M. R. HARRINGTON — SACRED BUNDLES OF THE SAC AND FOX INDIANS. 187

Bundle 2/8534.
Size closed, 15§" x 5". Cover of buckskin, badly decayed; ties of buckskin, war whistle.
Contents. — Buffalo tail amulet for the belt, provided with two medicine packets.
Buffalo tail amulet, for either belt or scalp lock, to which were tied three medicine packets, one of them double, and a bit of root without covering.
Amulet for the scalp lock, composed of a small buffalo tail, a strip of young swan’s down, and some eagle down feathers dyed red.
Woven necklace made of red and yellow ravelings, with white beads woven in. It bore eight packets of various magic medicines and two that were clearly roots, one of them with- out covering; and was enclosed in a fawn skin.
Part of what seems to have been a white buffalo or steer’s tail, now a sort of sickly yellow — the only unusual thing in the bundle. At the proximal end was fastened a buckskin thong connecting with a wooden toggle intended to slip under the belt and keep the amulet in place (PI. XXXIV, I).
Two fine bundles were bought from Co'kwiwa (PI. XX, C, D) Smooth-surface, a member of the Bear-potato clan of the Sac and Fox, who is known to the whites as Sam Houston. While apparently very similar to many of the bundles already described, they are, he says, to be placed in quite a different class, the Ma me skwa pa ye no hun, or Bloody Thighs, so called because the usual taboo against menstruating women does not apply to them.
Co'kwiwa’s remarks on these bundles should prove of interest here. “These bundles,” he said, “were given by the Great Manito in a dream, but I do not know the dream well enough to tell it. Black Dog is said to be the owner of the original bundle taken from the first dream, and all the others are branches of his. The Bear-potato clan, Mu' ko -
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188 UNIVERSITY MUSEUM — ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUBLICATIONS VOL. IV.
pe ni, owned these bundles from the first. But they can some- times, if everybody is willing, be given to a man belonging to some other clan. They are war bundles, and very different from the ‘namesake’ bundles belonging to the different clans. But they are not like most war bundles because a woman, even in her monthly sickness, can come near them and touch them without hurting her or weakening the bundle. That is why they are called Bloody Thigh.
“Every warrior had a bundle — it was his shield, it pro- tected him in battle.
“These bundles must be kept dry. Meetings or feasts were held for them in the spring; this was the regular meeting. Other meetings could be held whenever the owners wished.
“Both these bundles are the same medicine, but the con- tents are not quite the same. One belonged to my father and one to my uncle. There is a medicine necklace in each one which was worn in battle. The little packages of medicine gave the warrior all the powers of all the roots and herbs in them. What was left of the bundle after all the things had been put on, was wrapped up in the cover and carried along. They painted themselves in different ways, each man in his own style. Blue paint means winter; green is spring; light green, summer; and red, fall.
“The words of the songs sung while they were opening the bundle and putting on the things went something like this:
“Wa bi ne thwa ka ci wa neth'
(White buffalo under the earth)
“ Ma ka ta mo tha mo' ki ya nM (Black buffalo I am coming out!)
“There should be seven kinds of herbs in each bundle, all called tha ko wa' thon*. The leading kind is ma ka ta - tea bi ku puk\ or ‘ black root ’ — a black, round kind. When
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