M. R. HARRINGTON — SACRED BUNDLES OF THE SAC AND FOX INDIANS. 129

the sick, preserving the health, athletic sports, gambling and witchcraft, and the general bundles, combining two or more of these functions. Bundles of this last group — those of per- sonal rather than public appeal — are usually classed as “medi- cine” or “charm” bundles, as they usually contain many charms and charm-medicines, and but few fetishes or amulets. While frequently held by shamans, this was not the invariable rule, for a very large number of these bundles were in the hands of private individuals.
Most of the fetishes, amulets and charms collected, espe- cially those from the central Algonkian tribes and those of Siouan language but similar culture, were not obtained sepa- rately, but as parts of bundles of one kind or another; but among some other tribes, such as the Comanche, Apache and Caddo, the few specimens of this kind that were found, had been kept and used separately and not enclosed with others in a bundle.
Inasmuch as the Heye Expedition has collected more “powerful” objects from the Sac and Fox tribe of the central Algonkian group than from any others, these have been selected as the subject of this paper.
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130 UNIVERSITY MUSEUM — ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUBLICATIONS VOL. IV.
SKETCH OF SAC AND FOX CULTURE.
Before taking up a detailed study of the Sac and Fox “powerful” objects it might be well to gain perspective by glancing for a moment at their life as a whole.
As might be inferred from their name, the Sac and Fox people were at one time two distinct but closely related tribes, who cast their lot together and thereby gained the compound name by which they are now known. Later a split occurred which left one band, mainly Foxes, near Tama, Iowa; another in Kansas, and a third, mainly Sac (Sauk), near Shawnee, Oklahoma, far from their old haunts near Lake Michigan, where they were encountered by the whites at an early date.
Most of our “powerful” objects were secured from the Oklahoma contingent, but a few articles of this class were collected in Iowa.
Although they lived for the most part in the borderland between forest and prairie, the life and habits of this people were typically those of the woodland, with fairly permanent summer villages convenient, not only to good hunting grounds, but also to places where their great staple, com (maize), and other vegetable foods, could be successfully raised. Houses for summer use were rectangular structures of poles and bark, with gable roofs, sleeping platforms and adjacent arbors for shade; but in winter these were usually abandoned in favor of the warmer oval dome-shaped lodges covered with great mats (PL XXI, A) made of cat-tail flags. These were portable, a decided advantage for the winter hunt. Canoes were form- erly in general use.
Their manufactures included baskets and many woven articles such as sacks and mats, some of them being excellent in workmanship and design, as well as the bowls, spoons and other articles of wood and the articles of buckskin, rawhide
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