60 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 195 



Skinner (1920, p. 308) states that the ceremonies of the Ponca 

 Medicine lodge (the equivalent of the Ojibwa Mideioivnn and the 

 Omaha Pebble society) were held in a "long lodge roofed with tent- 

 covers and brush" in the summer. This lodge was merely an extra 

 long diudipu-snede. JLR, however, stated that when his brother was 

 "doctored" by the members of the Northern Ponca Medicine lodge 

 group, the rites were held in a frame dwelling. This was confirmed 

 by PLC, who further commented that this house had later become 

 "haunted" by mysterious lights. 



The Ponca Sun dance arbor was merely a semicircular screen of 

 boughs the main purpose of which was to somewhat protect the 

 dancers from the sun and wind. G. A. Dorsey (1905, p. 76), in his 

 classic description of this famous Ponca ceremony, writes that on the 

 third day of the dance : 



The Dog Soldiers went to the timber for additional boughs to complete the 

 arbor forming the lodge. When these were in place women fastened four 

 canvas tipis to the sides of the arbor and attached the free ends to the lodge 

 poles, thus forming a better protection for the dancers from the burning rays 

 of the sun. 



Dorsey contrasts the simplicity of the Ponca Sun dance lodge with 

 the more substantial Cheyenne or Arapaho structure. 



The Ponca earth-lodge village was usually a mere aggregate of 

 dwellings in no fixed order. The size of a village varied with the 

 time and the place. James (1905, vol. 17, p. 152), writing in the 

 early part of the 19th century, states: "The Puncahs have their 

 residence in a small village of dirt lodges, about one hundred and 

 eighty miles above Omawhaw creek .... Their number is about 

 200 souls." Half a century later the tribe was living in three villages : 

 "The village at the United States agency contained [in 1874] 89 

 families and 377 persons. The village called Huhdq^ . . . had 46 

 families and 144 persons. 'Point' village had 82 families and 248 

 persons" (Fletcher and La Flesche, 1911, p. 51). The "Point" vil- 

 lage mentioned by these authors is very likely the "Gray-blanket" 

 settlement of my informants. 



At the present time the Huhdo and Gray -blanket village areas are 

 still recognized localities to the Northern Ponca, but neither could be 

 termed a settlement. Most Northern Ponca live on farms in the 

 Niobrara area or in the towns of Niobrara, Verdel, and Norfolk, 

 Nebr. Most Southern Ponca live in and around Ponca City or the 

 community of White Eagle, in Oklahoma. The latter, the site of the 

 old Southern Ponca Agency, has a population of about 100, and is the 

 only comj)letely Ponca settlement in existence today. 



