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
But the author now thinks that such a statement needs modification;
for, besides what appears at the beginning of this section, we know
that among the Osage and Kansa the nikie names are associated with the
traditions preserved in the secret society of seven degrees, and that
this applies not only to names of gentes and sub-gentes, but also to
personal nikie names. The author frightened an Osage in January, 1883,
by mentioning in public some of this class of names.
OMAHA NIKIE CUSTOMS.
§ 54. Among the nikie of the Omaha, the following may be mentioned:
The Wajiñga-ȼatajĭ, or “Blackbird people,” had a curious custom during
the harvest season. At that time the birds used to devour the corn, so
the men of this sub-gens undertook to prevent them, by chewing some
grains of corn which they spit around over the field.[60] During a
fog, the [K]e-‘iⁿ men would draw the figure of a turtle on the ground,
with its head to the south. On the head, tail, middle of the back, and
each leg, were placed small pieces of a (red) breechcloth with some
tobacco. They imagined that this would make the fog disappear very
soon.[61] The [K]aⁿze gens, being Wind people, flap their blankets to
start a breeze when mosquitoes abound.[62] The ┴a-[p]a gens have a
form for the naming of a child on the fifth morning after its birth,
according to Lion, one of the chiefs of that gens.[63] In the feast on
the hearts and tongues,[64] the Hañga men who belong to the sub-gens
keeping the sacred pole, eat the buffalo tongues, though the buffalo
is their “grandfather” and the eponym of their gens; but they can not
eat the “ʇa” or buffalo sides. However, the other Hañga men, who can
not eat the tongues, are allowed to eat the consecrated buffalo sides,
after the ceremonies connected with the thanksgiving and anointing of
the sacred pole.[65] No Omaha child had its hair cut until it had been
taken to an old man of the Ictasanda gens, to have the first locks cut,
the first moccasins put on the child’s feet, and prayers to be said
over it. Sometimes the old man said “┴ucpáha, Wakan´da
O grandchild, Wakanda
ȼa‘éȼiȼé-de ʞáci maⁿȼiñ´ka sí áȼagȼé tate,” i.e., "O
pity you when a long time soil foot you set it shall,
erect on
grandchild, may Wakanda pity you, and may your feet rest a long time
on the ground!” Another form was sometimes used--“Wakanda ȼa‘eȼiȼe
tate. Maⁿȼiñka si aȼagȼe tate. Gudihegaⁿ ne tate,” i.e., “May Wakanda
pity you! May your feet tread the ground! May you go ahead (or, live
hereafter)!”[66]
§ 55. When there is a “blizzard,” the other Kansa beg the members of
the Tcihaciⁿ or Kaⁿze gens to interpose, as they are Wind people.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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