The following social divisions are assigned to this category: The [K]aⁿze, or Wind people, and the ┴e-[p]a-it‘ajĭ, Touch-not-a-buffalo-skull, or Eagle people, of the Omaha tribe; the Ȼixida and Nika[p]aɔna gentes of the Ponka; the Kaⁿze (Wind or South Wind-people), Qüya (White eagle), Ghost, and perhaps the Large Hañga (Black eagle), among the Kansa; the Kaⁿe (also called the Wind and South Wind people), and perhaps the Hañʞa utaȼanʇe (Black eagle) gens of the Osage; the Pigeon and Buffalo gentes of the Iowa and Oto tribes; the Hawk and Momi (Small bird) subgentes of the Missouri tribe; the Eagle and Pigeon, and perhaps the Hawk subgens of the Winnebago Bird gens.
EACH QUARTER RECKONED AS THREE.
Each wind or quarter is reckoned as three by the Dakota[314] and presumably by the Osage (see § 42), making the four quarters equal to twelve. Can there be any reference here to a belief in three worlds, the one in which we live, an upper world, and a world beneath this one? Or were the winds divided into three classes, those close to the ground, those in mid air, and those very high in the air? The Kansa seem to make some such distinction, judging from the names of the divisions of the Kaⁿze or Wind gens of that tribe.
NAMES REFERRING TO OTHER WORLDS.
References to a world supposed to be above that one in which we dwell occur in some of the personal names of the Dakota, in the U. S. Census list of 1880. There we find such names as, Wolf Up-above, Hawk Up-above, Grizzly-bear Up-above, and Buffalo-bull Up-above. Grizzly-bear Up-above should be taken in connection with the tradition of the Black-bear people of the Osage tribe. These people tell how their ancestors descended from the upper world, bringing fire.[315] The tradition of the Wolf people of the Winnebago tribe tells of the creation of their ancestors as wolves in a subterranean world, and of a belief that many wolves remain there still. The Winnebago have, too, the name, Second Earth Person, referring to a waktceqi or watermonster, as the waktceqi are supposed to dwell in the world beneath this one. They call this world The First World, and the subterranean one The Second World.
THE WATER POWERS.
§ 386. The Unkteḣi of the Dakota answers to the Wakandagi of the Omaha and Ponka, and the Waktceqi of the Winnebago. One of the Omaha myths relates to a Wakandagi with seven heads. The Waktceqi have the Loon as a servant, and in this respect they resemble the tyrant U-twa´-ʞe of the ┴ɔiwere myth. The name utwaʞe is now given to the muskrat. The male Water powers inhabit streams, and the females dwell under the ground, presumably in subterranean streams. According to Winnebago belief, they support the weight of the hills. Some of the Omaha thought that these powers dwelt under the hills (§§ 77, 107). The monsters supposed to inhabit bogs were probably a species of water spirits (§ 254). Streams were invoked as “Wakanda” by the Omaha (§ 23). Though the natural habitat of the buffalo is the surface of the earth, and the Dakota believe the animal to be of subterranean origin, he is of subaquatic origin according to the traditions of the Iñke-sabĕ and Hañga gentes of the Omaha.[316] But no traces of such a belief have been found among the buffalo gentes of cognate tribes. “One day, when the principal man of the people not known as the Waȼigije subgens of the Iñke-sabĕ, was fasting and praying to the sun-god,[317] he saw the ghost of a buffalo, visible from the flank up, arising from a spring.”[318]
WATER PEOPLE.
The Water people among the Omaha are the Turtle subgens, parts (if not all) of the Iñke-sabĕ and Hañga (Buffalo) gentes, and perhaps a part of the Ictasanda gens. Those among the Ponka have not yet been ascertained; but they may be the Wajaje and part of the Hisada. Among the Kansa they are the Turtle people. In the Osage tribe are the Turtle Carriers, Ke ʞatsü (said to be a turtle, but probably a Water-monster), Fish, Beaver, and, perhaps, the Tsewaȼe or Pond Lily people. Among the Iowa and Oto are the Beaver gentes. And the Winnebago have the Water-monster gens.