96 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 195 



the deceased, who decreed that the offender be banished from the 

 tribe for a period of 4 years. In connection with this tale these 

 writers (ibid.) record the belief that the spirit of a murdered man 

 would come back and spoil hunting parties by scaring off game. 

 JLR mentioned this as well, and told of one such instance in which 

 the murderer, desperate because the ghost had scared away all the 

 game for several days, finally shot the specter with his rifle and was 

 thereafter freed of it. This instance illustrates quite weU the impor- 

 tance of supernatural sanctions in Ponca law. 



The punishment of an adulterer was left to the injured husband. 

 Skinner (1915 c, pp. 800-801) notes that: "A Ponca might kill, scalp, 

 or cut the hair off a man whom he caught holding clandestine inter- 

 course with his wife. A wife could kill another woman with whom 

 her husband eloped. A husband could cut off the nose and ears 

 of an unfaithful wife. Blood vengeance could not be exacted for these 

 crimes." 



At the present time the Northern and Southern Ponca are governed 

 by the laws of the States in which they reside: Nebraska and South 

 Dakota, the home of the Northern Ponca; Oklahoma, the home of the 

 Southern band. In both areas I heard praise of the Ponca as "decent, 

 law-abiding citizens" by local Whites, a rather rare situation for a 

 minority group. There are, of course, a few delinquents, and one 

 Southern Ponca family has been given the sobriquet "the James boys" 

 by other tribesmen because of their reputation for petty thievery. 

 The most common jail offense for members of either group is being 

 "drunk and disorderly." 



Concerning property among the Ponca, PLC commented: 



All of the property of the Poncas belonged to either families, individuals, or 

 the tribe as a whole. Our community building belongs to the tribe as a whole. 

 Individual property would be things like a man's gun, or his clothes. People 

 would have to ask him if they wanted to use his stuff. The tent or house belonged 

 to the family. If a member of the family left he lost his rights to the house. 

 If a man left his wife, she kept the tipi. If she leaves him and runs off with 

 another man, he keeps it. 



Anyone who stole property from someone else was whipped by the Buffalo-police. 



When a person died, some of his property would be given away to friends and 

 relatives, but not all of it. Most of it would be kept by the husband or wife. 



This last statement of PLC is at variance with Dorsey (1894, p. 374), 

 who indicates that the Ponca practiced the complete "Give-away" at 

 death. Perhaps PLC's statement reflects the usage of a later period 

 in Ponca history, that of PLC's own lifetime. 



According to PLC, ownership of the land rested with the tribe, and 

 crops were worked and shared communally. JLR, however, stated 

 that when the Mormon immigrants entered the Ponca country the tribe 

 as a whole gave them the use of certain lands which were reserved by a 



