Howard] THE PONCA TRIBE 101 



successful employment of it, according to WiUiams, another piece 

 was added to its contents. For example, after a successful hunt a 

 buffalo tail might be added; after a war party, a scalp. He also be- 

 lieved that mescal beans were a part of the bundle's contents. The 

 significance of these beans to the Ponca is discussed later in this 

 chapter (pp. 121-124). 



The Williams bundle, when I saw it in 1954, was kept on a specially 

 constructed shelf 0n the Parrish Williams residence. It measured 

 approximately 2 feet in length by 1 foot in thickness and was wrapped 

 in a tanned animal hide secured with thick hide thongs. Several 

 large gourd rattles tied to the outside undoubtedly provided rhythmic 

 accompaniment to the ritual songs which were sung when the bundle 

 was opened. 



There are no longer any sacred bundles among the Northern Ponca. 

 OK, JLR, and PLC all mentioned, however, that the late chief 

 Whiteshirt kept a "pelican" (skin and head) which he used to "doctor" 

 people. From the description of its use, it is evident that this was a 

 personal doctoring bundle. OK, who was "doctored" with this 

 bundle, described the ritual as follows: 



Once I asked old man Whiteshirt to come over and sing for me. I gave him 

 something to eat and after we had finished he went to work. He had one of those 

 big gourds and he shook it while he sang. After he sang a while he took up his 

 pelican and began to hit me with the beak in different places on the body. It 

 hurt! I hadn't figured on this. I just wanted to hear him sing. 



PLC mentioned that Whiteshirt often wore a warbonnet made of 

 pelican feathers to show his source of power (probably made of the 

 wing feathers of the same bird as his "bundle"). He is shown wearing 

 this bonnet in plate 21, d. George Phillips, an Omaha Indian, recalled 

 that Whiteshirt used to bring his "pehcan" to Peyote meetings when 

 he was visiting on the Omaha reservation. When he sang he held the 

 bird upside down, holding the tail feathers extended like Peyote 

 "feathers." The Omaha peyotists were highly amused at this, 

 partly because "medicine ways" (i.e., the Medicine Lodge and the 

 animal cults) are not supposed to be mixed with the Peyote rehgion 

 among the Omaha and Ponca, and partly because the pelican's tail 

 was ridiculously short in comparison with the tails of other birds more 

 commonly used for peyote "feathers." 



PLC described another medicine bundle, used by the late Northern 

 Ponca chief Broken-jaw. It consisted of a muskrat skin and a short, 

 flat-ended, wooden paddle. In his curing rite Broken-jaw would first 

 hold the muskrat skin, nose forward, to different parts of the patient's 

 body. When he came to the part of the body where the malignancy 

 rested, the muskrat skin would begin to quiver. Having completed 

 his diagnosis, Broken-jaw would lay the skin aside, take up his paddle, 

 and jab the patient with it in the area indicated. This would, ap- 



718-071—65 8 



