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
IV. _Idea of sacrifice._--The idea of sacrifice as atoning for sin has
not yet been found by the author among these Siouan tribes. In no
instance of sacrifice recorded in this paper has the author detected
any notion of expiation for sin against a just and holy Being. But
sacrifice, whether in the form of fasting, self-torture, or the
offering of property, was made in order to win the favor of a god, to
obtain a temporal advantage (§§ 28, 29, 101, 144, etc.), or to avert
the anger of demons, as when the people were suffering from famine or
an epidemic (§ 144).
V. _Shamanism._--While there have been shamans and various orders of
shamans among these tribes, no trace of a worship of shamans as gods
has yet been found. On one occasion the author met a Ponka shaman,
Cramped Hand, who exclaimed, “I am a wakanda.” But no other Ponka ever
said that he or she worshiped Cramped Hand as a wakanda.
VI. The other beliefs named by Dr. Peet have been found, in some
tribes, side by side. Animism, or a form of animism, was held by those
who worshiped the sun, animals, etc. “Everything had a soul” (§§ 97,
136, 137, 265-288, 344, etc.). Certain animals were worshiped (§§ 24,
43, 78, 92, 326, etc.). The sun was invoked, not only in the sun dance
(§§ 139-212), but on other occasions (§§ 28, 43, 73, 312, 323). Stars,
too, were regarded as gods (§§ 31, 43). Elemental worship had a wider
significance among these tribes than Dr. Peet assigns it (§§ 27, 33-35,
43, 44, 74-77, 363, etc.). And there are traces of anthropomorphism,
for some of the gods are in human form (§§ 217, 235); others are
supposed to inhale the odor of tobacco smoke, which is pleasant to
them; they eat, breathe, use weapons against one another as well as
against human beings, and on one occasion an Indian was called on to
aid one or the other of two contending gods; they hear, think, marry,
die, and are succeeded by their children (§§ 25, 29, 35, 36, 72, 75,
94, 109, 112, 117, 119, 136, 217, 322, etc.).[282]
§ 362. The cults affected the social organization of the tribes that
had gentes bearing mystic names (see §§ 57 and 82 of this paper, and
Om. Soc., in 3d An. Rept. Bur. Eth., Chap. iii, and pp. 356, 359-361);
orders of shamans and other secret societies were intimately associated
with them (§§ 43-45, 86, 87, and 89; and Om. Soc., pp. 342-355);
personal names still refer to them (§§ 31, 47, 53, 59, 74, 75, and 77;
and Om. Soc., pp. 228, 232, 236, 238-244, 246-248, 250, and 251); and
almost every act of the daily life of the people was influenced by them
(§§ 23, 24, 27, 28-30, 32, 33-36, 39-41, 54, 101, etc.; and Om. Soc.,
Chap. vi, and pp. 267, 274, 286, 287, 289-291, 293-299, 316, 319-325,
327, 328, 357, 368-370).
CULTS OF THE ELEMENTS.
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