Message from Garcia: The Sacred Dance Part 3

Editor’s Note: The following is part 3 of Louis Garcia’s most recent “Message from Garcia.”

The Sacred Dance, Part 3 & Bibliography

Singers and Drummers

The medicine chiefs having taken their places and the soldiers theirs, the members come in by families, in unison throw up their hands and cry “Brother, have mercy on me! [Hunkawanji, unŝimada wo!]. Then they relate when and where they were initiated into the mysteries of the “holy order”. (Each dance, it should be understood, is the ceremony of some religious or other order.) They then intone a sort of chant to the high priest, at the same time holding their medicine bags in their left hands with arms stretched across their breasts; the right hand is meanwhile raised as when an oath is taken. In this the members of each family follow the motion of its head [leader], then in single file they trot around the circle [elliptic] crying, “Have mercy on me, friend and brother” [Unŝimada, koda, qa hunkawanji po], until they reach the starting place, when they intone another chant, this time to the Great Spirit (Waukantanka), and with their medicine bags point to the four points of the compass. They then seat themselves on the ground against the barricade, facing the circle. A chief who has been appointed to the office of high priest now takes his seat inside the medicine tent, where he preaches and sings, after appointing four assistants from among the members. To one is given a small drum, to the second a pillow and a stick, to the third a gourd and rattle: the fourth assists in singing. These all sit around the high priest. They have also a large drum (usually cow hide stretched over a cheese box or tub), on which seven or eight drummers constantly drum, singing the while without cessation. The priest now exhorts his hearers to good deeds, and speaks of the Holy Dance as an institution founded centuries ago. When this is done all the members rise and dance alternately raising the feet with a sideways motion of the body, [round dance], at intervals crying, as at the beginning, “Brother, have mercy on me!” The officiating chief then takes the drum, and leaves the tent, followed by his assistants. Commencing slowly, then faster and faster, they trot around the circle again. All stop in front of the soldiers’ tent, facing the west when the chief brags some more of the antiquity of the rite and the power of medicine, declaring that he can at will thrust a bird’s claw or a stone from the river into the body of anyone he wills thus producing instant death. To prove this elaborate ceremonies are gone through with. Afterward at a signal, all congregate around the big drum and dance and sing a monotonous kind of a chant, the women, on the outside of a ring formed by the men, imitating the peculiar call of the female swan [cehupahdahda], the men chanting in a sepulchral tone, which seems to lose itself in their throats. The combination is not entirely unmusical.

Initiated into the Sacred Dance

When a candidate is to be initiated into the order he is first taken into the medicine tent for instructions, which are secret. There he is stripped, painted black from head to foot, and a red spot is painted between the shoulder blades.

When the candidate comes out of the medicine tent he is clad only in a breech cloth, very small apron and moccasins. Four preachers in turn exhort the candidate, recite the history of the dance and the order, adding that should he be a good member his medicine will be strong. He must give a feast once a year; if not, he will be unfortunate and meet with sickness and death. If he is good, the Great Spirit will have mercy on him; if not, the Great Spirit will be angry and expulsion from the order will follow. After this the candidate receives the holy claw or a stone from one appointed to cast it, who takes his medicine bag and with it traces the course of the sun, and turns to the four quarters and says: “Now prepare yourself, I am going to transfer to you what I have in my medicine bag;” and thrusting his bag toward the candidate says: “How! There goes the Spirit1” (sometimes this is called “shooting” the candidate.) At these words the candidate, who is kneeling on a blanket, falls prone upon the ground, to all appearance dead. The friends and members of the candidate’s family and those wishing to make offerings to the Spirit, now congregate around the fallen man and throw on his body blankets, robes, skins and ornaments – anything they wish to give – until he is entirely covered up. The priest now dances around the supposed corpse; his assistants rattle gourds, and rattle and beat the pillow until the priest says: “I will now show how powerful my medicine is to bring him back to life.”

Then the candidate commences to move. Finally resting on his hands and knees, he vomits up a mass of froth and blood, in the center of which is found the claw or stone with which he had been “shot.” He is now presented with a medicine bag, and is recognized as a member of the order. The candidate must attend three succeeding meetings in the same costume (naked) and painted in the same manner; then he is allowed to appear as he wishes.

They also initiate the spirit of dead Indians, “to set them right to travel straight.” They would say where the spirit goes, but after initiation in the Holy Dance it will go straight to its destination. After the ceremonies are over, the soldiers take the food and lay it near the Medicine Tent, where it is distributed. The cutting and distributing forms the principal attraction to the members, and the kettles are continually replenished during the performance. They always commence the dance at midnight, keeping it up until the following evening at sundown. Should anyone known to have committed a crime enter the ring the leaders notify the soldiers, and expulsion of the guilty one follows. Should he repent he relates the nature of his crime, pays a heavy fine and is reinstated. Should any member divulge the secrets of the order his life is forfeited in a way that none know the instigator or perpetrator. They have secrets, and it is supposed, have signs by which one may know another in the dark as well as in the day. During the initiation and again just at day break something is whispered to the candidate (Beckwith 1886).

The Medicine Lodge

The lodge consists of two tents (tipis) placed opposite each other with a canvas coved fence of upright posts as illustrated by Gillette (1907). This enclosure represents the bay of cattails in which the Water Spirits first arrived (Skinner 1920: 276).

The Medicine Sack

The sack (Wakan Ozuha) which contains each member’s sacred objects is passed down from one family member to the next for a payment. A new one is made whenever the old one is worn beyond repair. The sack itself is made from bird, reptile, fish, and animal skins with beaded or quilled appendages. The most common sack seems to be made of an otter skin. These otter bags are featured in art books and museum collections as they are the most pleasing to the eye. All the sacks are chosen from water related helpers of the Water Spirits. The sacks contain usually four different objects or medicines: swans down, roots, bark, and buffalo wool (Wallis 1947:74). They also contain a claw from an aquatic helper, or Cowry Shell (Wamnuĥa in Dakota, Megis in Ojibwe) which is used in the Shooting Rite.

Bibliography

Beckwith, Paul “Dances of the Dakotahs”

Winona Daily Republican

December 4, 1886.

Blegen, Theodore and “The Religion of the Dakotas” Chapter 16 in:

Sarah A. Davidson, editors Iron Face: The Adventures of Jack Frazer Frontier

Warrior, Scout, and Hunter.

Chicago: The Caxton Club 1950.

Eastman, Charles and “The Wars of Wa-kee-yan and Unk-tay-hee”.

Elaine Goodale Eastman Wigwam Evenings: Sioux Folk Tales Retold.

Boston: Little, Brown, and Company 1909.

Ellis, Chris Wakan Wacipi.

Unpublished paper in the position of the author.

Gatschet, Albert S. “Water-Monsters of American Aborigines”

Journal of American Folklore 12 (1899).

Gillette, J. M. “The Medicine Society of the Dakota Indians”

Collections of the State Historical Society of North Dakota.

Bismarck: 1907.

Neill, E. D. “Dakota Land and Dakota Life”.

Minnesota Historical Society Collections Volume I

St. Paul: 1872.

Oneroad, Amos E. and Being Dakota: Tales and Traditions of the Sisseton

Alanson B. Skinner and Wahpeton.

Laura L. Anderson, editor St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press 2003.

Pond, G. H. “Dakota Superstitions”.

Minnesota Historical Collections.

St. Paul 1889.

Pond, Samuel, W. Dakota Life in the Upper Midwest

St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press 1986

Riggs, Stephen R. Tah’-Koo Wah-kan; The Gospel Among the Dakotas.

Boston: The Congregational Publishing Company 1869.

Schlesier, Karl “Rethinking the Midewiwin and the Plains Ceremonial called the Sun Dance”.

Plains Anthropologist 35 (127) February 1990.

Skinner, Alanson “Medicine Dance of the Menomni, Iowa, and Wahpeton

Dakota, with Notes on the Ceremony Among the Ponca,

Bungi Ojibwa, and Potwatami”.

Indian Notes and Monographs Volume IV.

New York: Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation 1920, Pages 262-341.

Wallis, Wilson D. “The Canadian Dakota”

The Anthropological Papers American Museum of Natural History. Volume 41 (1947). Wakan Wacipi 69-77.

Part 1 was published in the Tuesday, Sep. 16 and Part 2 was published in the Tuesday, Sep. 23 DLJ. This concludes the latest installment of Louis Garcia’s Message. – LAO