Recommending the poor Indian to your prayers, I beg you to believe me with profound respect.'
s The word " medicine " is frequently found in letters written on the religious ideas, practices, and customs of the North American Indians. It is necessary to know the signification that the Indians themselves attach to this word.
The term Wah-kon is employed by the Indians to express anything that they cannot understand, whether supernatural, natural, or mechanical. A watch, an organ, a steamboat, or anything in fine, the operations of which exceed their capacity to understand, is called Wah-kon. God is called Wah-kon-tonga, or the Great Incomprehensible. The word Tonga in Sioux means great or large.
Wah-kon means, properly incomprehensible, inexpressible. It is badly translated by the whites, who always render it medicine; thus, for example, the word Wah-kon-tonga, or God, has been translated Great Medicine!
The word medicine has since been so universally applied to the different religious and superstitious ceremonies of the Indians, that all travelers use it when writing of the natives.
The word medicine, when applied to Indian ceremonies whether religious or superstitious, has, however, no relation to t~ reatment of the body, but it has been so commonly adopted that I at forced to use it when speaking of the Indians. Thence are derived the compounds, " medicine-feast," " medicine-dance," " medicine-man," etc., and also " medicine-bag," or sack, containing idols, charms, and other superstitious articles.
My intention in giving this little note is to distinguish between medicine used in the sense of medicament, and the same word applied to charms, religious invocations, and ceremonies. Author's note.