GENTILE OR CLAN DESIGNATIONS.
Rev. J. Owen Dorsey reports of the Osages that all the old men who have been distinguished in war are painted with the decorations of their respective gentes. That of the Tsi[c]u wactake is as follows: The face is first whitened all over with white clay; then a red spot is made on the forehead, and the lower part of the face is reddened; then with the fingers the man scrapes off the white clay, forming the dark figures, by letting the natural color of the face show through.
In Schoolcraft, V, 73, 74, it is stated that by totemic marks the various families of the Ojibwa denote their affiliation. A guardian spirit has been selected by the progenitor of a family from some object in the zoological chain. The representative device of this is called the totem. A warrior’s totem never wants honors in their reminiscences, and the mark is put on his grave-post, or adjedatig, when he is dead. In his funeral pictograph he invariably sinks his personal name in that of his totem or family name. These marks are, in one sense, the surname of the clan. The personal name is not indicative of an Indian’s totem.
The same custom, according to Rev. J. Owen Dorsey, prevails among the Omahas; and with the exception of that portion which relates to the drawing of the totemic mark upon the grave post the above remarks apply also to the Dakotas, of Northern Dakota, according to the observations of Dr. Hoffman. The Pueblos, remarked Mr. James Stevenson in a conversation with the writer, depict the gens totems upon their various forms and styles of ceramic manufacture. The peculiar forms of secondary decoration also permit the article to be traced to any particular family by which it may have been produced.