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
The Winnebago called the Thunder-being “Wakaⁿtca-ra,” and one
division of the Bird gens is the Wakaⁿtca ikikaratca-da, or
Thunder-being sub-gens. The Thunder-beings are the enemies of the
Waktceqi or Submarine Wakantas. One person in the Thunder-being
sub-gens is named Five-horned Male, probably referring to a
Thunder-being with five horns! Other personal names are as follows:
Green Thunder-being, Black Thunder-being, White Thunder-being, and
Yellow Thunder-being; but James Alexander, a full-blood Winnebago of
the Wolf gens, says that these colors have no connection with the four
winds or quarters of the earth (See § 381).
The Iowa told Mr. Hamilton of a Winnebago who saw a Thunder-being
fighting a subaquatic power. Sometimes the former bore the latter
up into the air, and at other times the subaquatic power took his
adversary beneath the water. The Winnebago watched them all day, and
each Power asked his assistance in overcoming the other, promising him
a great reward. The man did not know which one to help; but at last he
shot an arrow at the subaquatic power, who was carried up into the air
by the Thunder-being, but the wounded one said to the man, “You may
become a great man yourself, but your relations must die.” And so they
say it happened. He became very great, but his relatives died.
When the warriors returned home from an expedition against their
enemies, they plaited grass and tied the pieces around their arms,
necks, and ankles. Sometimes to each ankle there was a trailing piece
of plaited grass a yard long. This was probably associated, as were all
war customs, with the worship of the Thunder-being (See Chap. III, §
35).
SUBTERRANEAN POWERS.
§ 76. An Indian became deranged from the use of whisky, and ran wild
for several days. The Iowa supposed that his madness was caused by a
subterranean power, whom he had seen, and whose picture he had drawn on
the ground, representing it with large horns.
SUBAQUATIC POWERS.
§ 77. Some Iowa claim to have seen them. No Heart (Natce-niñe) told
Mr. Hamilton that he had seen a “water god in the Missouri river, when
a man was drowned. When a person is drowned they sometimes say that
the god who lives in the water has taken him for a servant. Not a year
since, some Iowa went over the river for meat. A young girl sat down in
the canoe with her load on her back. When near the shore the canoe was
upset accidentally, and the girl was drowned. The men thought that they
heard a god halloo in the water, and that he had taken her. One told me
that the gods of the air (i. e. the Thunder-beings) fought the gods of
the water, and when the latter came out of the water, the former stole
upon them and killed them.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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