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will.”
    The shadow is slightly more indefinite than the soul. It is located in the brain, but like the soul, the shadow often operates apart from the body. Jenness elaborates:
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    In life, it [the shadow] is the ‘eyes’ of the soul, as it were, awakening the latter to perception and knowledge ... When a man is travelling, his shadow goes before or behind him. Normally it is in front, nearer to his destination. There are times when a man feels that someone is watching him, or is near him, although he can see no one, it is his shadow that is warning him, trying to awaken his soul to perceive the danger.
    The shadow is invisible, but sometimes it allows itself to be seen with the same appearance as the body. This is why you often think you see someone who is actually miles away.
    In 1929, Wasauksing (Parry Island) resident Francis Pegahmagabow shared this story about the shadow: “My two boys met me at the wharf yesterday evening and accompanied me to my house. Sometime before our arrival, my sister-in-law looked out of the window and saw the elder boy pass by. It was really his shadow that she saw, not the boy himself, for we must have been nearly a mile away at the time.”
    Many Ojibwa living on Parry Island in the 1920s still believed that all objects had life, and life was synonymous with power. Just as man’s power comes from his intelligence, his soul, so does the power of the animal, the tree, and the stone.
    Mr. Pegahmagabow explained, “Long ago the manidos or supernatural powers gathered somewhere and summoned a few Indians through dreams, giving them power to fly through the air to the meeting place ... The Indians [their souls] travelled thither, and the manidos taught them about the supernatural world and the powers they had received from the Great Spirit. Then, they sent the Indians home again.”
    The Parry Island Ojibwa found authority for their belief in a world of supernatural beings around them, beings who are part of the natural order of the universe no less than man himself, whom they resemble in the possession of intelligence and emotions. Like man, they too are male or female and in some cases have families of their own. Some are friendly to the Native peoples, others are hostile. According to the museum report of 1929, there are manidos everywhere, or there were until the white man came, for today, the Indians say, most of them have moved away.
    According to Jenness, “Occasionally, the Parry Islanders speak of a Maji Manido. Bad Spirit, referring either to some lesser being malevolent to man, most commonly the great serpent or water spirit. Apparently, the chief enemies to man are the water-serpents, which can travel underground and steal away a man’s soul. If lightning strikes a tree near a native person’s wigwam it is the thunder-manido driving away some water-spirit that is stealing through the ground to attack the man or his family. The leader of all water-serpents is Nzagima.”
    One needed to be very careful to protect the soul, Jenness points out. “Until quite recently, and perhaps even now in certain families, adolescent boys and girls were compelled to fast for a period in order to obtain a vision and blessing from some manido,” he noted. “Parents gave their children special warning against a visitation from the great serpent, which might appear to them in the form of a man and offer its aid and blessing. A boy or girl who dreamed they received a visit from a snake should reject its blessing and inform their father, who would bid their return and seek a second visitation, since the evil serpent never repeats its overtures once they have been rejected. If then, a snake appears in another dream the boy or girl may safely accept its blessing. But if he incautiously accepts a blessing from the evil serpent he will deeply rue it afterwards, for sooner or later he and his family will have to feed it with their souls and