The So-Called Sun Dance of the Gros Ventre

Abstract

The so-called Sun Dance of the Gros Ventre was last held in about the year 1884. Informants living in 1967 have preserved in tribal legends an account of the ceremony in general and the last one in particular. One informant was an eye witness when his adopted father went through the self-torture rite. Factors of hardship, declining numbers, enforced attendance of the children at school, introduction of Christiantiy, and the severity of the rites probably all worked to bring an end to the practice of the aboriginal form of this ceremony.     

National ceremonies: the pursuit of authenticity

Abstract

This article asks what, if any, impact national ceremonies have on the formation of national identities. Why are some ceremonies perceived as national and persistent through time, while others fail to achieve that status? It argues that national ceremonies can only be examined as specific types of situations – performances, rather than rituals – characterized by the relationship between performers and their audiences. Following Jeffery Alexander's cultural pragmatics theory, national ceremonies are seen as successful only when a performance is perceived as authentic. A ceremony's authenticity is, at best, a quality of experience among its audience. Only when the audience is transformed into willing participants through a performance's mise-en-scène can a national ceremony be seen as a ritual-like performance. The paper will conclude that the efficacy of these performances is temporary, and that even when a performance succeeds in creating a community of shared experience, that community dissolves with the end of the performance.     

Interpopulation Relationships of Four Post-Contact Coalescent Sites From South Dakota:

Abstract

Craniometric comparisons were used to determine tribal affiliation of three Le Beau Phase sites and one Bad River Phase site from South Dakota: Four Bear (39DW2), Oahe Village (39HU2), Swan Creek (39WW7), and Stony Point Village (39ST235). Oahe Village and Swan Creek classified as Arikara in all analyses. Four Bear and Stony Point Village probably also represent Arikara populations although the evidence is less conclusive. Some individuals were assigned to the Mandan in each site. While alternative explanations are possible, those cases may indicate that some Mandan were living in these villages. If Mandan burials are present at Four Bear and Swan Creek, they are not associated with the presence of secondary burials as suggested by Hurt (1957). Arikara populations of the Post-Contact period show considerable variation through time and space.     

Whales, dolphins or fishes? The ethnotaxonomy of cetaceans in São Sebastião, Brazil

Tree worship is very common worldwide. This field study surveys the ceremonies and customs related to sacred trees in present-day Israel; it includes the results of interviews with 98 informants in thirty-one Arab, Bedouin, and Druze villages in the Galilee. The main results are: 1. Sacred trees were treated as another kind of sacred entity with all their metaphysical as well as physical manifestations. 2. There is not even one ceremony or custom that is peculiar only to a sacred tree and is not performed in other sacred places (such as a saint's grave or a mosque). 3. Few customs, such as: quarrel settling (= Sulkha), leaving objects to absorb the divine blessing and leaving objects for charity) seem to be characteristic of this region, only. 4. In modern times, sacred trees were never recorded, in Israel, as centres for official religious ceremonies including sacrifices, nor as places for the performing of rites of passage. 5. There is some variation among the different ethnic groups: Kissing trees and worshipping them is more common among the Druze although carrying out burials under the tree, leaving water and rain-making ceremonies under them have not been recorded in this group. Passing judgments under the tree is more typical of the Bedouin in which the sacred trees were commonly used as a public social centre. Most of the customs surveyed here are known from other parts of the world. The differences between Muslims and Druze are related to the latter's belief in the transmigration of souls.     

The Sacred Calf Pipe Bundle: It’s Effect on the Present Teton Dakota*

Abstract

In the legends of the Teton Dakota the White Buffalo Calf Maiden, as a messenger from Wakan Tanka, gave the people the Sacred Calf Pipe Bundle. This bundle became the center of the Teton’s religious beliefs, for with the bundle the Calf Maiden also gave the people certain religious ceremonies. Chief among these were the Sun Dance, the Hunkalowanpi and the Spirit-keeping ritual. From the old days to the present this bundle has been held in great reverence. To date there have been 11 keepers of the bundle, the present keeper being a 15 year old boy. To some extent the attitudes and views toward the old religion have been modified by the present generation. However, through the efforts of certain individuals a reawakening of the people towards things “Indian” is taking place. One example is a new course of studies in some Indian schools on “How to be a Modern Indian.” A second is the proposed building of a new Catholic church at Pine Ridge, South Dakota, in the image of a tipi decorated with the symbols and meanings of the old Teton religion, and a third is the use of the “peace pipe” in Catholic services.     

The Northern Cheyenne Sun Dance and the Opening of the Sacred Medicine Hat 1959

Abstract

In 1959, after several years of teaching the Northern Cheyenne on the Tongue River Reservation in Montana, the writer was able to observe the annual Sun Dance in some detail, to photograph it, and to be present at the rare opening of the Sacred Medicine Hat Bundle which followed. This account reports the main events which took place, and establishes that the Northern Cheyenne Sun Dance has not only survived but has undergone relatively little change since it was reported by Grinnell in 1910. Marked similarity is also seen with the older Southern Cheyenne ceremony recorded by Dorsey in Oklahoma in 1903.

The Medicine Hat, still an object of much veneration, was inspected after a series of misadventures to determine whether its contents were safe, and thus was provided an opportunity to view for the first time in more than 25 years an old and famous object of significance in Plains religion.     

The Pope in Mexico: Syncretism in Public Ritual

Pope John Paul II's canonization, in 2002, of Juan Diego, the Indian to whom the Virgin of Guadalupe first appeared, was variously interpreted by sections of Mexican society as an acknowledgement of the indigenous element in Mexican Catholicism and thus a restitution of past wrongs; conversely, as a final domestication of the Indian; and as an evangelical move against a resurgent Latin American Protestantism. The canonization rites were nested within political ceremonies staged, controversially, to anoint a new presidency. This broader political message was in turn challenged in the media and on the streets. In this article, I show how a major public event can articulate the life of a complex, culturally diverse society. I identify a syncretic effect produced by the struggle for ritual control. And I take a comparative view of syncretism, drawing on Javanese ethnography to suggest common mechanisms of meaning making.     

Cultural Persistence and Cultural Change As Reflected in Oklahoma Seneca-Cayuga Ceremonialism1

Abstract

The Seneca-Cayuga group of Oklahoma are descendants of a band which detached itself from the Iroquois proper in 1750 and was joined by elements of the 6 Iroquois nations in 1800. Later, the combined group exchanged Ohio land for holdings in Oklahoma.

The focus of modern tribal life is the annual Greencorn Festival consisting of 4 major rites: the Personal Chant, the Turtle Shell Dance, the Thanksgiving Dance and the Peach Seed Game. Various women’s dances, social and exotic dances of non-Iroquian origin are also staged.

It is concluded that major ceremonial elements are shared with the Iroquois proper. Borrowed elements are several versions of Plains dances and others derived from Shawnee and Delaware neighbors in Ohio and Oklahoma. Additionally Pan-Indian dances may be substitutes for vanishing tribal lore. There is a rejection of non-Iroquian ceremonial custom by the Seneca-Cayuga group similar to that found among another Iroquian group, the Wisconsin Oneida. The author attributes this to the toughness of Iroquois culture.     

The Redbird Focus: Cranial Evidence in Tribal Identification

Abstract

The Redbird Focus was defined in 1956, and was initially (Wood 1956) related to both Lower Loup and historic Pawnee Focus materials. Wood (1965) later took the position that Redbird was a more probable antecedent to the historic Ponca. These opposing hypotheses are tested using human crania representing the relevant populations. Samples of the following were available: Arikara from 39ST216, Pawnee from 25BU1 and 25WT1, Omaha from 25DK10 and 25DK2A, Ponca from 25KX1, and Redbird from 25KX9. Cranial measurements in a multivariate context were employed to test Wood’s suggestions regarding: (1) Ponca identification of remains from the Ponca Fort site, 25KX1, and (2) the tribal identity of the Redbird Focus crania. The Ponca Fort site is identified as historic Ponca, but with the probable presence of some Arikara females. The hypothesis that Redbird is antecedent to Ponca is found tenable on the basis of available cranial evidence.     

Blue Blanket Island (39WW9) an Historic Contact Site in the Oahe Reservoir Near Mobridge,South Dakota

Abstract

The Blue Blanket Island site (39WW9), a small, fortified, proto-historic Indian village on an island in the Missouri River, in Walworth County, South Dakota, was partially excavated by a River Basin Surveys crew in August 1961. One centrally located earthlodge, sections of the fortification, storage pits, and middens were excavated. Artifacts were scanty but architectural details were informative. The lodge was 18 sided with a short entry wayto the south (river side) and leaner posts of split cedar. The palisade was of split posts and the ditch was wide and shallow. The site appears to have been an Arikara village of short duration, probably occupied during the 1780’s and 1790’s. The abandoned remains of this village were noted by Lewis and Clark in 1804.     

Archaeology of the Mcclure Site (39Hu7) and the Protohistoric Period in the Big Bend Region of South Dakota

Abstract

The McClure site is an Arikara village in central South Dakota dating from the Protohistoric period at the end of the 17th Century. The settlement consisted of at least 35 earth lodges, was unfortified, and was located below the bluffs on the Missouri River bottoms a few feet above the floodplain. Excavations in two houses, one of them a specialized small lodge, produced artifacts typical of the Felicia phase of the Big Bend region, including ceramics largely assignable to the lona and Talking Crow ware categories, but with a small element of Stanley ware. Because of the location of McClure in the Bad River district around the decade A.D. 1690-1700 and other factors, it is thought to have played some role in the emerging Bad River Phase     

Transgressions and Transformations: Initiation Rites among Urban Portuguese Boys

In the absence of institutionalized, adult-guided initiation rites in the community of Ajuda in Lisbon, Portugal, nine-and ten-year old boys constructed their own rites in the peer group. These rites consisted of a combination of rampages throughout the community and narrative performances about those experiences in the peer group. Both the rampages and the narratives exhibit features traditionally associated with rites of passage. This article applies traditional concepts in novel ways that may prove promising in studying initiation rites in other contemporary, Western, urban societies.     

Disease Etiologies in Non-Western Medical Systems

This paper argues that disease etiology is the key to cross-cultural comparison of non-Western medical systems. Two principal etiologies are identified: personalistic and naturalistic. Correlated with personalistic etiologies are the belief that all misfortune, disease included, is explained in the same way; illness, religion, and magic are inseparable; the most powerful curers have supernatural and magical powers, and their primary role is diagnostic. Correlated with naturalistic etiologies are the belief that disease causality has nothing to do with other misfortunes; religion and magic are largely unrelated to illness; the principal curers lack supernatural or magical powers, and their primary role is therapeutic . [disease, religion, and magic; ethnomedicine, medical anthropology, non-Western medical systems, shamans]     

Face to face: meaning, feeling and perception in Amazonian welcoming ceremonies

Some welcoming ceremonies practised by indigenous peoples of the Amazon have been considered events that enable the establishment of a social link between potential enemies. The studies do not, however, indicate how the shift from latent hostility to a social relationship occurs. They only refer to the 'magical act' produced through the significant exchange during the dialogues that take place at the key moment of the ceremony. Examining the perceptual interaction of the Candoshi welcoming ceremony and not merely the text of the dialogue, this article attempts to incorporate into the analysis the intensity of the affective dimension which governs these rituals, which can help to explain how such rituals provide the participants with the confidence to initiate a social relationship.     

利用微卫星标记分析贵州白水牛与普通水牛的遗传多样性与亲缘关系

利用11对微卫星引物对贵州白水牛和6个普通水牛群体的有效等位基因数、基因杂合度、多态信息含量和遗传距离进行了分析。结果表明,11个微卫星基因座在7个水牛群体中均存在多态性,可以用于水牛的遗传多样性评估。贵州白水牛和6个普通水牛群体的平均杂合度和平均多态信息含量分别为0·7450～0·7922和0·7021～0·7605。贵州白水牛和遵义普通水牛的亲缘关系最近,遗传距离为0·0910。由UPGMA聚类法得到的系统聚类图反映了贵州白水牛和6个普通水牛群体的亲缘关系远近程度,贵州白水牛没有单独聚为一类,而是与同分布区的遵义普通水牛首先聚类,然后依次与其余地区的普通水牛聚类。研究提出了贵州白水牛应是其产地的普通水牛群体中的一个突变群的见解,为开展贵州白水牛的遗传资源评估、保护与利用提供了分子水平的遗传学依据。     

Revisiting the Navajo way: lessons for contemporary healing

Given the paradox of the success of modern medical technology and the growing patient dissatisfaction with present-day medicine, critics have called for a reevaluation of contemporary medical practice. This paper offers a phenomenological analysis of traditional Navajo healers and their ceremonies to highlight key aspects of healing. A phenomenological view of medical practice takes into account three key features: the lifeworld, the lived body, and understanding. Because of their closeness to a phenomenological view, traditional Navajo mythology and healing practices offer insight into the healing process. Contemporary physicians can appreciate the phenomenological elements of Navajo healing ceremonies, including the Mountain Chant. Navajo healers help patients make sense of their illnesses and direct their lives accordingly, an outcome available to contemporary practitioners, who are also gifted with the benefits of new technologies. By examining scientific medicine, Navajo healing practices, and phenomenology as complementary disciplines, the authors provide the groundwork for reestablishing a more therapeutic view of health.     

Reply to Opler on Apachean Subsistence, Residence, and Girls' Puberty Rites

Archaeological evidence shows that Apaches occupied the central Plains area from A.D. 1525–1725 in Wyoming, South Dakota. Nebraska, Kansas, and Colorado. Toward the end of this period they were semi-sedentary farmers living in houses generically like those of the Plains-Prairies earth lodge. Because in their southward migration they contacted Plains-Prairies farmers earlier than those in the Southwest proper, and farming was women-dominated and residence matrilocal for the Hidatsa, Mandan, Arikara, Pawnee, and Wichita, it seems highly probable that these Plains Apaches acquired matrilocal residence and a female farming division of labor at this time before contacting Tanoans in the Southwest. The more western Apacheans, who may not have had contact with Plains tribes, could have acquired matrilocal residence from western Pueblos, including the Keresans, who were probably all matrilocal before Spanish contact. It is doubtful that the wild plant gathering of Apachean women was sufficient to cause matrilocal residence, because in parts of California and the Great Basin where women gathered a greater proportion of the diet than Apachean women, residence was vary rarely matrilocal.     

Anthony's Feast: The Gift in Abelam Aesthetics

In this essay I take up a major theme in the work of Anthony Forge: the relationship between word and image. Focusing on the problem of what the Abelam say (or do not say) about the design elements in masculine initiation rites, I explore the relationship between language and the exchange relations that are involved in the ceremony. While the Abelam have no explicit way of explaining the design elements, initiation involves a constructed and aestheticised use of language. This lecture will investigate the word/image nexus from this viewpoint.     

The Yuwipi Cult of the Oglala and Sicangu Teton Sioux

Abstract

The Yuwipi Cult of the Teton Sioux falls into the category of the Plains darkened room or darkened tent ceremonies involving monsters, usually diminutive. This type of ceremony with the tieing and subsequent freeing of the shaman by his personal spirits is old on the Plains but is also a circumpolar complex. A Woodland past, with some elements surviving from the even earlier southeastern home, is evident in various practices and artifacts connected with the cult.

The author takes issue with a previous statement that Yuwipi is like the Peyote cult marginal to the Teton religion. Rather, Yuwipi embodies all the basic elements of Teton cultism while peyotism lacks many of these.

A specific Yuwipi meeting is described in detail the preliminary arrangments with the shaman, sweat bath procedures, food preparation for the ceremony, preparation of the meeting room, as well as the altar and sacred area, scarification of volunteers, and finally the lightsout sessions of the Yuwipi ceremony.

It is concluded that, despite rrany stories of trickery common throughout the Sioux country, Yuwipi devotees continue to believe in the power of the Yuwipi men.