156 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 195 



NORTHERN PONCA-SOUTHERN PONCA: DIFFERENTIAL 



ACCULTURATION 



In the preceding chapters Ponca culture has been described as 

 fully as the information available and my own abilities allow. I have 

 also attempted to show, when the information permitted, changes 

 through time and the present differences between the cultures of the 

 Northern and Southern bands. Thus far, however, the possible 

 causes of these differences have not been treated at any length. It 

 is the purpose of this final chapter to consider what factors might have 

 been responsible for the existing differences, especially the differential 

 acculturation. 



It was noted in the Preface that early Ponca culture was very close 

 to that of the Central Algonquian and Central Siouan tribes. This 

 culture developed in, and was primarily adapted to, a Woodland and 

 Prairie environment. The Ponca have retained elements of this 

 Woodland-Prairie culture up to the present. After reaching the 

 Niobrara region, however, the Ponca gradually began to assume more 

 and more traits characteristic of the tribes of the High Plains. 



In the early period the Ponca seem to have borrowed extensively 

 from the Caddoan-speaking tribes to the south and west, the Pawnee 

 and Arikara. The Heduska complex is very likely Pawnee in origin 

 and the Wd-wq may be as well. Both Omaha and Ponca traditions 

 state that the art of building earth lodges was learned from the 

 Arikara (Fletcher and La Flesche, 1911, p. 75). 



In historic times, however, borrowing was heaviest from the Teton 

 and Yankton Dakota, neighbors of the Ponca to the north and north- 

 west since about 1750. Various costume styles, military and medicine 

 societies, games and social customs are undoubtedly Dakota importa- 

 tions. Of course we must not infer that this borrowing was a one-sided 

 affair. The Dakota secured their Omaha or Grass dance from the 

 Omaha and Ponca, and many other traits and complexes which have 

 come to be considered "typically Dakota" may ultimately prove to 

 have stemmed from the ^egiha. Nevertheless, it seems quite likely 

 that the Ponca, being the smaller group, were more often the recipients 

 of Dakota customs than the reverse. 



By 1877, the year of the Ponca Removal, the "Dakotaization" of 

 the Ponca had reached such a point that it is often difficult, when one 

 is presented with a series of old photographs showing both Dakota and 

 Ponca, to separate the members of the two tribes by their dress and 

 equipment. Likewise, most of those traits which distinguish the 

 Ponca of this period from their close linguistic and cultural relatives, 

 the Omaha, are features which the former tribe had borrowed from 

 the Dakota. Examples are the Plains style woman's dress, hard- 

 soled Plains moccasins, and geometrically designed beadwork in the 



