OMAHA AND PONKA BELIEF AS TO A FUTURE LIFE.
§ 67. They have a very crude belief. Each person is taught to have a wanaxe or spirit, which does not perish at death. According to Joseph La Flèche and Two Crows, the old men used to say to the people, “Ȼiudaⁿ ʞĭ, wanaxe udaⁿ-maʇa ci tate. Ȼipiäjĭ ʞĭ, wanaxe piäjĭ-maʇa ci tate,” i.e., “If you are good, you will go to the good ghosts. If you are bad, you will go to the bad ghosts.” Nothing was ever said of going to dwell with Wakanda, or with demons.[75]
Rev. William Hamilton found a belief that retribution is in this life, and he says, “Their notions are exceedingly crude.”
§ 68. Frank La Flèche told the author before 1882 that he had heard some old men relate a tradition that years ago a man came back to life and told about the spirit land. He said that for four nights after death the ghost had to travel a very dark road, but that after he reached the Milky Way there was plenty of light. For this reason, said he, the people ought to aid their deceased friends by lighting fires at the graves, and by keeping them burning for four nights in each case. After going along the Milky Way, the ghost came at last to a place where the road forked; and there sat an aged man, clothed in a buffalo robe with the hair outside. (See § 359½.) He said nothing, but pointed to each inquirer the road for which he asked. One road was a very short one, and he who followed it soon came to the place where the good ghosts dwelt. The other road was an endless one, along which the ghosts went crying. The spirits of suicides could not travel either road; but they hovered over their graves. But Joseph La Flèche and Two Crows (in 1882) said that the road of the ghosts was not the Milky Way, and they regarded the account of the endless road as a modern addition, which is very probable. The latest statements of Frank La Flèche are given in the Jour. Amer. Folk-Lore, vol. II, No. 4, pp. 10, 11:
There are a variety of beliefs concerning the immediate action of the spirit upon its withdrawal from the body. Some think that the soul at once starts upon its journey to the spirit land; others, that it hovers about the grave as if reluctant to depart. Because of this latter belief, food and water are placed at the head of the grave for several days after the burial. The spirit is supposed to partake of this food. No Indian would touch any article of food thus exposed; if he did, the ghost would snatch away the food and paralyze the mouth of the thief, and twist his face out of shape for the rest of his life; or else he would be pursued by the ghost, and food would lose its taste, and hunger ever after haunt the offender. There is a belief in the tribe that before the spirits finally depart from men who died of wounds or their results, they float toward a cliff overhanging the Missouri, not far from the present Santee Agency, in Nebraska, and cut upon the rocks a picture showing forth their manner of death. A line in the picture indicates the spot where the disease or wound was located which caused the death. After this record is complete, the spirit flies off to the land of the hereafter. It is said that these pictures are easily recognized by the relatives and friends of the deceased. This place is known as Iñ-gȼaⁿ´-xe ʞi-ʞá-xai ȼaⁿ,[76] or, Where the spirits make pictures of themselves. A suicide ceases to exist; for him there is no hereafter. A man struck by lightning is buried where he fell, and in the position in which he died. His grave is filled with earth, and no mound is raised over one who is thus taken from life.
In 1873 some of the Ponka said they had the following beliefs concerning a murderer: (1) The ghosts surround him and keep up a constant whistling; (2) he can never satisfy his hunger, though he eat much food; (3) he must not be allowed to roam at large lest high winds arise.
It is important to compare this whole section with the Dakota beliefs found in §§ 266-278.
The author was told by the Omaha that when a man was killed by lightning, he ought to be buried face downwards, and the soles of his feet had to be slit. When this was done, the spirit went at once to the spirit land, without giving further trouble to the living. In one case (that of a Wejiⁿcte man, Jadegi, according to George Miller and Frank Le Flèche)[77] this was not done, so it was said that the ghost walked, and he did not rest in peace till another person (his brother) was slain by lightning and laid beside him.
When Joseph La Flèche and Two Crows heard what Frank had told about the Milky Way, etc., they remarked, “We have never been to the spirit land, so we can not tell what is done there. No one has ever come back and told us.” All that they had ever heard was the old story about the forked road.
§ 69. Gahige, the late chief of the Iñke-sabĕ (a buffalo gens), told the author about the address made to a member of his gens, when dying. According to him, the person was addressed thus: “You are going to the animals (the buffalos). You are going to your ancestors. Ánita dúbaha hné (which may be rendered, You are going to the four living ones, if not, the four winds). Wackañ´-gă (Be strong).” Gahige was understood to speak of four spirits or souls to each person, but Joseph La Flèche and Two Crows said that the Omaha did not believe that a person had more than one spirit. Two Crows gave the following as the address to a dying member of his gens, the Hañga, another buffalo gens:
| “Waníʇa | etáʇaⁿ | ȼatí. | Gaⁿ | ĕʇa | ȼagȼé | taté | hă. | Gaⁿ | dúduȼagaqȼajĭ | te | hă. | Hné tĕʇa | caⁿ´caⁿ |
| Quadruped | from | you have come | And | thither | you go | shall | . | And | you do not face this way | will (please) | . | you go to the | always |
| maⁿȼiñ´-gă | há,” | i.e., “You came hither from the animals. And you are going back thither.Do not |
| walk thou | ! |
face this way again. When you go, continue walking.” The last sentence is a petition to the departing spirit not to return to this earth to worry or injure the survivors. That the dead are referred to as still existing, and as having some knowledge of what is happening here, may be seen from the address to a Ponka chief at his installation: “Ȼiádi gáhi, ȼijiⁿ´ȼĕ gáhi, ȼiʇígaⁿ gáhi, ámustáqti ȼidaⁿ´be maⁿ´ȼiⁿ tai;” i.e., “Your father was a chief, your elder brother (i.e., his potential elder brother, Ubiskă, a former head chief of the Ponka) was a chief, and your grandfather was a chief; may they continue to look directly down on you!”[78]
§ 70. Those who boil sacred food, as for the warpath, pour some of the soup outside the lodge, as an offering to the ghosts. (Omaha custom.)
There has been no belief in the resurrection of the body, but simply one in the continued existence of the ghost or spirit. While some of the Iowas expressed to Mr. Hamilton a belief in the transmigration of spirits, that doctrine has not been found among the Omaha and Ponka, nor has the author heard of it among other Siouan tribes.
Not all ghosts are visible to the living. They may be heard without being seen. One Omaha woman, the mother of Two Crows, told how she had been in a lodge with many persons, who were invisible from the knees upward.[79]