DAKOTA SUPERSTITIONS.
By G. H. Pond, of Bloomington.
Bloomington, December 14, 1866.
Rev. John Mattocks—Dear Sir:—I have deferred complying with your request to prepare a paper for the Historical Society till now, only because I have never found the leisure necessary to do it. Even now I have been obliged to let every thing else go except what was absolutely necessary to be done in order to attend to it. The press of to-day contains a notice of your meeting last Monday. I suppose, therefore, that I am too late, but will forward to you what I have prepared. If it is not acceptable please return it to me.
The “superstitions” to which the paper relates, it may seem to some, are too absurd to be the religion of men, however degraded, but they have been obtained from the Indians themselves, and I have never discovered that they had anything better, but have discovered much that is worse. I presume that no one will be disposed to say that it is my own invention, for that would be giving me credit for more imaginative and creative genius than I ever claimed. Such as it is I send it, and shall be satisfied if the society accepts it or returns it to me.
The sack I send you will find explained under the head “Medicine-man a Doctor.” It is not the medicine sack of the medicine dancer.
In haste, yours, &c.,
G. H. POND.
The Dakota Indians are the tribes who are generally known by the name of Sioux, a name given them by early French explorers.
Of the Dakota there are several—seven—grand divisions who are, by their orators, sometimes spoken of as “seven fires.”
These again were divided into a great number of smaller tribes or clans, each having its little chief, who was simply the most influential individual in the clan, which was composed chiefly of blood relations.
The chief, for generations, seems to have had but little authority except that which he derived from the support of some medicine-man, who attached himself to him, or from the fact that government officers and traders transacted business with the clans through them.
The name Dakotah signifies much the same as confederacy. The word is often used as the opposite of enemy.
These divisions and subdivisions of Indians are all embraced under the comprehensive name Dakota, the name by which they call themselves. The Assinnaboines are said to have belonged originally to the Dakota family.
A few years ago, these Dakota tribes occupied the country along the Mississippi river, from about Prairie du Chien, to far above the Falls of St. Anthony, the whole of the Minnesota valley, and the immense plains extending westward to, and beyond the Missouri river.
The language of all these tribes is the same, with unimportant dialectic differences, and seems to be entirely distinct from that of the tribes around, except, perhaps, that of the Winnebago tribe.
Being one in language they are alike in their civil polity, if indeed it can be said that they have any, alike in their religious belief and practice, and alike in all their manners, allowing for the modifications which have been produced by diversity of circumstances.
It is to the superstitions of these Dakotas that the following paper relates.
In the first place it seems to be necessary to define the very significant Dakota word wakan, for, in it is contained the quintessence of their religion. It is an epitome of the whole, containing its pith and marrow.
The word wakan, signifies anything which is incomprehensible. The more incomprehensible the more wakan. The word is applied to anything, and everything, that is strange or mysterious. The general name for the gods in their dialect is this, Taku-Wakan, i. e., that which is wakan.
Whatever, therefore, is above the comprehension of a Dakota, is God. Consequently, he sees gods everywhere. Not Jehovah every where, but Taku-Wakan.
This is the starting point in their superstitions, but it is not with ease that one can arrive at the other end of the subject. It runs out like the division of matter, to divinity. To use an expression of one of their own most intelligent men, “there is nothing that they do not revere as God.” Wakan is the one idea of divine essence. The chief, if not the only difference that they recognize to exist, among all the tens of thousands of their divinities, is the unessential one of a difference in the degree of their wakan qualities, or in the purposes for which they are wakan.
We speak of the medicine-man, medicine-feast, medicine-dance, and the great-spirit of the Indian, while he speaks of wakan-man, the wakan-feast, the wakan-dance, and the great-wakan.
Evidence is wanting to show that these people divide their Taku-Wakan into classes of good or evil. They are all simply wakan. The Dakotas have another word to represent spirit, or soul, or Jehovah, but the word wakan is never used in that sense, though a spirit might be wakan.
Evidence is also wanting to show that the Dakotas embraced in their religious tenets, the idea of one Supreme Existence, whose existence is expressed by the term Great Spirit. If some of the clans, at the present time, entertain this idea, it seems highly probable that it has been imparted to them by individuals of European extraction. No reference to such a being is to be found in their feasts, or fasts, or sacrifices. Or if there is any such reference at the present time, it is clear that is of recent origin and does not belong to their system. Individuals of them may tell us that the worship of the great medicine-dance is paid to the Great Spirit, but it is absolutely certain that it is not, as will be seen as we proceed.
Mr. Carver tells us of a religious ceremony of a very singular nature—very wakan—in which a person is carefully bound hand and foot and mysteriously released by the gods—the performance of which he witnessed, and which he said had reference to the Great Spirit. Doubtless it had such reference in his opinion, but it will be shown in another place, that in fact, it had not.
It is indeed true, that Dakotas do sometimes appeal to the Great Spirit when in counsel with white men, but it is because they suppose him to be the object of the white man’s worship, or because they themselves have embraced the Christian doctrines. Still it is generally the Interpreter who makes the appeal to the Great Spirit, when the speaker really appealed to the Taku-wakan, and not to the wakan-Tanku.
Besides, the great struggle which at the present time exists between the heathen and the Christian Dakotas, is freely expressed to be a strife, between the old system of worship rendered to the Taku Wakan, and the new, which is rendered to the Wanku Tanku. The Christians are universally distinguished from the pagans, as being worshippers of Wakan Tanku, or as we speak, the Great Spirit.
One word more by way of introduction. It is true of all the Dakota gods, or wakans, that they are male and female, are subject to the same laws of propagation under which men and animals exist, and are mortal. They are not thought of as being eternal, except it may be by succession.