Chapter V: Dakota and Assiniboin Cults (5)

§ 301. Some Dakota belong to the Hećiŋśkayapi ihaŋblapi kiŋ, or the Society of those who have Revelations from Goats. Goats are very mysterious, as they walk on cliffs and other high places; and those who dream of goats or have revelations from them imitate their actions. Such men can find their way up and down cliffs, the rocks get soft under their feet, enabling them to maintain a foothold, but they close up behind them, leaving no trail. Members of the Wakaŋ waćipi, or the Order of the Mystery Dance, commonly called the medicine dance, are also reckoned among the mysterious or “wakaŋ” people (see § 113). One of Bushotter’s texts relates to this order. Another of his articles tells of the Miwatani okolakićiye kiŋ or The Mandan Society, which used to be called Ćaŋte ṭiŋza okolakićiye, or Society of the Stout Hearted Ones. It is now known as Kaŋġi yuha, Keeps the Raven. For a notice of this order, see §§ 194, 195.

§ 302. The report of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology for 1884 contains an article on the Elk Mystery or Festival of the Oglala, a division of the Teton Dakota (pp. 276-288). Those who have visions of the elk are the Heḣaka ihaŋblapi kiŋ. Bushotter has recorded articles on different societies as follows: Big Belly Society, Iḣoka and Tokala (animal) Societies, Dog Society, Kaṭela or Taniġa iću Society, Grizzly Bear Dance, and Night Dance; but we have no means of learning whether any or all of them are composed of persons who had visions of animals.

FETICHISM.

PUBLIC OR TRIBAL FETICHES.

§ 303. Among these may be included the Bear Butte, referred to in § 137; and any white buffalo hide, such as has been described in “The White Buffalo Festival of the Uncpapas.”[210]

Smet gives a description of a gathering of all the Assiniboin, and a religious festival lasting several days:

Offerings are placed on perches that are fastened to the tops
of posts supporting certain buffalo skin lodges. A tall pole is
erected in the middle of the circle (it is between 30 and 40 feet
high), and to it they fasten the medicine bags, containing the
idols, their arrows, quivers, trophies won from their enemies,
especially scalps. Men, women, and children join in raising and
planting the pole, amid the acclamations of the tribe.[211]

PRIVATE OR PERSONAL FETICHES.

§ 304. Smet also tells us that “A Sioux chief has his war wakaŋ, the colored picture of the Russian general, Diebitsch.”[212] In speaking of the Assinniboin, the same author states:

Each savage who considers himself a chief or warrior possesses
what he calls his wah-kon, in which he appears to place all his
confidence. This consists of a stuffed bird, a weasel’s skin,
or some little bone or the tooth of an animal; sometimes it is
a little stone or a fantastical figure, represented by little
beads or by a coarsely painted picture. These charms or talismans
accompany them on all their expeditions for war or hunting--they
never lay them aside. In every difficulty or peril they invoke
the protection and assistance of their wah-kon, as though these
idols could really preserve them from all misfortunes. If any
accident befalls an idol or charm, if it is broken or lost, it is
enough to arrest the most intrepid chief or warrior in his
expedition, and make him abandon the most important enterprise in
which he may be engaged.[213]

We may also reckon among the personal fetiches the wohduze of each warrior (see the Armor god, §§ 122-5), and perhaps the use of the initipi or sweat lodge, and the wild sage or Artemisia, by each of which personal purification is supposed to be effected.

ORDEALS OR MODES OF SWEARING.

§ 305. While there are no oaths or curses as we have them, the Teton can invoke higher powers. Thus one may say: “The Thunderers hear me” (Waʞiŋ´yaŋ namáḣuŋwe ló, The Flying one really hears me!), and if he is lying the Thunderers or one of their number will be sure to kill him. Sometimes the man will put a knife in his mouth, and then if he lies he will be stuck by a knife thereafter, and death must follow. Or, he will say, “The horse heard me” (Śuŋ´kawakaŋ´ namáḣuŋ we ló), knowing that the penalty for falsehood will be certain death from a horse that will throw him and break his neck. When one says, “The Earth hears me” (Maká kiŋ lé namáḣuŋ we ló), and he lies, he is sure to die miserably in a short time, and his family will also be afflicted.

Smet says:[214]

The objects by which an Assinniboine swears are his gun, the skin
of a rattlesnake, a bear’s claw, and the wah-kon that the Indian
interrogates. These various articles are placed before him, and
he says, “In case my declaration prove false, may my gun fire
and kill me, may the serpent bite me, may the bears tear and
devour my flesh, and may my wah-kon overwhelm me with misery.”
In extraordinary and very important affairs, which demand formal
promises, they call upon the Thunder to witness their resolution
of accomplishing the articles proposed and accepted.

SORCERY AND JUGGLERY.

§ 306. As among the Omaha and other Siouan tribes, so among the Dakota do we find traces of the practice of sorcery, and there is a special word in the Dakota dictionary: “ḣmuŋġa, to cause sickness or death, as the Dakotas pretend to be able to do, in a supernatural way--to bewitch--kill by enchantment.” The syllable “ḣmuŋ” seems to convey the idea of humming, buzzing, or muttering.

Jugglery or sleight-of-hand performances are resorted to by the mysterious men and women. (See §§ 64-66, 291-4.) Some of these practitioners claim to possess the art of making love-charms, such potions being sold to women who desire to attract particular men of their acquaintance. When a woman obtains such a medicine, she uses it in one of two ways. Sometimes she touches the man on his blanket with the medicine, at others she persuades the man to give her a piece of chewing gum, which she touches with the medicine. Then she seizes him, and he can not escape from her, even should he wish to leave her. So he is obliged to marry her.

OMENS.

BODILY OMENS.

§ 307. Ringing in one ear signifies one of two things. Some one will come without his family, and he must be entertained, or you will hear news. The direction whence the person or news will come is shown by the ear that is affected.

If the eye twitches involuntarily some one will weep. If any other part of the body twitches involuntarily some one will hit the person there or he will be stabbed or shot there. If the palm of the hand twitches often he will soon strike some one, or else he will become angry. When a woman has a son sick somewhere, or if he has been killed on the way home, her breasts are often very painful.

If one sneezes once his special friend or fellow, his son or his wife has named him; so the sneezer calls out, “My son.” If he sneezes twice he exclaims, “My son and his mother!”

ANIMAL OMENS.

§ 308. When whip-poor wills sing together at night, saying, “Hohiŋ, hohiŋ,” one says in reply, “No.” Should the birds stop at once it is a sign that the answering person must die soon. But if the birds continue singing the man will live a long time.[215]

The uŋgnaġíćala (gray screech owl) fortells cold weather. When the night is to be very cold this owl cries out, so the Teton say, just as if a person’s teeth chattered. When its cry is heard, all the people wrap themselves in their thickest robes and put plenty of wood on the fires.

The Ski-bi-bi-la is a small gray bird, with a black head, and spotted here and there on the breast. It dwells in the forest, and is said to answer the person who calls to it. When this bird says, “Glí huŋ wó,” i.e., “Has it returned?” the people rejoice, knowing that the spring is near. When a boy hears this bird ask the question, he runs to his mother and learns from her that he must reply, “No; it has not yet returned.” The reason for giving this reply has not been obtained.

When the people first hear the cry of the night hawk in the spring, they begin to talk of going to hunt the buffalo, because when the night hawks return the buffalo have become fat again, and the birds bring the news, for they never cry in vain.

OMENS FROM DREAMS.

§ 309. There are some animals which are esteemed as bringing
better fortunes than others. Hawks are lucky. Bears are not so
good, as the bear is slow and clumsy, and apt to be wounded; and
although savage when cornered, is not as likely as some animals to
escape harm. Among some tribes in this family of Indians to dream
of the moon is regarded as a grave calamity.[216] See § 30.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 84: Say, in James’s Account of Long’s Exped. Rocky Mts., Vol. I, 268.]

[Footnote 85: Shea, Amer. Cath. missions, p. 25.]

[Footnote 86: Lynd, Minn. Hist. Soc. Coll., Vol. II, pt. 2, p. 63. Compare these seeming contradictions with those observed among the Omaha and Ponka, especially §§ 21-24.]

[Footnote 87: Ibid, pp. 64-65.]

[Footnote 88: Minn. Hist. Soc. Coll., Vol. II, pt. 3, p. 34.]

[Footnote 89: Riggs, Tah-koo Wah-kon, pp. 56, 57.]

[Footnote 90: Riggs in Am. Antiq., Vol. II, No. 4, p. 265; and in Am. Philolog. Assoc. Proc., 1872, pp. 5, 6.]

[Footnote 91: Riggs, in Am. Antiq., vol. II, No. 4, p. 266. Pond, Minn. Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. II, pt. 3, p. 33. Smet, op. cit., 120, note.]

[Footnote 92: Minn. Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. II, pt. 2.]

[Footnote 93: Lynd, Ibid., p. 67.]

[Footnote 94: Am. Antiq., vol. V, 149.]

[Footnote 95: Minn. Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. I, pt. 2, pp. 67, 68.]

[Footnote 96: Ibid., pt. 3, p. 33.]

[Footnote 97: Riggs, Tah-koo Wah-kon, p. 61, et passim.]

[Footnote 98: Rept. Peabody Museum, vol. III, p. 276, note.]

[Footnote 99: Lynd, Minn. Hist. Soc. Coll., Vol. II, pt. 2, p. 72.]

[Footnote 100: Lynd, Minn. Hist. Soc. Coll., Vol. II, pt. 2, pp. 72, 76, 77.]

[Footnote 101: Smet, Western Missions and Missionaries, p. 92.]

[Footnote 102: Ibid., p. 134.]

[Footnote 103: Lynd, Minn. Hist. Soc. Coll., Vol. II, pt. 2, p. 67.]

[Footnote 104: Lynd, Minn. Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. II, pt. 2, p. 80.]

[Footnote 105: Riggs, in Am. Antiq., vol. II, p. 266.]

[Footnote 106: Riggs, Tah-koo Wah-kon, p. 62. See Maza or Iron names of Indians in the author’s forthcoming monograph on Indian Personal Names.]

[Footnote 107: Riggs, in Am. Antiq., vol. II, p. 267.]

[Footnote 108: Contr. N. A. Ethn. vol. VI, pp. 357-358.]

[Footnote 109: Missions and Missionaries, p. 136.]

[Footnote 110: Am. Antiq., vol. V, p. 149.]

[Footnote 111: Rept. Peabody Museum, vol. III, p. 297.]

[Footnote 112: Pond, Minn. Hist. Soc. Coll, vol. II, pp. 35-38.]

[Footnote 113: Lynd, Ibid., pt. 2, pp. 71-77. Riggs, in Amer. Philolog. Assoc. Proc, 1872., p. 6.]

[Footnote 114: A picture of “Wah-Menitu, the spirit or god in the water,” is given on p. 161 of Lloyd’s translation of Maximilian, London, 1843.]

[Footnote 115: According to Omaha tradition, two buffalo gentes are of subaquatic origin. See Om. Soc., pp. 231-233.]

[Footnote 116: From an unpublished text of Bushotter.]

[Footnote 117: The Thunderers in the Omaha myth have hair of different colors. One has white hair, the second has yellow, the third, bright red, and the fourth, green hair. See Contr. N. A. Eth., vol. VI, p. 187.]

[Footnote 118: Pond, Minn. Hist. Soc. Coll., Vol. II, pt. 2, 41-42.]

[Footnote 119: Pond, Minn. Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. II, pt. 3, p. 43. Riggs, Tah-koo Wah-kon, pp. 62-64.]

[Footnote 120: Missions and Missionaries, p. 143.]

[Footnote 121: Smet. op. cit., p. 134.]

[Footnote 122: Maximilian, Travels in North America, p. 197.]

[Footnote 123: Riggs, Tah-koo Wah-kon, pp. 69, 70.]

[Footnote 124: Rev. E. Ashley, MS. letter to Dorsey, March 24, 1884.]

[Footnote 125: Riggs, in Am. Antiq., vol. II, No. 4, p. 270.]

[Footnote 126: Pond, Minn. Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. II, pt 3, p. 53.]

[Footnote 127: Ibid., pt. 2, p. 73.]

[Footnote 128: Riggs, Tah-koo Wah-kon, pp. 70, 71.]

[Footnote 129: Am. Antiq., Vol. II, No. 4, p. 270.]

[Footnote 130: Riggs in Am. Antiq., Vol. II, p. 268.]

[Footnote 131: Mourning and War Customs of the Kansas, in Am. Naturalist, July, 1885, pp. 676, 677.]

[Footnote 132: That is, the Takuśkaŋśkaŋ.]

[Footnote 133: Geikie, in his Hours with the Bible (New York: James Pott. 1881), Vol. I, p. 55, has the following quotation from Das Buch Henoch, edited by Dillmann, Kap. 17, 18: “And I saw the cornerstone of the earth and the four winds which bear up the earth, and the firmament of heaven.”]

[Footnote 134: Note that both the Takuśkaŋśkaŋ, the “Something that Moves,” and the Wakiŋyaŋ or the Thunder-beings, are associated with war.--J. O. D.]

[Footnote 135: Rept. Peabody Museum, Vol. III, p. 289, and note 1. The use of the number twelve in connection with the ceremony of the Four Winds finds a counterpart in the Osage initiation of a female into the secret society of the tribe; the Osage female is rubbed from head to foot, thrice in front, thrice on each side, and thrice behind, with cedar needles.--J. O. D.]

[Footnote 136: Minn. Hist. Soc. Coll., Vol. II, pt. 3, p. 44.]

[Footnote 137: Op. cit., p. 136.]

[Footnote 138: Minn. Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. II, pt. 3, p. 71.]

[Footnote 139: Ibid., p. 79.]

[Footnote 140: Ibid., p. 81.]

[Footnote 141: Ibid., p. 84.]

[Footnote 142: Am. Antiq., vol. II, p. 268.]

[Footnote 143: Minn. Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. II, pt. 1, pp. 55.]

[Footnote 144: Hovey on “Eyah Shah” in Am. Assoc. Adv. Sci., Proc., vol. XXXIV, Buffalo Meeting, 1886. Salem, 1887, p. 332. Also in Am. Antiq., Jan., 1887, pp. 35, 36.]

[Footnote 145: Mr. Hovey appears ignorant of the fact that the Kapoźa (“Kaposias”) are a division of the Mdewakantonwan. The latter had six other divisions or gentes.]

[Footnote 146: Riggs, Tah-koo Wah-kon, p. 69.]

[Footnote 147: Western Missions and Missionaries, p. 138.]

[Footnote 148: Minn. Hist. Soc. Coll., Vol. II, pt. 3.]

[Footnote 149: Proc. Am. Assoc. Adv. Sci., Montreal meeting, Vol. XXXI, p. 580.]

[Footnote 150: Minn. Hist. Soc. Coll., Vol. II, pt. 2.]

[Footnote 151: Miss Fletcher, in Rept. Peabody Museum, vol. III, p. 284, note.]

[Footnote 152: Compare Miss Fletcher, in Proc. Am. Assoc. Adv. Sci., 1882, p. 581.]

[Footnote 153: Miss Fletcher says, in Proc. Am. Assoc. Adv. Sci., 1882, p. 580, “The people camp in a circle, with a large opening at the east. In 1882 over 9,000 Indians were so camped, the diameter of the circle being over three-quarters of a mile wide.”]

[Footnote 154: Miss Fletcher’s account (Proc. Am. Assoc. Adv. Sci., p. 582) names the fourth day as that on which they sought for the sun pole.]

[Footnote 155: Miss Fletcher (Proc. Am. Assoc. Adv. Sci., 1882, p. 580) states that “the tent set apart for the consecrating ceremonies, which take place after sunset of the first day, was pitched within the line of tents, on the site formerly assigned to one of the sacred tents.”]

[Footnote 156: The author heard about this medicine in 1873, from a Ponka chief, one of the leaders of a dancing society. It is a bulbous root, which grows near the place where the sun pole is planted.]

[Footnote 157: With this compare the Omaha act, uiȼaⁿ, in the Iñke-sabĕ dance after the sham fight, Om. Soc., in 3d. Ann. Rept. Bur. Ethn., p. 299.]

[Footnote 158: See Miss Fletcher, Proc. Am. Assoc. Adv. Sci., 1882, p. 582.]

[Footnote 159: See § 28, the Kansa ceremony of the waqpele gaxe, and Om. Soc., in 3d An. Rept. Bur. Ethn., pp. 234, 297.]

[Footnote 160: Contr. N. A. Ethn., vol. VI, 470, 12-15; and Om. Soc., p. 296.]

[Footnote 161: Miss Fletcher states that the sun pole is carried to the camp on a litter of sticks, and must not be handled or stepped over. Op. cit., p. 582.]

[Footnote 162: See Miss Fletcher’s account, Proc. Am. Assoc. Adv. Sci., 1882, p. 584.]

[Footnote 163: Miss Fletcher, _op. cit._, p. 583.]

[Footnote 164: The famous pipestone quarry was near the Big Sioux river in Minnesota.]

[Footnote 165: Concerning Dakota Beliefs, in Proc. Amer. Philol. Assoc., 3d An. Session, 1872, p. 5.]

[Footnote 166: Theogony of the Sioux, p. 269.]

[Footnote 167: Minn. Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. II, pt. 2, p. 44.]

[Footnote 168: Compare the Maⁿnaⁿhiⁿdje sub-gens of the Kansa tribe, and part of the wind gens, as the [K]aⁿze gens of the Omaha, Kansa and Osage may be associated with the Takuṡkaŋśkaŋ of the Dakota.]

[Footnote 169: Minn. Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. II, pt. 2, pp. 70, 71.]

[Footnote 170: Minn. Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. II, pt. 2, p. 67.]

[Footnote 171: Theogony of the Sioux, p. 270.]

[Footnote 172: With this compare the belief of some African tribes that the monkey has the gift of speech, but fears to use it lest he should be made a slave.]

[Footnote 173: Minn. Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. II, pt. 2, p. 66.]

[Footnote 174: Minn. Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. II, pt. 2, p. 66.]

[Footnote 175: Ibid., p. 66.]

[Footnote 176: Cont. N.A. Ethnol., vol. VI, pp. 207-219.]

[Footnote 177: Translated from the original MS. in the Bushotter collection. Tuki is the Teton name for a univalve shellfish said to come from the Great Lakes.]

[Footnote 178: Tah-koo Wah-kon, p. 71.]

[Footnote 179: Osage Traditions, in 6th An. Rept. Bur. Ethn., pp. 379, 380. Am. Naturalist, February, 1884, pp. 113, 114, 133. Ibid, July, 1885, p. 671, Om. Soc., in 3d An. Rept. Bur. Ethn., pp. 228, 233, 244, 247.]

[Footnote 180: Rept. Peabody Museum, vol. III, p. 264. Note how in the sun dance the sun, the four winds, and the buffalo are referred to (§§ 147, 164, 167, 173, and 181, and Pl. XLVIII), and ceremonies are performed connected with the earth, such as mellowing the earth (§§ 146, 155, and 176) and the “Uuȼita,” in which they shoot into the ground (§ 170).]

[Footnote 181: Op. cit., p. 297.]

[Footnote 182: Op. cit., p. 282, note.]

[Footnote 183: Smet, Western Missions and Missionaries, p. 139.]

[Footnote 184: Smet, Western Missions and Missionaries, p. 140.]

[Footnote 185: See Ghost Lore, § 280.]

[Footnote 186: Miss Fletcher, Elk Mystery of the Ogalalla Sioux, in Rept. Peabody Museum, vol. III, p. 281, note.]

[Footnote 187: Contr. to N. A. Ethn., vol. IX, Dakota Grammar, Texts, and Ethnography. Washington: Government Printing Office. 1893. pp. 131, 141, 144, 148.]

[Footnote 188: Lewis and Clarke, Expedition, ed. Allen, Dublin, 1817, vol. I, pp. 65, 66.]

[Footnote 189: See “Calumet Dance,” in Om. Sociology, 3d Am. Rept. Bur. Ethn., p .280.]

[Footnote 190: Proc. Am. Assoc. Adv. Sci., Montreal meeting, 1882, p. 583.]

[Footnote 191: Skiff Voy. to Falls of St. Anthony, in Minn. Hist. Coll., II, pt. 1, pp. 18-19.]

[Footnote 192: Rept. Peabody Museum, vol. III, pp. 277, 278.]

[Footnote 193: Minn. Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. II, pt. 2, pp. 68, 80.]

[Footnote 194: A similar belief has been held by the Athapascans now on the Siletz reservation, Oregon. This has been published by the author in The American Anthropologist for January, 1889, p. 60.]

[Footnote 195: Smet, Western Missions and Missionaries, p. 142.]

[Footnote 196: Maximilian, Travels in North America, p. 197.]

[Footnote 197: Read in this connection the article by Miss Fletcher on “The Shadow; or, Ghost Lodge: a Ceremony of the Ogallala Sioux,” Rept. of Peabody Museum, vol. II, pp. 296, 307.]

[Footnote 198: These things are probably given by the kindred of the deceased, but Bushotter has not so informed us.]

[Footnote 199: In one of his papers Bushotter says that it is the mother of the deceased person who deposits the food under the scaffold and utters the prayers. John Bruyier, a half-blood Teton from Cheyenne River Agency, South Dakota, never heard the petition about the horses, for if parents obtained horses after the death of their son, they gave them away.]

[Footnote 200: Minn. Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. II, pt. 2, p. 69.]

[Footnote 201: Western Missions and Missionaries, p. 140.]

[Footnote 202: Western Missions and Missionaries, p. 204.]

[Footnote 203: Am. Antiq., vol. V, 1883, p. 149.]

[Footnote 204: Western Missions and Missionaries, p. 243.]

[Footnote 205: Om. Sociology, Third Ann. Rept. Bur. Eth., p. 325.]

[Footnote 206: Minn. Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. II, pt. 2, p. 70.]

[Footnote 207: Pond, in Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, vol. VI, pp. 652. 1857.]

[Footnote 208: See Contr. to N. A. Ethn. vol. IX, pp. 146, 149.]

[Footnote 209: Miss Fletcher: Elk Mystery of the Ogallala Sioux; in Ann. Rept. Peabody Museum, 1884, pp. 276, 277.]

[Footnote 210: Miss Fletcher in Rept. Peabody Museum, Vol. II, pp. 260-275.]

[Footnote 211: Western Missions and Missionaries, p. 136.]

[Footnote 212: Ibid., p. 46.]

[Footnote 213: Western Missions and Missionaries, p. 141.]

[Footnote 214: Ibid., p. 143.]

[Footnote 215: This is also an Omaha belief.]

[Footnote 216: Miss Fletcher, “Elk Mystery of the Ogalalla Sioux,” in Rept. Peabody Museum, Vol. III, p. 281 note.]