Chapter 41
M. R. HARRINGTON — SACRED BUNDLES OF THE SAC AND FOX INDIANS. 209
two colors, brownish yellow and black. It contained, im- bedded in down dyed red, the following: Four buckskin
packets, tied side by side, containing herb mixture; another package with a piece of fossil bone wrapped in red yam and showing many traces of scraping for use as medicine, the pow- der being taken internally; a bit of birch bark folded about some roots; part of the scaly skin of a lizard(?) packed in red down and wrapped in cloth ; two packages of roots and the remains of two bladder packages containing herb mixture.
Another woven sack, x 51", is apparently made partly of buffalo wool yam, and partly ravelings from fabrics intro- duced by the whites. It enclosed a package containing two pieces of large fossil bone, piece of fossil bone or tooth wrapped in red down and a bit of bladder, package of gypsum crystals, and package of roots.
Two packages, one containing four pieces of a large fossil leg bone, the other part of a joint of a similar bone, both packed in red down.
Package cedar twigs.
Package magic red paint, mixed with herbs.
Bunch of leaves resembling “bear grass,” tied with a woven band, probably not of Indian origin.
Ten packages roots and herbs.
One package herb mixture.
Twenty-three loose bits of root; at least eight species.
Two empty packages.
A Fox “War Medicine.”
Somewhat resembling the war bundles in use, but decid- edly not in the same class in point of sacredness or importance, is the small bundle bought from Joe Tessen, a Fox, belonging to the Tama band in Iowa, who claimed that it was a “war medicine.” Further than that he could give no information. I am not entirely satisfied that the specimen was really intended for war, but I will describe it here, nevertheless, for what it is worth.
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210 UNIVERSITY MUSEUM — ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUBLICATIONS VOL. IV.
Bundle 2/7975.
The outer cover is merely a piece of figured calico.
Contents. — Leather bag containing, at bottom, a few pieces of herbs, then an empty buckskin package from which they had probably escaped; a rabbit’s foot with a string to tie on the scalp lock. This is usually an amulet for swift run- ning, and does not seem very appropriate for a war medicine, as the rabbit always runs away from his enemy.
Buckskin package, containing slender black roots.
Small medicine pouch of woven bead work, empty.
Piece of braided rope or sennit of native fibre, 6' 4" long, doubled and made into a loop. Such things are often seen in war bundles.
Small braid of sweet grass.
Piece of reddish indurated clay.
Woven sack of yam, 31" x 21", in red, yellowish white, black, yellow and purple, bearing on one side the white figure of a deer on a black ground; on the other a black figure of a man on a white ground. It contained two balls of stone, about 1" in diameter, one natural, the other perhaps partly artificially shaped; one disk of stone, natural, about f" in diameter; one disk of bone about the same size,- but slightly oval; one iron ring If" in outside diameter; ring of lead f " in diameter; three packages herb mixture and one package native tobacco.
A strip of calico 9" long and 3" wide at one end, taper- ing to If" at the other, to which were sewed, all on one side, four pockets of the same material, the whole rolled up and tied with a strip of rag. The pockets contained: One package Indian tobacco, one package roots, five packages herb mix- ture, one of which, of buckskin, looked as if it had been car- ried a long time on the person.
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