416 A STUDY OF SIOUAN CULTS. 



among their own people ; but they said that when the Omaha traveled, 

 some used to take with them their respective "maka"" or medicines, 

 evidently their personal fetiches, for they nsed to say, "Our medicines 

 are wise; they can talk like men, and they tell us how many horses we 

 are to receive from the peoiilc t« whom we are going." 



When the Omaha went against the Pawnee during the boyhood of 

 the present Big Elk, one of the captains, named Gi'a"habi, had a war 

 club of the kind called " weaqfade." He made this club " waqube," iu 

 order to use it mysteriously. .When near the camp of the enemy he 

 brandished the club four times toward the Pawnees. This was fol- 

 lowed by the use of the sacred bag, as related in § 59. 



It is probable that the medicines of the Watci Wai^upi, Wase-jide 

 a(('.i"ma, and the ja^i°-wasabe watcigaxe ikageki^g, of the Omaha,' the 

 Eed Medicine of the Kansa, and the Red Medicine of the Osage 

 Maka" oii^se watsi" or Eed Medicine Dance, were used as fetiches, as 

 they conferred wonderful powers on those who used them. When the 

 author was at the Omaha Agency, iu 1878, he obtained the following: 

 Rocky Mountain beans, which are scarlet, and are called "Maka" jide" 

 or Eed Medicine, confer good luck on their owners. If the beans like 

 their owners, they will never be lost; even if dropiied accidentally, 

 they will return to the possession of their owners. Ni-k'ii-mi, an aged 

 Oto woman, told one of her granddaughters (then Susette La Fleche, 

 known as Bright Eyes after 1879, and now the wife of T. H. Tibbies) 

 of her own experience with one of these beans. She had dropped it 

 iu the gi-ass, but she found it on retracing her steps. It is impossible 

 to say whether this scarlet bean was itieutical with the Eed Medicine 

 of the Iowa (§ 87), Kansa, and Osage; but it certainly difl'ered from 

 that of the Wase-jide afi" ma of the Omaha. 



There are sacred or mystery rites practiced by the dancing societies, 

 including those to which the wazefe or doctors belong. Two Crows 

 said that he did not know those of his society, the j^e i^a'e(j;e-nia. As 

 initiation into one of these societies is very expensive, it is unreasona- 

 ble to suppose that Two Crows would communicate the secrets of his 

 order for a small sum, such as f 1 a day. 



SORCERY. 



§ 63. There have been sorcei'ers, i. e., such as prepared love potions for 

 those who bought them, and who were thought to cause the death of 

 those persons who had incurred their displeasure. The author has been 

 told that the sorcerers give a high i)rice for a small quantity of the 

 catamenial discharge of a virgin. It is mixed with a love potion, and 

 when the compound is administered to a man he can not help courting 

 the woman, even when he knows that he does not love her. 



I See Om. Sue, iip. 34il-351. 



