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
§ 69. Gahige, the late chief of the Iñke-sabĕ (a buffalo gens), told
the author about the address made to a member of his gens, when dying.
According to him, the person was addressed thus: “You are going to the
animals (the buffalos). You are going to your ancestors. Ánita dúbaha
hné (which may be rendered, You are going to the four living ones, if
not, the four winds). Wackañ´-gă (Be strong).” Gahige was understood to
speak of four spirits or souls to each person, but Joseph La Flèche and
Two Crows said that the Omaha did not believe that a person had more
than one spirit. Two Crows gave the following as the address to a dying
member of his gens, the Hañga, another buffalo gens: “Waníʇa etáʇaⁿ
Quadruped from
ȼatí. Gaⁿ ĕʇa ȼagȼé taté hă. Gaⁿ dúduȼagaqȼajĭ te hă.
you And thither you go shall . And you do not face will .
have this way (please)
come
Hné tĕʇa caⁿ´caⁿ maⁿȼiñ´-gă há,” i.e., “You came hither from the
you go to the always walk thou !
animals. And you are going back thither. Do not face this way again.
When you go, continue walking.” The last sentence is a petition to the
departing spirit not to return to this earth to worry or injure the
survivors. That the dead are referred to as still existing, and as
having some knowledge of what is happening here, may be seen from the
address to a Ponka chief at his installation: “Ȼiádi gáhi, ȼijiⁿ´ȼĕ
gáhi, ȼiʇígaⁿ gáhi, ámustáqti ȼidaⁿ´be maⁿ´ȼiⁿ tai;” i.e., “Your father
was a chief, your elder brother (i.e., his potential elder brother,
Ubiskă, a former head chief of the Ponka) was a chief, and your
grandfather was a chief; may they continue to look directly down on
you!”[78]
§ 70. Those who boil sacred food, as for the warpath, pour some of the
soup outside the lodge, as an offering to the ghosts. (Omaha custom.)
There has been no belief in the resurrection of the body, but simply
one in the continued existence of the ghost or spirit. While some of
the Iowas expressed to Mr. Hamilton a belief in the transmigration of
spirits, that doctrine has not been found among the Omaha and Ponka,
nor has the author heard of it among other Siouan tribes.
Not all ghosts are visible to the living. They may be heard without
being seen. One Omaha woman, the mother of Two Crows, told how she had
been in a lodge with many persons, who were invisible from the knees
upward.[79]
KANSA BELIEFS RESPECTING DEATH AND A FUTURE LIFE.
§ 71. When the author was at Kaw Agency, Indian Territory, in
the winter of 1882-’83, a man named Ho-sa-sa-ge died. After the
representatives of all the gentes had assembled at the house, Wakanda
(named after the Thunder-being), the father-in-law of the deceased,
removed the lock of hair called the “ghost,” and took it to his own
house, weeping as he departed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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