24S REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1901. 



approach and make the offerings — the medicine men or priests. One 

 of the most striking facts connected with the Af ton spring is that, 

 although tradition indicates that it was a great gathering- place for the 

 native tribes, no traces of camps or dwellings were found in the 

 vicinity. 



That sacrifice to spirit, occupants of springs was a widespread prac- 

 tice among the tribes of the West is clear, although observations of 

 the fact are somewhat rare. Or. J. Owen Dorsey tells us that the 

 Dakotas believe the buffalo to be of subterranean origin, and refers to 

 a tradition which asserts that one day when a principal man of one of 

 the tribes was fasting and praying to the Sun god he saw the ghost of 

 a buffalo rising from a spring. " The Sioux have also water gods and 

 mystic beings associated with bogs. 



In a recent publication by Dr. A. S. ( bitschet reference is made to 

 a sacred spring or well of the Omahas, located in western Kansas, as 

 follows: 



This curious water receptacle is situated on the top of a hill, and has a nearly cir- 

 cular form with about .'!'.) feet diameter. All the hunting tribes of the prairie regarded 

 it with a religious interest mixed with awe; the IVini called it, or call it still, Kltch- 

 Walushti; the Omahas, Ni-waxube, both names signifying "sacred water." The 

 miraculous quality of this pool which chiefly astonishes the Indian mind, consists in a 

 slow r'uting of the water whenever a large number of people stand around the brink. 

 The water of the pool is perfectly limpid and considered to be bottomless; it harbors an 

 aquatic monster which engulfs all the objects thrown into it, and never sends them up 

 again. Indians offered to it beads, arrows, kerchiefs, earrings, even blankets, and all 

 sink down immediately. Before putting clay or paint on their faces, the Indians 

 impregnated these suhstances with the water of the well. They never drink of this 

 water, but t > allay their thirst they go to the neighboring Salomon River. Before 

 buffalo hunting became a thing of the past, large hunting parties of natives often 

 gathered around this pond-source, and the following narrative circulated, among them 

 as a truthful report of what really occurred: Two Panis once returned with their 

 horses. Having dismounted near the sacred water, one of the men stepped upon a 

 turtle of the large species frequently found in the vicinity, about 3 feet long. The 

 man's feet stuck to the turtle; he could not disengage himself from its treacherous 

 shell, and when the turtle ran with his charge into the pool, the Indian was soon 

 beyond possible rescue. His stupefied companion had seen the occurrence and went 

 home to tell the tale. h 



PEOPLES CONCERNED IN THE DEPOSIT. 



The Afton region was occupied by tribes of Siouan stock, and par- 

 ticularly by the Osages, who in historic times overran Neosho Valley 

 and neighboring districts. That it was some of these people who cast 

 the offerings into the spring seems highly probable from the tact that 

 the whole group of artifacts was just such as they would have used 

 before the introduction of iron, and facts brought out by recent 



".I. <>\vcii Dorsey, Eleventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1S94, 

 p. 538. 



''A. s. Gatschet, Journal of American Folk-Lore, If, 1899, pp. US-69. 



