An Osage said to the author: "We do not believe that our ancestors were
really animals, birds, &c., as told in the traditions. These things are
only wa-wi'-ku-ska'-ye [symbols] of something higher." On saying this he
pointed to the sky.
Apart from such traditions or myths, it is found that even the taboos and
the names of the gentes, subgentes, phratries, and persons are objects of
mysterious reverence among many, if not all, of the Siouan tribes. Such
names are never used in ordinary conversation. This is especially the case
in tribes where the secret society continues in all its power, as among
the Osage, the Ponka, and the Kansa. When the author was questioning these
Indians he was obliged to proceed very cautiously in order to obtain
information of this character, which was not communicated till they
learned about his acquaintance with some of the myths. When several Dakota
delegations visited Washington he called on them and had little trouble in
learning the names of their gentes, their order in the camping circle,
&c., provided the interpreters were absent. During his visit to the Omaha,
from 1878 to 1880, he did not find them very reticent in furnishing him
with such information, though he was generally referred to the principal
chief of each gens as the best authority for the names in his own
division. But he found it very difficult to induce any of them to admit
that the gentes had subdivisions, which were probably the original gentes.
It was not till 1880, and after questioning many, that by the merest
accident he obtained the clew from the keeper of a sacred pipe.
The Iowa, who have these social divisions and personal names of mythic
significance, also have sacred songs, but these are in the Winnebago
language. It is probable that they are the property of a secret order, as
they, too, show how some of the gentes descended as birds from the upper
world. The names of the Winnebago gentes and of some members of the tribe
have been recorded by the author, who has also learned parts of their
traditions. He infers that their secret society has not been abolished.
When a man of the Kansa tribe observed that the author had an inkling of
the matter he related part of the tradition of that tribe, explaining the
origin of the names and the taboos of several Kansa gentes. The ancestors
of these gentes were spoken of as birds which descended from an upper
world. The phratries in that tribe, the "Wa-yun min-'dun," or "(Those who)
sing together," refer to mystic songs and strengthen the view that the
secret society exists among these Indians. Several members of the tribe
have positively stated its existence.
As one phratry is composed of the two gentes, Large and Small Hanka, that
have the sole right to sing the war songs, time may show that these songs,
which, with their chart of pictographs(23), are used by the Osage, are
substantially those of the seventh degree in the Osage society. This is
rendered the more probable by the fact that the Kansa have grouped their
gentes in seven phratries, just the number of the degrees in the society.
And this arrangement by sevens is the rule among Osage, Kansa, Ponka,
Omaha, and Dakota, though there are apparent exceptions.
Further investigation may tend to confirm the supposition that in any
tribe which has mythic names for its members and its social divisions (as
among the Osage, Kansa, Quapaw, Omaha, Ponka, Iowa, Oto, Missouri, Tutelo,
and Winnebago), or in one which has mythic names only for its members and
local or other names for its social divisions (as among the Dakota,
Assiniboin, Mandan, Hidatsa, and Crow), there are now or there have been
secret societies or "The Mysteries."