17() THE SIOUAN INDIANS (eth. a!c-. 15 



The music of the Oiii;ilia aud some other tribes has been most appre- 



• datively studied by Miss Fletcher, and her memoir ranks among the 

 Indian classics.' In general the Siouan music was typical for the 

 aboriginal stocks of the northern interior. Its dominant feature was 

 rhythm, by which the dance was controlled, though melody was inchoate, 

 while liarmony was not yet develo]>cd. — ' 



Tlic germ of painting was revcah'd in tlic calendars and tlie seed of 

 sculpture in the carvings of the Siouan Indians. The pictographic 

 paintings comprised not only recognizable but even vigorous represen- 

 tations of men and aiiimals, depicted in form and color though without 

 perspective, while the calumet of catliuite was sometimes chiseled into 

 striking verisimilitude of human aud animal forms in miniature. To 

 the collector these representations suggest fairly developed art, though 

 to tlie Indian they were mainly, if not wholly, symbolic ; for everything 

 indicates that the primitive artisan had not yet broken the shackles of 

 fetichistic symbolism, and had little conception of artistic portrayal for 

 /^ its own sak(!. 



INSTITUTIONS 



Among civilized peoples, institutions are crystallized in statutes 

 about nuclei of common law or custom ; among i)eoi)les in the prescrip- 

 torial culture-stage statutes are unborn, and various mnemonic devices 

 are employed for fixing and i)erpetuating institutions; and, as is usual 

 in this stage, the devices involve associations which appear to be 

 essentially arbitrary at the outset, though they tend to become natural 

 through the survival of the fittest. A favorite device for perpetuating 

 institutions among the ijriiuitive peoples of many districts on difterent 

 continents is the taboo, or prohibition, which is commonly fiducial but 

 is often of general application. This device finds its best development 

 in the earlier stages in the development of belief, and is normally con- 

 nected with totemism. Another device, which is remarkably wide- 

 spread, as shown by Morgan, is kinship nomenclature. This device rests 

 on a natural and easily ascertained basis, though its applications are 

 arbitrary and vary widely from tribe to tribe and from culture-status 

 to culture-status. A third device, whicii found much favor among the 

 American aborigines and among some other primitive peoples, may be 

 called ordination, or the arrangement of individuals and groups classi- 

 fied from tlie prescriptorial point of view of Self, Here, and Xow, with 

 respect to each other or to some dominant personage or group. This 

 device seems to have grown out of the kin-name system, in which the 

 Ego is the basis from which relation is reckoned. It tends to develop 

 into federate organization on the one hand or into caste on the other 

 hand, according to the attendant conditions.- There are various other 



'"A study of Omaha Indian Mnsic, by Alice C. Fletcher . . aided by Francis La Flesche, 

 with A report on the structural peculiarities of tlie music, by John Comfort Filhuore, A. M. ;" Arch, 

 and Elh. papers of the I'eabody Museum, vol. I. No. 5, 1893, pp. i-vi4-T-152 (-231-382). 



-Ordination, as the term is hero used, romprehenda resiuiontation as defined by Powell, yet relates 

 especially to the nu'thod of reirkoning from the constantly recognized but ever varying standpoint of 

 prescriptorial culture. 



