A Study of Siouan Cults: Eleventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1889-1890, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1861, pages 351-544Dorsey, James Owen
Religion
A Study of Siouan Cults: Eleventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1889-1890, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1861, pages 351-544
Dorsey, James Owen
Siouan Indians -- Religion
§ 232. These powers have been scarcely differentiated; and some writers
speak of them as identical. They seem to have been of the nature of
bogies or boggarts. Says Lynd:[174]
Ćaŋotidaŋ draws the hungry hunters to the depths of
the wood by imitating the voices of animals, or by the nefarious
“_Cico! cico!_” (_i. e._, I invite you to a feast! I invite you
to a feast!) when he scares them out of their senses by showing
himself to them.
On the same page he distinguishes between the Ćaŋotidaŋ and
the Oḣnoġića thus:
“The stray lodge becomes the delight of the wild Ohnogica,”
implying that such lodges were haunted by this spirit for the
purpose of frightening any unwary traveler who ventured there
without a companion.
In Tah-koo Wah-kon (p. 75, note), Riggs speaks of the “Chan-o-te-dan or
Hoh-no-ge-cha. The former is a fabulous creature, dwelling usually in
the woods as the name indicates. The latter name would seem to give it
a place by the door of the tent.” With this we may compare the Omaha
invocation, “O thou who standest at the right side of the entrance!
Here is tobacco!” (§ 40). The name also reminds us of “The Dweller upon
the Threshold” in Bulwer’s “Zanoni.”
Riggs, in his “Theogony of the Sioux,” p. 270, writes thus of the
“Chan-o-te-na”:
This means, Dweller in the woods. Sometimes he is called
Oh-no-ge-cha, which would seem to assign him to a place in the
tent. Whether these are one and the same, or two, is a question in
dispute. But they are harmless household gods. The Chan-o-te-na is
represented as a little child, only it has a tail. Many Indian men
affirm that they have seen it, not only in night dreams, but in
day visions.
The name Hoḣnoġića or Oḣnoġića is called by the Teton, Uŋgnaġićala,
which is the name of the screech-owl. As the Ponka Indaȼiñga dwells in
the forest, and is said to resemble an owl, he must be identical with
the Dakota Ćaŋotidaŋ or Uŋgnaġićala. (See § 38.)
ANŬŊG-ITE.
§ 233. Wonderful stories of beings with two faces are found among the
Dakota as well as among the Omaha. Lynd[175] states the belief of the
Dakota (_i. e._, those speaking the Santee dialect) that “women with
child are but torturing sports for the vengeful Anog-ite.”
In the Omaha legend of Two Faces and the Twins[176] the pregnant mother
of the Twins died as soon as she had gazed at Two Faces. In the Teton
legend of He-who-Has-a-Sword and Ha-ke-la, the latter is said to have
met a giant, Anuŋg-ite, or Two Faces, who pretended to be an Indian
woman nursing an infant. The infant had been stolen from its parents
by the Anuŋg-ite, who drew a rose brush across its face to make it
cry. As soon as this was done the Two Faces said, in a woman’s voice,
“A-wo! A-wo! A-wo!” that being the expression used by Teton women when
they wish to soothe crying infants.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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