§ 72. The Rev. William Hamilton, who was a missionary to the Iowa and Sac Indians of Nebraska, from 1837 to 1853, is the authority for most of the Iowa material in this chapter. About the year 1848, he published a series of letters about the Iowa Indians in a Presbyterian weekly newspaper, and with his permission the present writer transcribed these letters in 1879, for his own future use.

Other information about the three -?iwere tribes (Iowa, Oto and Missouri) was obtained by the author from Ke-?re[Ç]e, an Oto; Cka??inye, a Missouri; and the delegation of Iowa chiefs that visited Washington in 1882.

The principal Winnebago authority was James Alexander, a full-blood and a member of the Wolf gens.

TERM “GREAT SPIRIT” NEVER HEARD AMONG THE IOWA.

Mr. Hamilton wrote thus in one of his letters:

It is often said that the Indians are not idolaters, and that they believe in one Supreme Being, whom they call the Great Spirit. I do not now recollect that I ever heard the Iowas use the term Great Spirit since I have been among them. They speak of God (Wakanta), and sometimes of the Great God or Bad God. But of the true character of God they are entirely ignorant. Many of them speak of God as the creator of all things, and use a term that signifies “Creator of the earth.” Sometimes they call him “Grandfather” (hintuka). But they imagine him to be possessed of like passions with themselves, and pleased with their war parties, scalp dances, thefts, and such like sin. * * * They sometimes speak of the sun as a god, because it gives light and heat. The moon they sometimes speak of as a god, because it seems to be to the night what the sun is to the day. I asked an Indian the other day how many gods the Iowas had, and he promptly replied, ‘Seven.’

THE SUN A WAKANTA.

§ 73. An Iowa told Mr. Hamilton that he had once killed a bear, which he offered to the sun, allowing the animal to lie where he had killed it.

THE WINDS AS WAKANTAS.

§ 74. An Iowa told Mr. Hamilton that Tatce, or Wind, was one of the seven great gods of his tribe. Another told him that he had made offerings to the South Wind, who was considered a beneficent Wakanta. But the North-east Wind was a maleficent one.

Judging from some of the Winnebago personal names, it is probable that the winds were regarded as powers by that people.

THE THUNDER-BEING A WAKANTA.

§ 75. Among the Iowa and Oto, the Tcexita is the eagle and thunderbird gens, and Mr. Hamilton was told by the Iowa that the Thunder-being was called Tcexita, and Wakanta, the latter being its peculiar title. “They supposed the Thunder-being to be a large bird. When they first hear the thunder in the spring of the year, they have a sacred feast in honor of this god.”

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.”

The subterranean and subaquatic powers are called “waktceqi” by the Winnebago, and this tribe has a gens called Waktceqi ikikaratcada. The Winnebago say that the waktceqi dwell under the ground and the high bluffs, and in subterranean water, that they are caused to uphold the earth, trees, rivers, etc., and that they are the enemies of the Thunder-beings (§ 386). In the Winnebago Waktceqi gens are the following personal names: Black Waktceqi, White Waktceqi, Green Waktceqi, “Waktceqi that is san” (which may be gray or brown), Four Horned Male, Two Horned Male, and Lives in the Hill.

ANIMALS AS WAKANTAS.

§ 78. Mr. Hamilton wrote that the Iowa often spoke about the buffaloes, whom they regarded as gods, addressing them as “Grandfathers.” He also told of a doctor whom he met one day; the doctor seized a joint-snake that was handed him by another doctor, calling it his “god,” spoke of it as being good medicine, and after putting its head into his mouth, he bit it twice.

APOTHEOSES.

§ 79. “They also seem to think that human beings may become gods, and in this respect they are like the Mormons.”

DWELLINGS OF GODS.

§ 80. “High rocks are supposed by the Iowa to be the dwellings of gods.” “There is a Winnebago tradition that a woman carrying her child was running from her enemies, so she jumped down a steep place and was turned into a rock. And now when they pass that place they make offerings to her.”

WORSHIP.

§ 81. “One of their most common acts of worship, and apparently one of daily occurrence, is observed when a person is about to smoke his pipe. He looks to the sky and says, ‘Wakanta, here is tobacco!’ (See §§ 29, 40, ‘Nini bahai te.’) Then he puffs a mouthful of smoke up towards the sky, after which he smokes as he pleases.” “They also make offerings of tobacco by throwing a small quantity into the fire.” “They frequently offer a small portion of food at their feasts, before they begin eating.”

Mr. Hamilton saw dogs hung by their necks to trees or to sticks planted in the ground, and he was told that these dogs were offerings. “No Heart told me that when the smallpox raged among them about fifty years ago” (i.e. about 1798), “and swept off so many, that they made a great many offerings.” Said he, “We threw away a great many garments, blankets, etc., and offered many dogs to God. My father threw away a flag which the British had given him. When we had thrown away these things, the smallpox left us.” These offerings to God (literally, to Wakanta) were the means of checking it. “To throw away,” in Iowa, is the same as “to offer in sacrifice.”

TABOOS.

§ 82. Mr. Hamilton was told by the Iowa that no member of any gens could eat the flesh of the eponymic animal.

The author gained the following taboos from a Missouri, Cka??e-yiÑe or Cka??inye, who visited the Omaha in 1879: The members of the Tunanp’in, a Black Bear gens in the Oto and Nyut’atci (or Missouri) tribes can not touch a clam shell. The Momi people, now a subgens of the Missouri Bird gens, abstain from small birds which have been killed by large birds, and they can not touch the feathers of such small birds.

PUBLIC OR TRIBAL FETICHES.[81]

§ 83. Among these are the sacred pipes, the sacred bags, or waruxawe, and the sacred stone or iron. The sacred pipes are used only on solemn occasions, and they are kept enveloped in the skin wrappers. The sacred bags, or waruxawe, are made from the skins of animals. They are esteemed as mysterious, and they are reverenced as much as Wakanta. Among the Winnebago (and presumably among the -?iwere tribes) no woman is allowed to touch the waruxawe. There used to be seven waruxawe among the Iowa, “related to one another as brothers and sisters,” and used by war parties. On the return from war the seven bags were opened and used in the scalp dance. They contained the skins of animals and birds with medicine in them, also wild tobacco and other war medicine, also the war club. There used to be seven war clubs, one for each waruxawe, but during the last expedition of the Iowa, prior to the date of Mr. Hamilton’s letters, the war club and pipes or whistles were lost from the principal bag. The next kind of sacred bags, the Waci waruxawe, numbered seven. They were the bad-medicine bags, by means of which they professed to deprive their enemies of power, when they had discouraged them by blowing the whistles. Owing to this enchantment, they said, their enemies could neither shoot nor run, and were soon killed. The next kind were the Tce waruxawe, or buffalo medicine bags. They were not used in war, but in healing the wounded. These bags contain medicine and the sticks with the deer hoofs attached which they shake while treating the sick; also a piece of buffalo tail, and perhaps a piece from the skin covering the throat of an elk.

The Ta waruxawe, or deer medicine bags, contain the sacred otter skins used in the Otter dance. (See § 86.)

In some of the sacred bags are round stones, which the warriors rub over themselves before going to war, to prevent their being killed or wounded.

The waruxawe is always carried with the same end foremost, the heads of the animals or birds being placed in the same direction, and care is taken to keep them so. (See § 28.) On one occasion a leader broke up a war party by turning the bag around.

The Iowa claim to have a mysterious object by which they try men, or make them swear to speak the truth. This mysterious iron or stone had not been gazed upon within the recollection of any of the Iowa living in 1848. It was wrapped in seven skins. No woman was allowed to see even the outer covering, and Mr. Hamilton was told that he would die if he looked at it.

Cka??inye, the Missouri, told the author that there were four Tu-nanp’in men who kept sacred pipes (raqnowe waqonyitan), their names being Weqa-nayin, Cun-?iqowe, Nan[Ç]ra[Ç]ra??e, and Nan??e-yiÑe. It is probable that two of these men belong to the Tunanp’in gens of the Oto tribe and two to the Tunanp’in gens of the Nyut’atci tribe, as these two tribes have been consolidated for years. In the Aruqwa or Buffalo gens of the Oto, -?e-?o-nayin and -?e-waÑe?ihi are the keepers of the sacred pipes of that gens.

SYMBOLIC EARTH FORMATIONS OF THE WINNEBAGO.[82]

§ 84. The Winnebago tent used for sacred dances is long and narrow; not more than 20 feet wide and varying from 50 to 100 feet long.

In the Buffalo dance, which is given four times in the month of May and early June, the dancers are four men and a large number of women. As the dancers enter each woman brings in a handful of fine earth and in this way two mounds are raised in the center at the east—that is, between the eastern entrance and the fire, which is about 15 feet from the eastern entrance. The mounds thus formed are truncated cones. An old man said to me, “That is the way all mounds were built; that is why we build so for the buffalo.”

The mounds were about 4 inches high and not far from 18 inches in diameter. On top of the mounds were placed the head-gear worn by the men, the claws, tails, and other articles used by the four leaders or male dancers.

The men imitate the buffalo in his wild tramping and roaring, and dance with great vigor. They are followed by a long line of gaily decked women in single file. Each woman as she dances keeps her feet nearly straight and heels close together, and the body is propelled forward by a series of jerks which jars the whole frame, but the general effect on the long, closely packed line is that of the undulating appearance of a vast herd moving. The women dance with their eyes turned toward the ground and with their hands hanging closely in front, palms next to the person. The track left by their feet is very pretty, being like a close-leaved vine. It is astonishing to notice how each woman can leap into her predecessor’s track. Water is partaken of and the entire dance is clearly indicative of the prayer for increase and plenty of buffalo. The two mounds remind one of larger structures and suggest many speculations, particularly when taken in connection with the manner of their building.

In the great mystery lodge, whence so many of the sacred societies among other tribes professedly take their rise and inspiration, the fire is at the east, and is made by placing four sticks meeting in the center and the other ends pointing to the four points of the compass.[83] Just at that part of the initiation of the candidate when he is to fall dead to the old life, be covered as with a pall, and then be raised to the new life, the remains of the four sticks are taken away and the ashes raised in a sharp conical mound, again suggesting hints of a peculiar past.

Upon the bluffs of the Missouri, on a promontory * **is a little depression cut in the ground, circular in form, with an elongated end at the east. The depression is 1 foot in diameter and about 6 inches deep. Placing my compass in the center, the long end or entrance was found to be exactly to the east. To the south of this sacred spot, for it is cleared and cleaned***every year, stood a large cedar tree, now partly blown down. This was the sacred tree on which miraculous impersonation of visions lit; and here the spirits tarried as they passed from one resting place to another going over the country. About every 50 miles there is one of these strange, supernatural resting places.

PERSONAL FETICHES.

§ 85. All medicines were regarded as mysterious or sacred. The heart of a slain enemy was sometimes dried and put in the medicine bag to be pulverized and mixed with the other medicines. “One or two days before a war party started from the village of the Iowa, the man who was to carry the sacred bag hid it while the others busied themselves with preparing sacred articles” (probably their personal fetiches). “The hunters often brought in deer, after eating which, the warriors painted themselves as they would do if they expected to see an enemy. Next, one of their number measured a certain number of steps in front, when each man took his place, and knelt down. As soon as the word was given, each one pulled away the grass and sticks, moving backwards till he came to the poles, when he arose. Then each placed his own sacred objects (personal fetiches?) before him, and began his own song. While singing, they opened their sacred objects, asking for good luck. They sang one song on opening them (as among the Kansa, see § 36), and another while putting them back into their places, a song being supposed necessary for every ceremony in which they engaged. In the conversations which ensued, they were at liberty to jest, provided they avoided common or vulgar terms.”

DANCING SOCIETIES.

There is very probably some connection between these societies and the cults of the tribes now under consideration. (See §§ 43, 62, 111, 113, 120, et passim.)

THE OTTER DANCING SOCIETY.

§ 86. The members of this order shot at one another with their otterskin bags, as has been the custom in the Wacicka dancing society of the Omaha (Om. Soc., pp. 345, 346). Some have said that they waved their otter-skin bags around in order to infuse the spirit of the otter into a bead in its mouth, and that it was by the spirit of the otter that they knocked one another down. Each one who practiced this dance professed to keep some small round object in his breast to cough it up before or during the dance, and to use it for shooting one of his companions in the neck. He who was thus shot did in turn cough up the mysterious object, and at the end of the dance each member swallowed his own shell or pebble.

THE RED MEDICINE DANCING SOCIETY.

§ 87. The Indians used to obtain in the prairies, towards the Rocky Mountains, an object about the size of a bean or small hazelnut and of a red color. Mr. Hamilton was told that it grew on bushes, and that it was considered to be alive, and they looked on it as a mysterious animal. In the red medicine dance the person who makes the medicine kills the animals by crushing the beans and boiling them in a large kettle filled with water. This drink is designed for or appropriated by a few members, and they drink the liquid when it is quite hot. The more that they drink the more they desire, and they seem able to drink almost any quantity. It produces a kind of intoxication, making them full of life, as they say, and enabling them to dance a long time. (See § 62.)

GREEN CORN DANCE.

§ 88. This dance did not originate with the Iowa. It is said that the Sac tribe obtained it from the Shawnee. It is held after night. Men and women dance together, and if any women or men wish to leave their consorts they do it at this dance and mate anew, nothing being urged against it.

BUFFALO DANCING SOCIETY.

§ 89. The Iowa have the buffalo dance, and by a comparison of Mr. Hamilton’s description of it, and his account of the buffalo doctors, and of the medicine or mystery bag of buffalo hide, with what has been learned about the Omaha order of buffalo shamans (see § 43), it seems probable that among the Iowa this dance was not participated in by any but those who had had visions of the buffalo, and that there was also some connection between all three—the dancing society, the buffalo doctors, and the mysterious bag of buffalo hide. As among the Omaha, the buffalo doctors of the Iowa are the only surgeons.

-[C]IWERE TRADITIONS.

§ 90. The -?iwere tribes have traditions of their origin similar to those found among the Osage, Kansa, and Ponka, and these traditions are considered as “waqonyitan,” or mysterious things, not to be spoken of lightly or told on ordinary occasions.

As among the Osage and Kansa, the traditions tell of a period when the ancestors of the present gentes dwelt, some in the upper world, and others in the ground (or in the world beneath this one).

Mr. Hamilton’s informant said, “These are sacred things, and I do not like to speak about them, as it is not our custom to do so except when we make a feast and collect the people and use the sacred pipe.” These traditions were preserved in the secret societies of the tribes. They explain the origin of the gentes and subgentes, of fire, corn, the pipes, bows and arrows, etc.

It is probable that similar secret societies exist among the Winnebago. James Alexander, a Winnebago of the Wolf gens, told a part of the secret tradition of his gens, in which appear some resemblances to the -?iwere traditions, such as the creation of four kinds of wolves, and their dwelling underground, or in the world beneath this one. (See §§ 381, 383.)

BELIEF IN FUTURE LIFE.

That the -?iwere believed in the existence of the ghost or spirit after death is evident from what Mr. Hamilton observed:

They often put provisions, a pitcher of water, and some cooking utensils on the grave for the use of the spirit for some time after burial.***At the time of burial, they often put new clothing and ornaments on the corpse, if they are able, and place by its side such things as they think necessary. I once saw a little child with some of its playthings which its mother had placed by it, in her ignorance, thinking that they would be pleasing to it.***They are generally careful for a year or so, to keep down all the weeds and grass about the grave, perhaps for 10 feet around.