DCHP-2

midewewin midewiwin, mitawiwin [ < Algonk.: Ojibwa; cf. Cree mitēwewin] DCHP-1 (pre-1967)

• n.

  See quotes.

  See also: grand medicine  matayway  midawin  midé  

  • 1860  (1956)  Midewiwin is the Indian term for what the Canadians call "la grande medicine," that is, the great fraternity among the Indians for religious purposes.
  • 1910  [According to Hoffman, the Grand Medicine society, or Midewiwin, of the Chippewa and neighboring tribes, was a secret society of four degrees, or lodges, into which one could be successively inducted by the expenditure of a greater and greater amount of property on the accompanying feasts. As a result of these initiations the spiritual insight and power, especially the power to cure disease, was successively increased, while on the purely material side the novitiate received instructions regarding the medicinal virtues of many plants.]
  • 1932  The Ojibwa usually celebrated their Midewiwin or "medicine lodge" in the summer at the ripening of fruits and berries, and friends and relatives gathered from all the surrounding districts to witness the initiation of candidates into the society of medicine-men.
  • 1935  He and his cousin . . . were the only surviving Indians on the island who had been initiated into the Midewiwin or Grand Medicine Society.
  • 1956  Among the Ojibwa and, to a lesser extent, among their neighbors the Cree, membership in the midewewin, or Grand Medicine Society, was eagerly sought.
  • 1964  Before he adopted Christianity . . . he had been well up in the ranks of those who belonged to the secret society of medicine men, called Mitawiwin.