The Sia / (1894 N 11 / 1889-1890 (pages 3-158))

by Matilda Coxe Stevenson

GAST LITH. CO. N.Y.

ALTAR AND SAND PAINTING.
KNIFE SOCIETY.

The ho´naaite is not supposed to leave the ceremonial chamber throughout the four days and nights, as he must guard the animal fetiches and medicine. The other members are also supposed to spend much of the day and all of the night in watching the fetiches; but the writer is of the opinion that they all go to sleep after the feast, which is enjoyed as soon as the child leaves the chamber.

The only variation in the ceremonial on the second night was that the vicar dipped the bit of bread into the bowl of stew and scattered it to the animal fetiches, having previously lifted ashes from the fireplace and sprinkled the altar with them by striking the plume held in the left hand on the under side with the plume held in the right; then holding the plumes between his hands he repeated a long and scarcely audible prayer. After scattering the food to the animal fetiches, he dipped a piece of bread into the stew, left the house and threw the food to the cardinal points, as the ho´naaite had done the previous night, and, returning, removed the bowl of stew and basket of bread to the northwest corner of the room. He then swept the floor with his two eagle plumes, beginning some 18 inches in front of the altar (the line of meal remaining perfect to this point) to the point where the blanket was to be placed, and then laid the blanket and made the meal lines, the change in the drawing of these lines being that the line was begun at the line of meal which extended in front of the altar and ran over the blanket to the entrance of the room; then beginning in the center of the blanket, the line was extended across to the north wall, and again beginning in the center, a line was run across to the south wall. The writer mentions this deviation in the drawing of the meal lines, though she believes it was a mere matter of taste on the part of the worker. Instead of the vice ho´naaite receiving the child at the outer entrance, the man who sat between him and the ho´naaite brought the child into the room, and he was led out by the ti´ämoni. Upon this occasion, and on the third and fourth nights, the child walked into and out of the room, an indication that he was in better physical condition than on the first night of the ceremony. The songs on the second night were addressed to the bear of the west instead of the cougar of the north. The child did not seem to move a muscle throughout the ceremony, except when he stepped to his position on the blanket.

Bureau of Ethnology.

Eleventh Annual Report. Plate. XXIII

ALTAR OF KNIFE SOCIETY, PHOTOGRAPHED DURING CEREMONIAL.

The scenes on the third and fourth nights were coincident with those of the second, with a few variations. The man who sat between the ho´naaite and his vicar dipped the ashes with his plumes and sprinkled the altar, and, returning to his seat, the vicar laid the blanket and sprinkled the meal lines in the same manner as on the previous night; he also procured the child. When dancing before the altar two men wore bear-leg skins on their left arms, and two others wore them on their right arms. It was noticed that the skins were drawn over the arms upon which the amulets were worn. Their dancing and incantations were even more turbulent and more weird than on the two former nights.