Before sunrise the next morning the Sho´-ḳa, carrying his little pipe,
the badge of his office, goes to Shoⁿ´-ge-moⁿ-iⁿ’s house to conduct
him to the house of the child to be named. Upon receiving the formal
message from the Sho´-ḳa, Shoⁿ´-ge-moⁿ-iⁿ takes his paint pouch from
a bag containing his personal belongings and puts some red paint on
the inner surface of his hands. Then as the eastern clouds take from
the rising sun a crimson tinge, he lifts his hands, palms outward,
toward them and the sun itself. After a silent pause he withdraws his
hands and reddens his face with the paint on them, as though with
the color of the sun, and his messengers, the reddened clouds. When
he has put upon his face the sacred color he takes from a package
in which he keeps his ornamental feathers a red downy eagle feather
which he fastens to his scalplock so that the red feather, the life
symbol of his gens, stands firm and upright. In the days when buffalo
were plentiful the Noⁿ´-hoⁿ-zhiⁿ-ga who is to act as Xo´-ḳa at the
child-naming ceremony wore a buffalo robe with the hair outside, but
since the extinction of that animal he substituted for the robe a woven
blanket obtained from traders.
Having thus decorated himself with red paint and the red feather,
symbols of the sky, and the substitute of the buffalo robe, an earth
symbol, Shoⁿ´-ge-moⁿ-iⁿ, now actual Xo´-ḳa, goes forth to the house of
the child to be named, following the Sho´-ḳa, who leads the way. It was
explained by the old man that the manner of approach of his gens, the
Ṭsi´-zhu Wa-shta-ge, to the house of the child was very simple, that it
did not have the elaborate ceremonial forms described by Wa-xthi´-zhi
that were followed by his gens, the Puma, and the other war gentes of
the Hoⁿ´-ga great division.
Arriving at the house, the Sho´-ḳa enters without pause and leads the
Xo´-ḳa to his place at the left of the father, who sits with his wife
and child at the east end of the house. When the Xo´-ḳa has taken his
seat the Noⁿ´-hoⁿ-zhiⁿ-ga of his gens, the Ṭsi-zhu Wa-shta-ge, enter
and take their places back of the Xo´-ḳa and the parents and sit in a
row occupying the entire width of the house. Then the Noⁿ´-hoⁿ-zhiⁿ-ga
of the other gentes who are to take part in the ceremony enter, those
of the Hoⁿ´-ga great division taking their accustomed places at the
south side and those of the Ṭsi´-zhu great division at the north side
of the house. (Fig. 1.) Except for the blankets of various colors, the
Noⁿ´-hoⁿ-zhiⁿ-ga were decorated alike, their faces painted red, the
color of the sun and the dawn, and a red downy feather fastened to the
scalplock of each one.
A LIFE SYMBOL SENT TO EACH OF THE OFFICIATING GENTES
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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