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What was the guardian-spirit quest?
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The Plateau Indians had an institution called a "guardian-spirit quest".
This was compulsory for boys and was recommended for girls.
It was usually performed in connection with the puberty ceremony, when a boy or girl became a man or woman.
In a spirit-quest, the person would spend several days and nights alone in an isolated spot, waiting for a communication with a spirit. This spirit would become a protector of the person, as well as giving the person a direction. Some spirits made their clients into hunters, others into warriors or medicine men.
Both boys and girls, but preferably the former, could become medicine men. Medicine
men were much feared and sometimes very wealthy. They cured diseases by extracting
the bad spirit that had entered the patient's body.
On the Northern Plateau they brought back souls that had been stolen by the dead, describing their feats in a
dramatic pantomime.
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