North American Indians of the plains / by Clark Wissler.

  • Clark Wissler
Date:
1912
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: North American Indians of the plains / by Clark Wissler. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    111/160 (page 103)
    among the Woodland Cree, Menomini, and Ojibway. Aside from hunger and thirst, there was no self torture except among the Dakota and possibly a few others of Siouan stock. With these it was the rule for all desiring to become shamans, or those in close rapport with the divine element, to thrust skewers through the skin and tie themselves up as in the sun dance, to be discussed later. Now, when a Blackfoot, a Dakota, or an Omaha went out to fast and pray for such a revelation, he called upon all the recog¬ nized mythical creatures, the heavenly bodies, and all in the earth and in the waters, which is consistent with the conceptions of an illy localized power or element manifest everywhere. No doubt this applies equally to all the aforesaid tribes. If this divine element spoke through a hawk, for example, the applicant would then look upon that bird as the localization or medium for it; and for him, wakonda, or what not, was manifest or resided therein; but, of course, not exclusively. Quite likely, he would keep in a bundle the skin or feathers of a hawk that the divine presence might ever be at hand. This is why the warriors of the Plains carried such charms into battle and looked to them for aid. It is not far wrong to say that all religious ceremonies and practices (all the so-called medicines of the Plains Indians) originate and receive their sanction in dreams or induced visions, all, in short, handed down directly by this wonderful vitalizing element.