102 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 195 



parently, dislodge the foreign matter, which would pass out of the patient's 

 body through the bowels and effect the cure. One hopes that none of 

 Broken-jaw's patients was afflicted with appendicitis! In 1956 PLC 

 made a copy of Broken-jaw's bundle and presented it to the Nebraska 

 State Historical Society Museum in Lincoln. 



The tribal pipe of the Ponca is considered the most powerful 

 bundle. It is kept, at present, by Mrs. Grace Warrior (nee Standing- 

 buffalo), a Southern Ponca. Ordinarily it is kept in a special room, 

 reserved for this purpose, in the Warrior home. Because of the xilbe 

 inherent in the bundle, this room is said to be continually foggy or 

 hazy (Clyde Warrior). The pipe is, or at any rate should be, hung 

 above the door of a special tipi during the annual Southern Ponca 

 powwow, held in late August. Clan pipes, likewise, were held sacred, 

 and Birdhead's clan pipe, which functioned for many years as the 

 "tribal" pipe of the Northern Ponca, was treated with the utmost 

 respect by PLC when he opened the bundle containing it for the 

 University of Nebraska State Museum in 1951, Marvellously 

 enough, just as PLC untied the wrappings of the bundle, there was 

 a loud peal of thunder, although the day had been clear until that 

 moment! 



While on the subject of bundles, one should note in passing that while 

 bundles and their attendant ceremonies are largely a thing of the past 

 to present-day Ponca, the carved and painted boxes which contain 

 the articles used in the Peyote rite are treated much as bundles were 

 in the past. Likewise the "feathers" used in the rite are endowed 

 with greater or lesser amounts of waxube or "power." Among the 

 most powerful feathers are the scissortail flycatcher, "waterbird" 

 (Anhinga anhinga), eagle, and flicker. Pheasant feathers, though 

 attractive, have less power. The feathers of the owl are usually 

 avoided, as their use marks the owner as a shaman. 



Much of Ponca religion centered about various dances and cere- 

 monies. The importance of such activity in Prairie and Plains 

 Indian life has, in my opinion, been greatly underestimated by Ameri- 

 can anthropologists. This is probably due to the fact that both have 

 become relatively unimportant in contemporary American culture. 

 Thus, many ethnographers, while going into great detail concerning 

 the political, social, legal, and economic systems of a particular group, 

 gloss over the ceremonial life of the people in a few paragraphs. Yet 

 ceremonial activity and dancing occupied most of a Plains Indian's 

 spare time. Probably a third or more of a 19th-century Ponca's year 

 was taken up preparing for or participating in such activity, and even 

 today such activity looms large for many adult Southern Ponca. 



In his Ponca "History" (pp. 19-21), PLC describes what are, to him, 

 the three major Ponca ceremonials. These are the Sun dance, Wd-wq 

 or Pipe dance, and Heduska or "War" dance. 



