378 A STUDY OF SIOUAN CULTS. 



anything tliat may be to my injury or disadvantage. Througliont this 

 island (the world) you regulate everything that moves, including human 

 beings, when you decide for one that his last day on earth has come, 

 it is so. It can not be delayed. Therefore, O Mysterious Power, I ask 

 a favor of you." 



THE rONKA Srx DANCE OF 1873. 



In the summer of 1873, when the author was missionary to the Ponka 

 in what was Todd County, Dakota, that tribe had a sun dance on 

 the prairie near the mission house. The scarifications and subsequent 

 tortures and dancing lasted but three hours instead of a longer period, 

 owing to the remonstrances of Bishop Hare, the agent, and the mis- 

 sionary. The head chief, White Eagle, was tied to his pony, after he 

 had been scarified and fastened to the sun pole. Some of his police- 

 men, armed with whips, lashed the pony until it leaped aside, tearing 

 out the lariat that fastened the chief to the sun pole, and terminating 

 his participation in the ceremony. (See PI. XLVi and § 187.) For obvi- 

 ous reasons the author did not Aiew the sun dance, but he was told 

 about it by some of the spectators. As the chief, Standing Buffalo, 

 had said to Bishop Hare in the council previous to the sun dance, "You 

 white people pray to Wakanda in your way, and we Indians pray to 

 Wakanda in the svxn dance. Should you chance to lose your way on the 

 prairie you would perish, but if we got lost we would pray to Wa- 

 kanda in the sun dance, and find our way again." 



THE MOON A WAKANDA. 



§ 30. No examples of invocations of the moon have yet been found 

 among the Omaha and Ponka. But that the moon is "qube" appears 

 from the decorations of robes and tents. (See §§ 45-47.) 



The moon is addressed as a "grandfather" and is de.sci'ibed as the 

 " Wakanja of night" in "Osage Traditions," lines 55-59.' 



BERDACHES. 



The Omaha believe that the unfortunate beings, called " Mi^-qu-ga," 

 are mysterious or sacred because they have been affected by the Moon 

 Being. When a young Omaha fasted for the first time on reaching 

 puberty, it was thought that the Moon Being appeared to him, holding 

 in one hand a bow and arrows and in the other a pack strap, such as 

 the Indian women use. When the youth tried to grasp the bow and 

 arrows the Moon Being crossed his hands very quickly, and if the 

 youth was not very careful he seized the pack strap instead of the 

 bow and arrows, thereby fixing his lot in after life. In such a case he 

 could not help acting the woman, speaking, dressing, and working just 

 as Indian women used to do. Louis Sanssouci said that the mi"-quga 

 took other men as their husbands. Frank La Fleche knew one such 



■ See 6th Ann. Kept. Bur. Ethn., pp. 385, 389. 



