M. R. HARRINGTON — SACRED BUNDLES OF THE SAC AND FOX INDIANS. 165

side. When they start to go out the man furthest east on the south side gets down off the platform first, then walks westward, circling the fire, then eastward and out. Then the west one on the north platform circles the fire and goes out; then they all go. The ceremony is called Ki ka nu ni. It is sometimes preceded by a “medicine sweat” or steam bath for purification (PI. XXIII, A).
As to the bundle, they dip it four times eastward through the smoke of burning cedar, when they first begin; then as they open it they sprinkle Indian tobacco in it, repeating a prayer. It lies open during the ceremony, in which condition it is smoked again, about the middle of the morning, by waft- ing the smoke over the outspread contents, sometimes with the aid of burning coals carried in an iron shovel. It is again smoked, about time for the feast, before being tied up again, and is once more passed through the smoke after it resumes its bundle form, four times to the eastward. Then they hang it back to the rafter poles overhead to await the next feast. Such feasts are held for some bundles four times a year.
One of the prayers used when sprinkling tobacco in the bundle was interpreted as follows:
Ne me co Pi toe' ka h' (Grandfather Pitoc'kah') : “Do
not think of me in the wrong way, but only in the right way. As the Great Manito has told you, that is how I want you to think of me. Think of my future life.”
For most of the bundle ceremonies the water drum with curved drumstick (PI. XXIX, B, C) is used to accompany the singing; the rattles, while sometimes made of deer hoofs in the old way (PI. XXIX, A), are now usually of gourd (PI. XXIX, D) , which, the Sac and Fox say, is a comparative innovation. The screeching of the war whistles (PI. XXIX, E, F, G) (frequently seen attached to the bundles) blown by the leading dancers is usually a feature of these ceremonies.
The opportunity was offered while the Expedition was working among the Fox Indians of Iowa to attend several such gatherings, or rather to look on, for outsiders were not
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166 UNIVERSITY MUSEUM — ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUBLICATIONS VOL. IV.
permitted within the lodge where the ceremonies took place. One of these was a Wolf clan ceremony, in honor of a bundle whose principal “medicine” or patron was the wolf. In this case the musicians, who were profusely painted, sat on the south sleeping platform of the lodge, and here I was told the bundle lay open, although I could not see it from outside. The bark covered arbor adjoining the house on the east had been temporarily walled with such mats as are used to cover the winter lodges, and the end wall between house and arbor removed, throwing them together as one large room. In addition to the sound of the drum and rattles usually heard, a peculiar accompaniment to the singing was produced by rubbing a round stick of hard wood upon another long one, provided with a series of lateral notches (PI. XXIX, H). The regular purring throb of several pairs of these sticks worked in unison produced an effect both unusual and agreeable. As the dancers passed the door outside which I was standing, circling contra-clockwise, it was noticed that the leaders were nearly naked and daubed profusely with paint, mostly white, while the rest of the dancers were fully attired in their best, both men and women. The leaders danced in imitation of the movements of the wolf, holding their hands drooping before their breasts as a dog holds its forepaws when standing upon its hind legs, and, as they stepped, constantly sounded the war whistles. This particular ceremony ended tragically, for the principal leader, an old man whose skilful dancing and effec- tive use of paint had especially attracted my attention, dropped dead at the end of the first dance. A few days later I wit- nessed part of another bundle ceremony in which the dancers, in curved parallel rows facing the platform where the singers sat, danced without moving from their places.
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