamed of her mother so vividly that she said, “Mother, what are you doing in Vancouver?” From this dream, Margaret knew her mother was returning, and she said to Cynthia’s husband, “Don’t count on a boy. Mother was here.” This was the second announcing dream of Susan Albert as Rhonda.

The baby girl, Rhonda Mead, was born a blond, though this is not surprising, since her father is non-Indian, as is her maternal grandfather. Rhonda also met Susan Albert’s other specifications of wanting to be “clever and not poor anymore.” In 1984, when Rhonda was eleven, her mother told me that she was getting certificates for outstanding academic achievement in school. Since Rhonda’s father had a steady job at the Vancouver airport, Rhonda was comfortably situated. Additionally, Rhonda exhibited marked precocity and memories appropriate to her great-grandmother, Susan Albert.

The public health nurse who visited Cynthia three weeks after the birth noted that baby Rhonda was atypically advanced. The nurse said Cynthia should treat Rhonda like a five- or six-month-old baby, because she could pull herself up like a baby of that age. Before Rhonda was eight months old, she was able to walk and talk. Her mother noted several times that she was talking before she had teeth.

When Rhonda was fifteen months old, Cynthia brought her to visit her maternal grandparents (Margaret and Ed Elton) in Hazelton, British Columbia. When Rhonda came into the house, she insisted that her uncle Fred get out of the easy chair in which he was sitting, saying, “That’s my chair.” Cynthia said, “She just screamed bloody murder if anybody sat in her chair. She just used to squirm and push Fred away.” To her relatives, Rhonda’s response to the chair showed that she was Susan Albert come back, because the chair was indeed one of two that had belonged to Susan Albert that her daughter Margaret had brought from her mother’s house after her (Susan Albert’s) death.

When it was time to eat, Rhonda refused to be seated until she was brought a chair that had been sitting near the bathroom with things piled on it. This was the other chair that Margaret had brought from Susan Albert’s home after her death. Margaret reported that Rhonda “threw everything off of it and brought it in and sat down, and she wouldn’t let anyone else [use it]. She says, ‘That’s my chair.’” Margaret’s husband, Ed, added that although Rhonda could barely see over the edge of the table while sitting on the chair, she insisted, “That’s my chair.”

On this same trip, Rhonda went around her grandmother’s house stuffing clothes piled for laundry into shopping bags. Her grandfather Ed noted that this was just like Susan Albert, who, “being short of closet space, kept unseasonal clothes in old flour sacks. There was a time when we were reminded that Susan Albert was getting her way.” On subsequent visits to her grandparents, Rhonda continued to chase her uncle Fred out of “her chair.” Years later, Rhonda’s grandmother, Margaret, remarked to her son Fred that Rhonda was “becoming more mortal now; she’s not making such a fuss about the chair.” Fred replied, “That’s what you think. She’s still trying to pull me off her chair.”

At one point during this visit, Rhonda’s mother, Cynthia, and Rhonda’s grandparents were talking about prices and mentioned the figure “seven dollars.” Rhonda, who apparently had not been following the adult’s conversation until that point, said, “That’s my dog.” This was another strong indication to them that Ronda was Susan Albert come back, for Susan Albert had purchased a dog for seven dollars, and “having a sense of humor,” as her son-in-law put it, had named the dog Seven Dollars. The dog had died before Susan Albert’s death and was not a frequent subject of conversation, so it was unlikely that Rhonda had heard the story.

On another occasion during that visit, Rhonda’s mother, Cynthia, and Rhonda’s grandmother, Margaret, were looking through Margaret’s jewelry. Rhonda came up, picked up a bracelet that had belonged to Susan Albert, and said, “That’s my bracelet.” The incident with the chairs, the dog, and the jewelry confirmed a linkage that was suspected before she was old enough to speak. Given Rhonda’s precocity, her identification with Susan Albert’s belongings, and her fulfillment of Susan Albert’s request to be blond, smart, and well off, Rhonda’s family was convinced that she was indeed Susan Albert reincarnated as her great-granddaughter.

A final indication that Rhonda is her great-grandmother returned is a birthmark on her right wrist that resembles a curving brown line. This is said to correspond to the tattoo of an S (for Susan) that Susan Albert had on the same part of her right arm. In talking to Rhonda in 1984, when she was eleven years old, she did not remember saying any of the things she was reported to have said about her chair, her dog, or her bracelet. Her grandmother Margaret said, “After a certain age, it [the awareness] leaves; but then the genes are still there, so the idiom still comes out.” Margaret said she didn’t know why the memories fade and added that the dreams she used to have, in which her mother, Susan Albert, appeared and warned of danger concerning Rhonda, ceased as well. At one point during the interview, I asked Rhonda’s mother, Cynthia, if her grandmother, Susan Albert, ever chided her for smoking. Rhonda, eleven years old at this point, answered with an emphatic “Yes.” Everyone assumed she had answered for the late Susan Albert.

In 2008, I talked to Rhonda’s mother, Cynthia, and learned that Rhonda was married and had four children. Her first child was a girl, born in 1999 after her grandmother Margaret had passed away. When I asked Cynthia if she thought that Rhonda’s daughter was Margaret come back, she said, “We aren’t sure.” Unlike many other Gitxsan and Witsuwit’en adults who recognize their lives as being impacted by who they were in a previous incarnation, Rhonda does not now identify herself as Susan Albert reborn.
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Rhonda Mead’s story and many other intertwined rebirth cases from the Gitxsan and Witsuwit’en of the Pacific Northwest are recounted in the forthcoming book That’s My Chair: Rebirth Experience of the Gitxsan and Witsuwit’en, which describes the wealth of interconnected cases that have been documented over twenty-four years, from 1984 to 2008, to be published in 2010.


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Eastman

Charles Alexander Eastman (1858–1939), a great North American Indian, also known as Ohiyesa, was a prolific writer and articulate spokesman who worked tirelessly for the cause of justice for the Indian people.

The first missionaries, good men imbued with the narrowness of their age, branded us as pagans and devil-worshipers, and demanded of us that we abjure our false gods before bowing the knee at their sacred altar. They even told us that we were eternally lost, unless we adopted a tangible symbol and professed a particular form of their hydra-headed faith. We of the twentieth century know better! We know that all religious aspiration, all sincere worship, can have but one source and one goal. We know that the God of the lettered and the unlettered, of the Greek and the barbarian, is after all the same God.

—Charles Alexander Eastman, "The Soul of the Indian"


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Winnebago Shaman Initiation

Here is a tale of metamorphosis, human-to-human reincarnation, and shamanic initiation, as told by a Winnebago shaman. He was a warrior, and while on the warpath he was killed; but he was unaware of what happened and returned home. Once there, he realized that no one could see or hear him and he suspected that he was dead. He went back to look for his body and found it lying where it had fallen, and he knew then that he was indeed dead.

Between human lives, he lived life as three different kinds of animals—a fish, a bird, and a buffalo He retained human consciousness throughout these multiple lives and was eventually reborn as a human Before he returned to the human world, the spirits initiated him as a shaman, and he acquired extraordinary powers. He could heal the sick, cause a person to die, and bring a person back to life again.

I came from above, and I am holy. This is my second life on earth. Many years before my present existence, I lived on this earth. At that time everyone seemed to be on the warpath. I also was a warrior, a brave man. Once, when I was on the warpath, I was killed. It seemed to me, however, as if I had merely stumbled. I rose and went right ahead until I reached my home. At home I found my wife and children, but they would not look at me. Then I spoke to my wife, but she seemed to be quite unaware of my presence. What can be the matter, I thought to myself, that they pay no attention to me and that they do not even answer when I speak to them.


All at once it occurred to me that I might, in reality, be dead. So I immediately started out for the place where I had presumably been killed and surely enough, here I saw my body. Then I knew positively that I had been killed. I tried to return to the place where I had lived as a human being, but for four years I was unsuccessful.

At one time I became transformed into a fish. However, the life of the fish is worse than ours. They are very frequently in lack of food. They are nevertheless very happy beings and have many dances.

At another time I became transformed into a little bird. When the weather is good the life of the bird is very pleasant. But when it is cold they are compelled to undergo many hardships on account of the weather as well as on account of lack of food. When it was very cold, I used to go to the camp of some people who were living in the neighborhood and try to steal some meat from their racks.

A little boy used to stand near these racks, and we were very much afraid of him because he carried something in his hands with which he shot and which made a dreadful noise. Whenever he shot it we would all fly away. What the boy was using was a bow and arrow. At night we slept in a hollow tree. If I entered the tree first and the others came in behind me, I would be almost squeezed to death. If, on the other hand, I waited until the last, I would sometimes have to stay outside, and when the weather was cold, I might have frozen to death.

At another time I became a buffalo. The cold weather and the food did not worry me much then, but as buffaloes, we would always have to be on the alert for hunters.

From my buffalo existence I was permitted to go to my higher spirit-home, from which I originally came. The one in charge of that spirit-home is my grandfather. I asked him for permission to return to this earth again. At first he refused, but then after I had asked him for the fourth time, he consented. He said to me, "Grandson, you had better fast before you go, and if any of the spirits take pity upon you [i.e., bless you], you may go and live in peace upon earth." So I fasted for four years, and all the spirits above, even to the fourth heaven, approved of my coming. They blessed me.

Then I fasted ten days more, and then twenty and then thirty. Finally, all the spirits blessed me, even those under the earth. When I was ready to come to this earth, the spirits gathered together in a council-lodge and “counseled” about me. All the spirits were present.

They told me that I would never fail in anything that I wished to do. Then they decided to make [a] trial of my powers. They placed a spirit-grizzly bear at one end of the lodge and sang the songs that I was to use when I returned to earth. Then I walked around the lodge holding a live coa1 in the palm of my hand and danced around the fireplace saying wahi! and striking the hand containing the coal with my other hand. The invulnerable bear fell forward, prone upon the ground, and a black substance flowed from his mouth.

Then they said to me, "You have killed him. Even so great a spirit as this you have been able to kill. Indeed, nothing will ever be able to cross your path." Then they took the bear I had killed and cut him into small pieces with a knife, piled these in the center of the lodge, and covered them with some dark material. "Now," they said, "you must again try your powers."

I asked them for the articles that I would have to use, and they gave me a flute and gourd. Then I made myself holy. All those who had blessed me were present. I walked around the object that lay piled up in the center of the lodge and breathed upon it. This I did for the second time, and all those within the lodge breathed together with me. Four times I did this, and then the spirit-grizzly bear got up and walked away in the shape of a human being.

“It is good," they said. "He has restored him to life again. Surely he is holy." After a while they said to me again, "Just as you have done here, will you always do below. Whenever you wish to, you will be able to kill a person or restore him to life. Most assuredly you have been blessed."

Then they placed a black stone in the shaman’s lodge that stood above. There again they made a trial of my powers. There I blew four times on the stone, and I blew a hole though it. For that reason, if any person has a pain and he lets me blow upon it, I can blow it away. It makes no difference what kind of a pain it is. My breath was made holy by the spirits.

The spirits on the earth and those under the earth also gave me a trial of my powers. They placed an old, rotten log before me. I breathed upon it four times and spat water upon it, and it got up in the shape of a human being and walked away. My ability to spit water upon the people whom I am treating I received from an eel, from the chief among the eels, one who lives in the center and in the deepest part of the ocean. He is absolutely white, and he is the one who blessed me. Whenever I spit water it is inexhaustible, because it comes from him, the eel.

Then I came to this earth again. They, the spirits, all gave me advice before I left them. When I came upon this earth I entered a lodge, and there I was born again. As I said, I thought that I was entering a lodge, but in reality I was entering my mother’s womb. Even in my prenatal existence, I never lost consciousness.

Then I grew up and fasted again and again, and all those spirits that blessed me before sent their blessing again. I can dictate to all the spirits that exist. Whatever I say will come to pass. The tobacco you (the patients) offer me is not to be used by myself. It is really intended for the spirits. A person is sick and he offers me tobacco. I am on earth to accept it and to try to cure him. (Radin 1923)

Tales such as this, told by shamans in both the New World and Old World, are believed to form the leitmotifs of many myths and supernatural beliefs of archaic people. Some researchers go so far as to say shaman stories form the basis of many legends and fairytales of the modern era.


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