Selwyn Dewdney - The Sacred Scrolls

The Sacred Scrolls

Dewdney learned of a secret society within the Ojibway, the Midewiwin, which purportedly embodied traditional ceremonial rituals of healing and sorcery and included four degrees of initiation. Despite being first documented by Europeans in the early 18th century, it is believed that some essential elements of the Midewiwin were "elaborations of traditional Anishinaabe beliefs and practices". Elements of this belief system were recorded on scrolls made of birch bark, sewn together with cedar roots. His The Sacred Scrolls of the Southern Ojibway, published in 1975, remains the only volume dedicated exclusively to this subject.