medicine lodge

American  

noun

1. a structure used for various ceremonials of North American Indians.

2. (initial capital letters) the most important religious society among the central Algonquian tribes of North America.

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medicine lodge British  

noun

1. a wooden structure used for magical and religious ceremonies among certain North American Indian peoples

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Etymology

Origin of medicine lodge

First recorded in 1800–10

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

medicine lodge

As night approached an old woman entered the medicine lodge and said: “I will send my grandson as an akáninili.”

From The Mountain Chant, A Navajo Ceremony Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1883-84, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1887, pages 379-468 by Matthews, Washington

The medicine lodge of the Indians stood just within the sliding-panel of the stockade.

From The Plow-Woman by Gates, Eleanor

In the medicine lodge they sing until a little before day-break.

From The Sun Dance of the Blackfoot Indians by Wissler, Clark

In groups of four, sixteen medicine lodge songs are sung.

From The Sun Dance of the Blackfoot Indians by Wissler, Clark

At the close of the dance it was stuck, forks up, in the ground in the center of the medicine lodge, and left until the next year.

From Boys' Book of Indian Warriors and Heroic Indian Women by Sabin, Edwin L. (Edwin Legrand)