FIRE GENTES.
The following appear to be the Fire gentes: Thunder-being people of the Omaha tribe, Elk gens, Small-bird subgens, Deer, and Ictasanda (Reptile and Thunder-being) gentes; the Hisada and Black bear gentes of the Ponka; the Lṵ or Gray hawk people (also called Thunder-being people) of the Kansa tribe, with whom are associated the Deer and Buffalo gentes in the singing of the Thunder songs (§ 36); the [K]ȼŭⁿ[311] or Thunder-being gens, on the Tsiɔu, Buffalo, or Peace side of the Osage tribe (!!), perhaps the Tcexiʇa, a bird gens of the Iowa tribe; part of the Tcexiʇa gens of the Oto and Missouri tribes; and the Wakaⁿtcară or Thunder-being subgens of the Winnebago.
Four Thunder-beings were invoked by the Ictasanda gens (§ 35): Ȼigȼize-maⁿȼiⁿ, Ȼiaⁿba-tigȼe, Ȼiaⁿba-gi-naⁿ, and Gaagigȼedaⁿ. Was each of these supposed to dwell at one of the four quarters?
Among the Osage and Kansa tribes there is a gens known as the Miⁿ k’iⁿ (from miⁿ, the sun, and k’iⁿ, to carry a load on the back), rendered “Sun Carriers.” Some of the Osage insisted that this name referred to the buffalo instead of the sun, as that animal carries a robe or plenty of hair on his back; and they maintained that the Miⁿ k’iⁿ was a buffalo gens. That there is some connection in the Indian mind between the sun and the buffalo is shown in the sun dance, in which the figure of a buffalo bull (§ 164) and buffalo skulls (§§ 147, 173, 176, 177, 181, and 198, and Pl. XLVIII) play important parts.