The Sun Dance of the Blackfoot Indians Part 3

The part of the medicine woman is truly a sacrifice. She and her husband must pay liberally everyone called upon for ceremonial service directly connected with the tongues and the natoas ritual. They must also pay a considerable amount of property for the natoas itself. To give the ceremony means the sacrifice of all personal property. On the other hand, there is compensation, aside from fulfilling the vow. Her relatives are very proud of her since she is so virtuous. She is highly respected by her husband and family. In a measure those who "take the tongues" are also respected. The medicine woman may act as the mother in a future sun dance for which she will receive presents and she may eventually realize something by transferring the natoas to another.

Should anything go wrong during the ceremony, the weather be unfavorable, etc., people will look with suspicion upon her and say she must have lied in her confession to the sun. Should she become ill or have deaths in the family, the same charge will be made.

_The Offerings of Cloth._ After the procession headed by the father and he is in position at the west side of the dancing lodge, offerings of cloth and clothing are brought up by the people. A man making such an offering hands the father a filled pipe and the cloth. The father holds the pipe and offers prayers for the giver and lights and pa.s.ses the pipe to other old men sitting around. The cloth he lays in a pile. Then he paints the giver: first the face is smeared over with red, then black spots are daubed on the cheeks, nose, forehead, and chin, four in all. A black circle is marked around each wrist. Women bringing offerings and pipes go to the mother who prays for them and paints their faces red with a black spot on the nose and a black circle around the face. There is also a black circle around each wrist.

FOOTNOTES:

[9] Scar-face is said to have made a whistle (flageolet) of such a stalk. The pith of the growing plant is sometimes eaten for food.

THE HUNDRED-WILLOW SWEATHOUSE.

As stated before, a sweathouse of special form is constructed on the third day. This is said to have originated with Scar-face, it being the house into which he was taken by the sun. About the middle of the day a society is sent out for the willows. These were usually those of the younger men; the pigeons and mosquitoes. There is a belief, however, that in former times only warriors could be sent upon this errand. These persons are mounted and return in procession, singing and circling the medicine woman's tipi in the direction of the sun, and deposit their willows at the west side of the camp circle. They must not drink water while on this duty.

An older society is called to build the sweathouse. They must not drink water while engaged in this operation and receive some of the tongues after the ceremonies of the fourth day. Formerly, these men must have had a coup to their credit as a qualification and some informants claim that the sum total for the society should have totalled at least one hundred, the number of willows. The work begins some time before sunset by which time the sweathouse should be completed.

The willows are stuck into the ground in an oval and their tops bent over and interlocked over the top. The ends point toward the east and the west, an opening or door being provided at each. The willows are then painted, one side red and the other black. Next, a hole is dug in the center of the structure for the heated stones. In the meantime, a small heap of stones mixed with firewood has been placed some distance to the east. A buffalo skull is painted with red spots on one side and black on the other. Sagegra.s.s is thrust into the nose and eye-sockets.

Robes are then thrown over the willows and all is ready for the procession from the medicine woman's tipi.

The procession from the medicine woman's tipi consists of the father and another man experienced in ceremonial affairs, the husband, the mother and the medicine woman. They approach slowly and by stages, pa.s.sing around the south side of the sweathouse to the north and then to the east or entrance. All keep their eyes on the ground. The husband walks with a heavy staff; the medicine woman carries the natoas bundle with a smudge stick.

The men enter the sweathouse, while the two women go to the west side and sit down facing the east. The medicine woman is on the north side with the bundle before her. After the men have entered, the fire is lighted and some of the attendants (builders of the sweathouse) lift the buffalo skull to the top of the sweathouse where it faces the east.

Prayers and the usual sweathouse procedure now follow while the stones and a pail of water are pa.s.sed in by an attendant. The covers are then drawn down and the vapor bath taken.

After the ceremony the procession returns to the medicine woman's tipi.

The cover is removed from the sweathouse and the buffalo skull placed on top where it remains.

Should there be more than one medicine woman, another sweathouse is made on the east side of the camp circle and the others grouped around them equally.

Since after the sweathouse ceremony there is formal singing in the tipi until far into the night, it may be said that during the four days of the fast the ceremonies begin with the sweathouse at sundown, while on the fifth day the ceremony begins in the morning and ends at sundown.

To this generalized statement the following account from a Piegan may be added:--

Now, when the first sweathouse is to be made, orders are given in the morning to one of the societies to get the willows to make the hundred-willow sweathouse. Another man is to get the creeping juniper to use in the smudge place in the medicine lodge, and still another is to cut out the smudge place. The moves are short. The people all move camp, as before, and the society goes on ahead and stakes out the camping ground. When the tipis are pitched at the new camping ground, the society comes in with the willows and the rocks for the sweathouse. They circle once around to the right of the lodges and stop outside of the circle, west of the medicine lodge.

They must neither eat nor drink while building the sweathouse. They gather wood from among the tipis until they have enough to heat the rocks. Robes for covering the sweathouse are borrowed from the people of the camp. One man goes to the medicine lodge and digs out the smudge place.

When the sweathouse is ready for the medicinemen, four of the men who helped in the construction go and inform the men and women. They carry the parfleche with the tongues in it on a robe, each man holding a corner. The two medicinemen take the lead, the two women follow, then come the four men with the parfleche. Four stops are made before they reach the sweathouse. The instructor leads, and is followed in single file by the other man, and the two women walking very slowly and singing. They march once around the sweathouse in the direction of the sun. The other old men who are to join them and the two medicinemen go in while the two women remain seated on a robe just west of it with the parfleche beside them. A smudge is made with sweetgra.s.s, and a crescent-shaped place marked out between the square hole and the rear of the sweathouse and live coals are placed on the dot in front of the crescent. A song is sung while the smudge stick is taken up and a man goes after the coal for the smudge. The sweetgra.s.s is placed on the live coal and the two songs for the smudge are sung: "Spring gra.s.s I take. Where I sit is powerful." A pipe is handed in and the pipe bowl and stem painted red. The man holds the pipe over the smudge and prays for the one who gave it to him and then pa.s.ses it to the last man to his right who lights it and all smoke it. When the pipe is all burnt out, the man who blessed it, takes it, and with a red-painted stick loosens the ashes and empties some of them on the southeast corner of the square hole in the sweathouse, then on the northwest corner, on the northeast, and finally in the center.

After this the buffalo skull is brought in and the songs of the buffalo sung while the same man paints it with black and red dots, the left half black and the right half in red. Gra.s.s is stuffed into the eyes and nose of the skull which is pa.s.sed out through the west of the sweathouse and placed on the earth taken out of the hole in the sweathouse. An extra buffalo horn wrapped with swamp gra.s.s is brought in and given to the man who paints it red and sings while doing so: "Chiefs of other tribes I want to hook." He throws the horn out and all the men of this society who remain near the sweathouse try to catch it. The one who captures it is considered lucky and he is supposed to capture a gun in the next battle he witnesses.

The men in the sweathouse all undress and as they pa.s.s their robes and moccasins out through the west of the sweathouse and the door, the buffalo songs are sung. The two medicinemen only wear a robe and moccasins when they go into the sweathouse. While singing, the forked stick is taken up and one of the outsiders goes for the heated stones, stopping four times before he brings them in. One of the men who is inside takes the stone with two straight sticks and places it on the southeast corner of the hole, the same is done with four more stones which are placed on the southwest, the northwest, the northeast corner and the fifth is placed in the bottom of the hole at the center. When a sixth stone is placed in the hole, they are all rolled to the bottom of the hole. Water and a horn spoon or wooden bowl is brought in.

A little water is thrown on the stones to wash them, the curtains are lowered, and prayers to the sun, moon, and stars, and earth begin. In groups of four, sixteen medicine lodge songs are sung. The curtains are raised and four more songs are sung; the sweathouse is opened and four songs are sung, until the sixteen have been completed. The two medicinemen go out through the west of the sweathouse while the rest go through the door. The men dress, and the parfleche containing the tongues is opened and the tongues given to the members of the society who made the sweathouse. The medicinemen and women do not eat. After all are provided with the tongues a piece is broken off each and while all hold the pieces up a prayer is said and the piece of tongue placed on the ground. Then they all begin to eat. After this the robes are all returned to their owners, the buffalo skull placed on top of the frame of the sweathouse with the nose pointed towards the east and the medicinemen and women return in single file while four men follow behind carrying the empty parfleche. The men who belong to the society may now eat and drink as they wish.

THE DANCING LODGE.

The dancing lodge may be said to take its origin on the fourth day, by which time the medicine woman has her tipi in place near its site and the camp circle has been formed. In construction, nine forked tree trunks about nine feet in height are set in a circle. Across their tops, except the eastern face, are laid stringers about fifteen feet long of the same material.[10] In the center, is another forked tree trunk much higher than the other (this we shall call the sun pole) connected with each of the stringers by a rafter. Green boughs are placed thickly against the outside of the lodge. On the inside, at the rear, is a booth screened and roofed with boughs. The material is cottonwood. That other woods were occasionally used, is attested by the fact that a locality is known as "the place of sweet pine dancing lodge."

Some informants claim that in former years each band was required to furnish two rafters, a post, a rail, and their proportionate amount of boughs. Two rafters were used instead of one as now, each band furnishing the section opposite their place in the circle. The contradiction between the number of bands and the size of the dancing lodge seems not to have troubled our informants. Now, the young men go out during the early part of the fourth day to cut the poles and boughs.

This is done without ceremony. A crier usually rides around the camp circle reminding the various bands of their duty. Formerly, the young women went out on horseback to drag in the poles and brush. On this occasion, they dressed in the best costumes and used the finest horse trappings obtainable. The men cut the poles and brush, hitching them to the drag ropes with their own hands. As the procession galloped toward the camp circle, the men rode behind, shooting and yelling. In recent years, the men bring the material in on wagons without demonstration.

Men of some prominence are selected to dig the holes for the posts. The posts are erected and the stringers put in place, excepting one on the west side nearly opposite the entrance. The rafters are leaned against the stringers, ready to be pushed in place and the green boughs piled up at convenient places near by.

The cutting of the sun pole is attended with some ceremony. Some informants claim that formerly this was to be carried out by the medicine woman's band; others that one of the men's societies was called upon for this service. In any event, they go out as a war party and locate a suitable tree. A man with a war record, preferably one having struck an enemy with an ax, comes forward, takes an ax, paints the blade as he recounts some event in which he killed an enemy, and then strikes the tree. Four such deeds must be told before the tree can be felled.

Then one or two men cut the tree as the others stand around. As the tree begins to fall all give the war cry and shoot at its top, then rush up, and tearing off branches, wave them in the air as if they were trophies from an enemy. Indeed, the whole proceeding, from start to finish, is a mimic attack on an enemy.

The pole is cut to approximate form and taken to the site of the dancing lodge. One end is placed on a travois (in recent times on a wagon), while the riders a.s.sist with their ropes, their horses ma.s.sed around the travois horse.

The hole for the sun pole is dug without ceremony by relatives of the medicine woman. When it is in place, they tie a bundle of green boughs in the fork,[11] making everything ready for the raising in the evening.

The sun pole now lies on the ground with the b.u.t.t over the hole and the forked end supported by a piece of timber. The fork points to the west.

It seems that formerly the pole was painted. Just below the fork it was circled by two black bands and two red ones beneath these.

FOOTNOTES:

[10] Obviously, this would make the dancing lodge very large. In reply to this objection it was said that they were large; that it was necessary to select as a site places where very long rafter poles could be cut; that formerly societies and others performed evolutions within on horseback. The late Little-plume is credited with having introduced the present custom of reciting deeds, requiring horses, outside the dancing lodge. It may be of interest to note that the Arapaho also made very large sun dance shelters.

In 1908 Mr. Duvall measured the dancing lodge. The sun pole stood sixteen feet from the ground to the fork. The posts were eight feet and approximately sixteen feet apart. The diameter of the whole was fifty-two feet. The fireplace was east of the sun pole six feet and was four feet by two feet and five inches deep. The booth for medicinemen was five feet eight inches wide by seven feet six inches deep. The two holes were about a foot forward from the sod walls, eight inches across and six inches deep. The man who has been marking out the site for the lodge during the last few years, begins by selecting the place for the sun pole and stepping off seven paces as the radius.

[11] The bundle of boughs is neither spoken of as the thunderbird's nest nor given a name of any kind; though some old men seemed to know that other tribes so designated it. We made diligent inquiry on this point and feel that the above statement is correct. Reference to published photographs will show that the brush is merely gathered into a bundle and not made into the form of a nest as in case of the Crow.

CUTTING THE THONGS.

A fresh cowskin (formerly two buffalo hides) is provided that thongs may be cut for binding the rafters to the stringers and the objects placed on the sun pole. There seems to have been no hunting ceremony for providing this hide and there is now no symbolic hunting. After the medicine woman is in the shelter, the ceremony of cutting the thongs takes place. If no one volunteers, men are "caught." The men who cut the thongs last year may do the "catching" or engage representatives to do it. Formerly, this function was exercised by old warriors who had captured enemies alive. The "catchers" go quietly about the camp looking for eligibles. While pretending to pa.s.s one by without notice, they suddenly lay hold of him. The victim may pull back, but is not allowed to resort to other means of resistance. He is then led up to the hides near the front of the medicine woman's shelter. In former times, four such men were brought up for the ceremony. They must have coups to their records, otherwise they would not have been selected. In the ceremony of 1904 we observed an attempt to "catch" a man on horseback, but the struggles of the horse enabled him to escape. In former times, the friends of the interested party would have gathered around the rear and sides of the horse forcing him forward in the lead of the "catcher".

This whole catching procedure is said to symbolize the capture of an enemy.

In order to understand the ceremony that now takes place, it is necessary to know that the right to cut the thong is to the Blackfoot a medicine to be transferred for gifts of property as in case of other medicines. The men who did the cutting in the previous year are to "sell", or transfer, this year. It is they who do the "catching", either in person or by deputy. Should no one be brought forward, those who performed the rite on the previous year must again serve. As soon as a man is caught, his relatives are notified; they come out with all kinds of property to support him in the transfer. The initiate is brought into the presence of the present owner of the right, his hands and face are painted, accompanied by ritualistic prayers. While this proceeds, an old man (usually a relative) stands somewhat apart and shouts out praise for the initiate. However, this may be done by a woman, if no man comes forward. A horse and other property is then given to the former owner of the right, whence it ceases to be his. The deputy "catcher", if there is one, then receives a small present or two from the former owner.

The cutting of the thong then takes place. The new owner of the right, standing up by the hide, shouts out his coups. He holds the knife in his hand and while pointing in different directions with it, he tells of a war deed. At the end of each tale he makes a pa.s.s with the knife as if to cut the hide. After four deeds are told, he cuts the hide. For example, he may say, "At such a place I captured a horse which gives me the right to cut this, etc." If there are other men with the right, they follow in turn. After this, the thongs are cut with the a.s.sistance of other men and distributed at the places where they will be needed. A thong with the tail attached is used to bind the bunch of boughs to the sun pole, the tail hanging down.

While this ceremony is going on, gifts of flour, beef, etc., made by white people are distributed among the old poor people. This is regarded as a recent intrusion.

The following extract from an unpublished version of the Scar-face myth accounts for the thong-cutting ceremony:--

Her husband could tell by her eyes that she had been crying and he said, "I told you not to dig up that turnip, but nevertheless you have done so. Since you are lonesome and wish to return to your people, I will take you back." Then Morningstar went out and killed some buffalo. After he had skinned all of them he cut the hides into long strands, fastened them together, and tied the woman and her child to one end and let her down from the sky to where her people were.

Before she reached the earth, a little sore-eyed boy was lying on his back, looking up at the sky and saw a very small object coming down. The boy told the men who were playing the wheel gambling game what he saw, but they laughed at him and threw dirt in his eyes and said, "You must see the gum on your eyelids or lashes." As the falling object came closer others noticed it and when it came among the group they knew that it was the woman who was missing from the camp. They untied the rawhide strand and noticed that some of the buffalo tails were on the ends of the long rope which lay piled up high before them.

This woman came down with her digging-stick. As she was not a wicked woman and only lived with Morningstar as her husband, she gave her digging-stick to the medicine lodge woman and the natoas was named for the turnip she dug up. When the sun dance was held, this woman told them always to cut up a rawhide into strands and tie the posts with them. Also that the center post and the birch on it must be tied with them. The tail of the hide is to hang down from the center post. These rawhide strands are a representation of the rawhide rope with which this woman was let down to the earth. Later, the moose hoofs are tied to this digging-stick. The plumes on the natoas are to represent the leaf of the large turnip this woman dug up while in the sky.