Chapter LXXIII: Section 1: Cult Societies

Voluntary associations, to be distinguished from those of an exclusively religious character, have flourished among most Indian tribes and are still found among those least affected by contact with civilization. Maj. Powell, the Director of the Bureau of Ethnology, has named them cult societies. Their members are designated by special paintings and marks entirely distinct from those relating to their clans or gentes and their personal names. Travelers have frequently been confused by the diversity of such designations.

The translated names of some of these societies found among the Sioux are “Brave Night Hearts,” “Owl Feathers,” and “Wolves and Foxes.” They control tribes in internal affairs and strongly influence their policy in external relations, and may be regarded as the substitute both for regular soldiery and for police. It is necessary that a young man proposing to be a warrior should be initiated into some one of these societies. But in distinguishing them from the purely shamanistic orders it must not be understood that their ceremonies and ties are independent of the cult of religion, or that they disregard it, for this among Indians would be impossible.

The following account of these societies among the Blackfeet or Satsika and their pictorial or objective devices is condensed from Maximilian of Wied’s Travels (_e_):

The bands, unions, or associations are found among the Blackfeet
as well as all the other American tribes. They have a certain name,
fixed rules and laws, as well as their peculiar songs and dances,
and serve in part to preserve order in the camp, on the march, in
the hunting parties, etc. Seven such bands or unions among the
Blackfeet were mentioned to me. They are the following: (1) The
band of the mosquitos. This union has no police business to do, but
consists of young people, many of whom are only 8 or 10 years of
age. There are also some young men among them and sometimes even a
couple of old men, in order to see to the observance of the laws and
regulations. This union performs wild, youthful pranks; they run
about the camp whenever they please; pinch, nip, and scratch men,
women, and children in order to give annoyance like the mosquitos.
The young people begin with this union and then gradually rise
higher through the others. As the badge of their band they wear an
eagle’s claw fastened around the wrist with a leather strap. They
have also a particular mode of painting themselves, like every other
band, and their peculiar songs and dance. (2) The dogs. Its badge is
not known to me; it consists of young married men, and the number
is not limited. (3) The prairie dogs. This is a police union, which
receives married men; its badge is a long hooked stick wound round
with otter skin, with knots of white skin at intervals, and a couple
of eagle’s feathers hanging from each of them. (4) Those who carry
the raven. Its badge is a long staff covered with red cloth, to
which black ravens’ feathers in a long thick row are fastened from
one end to the other. They contribute to the preservation of order
and the police. (5) The buffalo, with thin horns. When they dance
they wear horns on their caps. If disorders take place they must
help the soldiers, who mark out the camp and then take the first
place. (6) The soldiers. They are the most distinguished warriors,
who exercise the police, especially in the camp and on the march;
in public deliberations they have the casting vote whether, for
instance, they shall hunt, change their abode, make war or conclude
peace, etc. They carry as their badge a wooden club the breadth of a
hand, with hoofs of the buffalo cow hanging to the handle. They are
sometimes 40 or 50 men in number. (7) The buffalo bulls. They form
the first, that is, the most distinguished, of all the unions, and
are the highest in rank. They carry in their hand a medicine badge,
hung with buffalo hoofs, which they rattle when they dance to their
peculiar song. They are too old to attend to the police, having
passed through all the unions, and are considered as having retired
from office. In their medicine dance they wear on their head a cap
made of the long forelock and mane of the buffalo bull, which hangs
down to a considerable length.

Fig. 737.--“The policeman” was killed by the enemy. Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1780-’81.

The man here figured was probably one of the active members of the associations whose functions are above described to keep order and carry out the commands of the chiefs.

These voluntary associations are not of necessity ancient or permanent. An instance is given in Fig. 738 which is instructive in the interpretation of pictographs. It is a copy of drawings on a pipe stem which had been made and used by Ottawa Indians. On each side are four spaces, upon each of which are various incised characters, three spaces on one side being reserved for the delineation of human figures, each having diverging lines from the head upward, denoting their social status as chiefs or warriors and medicine men.

Upon the space nearest the mouth is the drawing of a fire, the flames passing upward from the horizontal surface beneath them. The cross bands are raised portions of the wood (ash) of which the pipestem is made; these show peculiarly shaped openings which pass entirely through the stem, though not interfering with the tube necessary for the passage of the smoke. This indicates considerable mechanical skill.

Upon each side of the stem are spaces corresponding in length and position to those upon the opposite side. In the lower space of the stem is a drawing of a bear, indicating that the two persons in the corresponding space on the opposite side belong to the bear gens. The next upper figure is that of a beaver, showing the three human figures to belong to the beaver gens, while the next to this, the eagle, means that the opposite persons are members of the eagle gens. The upper figure is that of a lodge which contains a council fire, shown on the opposite side.

The signification of the whole is that two members of the bear gens, three members of the beaver gens, and three members of the eagle gens have united and constitute a society living in one lodge, around one fire, and smoke through the same pipe.

Reference may also be made to remarks by Prof. Dall (_d_) upon the use of masks by associations or special classes.