THE SUN DANCE MEDICINE BUNDLE

A POWER IN APPEALS FOR LIFE. OPENED ONLY IN SACRED CEREMONIAL FOR THE FULFILLMENT OF A WOMAN'S VOW

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By Clark Wissler

MONG the exhibits for the Plains Indians may be found the bundle

for the medicine woman in the Blackfoot sun dance, a simple outfit far more sacred than even the medicine pipe. The chief object is a headdress built on a strip of rawhide in the form of a lizard. On the headdress in front is what is spoken of as a doll, which contains a prairie turnip. All this together with certain paints is kept in a cylindrical rawhide case, in fact is never taken out except when the appropriate ritual is performed. Attached to the case is a digging stick, woman's primitive tool and with these Indians the symbol of her fall.

As their old sacred story runs, a virgin loved the morning star and was carried by him to the home of his heavenly parents, the sun and moon, where she took up the domestic duties of a wife. As on earth, she gathered roots for the table with her digging stick, but one large fine prairie turnip she was forbidden to dig up. Now like the woman of our own sacred story, she yielded to curiosity and thrust her stick under the turnip. Sorrow and grief for her people below were now her portion and she was banished to earth, but directed to teach the lesson and confer a medicine bundle on her descendants. Since the bundle came from the house of the sun, it symbolizes much of his power and might.

This medicine bundle finds its chief function in the fulfillment of a vow a woman's vow. If a dear one is near unto death, a woman may stand before the sun and say, "Hear me, I am virtuous, I have been true to my marriage bond; if our dear one is spared, I will open the bundle at the sun dance." A medicine man is usually called to take formal note of the vow and to direct the unhappy one. Now the sun is not deceived and if an unworthy woman so address him, retribution is certain. Further, this woman must at the next sun dance make public confession of all temptations she has experienced. Yet more, this public confession is also a challenge and it is the duty of every bystander to impeach her, if there is aught to impeach.

Following the vow are months of preparation. At the time of the sun dance the woman fasts four days and on the last day the bundle is opened, the headdress placed on her brow and the digging stick on her back. The ritual is long, requiring most of the day for its many songs and prayers. In one place a solemn medicine man while dancing with the stick rehearses

the digging of that first forbidden turnip. At last the woman is conducted to the sun dance place where her confession is made.

The bundle she cares for until some other woman makes a vow.

The whole tribe has an interest in this ceremony. They camp in a great circle and await the issue of those four days, for should there be a fault, all would suffer. The appearance of the woman with this regalia is the great ceremonial moment of the tribe, all are there to see and stand in reverent silence.

That the bundle is here is due to our late friend The Bear-One. One day we received a letter in which he stated that the

bundle owned by a certain woman could be had for the cost of a few presents to her family. We learned later that the husband of the bundle-owner had died. During his illness the woman prayed to the bundle and made a vow to the sun. Now if such a plea is of no avail, the woman is released from her obligation, but more, she is then under the displeasure of the sun and should get clear of the bundle. Because of the disrepute this bundle was now in, no one would care to take it and the poor widow looked upon it as the real cause of her husband's death. The reader must know that the taking of a bundle is like entering into marriage, one cannot escape the bonds without scandal and crime, except in the regular manher. Even one so powerful as our friend could not have ventured to give us such a bundle under normal conditions; as it was, the risk was great. Misfortune and sudden death were predicted for him; in fact his end recently, some two years after the events of this story, was regarded as proof of the sun's displeasure.

The

1 Through a mistaken transference of captions on page 299 of the December JOURNAL, the discovery of the Blackfoot sun dance was accredited to Dr. Pliny E. Goddard. investigations of Dr. Goddard concerned the sun dance of the Plains Cree.

Building the frame of wil

lows

Procession

of holy men in sun-wise direction

Entering for the purification rites

THE MUSEUM'S COLLECTION OF LIFE CASTS

WITH PHOTOGRAPHS ILLUSTRATING THE METHOD OF MAKING DUPLICATE CASTS FOR EXCHANGE WITH OTHER INSTITUTIONS

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HE origin of the primitive races of the New World and their possible relations to the geographically isolated races of the Old World is

one of the most interesting questions of ethnological research, which if it ever comes to anything must needs reach its results through comparative study of the races themselves in their physical types and their cultures. In this country especial interest has attached to study of the Indian tribes of the northwest coast of North America for comparison with northern Asiatic tribes, with a view to establishing proofs of the derivation of the western tribes from the eastern, or at least of a mingling of the two

Model of a head of which duplicate casts are desired. The model is covered with a half-inch thickness of clay [a small part of the clay is cut away to show the face of the model underneath] and a two-piece plaster moid is made over the clay. When the plaster has hardened, the mold is taken off, and the clay is removed from the model

The mold is like a jacket or hood, separated from the model by just the thickness of the clay. Model and jacket are given a coat of shellac and one of oil, then are put back in position and the space between them filled with glue

The glue hardens to form a mold within the plaster jacket, the model of the head having been removed. [The photographs illustrate the process in connection with three different busts.] A glue mold is firm enough to give an accurate cast, yet yielding enough to allow its removal from about the cast, however many undercuts the plaster surface may present

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THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL

during the age of land connection of the two continents. Interest has centered also in an investigation of the tribes of the Southwest and of the islands of the Pacific with reference to establishing possible connection between the Old and New Worlds at this point through the widespread Polynesians.

The American Museum has unusual hopes for the future of this research because of large equipment for the study in life casts of physical types. In 1906 the institution possessed more than five hundred masks from life, and the number has steadily increased until it has become a very complete collection. There is a full series of Siberian casts, actually made in the field on the Jesup North Pacific Expeditions a complete Eskimo series, made pretty much throughout the length and breadth of the Arctic regions, and an elaborate series representing every type of culture of the North American Indian, being especially strong for the Northwest Coast, the Plains, California and the Southwest. In addition the Museum possesses a scattering series for South America and the South Pacific Islands, representative of such races as as Patagonians, Maori, Samoans, and Filipinos. Almost without exception these stand for actual field study of the given race and are accompanied by a long series of photographs and careful color studies for many subjects.

Ethnology draws many conclusions from skull study but these results must of necessity be incomplete as compared with records based on casts from life which give perfect

Mr. James C. Bell, expert worker in plaster, making a glue mold of an Indian head. Glue is poured into the funnel, the lower end of which opens into a half-inch space between the original model and the plaster jacket fitting over it. As the glue rises in this space about the model, holes previously cut in the jacket to allow the escape of air are plugged with clay. Finally the funnels at the top and side are capped with clay and the glue is allowed to set for twelve hours