PKEFACE 



The Ponca tribe of American Indians has been in contact with 

 Wliite civilization for more than 150 years, yet no comprehensive 

 ethnography of the tribe has ever been written. Although there is 

 much material on the Ponca in the literature, it is scattered and uneven 

 in quality. Many of the tribal institutions have been neglected en- 

 tirely, and much of the material seems overgeneralized. It is even 

 difficult to assess the cultural position of the Ponca. Thus, some eth- 

 nographers have stressed the Plains affiliations of the tribe, citing such 

 features as the Sun dance, tribal bison hunt, and use of the skin tipi. 

 Yet many complexes of Eastern Woodland derivation are present in 

 Ponca culture as well ; for example, the Medicine Lodge ceremony and 

 organization, the stylized-floral decorative art tradition, and their 

 well-developed horticulture. Like other tribes of the Missouri, the 

 Ponca lie somewhere between High Plains and Woodlands in their 

 cultural orientation, and some of the more typical Plains traits in their 

 cultural inventory are known to be recent additions. A study of which 

 Woodland Indian traits were retained by the Ponca in their movement 

 out of the Southeast and into their historic location and which Plains 

 traits were adopted in their new situation thus provides us with inter- 

 esting data on human ecology. 



It was with this problem in mind that my original Ponca research 

 was initiated, and one of the primary purposes of this monograph is 

 to present a more complete delineation of Ponca culture, under one 

 cover, than has hitherto been done. To accomplish this, the existing 

 literature has been closely examined. The results of this study were 

 supplemented and checked by ethnographic fieldwork — 2 months 

 among the Northern Ponca of Nebraska and South Dakota in 1949 

 and 21/^ months with the Southern band in Oklahoma in 1954, plus 

 several shorter visits of a week or a few days to both groups on subse- 

 quent occasions. An attempt was made to trace the Ponca from their 

 position as a village tribe on the Missouri to modern reservation and 

 urban groups in Nebraska, South Dakota, and Oklahoma. 



The reconstruction of Ponca culture of the precontact period, or even 

 of the early historic era before the tribe had adopted much of the 

 European pattern, is quite difficult. The Ponca were visited by White 

 traders in the 18th century and acquired horses and a variety of trade 

 goods well before we begin to get any extensive descriptions of their 

 way of life. Furthermore, for the Ponca, we lack the precontact 

 archeological sites which provide an "aboriginal baseline" for some 

 other groups. 



