Howard] THE PONCA TRIBE 97 



clan then absent. When this clan returned, the Mormon pioneers 

 were forced to vacate. This procedure seems to indicate that although 

 the land was owned by the tribe, the rights of usufruct were distributed 

 according to clan, and that certain clans, with the passage of time, had 

 become identified with specific areas. 



Property in movables was often identified by both clan and individ- 

 ual markings. Fletcher and La Flesche (1911, p. 42) write: "It was 

 a custom in the Ponca tribe for each gens to have its peculiar manner 

 of marking arrows, so there should be no dispute in hunting as to the 

 gens to which a fatal arrow belonged. This mark, however, did not 

 exclude or interfere with a man's private mark." 



Certain incorporeal property was also "owned" by the clan and the 

 individual. Each clan possessed, in addition to its clan ceremonies 

 and traditional prerogatives, several personal names which often 

 referred to the clan animals or clan taboos. These names were, 

 in effect, "loaned" to individual clan members for their lifetime, but 

 remained the "property" of the clan. When the holder of a certain 

 clan name died, his name reverted to the clan "name pool," and could 

 then be assigned to a newborn infant, not necessarily of the deceased 

 man's family. The clan names thus became, in a sense, titles. It 

 was usually possible to tell the clan afliliation of a Ponca by the name 

 he bore, though the custom of "trading names" with other tribes, 

 such as the Omaha and Dakota, provided a certain number of names 

 which had no clan reference. 



The esoteric knowledge of shamans and members of the various 

 secret societies was also their personal property. If the owner wished 

 to seU this information he might do so, though the price was usually 

 high. Skinner (1920, p. 307) writes that members of the Ponca 

 Medicine Lodge might pass on their knowledge, by purchase, to their 

 eldest son or nearest relative. Otherwise these persons must purchase 

 their memberships from the four leaders of the society at a much 

 higher cost. The songs of these secret societies were also regarded 

 as personal possessions of the members, and must be paid for should 

 one desire to learn them. If a person learned such a song by simply 

 overhearing it, and then proceeded to sing it himself without paying 

 for it, he would be inviting bad luck. 



At the present time many individual peyotists have their own per- 

 sonal songs, but these are free for anyone who wishes to learn them. 

 The song may be referred to, however, as "so-and-so's song" if the 

 composer who "made" the song is remembered. Songs of the HeS/uska 

 society are considered tribal property at present, and a young Ponca 

 complained to the writer that the Kiowa were "great song thieves" 

 because they have appropriated many Ponca songs and use them 

 at their own gatherings. The same complaint was made of the 



