After two days spent in introductory ceremonies, including “vapor bath” and “armor-feast,” a tent was prepared opening towards the east, with a spacious court in front constructed of bushes. Within the court each of those who were to participate, had a bush set in which was prepared a nest. Two pikes, each about one foot long, rouged with vermilion and ornamented with down from the swan, were placed on some branches of trees in the enclosure. The fishes were entire as they had been taken from the water. Near the fishes were placed dishes of birch bark filled with sweetened water. The implements of war, belonging to the participants, were solemnly exhibited in the tent. The dancers, who were naked, except the breech cloth and moccasins, were fantastically smeared with pigments of various colors, and otherwise ornamented with down, white and red. Four ranks of chanters and musicians were in attendance. The dancers claimed to be inspired by the cormorant. They danced to the music of three ranks of the singers, till their chants closed, taking little seasons for rest and smoking. When the fourth rank struck the drum and “lifted up their voices,” the inspiration was poured out and the welkin trembled, and the dancers approached the fishes in a rage, like starving beasts, and without using their hands, tore off piece after piece, scales, bones, entrails and all, and swallowed them, drinking at the same time from their bark dishes. Nothing remained at the close except the heads, fins and large bones, which they had deposited in their nests. To end the ceremony, what few articles of clothing had been worn on the occasion, were offered in sacrifice to the gods.
Thus, while the favor of the Taku Wakan was secured, the fact that the dancers were inspired, was demonstrated to most of the six hundred wondering spectators. By performances of thousands of wakan things, such as have been hinted at, these men triumphantly substantiate their claims to inspiration, and they are fully believed to be “the great powers of the gods,” and, among their people, hold a position like that of the Thugs of India. The wakan qualities which these persons possess, or assume to possess, qualify them to act in any capacity and in any emergency.
THE MEDICINE MAN A PRIEST.
As a priest, with all the assurance of an eye-witness—of an equal and of intimate and long continued communion, he bears testimony for the divinities. He gives a minute description of their physical appearance, their dwelling place, and their attendants. He reveals their disposition, their powers and their employments, as one who has been with them. He dictates prayers and chants, institutes fasts and feasts, dances and sacrifices. He defines sin and its opposite and their respective consequences. In short, he imposes upon the people a system of demonism and superstition, to suit their depraved tastes and passions, and caprices, and circumstances, and interests as savages, with an air of authority and with a degree of cunning which does seem to be almost superhuman—a system so artfully devised, so well adapted to them, so congenial to them, that it readily weaves itself into, and becomes a part of them, as really as the woof becomes a part of the texture, ensuring their most obsequious submission to its demands. It becomes part of their body, soul and spirit. They breathe and speak, and sing and live it. It is not something that can be assumed and laid off at pleasure.
In the character of a priest, the influence of these demons in human form is so complete and universal, that thirty years ago, scarce an individual could be found among them who was not a servile religionist. Every individual was trained to it from early infancy. Mothers put the consecrated offering into the little unconscious hand of their babes at the breast, and caused them to cast the present to the god. As soon as the little tongue could articulate, it was taught to say, “grandfather befriend me;” or “grandmother befriend me.” On one occasion the writer witnessed a whole band, old and young, male and female, march out to the lake shore in Indian file, and perform their acts of devotion, and offer their prayers at the back of the medicine man, who was at the same time officiating between them and the god—each individual was obliged to the performance—the mothers fixing the little mouths of unconscious infants carefully, reverently, on the stem of the consecrated pipe, which the priest extended to them backward over his shoulder.
Much as the savage loves ease and self-indulgence he will cheerfully subject himself to almost any privation, discomfort and toil, for days, weeks, or even months together, in order to procure the necessary provisions for a sacrifice which the priest assures him the gods demand. If he fails he fully believes that the penalty may be the infliction of any, or all the evils to which an Indian is exposed. A man made a trip on foot from the “Little Rapids,” on the Minnesota river, to Big Stone Lake, and purchased and brought on his back, a pack of dried buffalo meat, weighing, probably, sixty or seventy pounds, a distance of nearly two hundred miles, to be used in the medicine-dance—a sacrifice to the Onktehi and to the souls of the dead. This he did because the priest had assured him that it was the will of the Taku-Wakan.
THE WAR PROPHET.
In this capacity the wakan-man is an indispensable necessity. Every Dakota man sixteen years old and upward, is a soldier, and is formally and wakanly enlisted into his service.
From him he receives the implements of war, as the spear and tomahawk, carefully constructed after a model furnished from the armory of the gods, painted after the divine prescription and charged with the missive virtue—the tonwan—of the divinities. From him also he receives those paints which serve as an armature for the body.