Chapter 4
While the beliefs of many of the Siouan tribes are lost through the extinction of the tribesmen or transformed through acculturation, it is fortunate that a large body of information concerning the myths and ceremonials of several prairie tribes has been collected. The records of Carver, Lewis and Clark, Say, Catlin, and Prince Maximilian are of great value when interpreted in the light of modern knowledge. More recent researches by Miss Fletcher(49) and by Dorsey(50) are of especial value, not only as direct sources of information but as a means of interpreting the earlier writings. From these records it appears that, in so far as they grasped the theistic concept, the Siouan Indians were polytheists; that their mysteries or deities varied in rank and power; that some were good but more were bad, while others combined bad and good attributes; that they assumed various forms, actual and imaginary; and that their dispositions and motives resembled those found among mankind.
The organization of the vague Siouan thearchy appears to have varied from group to group. Among all of the tribes whose beliefs are known, the sun was an important wakanda, perhaps the leading one potentially, though usually of less immediate consideration than certain others, such as thunder, lightning, and the cedar tree; among the Osage the sun was invoked as "grandfather," and among various tribes there were sun ceremonials, some of which are still maintained; among the Omaha and Ponka, according to Miss Fletcher, the mythic thunder-bird plays a prominent, perhaps dominant rôle, and the cedar tree or pole is deified as its tangible representative. The moon was wakanda among the Osage and the stars among the Omaha and Ponka, yet they seem to have occupied subordinate positions; the winds and the four quarters were apparently given higher rank; and, in individual cases, the mythic water-monsters or earth-deities seem to have occupied leading positions. On the whole, it may be safe to consider the sun as the Siouan arch-mystery, with the mythic thunder-bird or family of thunder-birds as a sort of mediate link between the mysteries and men, possessing less power but displaying more activity in human affairs than the remoter wakanda of the heavens. Under these controlling wakandas, other members of the series were vaguely and variably arranged. Somewhere in the lower ranks, sacred animals—especially sports, such as the white buffalo cow—were placed, and still lower came totems and shamans, which, according to Dorsey, were reverenced rather than worshiped. It is noteworthy that this thearchic arrangement corresponded in many respects with the hierarchic social organization of the stock.
The Siouan thearchy was invoked and adored by means of forms and ceremonies, as well as through orisons. The set observances were highly elaborate; they comprised dancing and chanting, feasting and fasting, and in some cases sacrifice and torture, the shocking atrocities of the Mandan and Minitari rites being especially impressive. From these great collective devotions the ceremonials graded down through war-dance and hunting-feast to the terpsichorean grace extolled by Carver, and to individual fetich worship. In general the adoration expressed fear of the evil rather than love of the good—but this can hardly be regarded as a distinctive feature, much less a peculiar one.
Some of the mystery places were especially distinctive and noteworthy. Foremost among them was the sacred pipestone quarry near Big Sioux river, whence the material for the wakanda calumet was obtained; another was the far-famed Minne-wakan of North Dakota, not inaptly translated "Devil’s lake;" a third was the mystery-rock or medicine-rock of the Mandan and Hidatsa near Yellowstone river; and there were many others of less importance. About all of these places picturesque legends and myths clustered.
The Siouan mythology is especially instructive, partly because so well recorded, partly because it so clearly reflects the habits and customs of the tribesmen and thus gives an indirect reflection of a well-marked environment. As among so many peoples, the sun is a prominent element; the ice-monsters of the north and the rain-myths of the arid region are lacking, and are replaced by the frequent thunder and the trees shaken by the storm-winds; the mythic creatures are shaped in the image of the indigenous animals and birds; the myths center in the local rocks and waters; the mysterious thearchy corresponds with the tribal hierarchy, and the attributes ascribed to the deities are those characteristic of warriors and hunters.
Considering the mythology in relation to the stages in development of mythologic philosophy, it appears that the dominant beliefs, such as those pertaining to the sun and the winds, represent a crude physitheism, while vestiges of hecastotheism crop out in the object-worship and place-worship of the leading tribes and in other features. At the same time well-marked zootheistic features are found in the mythic thunder-birds and in the more or less complete deification of various animals, in the exaltation of the horse into the rank of the mythic dog father, and in the animal forms of the water-monsters and earth-beings; and the living application of zootheism is found in the animal fetiches and totems. On the whole, it seems just to assign the Siouan mythology to the upper strata of zootheism, just verging on physitheism, with vestigial traces of hecastotheism.
SOMATOLOGY
The vigorous avocations of the chase and war were reflected in fine stature, broad and deep chests, strong and clean limbs, and sound constitution among the Siouan tribesmen and their consorts. The skin was of the usual coppery cast characteristic of the native American; the teeth were strong, indicating and befitting a largely carnivorous diet, little worn by sandy foods, and seldom mutilated; the hands and feet were commonly large and sinewy. The Siouan Indians were among those who impressed white pioneers by the parallel placing of the feet; for, as among other walkers and runners, who rest sitting and lying, the feet assumed the pedestrian attitude of approximate parallelism rather than the standing attitude of divergence forward. The hair was luxuriant, stiff, straight, and more uniformly jet black than that of the southerly stocks; it was worn long by the women and most of the men, though partly clipped or shaved in some tribes by the warriors as well as the worthless dandies, who, according to Catlin, spent more time over their toilets than ever did the grande dame of Paris. The women were beardless and the men more or less nearly so; commonly the men plucked out by the roots the scanty hair springing on their faces, as did both sexes that on other parts of the body. The crania were seldom deformed artificially save through cradle accident, and while varying considerably in capacity and in the ratio of length to width were usually mesocephalic. The facial features were strong, yet in no way distinctly unlike those found among neighboring peoples.
Since the advent of white men the characteristics of the Siouan Indians, like those of other tribes, have been somewhat modified, partly through infusion of Caucasian blood but chiefly through acculturation. With the abandonment of hunting and war and the tardy adoption of a slothful, semidependent agriculture, the frame has lost something of its stalwart vigor; with the adaptation of the white man’s costume and the incomplete assimilation of his hygiene, various weaknesses and disorders have been developed; and through imitation the erstwhile luxuriant hair is cropped, and the beard, made scanty through generations of extirpation, is commonly cultivated. Although the accultural condition of the Siouan survivors ranges from the essentially primitive status of the Asiniboin to the practical civilization of the representatives of several tribes, it is fair to consider the stock in a state of transition from barbarism to civilization; and many of the tribesmen are losing the characteristics of activity and somatic development normal to primitive life, while they have not yet assimilated the activities and acquired the somatic characteristics normal to peaceful sedentary life.
Briefly, certain somatic features of the Siouan Indians, past and present, may be traced to their causes in custom and exercise of function; yet by far the greater number of the features are common to the American people or to all mankind, and are of ill-understood significance. The few features of known cause indicate that special somatic characteristics are determined largely or wholly by industrial and other arts, which are primarily shaped by environment.
HABITAT
Excepting the Asiniboin, who are chiefly in Canada, nearly all of the Siouan Indians are now gathered on the reservations indicated on earlier pages, most of these reservations lying within the aboriginal territory of the stock.
At the advent of white men, the Siouan territory was vaguely defined, and its limits were found to vary somewhat from exploration to exploration. This vagueness and variability of habitat grew out of the characteristics of the tribesmen. Of all the great stocks south of the Arctic, the Siouan was perhaps least given to agriculture, most influenced by hunting, and most addicted to warfare; thus most of the tribes were but feebly attached to the soil, and freely followed the movements of the feral fauna as it shifted with climatic vicissitudes or was driven from place to place by excessive hunting or by fires set to destroy the undergrowth in the interests of the chase; at the same time, the borderward tribes were alternately driven and led back and forth through strife against the tribes of neighboring stocks. Accordingly the Siouan habitat can be outlined only in approximate and somewhat arbitrary fashion.
The difficulty in defining the priscan home of the Siouan tribes is increased by its vast extent and scant peopling, by the length of the period intervening between discovery in the east and complete exploration in the west, and by the internal changes and migrations which occurred during this period. The task of collating the records of exploration and pioneer observation concerning the Siouan and other stocks was undertaken by Powell a few years ago, and was found to be of great magnitude. It was at length successfully accomplished, and the respective areas occupied by the several stocks were approximately mapped.(51)
As shown on Powell’s map, the chief part of the Siouan area comprised a single body covering most of the region of the Great plains, stretching from the Rocky mountains to the Mississippi and from the Arkansas-Red river divide nearly to the Saskatchewan, with an arm crossing the Mississippi and extending to Lake Michigan. In addition there were a few outlying bodies, the largest and easternmost bordering the Atlantic from Santee river nearly to Capes Lookout and Hatteras, and skirting the Appalachian range northward to the Potomac; the next considerable area lay on the Gulf coast about Pascagoula river and bay, stretching nearly from the Pearl to the Mobile; and there were one or two unimportant areas on Ohio river, which were temporarily occupied by small groups of Siouan Indians during recent times.
There is little probability that the Siouan habitat, as thus outlined, ran far into the prehistoric age. As already noted, the Siouan Indians of the plains were undoubtedly descended from the Siouan tribes of the east (indeed the Mandan had a tradition to that effect); and reason has been given for supposing that the ancestors of the prairie hunters followed the straggling buffalo through the cis-Mississippi forests into his normal trans-Mississippi habitat and spread over his domain save as they were held in check by alien huntsmen, chiefly of the warlike Caddoan and Kiowan tribes; and the buffalo itself was a geologically recent—indeed essentially post-glacial—animal. Little if any definite trace of Siouan occupancy has been found in the more ancient prehistoric works of the Mississippi valley. On the whole it appears probable that the prehistoric development of the Siouan stock and habitat was exceptionally rapid, that the Siouan Indians were a vigorous and virile people that arose quickly under the stimulus of strong vitality (the acquisition of which need not here be considered), coupled with exceptionally favorable opportunity, to a power and glory culminating about the time of discovery.
ORGANIZATION
The demotic organization of the Siouan peoples, so far as known, is set forth in considerable detail in Mr Dorsey’s treatises(52) and in the foregoing enumeration of tribes, confederacies, and other linguistic groups.
Like the other aborigines north of Mexico, the Siouan Indians were organized on the basis of kinship, and were thus in the stage of tribal society. All of the best-known tribes had reached that plane in organization characterized by descent in the male line, though many vestiges and some relatively unimportant examples of descent in the female line have been discovered. Thus the clan system was obsolescent and the gentile system fairly developed; i. e., the people were practically out of the stage of savagery and well advanced in the stage of barbarism.
Confederation for defense and offense was fairly defined and was strengthened by intermarriage between tribes and gentes and the prohibition of marriage within the gens; yet the organization was such as to maintain tribal autonomy in considerable degree; i.e., the social structure was such as to facilitate union in time of war and division into small groups adapted to hunting in times of peace. No indication of feudalism has been found in the stock.
The government was autocratic, largely by military leaders sometimes (particularly in peace) advised by the elders and priests; the leadership was determined primarily by ability—prowess in war and the chase and wisdom in the council,—and was thus hereditary only a little further than characteristics were inherited; indeed, excepting slight recognition of the divinity that doth hedge about a king, the leaders were practically self-chosen, arising gradually to the level determined by their abilities. The germ of theocracy was fairly developed, and apparently burgeoned vigorously during each period of peace, only to be checked and withered during the ensuing war when the shamans and their craft were forced into the background.
During recent years, since the tribes began to yield to the domination of the peace-loving whites, the government and election are determined chiefly by kinship, as appears from Dorsey’s researches; yet definite traces of the militant organization appear, and any man can win name and rank in his gens, tribe, or confederacy by bravery or generosity.
The institutional connection between the Siouan tribes of the plains and those of the Atlantic slope and the Gulf coast is completely lost, and it is doubtful whether the several branches have ever been united in a single confederation (or "nation," in the language of the pioneers), at least since the division in the Appalachian region perhaps five or ten centuries ago. Since this division the tribes have separated widely, and some of the bloodiest wars of the region in the historic period have been between Siouan tribes; the most extensive union possessing the slightest claim to federal organization was the great Dakota confederacy, which was grown into instability and partial disruption; and most of the tribal unions and coalitions were of temporary character.
Although highly elaborate (perhaps because of this character), the Siouan organization was highly unstable; with every shock of conflict, whether intestine or external, some autocrats were displaced or slain; and after each important event—great battle, epidemic, emigration, or destructive flood—new combinations were formed. The undoubtedly rapid development of the stock, especially after the passage of the Mississippi, indicates growth by conquest and assimilation as well as by direct propagation (it is known that the Dakota and perhaps other groups adopted aliens regularly); and, doubtless for this reason in part, there was a strong tendency toward differentiation and dichotomy in the demotic growth. In some groups the history is too vague to indicate this tendency with certainty; in others the tendency is clear. Perhaps the best example is found in the Cegiha, which divided into two great branches, the stronger of which threw off minor branches in the Osage and Kansa, and afterward separated into the Omaha and Ponka, while the feebler branch also ramified widely; and only less notable is the example of the Winnebago trunk, with its three great branches in the Iowa, Oto, and Missouri. This strong divergent tendency in itself suggests rapid, perhaps abnormally rapid, growth in the stock; for it outran and partially concealed the tendency toward convergence and ultimate coalescence which characterizes demotic phenomena.
The half-dozen eastern stocks occupying by far the greater part of North America contrast strongly with the half-hundred local stocks covering the Pacific coast; and none of the strong Atlantic stocks is more characteristic, more sharply contrasted with the limited groups of the western coast, or better understood as regards organization and development, than the great Siouan stock of the northern interior. There is promise that, as the demology of aboriginal America is pushed forward, the records relating to the Siouan Indians and especially to their structure and institutions will aid in explaining why some stocks are limited and others extensive, why large stocks in general characterize the interior and small stocks the coasts, and why the dominant peoples of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were successful in displacing the preexistent and probably more primitive peoples of the Mississippi valley. While the time is not yet ripe for making final answer to these inquiries, it is not premature to suggest a relation between a peculiar development of the aboriginal stocks and a peculiar geographic conformation: In general the coastward stocks are small, indicating a provincial shoreland habit, yet their population and area commonly increase toward those shores indented by deep bays, along which maritime and inland industries naturally blend; so (confining attention to eastern United States) the extensive Muskhogean stock stretches inland from the deep-bayed eastern Gulf coast; and so, too, three of the largest stocks on the continent (Algonquian, Iroquoian, Siouan) stretch far into the interior from the still more deeply indented Atlantic coast. In two of these cases (Iroquoian and Siouan) history and tradition indicate expansion and migration from the land of bays between Cape Lookout and Cape May, while in the third there are similar (though perhaps less definite) indications of an inland drift from the northern Atlantic bays and along the Laurentian river and lakes.
HISTORY(53)
DAKOTA-ASINIBOIN
The Dakota are mentioned in the Jesuit Relations as early as 1639-40; the tradition is noted that the Ojibwa, on arriving at the Great Lakes in an early migration from the Atlantic coast, encountered representatives of the great confederacy of the plains. In 1641 the French voyageurs met the Potawatomi Indians flying from a nation called Nadawessi (enemies); and the Frenchmen adopted the alien name for the warlike prairie tribes. By 1658 the Jesuits had learned of the existence of thirty Dakota villages west-northwest from the Potawatomi mission St Michel; and in 1689 they recorded the presence of tribes apparently representing the Dakota confederacy on the upper Mississippi, near the mouth of the St Croix. According to Croghan’s History of Western Pennsylvania, the "Sue" Indians occupied the country southwest of Lake Superior about 1759; and Dr T.S. Williamson, "the father of the Dakota mission," states that the Dakota must have resided about the confluence of the Mississippi and the Minnesota or St Peters for at least two hundred years prior to 1860.
According to traditions collected by Dorsey, the Teton took possession of the Black Hills region, which had previously been occupied by the Crow Indians, long before white men came; and the Yankton and Yanktonnai, which were found on the Missouri by Lewis and Clark, were not long removed from the region about Minnesota river. In 1862 the Santee and other Dakota tribes united in a formidable outbreak in which more than 1,000 whites were massacred or slain in battle. Through this outbreak and the consequent governmental action toward the control and settlement of the tribes, much was learned concerning the characteristics of the people, and various Indian leaders became known; Spotted Tail, Red Cloud, Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, American Horse, and Even-his-horse-is-feared (commonly miscalled Man-afraid-of-his-horses) were among the famous Dakota chiefs and warriors, notable representatives of a passing race, whose names are prominent in the history of the country. Other outbreaks occurred, the last of note resulting from the ghost-dance fantasy in 1890-91, which fortunately was quickly suppressed. Yet, with slight interruptions, the Dakota tribes in the United States were steadily gathered on reservations. Some 800 or more still roam the prairies north of the international boundary, but the great body of the confederacy, numbering nearly 28,000, are domiciled on reservations (already noted) in Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota.
The separation of the Asiniboin from the Wazi-kute gens of the Yanktonai apparently occurred before the middle of the seventeenth century, since the Jesuit relation of 1658 distinguishes between the Poualak or Guerriers (undoubtedly the Dakota proper) and the Assiuipoualak or Guerriers de pierre. The Asiniboin are undoubtedly the Essanape (Essanapi or Assinapi) who were next to the Makatapi (Dakota) in the Walam-Olum record of the Lenni-Lenape or Delaware. In 1680 Hennepin located the Asiniboin northeast of the Issati (Isanyati or Santee) who were on Knife lake (Minnesota); and the Jesuit map of 1681 placed them on Lake-of-the-Woods, then called "L. Assinepoualacs." La Hontan claimed to have visited the Eokoro (Arikara) in 1689-90, when the Essanape were sixty leagues above; and Perrot’s Mémoire refers to the Asiniboin as a Sioux tribe which, in the seventeenth century, seceded from their nation and took refuge among the rocks of Lake-of-the-Woods. Chauvignerie located some of the tribe south of Ounipigan (Winnipeg) lake in 1736, and they were near Lake-of-the-Woods as late as 1766, when they were said to have 1,500 warriors. It is well known that in 1829 they occupied a considerable territory west of the Dakota and north of Missouri river, with a population estimated at 8,000; and Drake estimated their number at 10,000 before the smallpox epidemic of 1838, which is said to have carried off 4,000. From this blow the tribe seems never to have fully recovered, and now numbers probably no more than 3,000, mostly in Canada, where they continue to roam the plains they have occupied for half a century.
¢EGIHA
According to tribal traditions collected by Dorsey, the ancestors of the Omaha, Ponka, Elwapa, Osage, and Kansa were originally one people dwelling on Ohio and Wabash rivers, but gradually working westward. The first separation took place at the mouth of the Ohio, when those who went down the Mississippi became the Kwapa or Downstream People, while those who ascended the great river became the Omaha or Up-stream People. This separation must have occurred at least as early as 1500, since it preceded De Soto’s discovery of the Mississippi.