484 A STUDY OF SIOUAN CULTS. 



Tlie maturity of the si^xes is a period of serious aud religious expericuces which 

 are preparatnrv by their character for the entrance of the youth or maiden iuto the 

 religious and secular responsibilities of life, both individual aud tribal. Among 

 the tribes which hold especial public ceremonies announcing the maturity of a girl, 

 these rights are held not far from the actual time of puberty, and indicate the close 

 of childhood and entrance of the person into the social status of womanhood. The 

 public festival has, however, been preceded by private religious rites. With young 

 men the religious training preceiies and follows iiuberty, and the entrance is pub- 

 licly announced by the youth joining in the dangers aud duties of tribal life. Ac- 

 cording to the old customs, a young man did not take a wife until he had proved his 

 prowess, and thus became enrolled among the manly element, or l)raves, as they are 

 sometimes spoken of. The initial fasts of warriors have been mistaken sometimes 

 for ceremonials of puberty. 



GHOST LORE AND THE FUTUEE LIFE. 



MEANING OF WASAGI. 



§ 265. The. word " wa-ua-^i " iiieaus more than " apparition." The 

 living man is supposed to have one, two, or more " wanagi,'' cue of 

 which after death remains at the grave and another goes to the phxce 

 of the departed. The writer has been told that for mauy years no 

 Yankton Dakota would consent to have his picture taken lest one of 

 his " wanagi" should remain in the picture, instead of going after death 

 to the spirit laud. The Teton Dakota apply the name of "ghost" or 

 '• shadow" to the lock of hair cut from the forehead of the deceased 

 and kept for some time by the parents; and till that lock is buried the 

 deceased is supposed to retain his usual place in the household circle. 



§ 266. Lynd ' says that to the human body the Dakota give four 

 spirits : 



The first is supposed to be a spirit of the body, which dies with the body. The 

 second is a .spirit which always remains with or near the body. Another is the soul 

 which accounts for the deeds of the body, and is supposed by some to go to the south, 

 by others to the west, after the death of the body. The fourth always lingers with 

 the small bundle of the hair of the deceased, kept by the relatives until they have a 

 <hance to throw it into the enemy's country, when it becomes a roving spirit, bring- 

 ing death and disease to the enemy in whose country it remains. From this belief 

 arose the practice of wearing four scalp feathers for each enemy slain in battle, one 

 for each spirit. 



§ 267. "Some Sioux claim a fifth scalp feather, averring that there is 

 a fifth spirit, which enters the body of some animal or child after death. 

 As far as I am aware, this belief is not general, though theyditter in 

 their accounts of the spirits of mau, even in number. 



Some of these metempsychosists go so far as to aver that they have 

 distinct recollections of a former state of existence and of the passage 

 iuto this. The belief, as before stated, does not appear to be general." 

 (See §§ 260, 287.) 



§ 268. With regard to the place of abode of the four spirits of each 

 man — though they believe that the true soul which goes south or west 



' Jlinn. Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. n, pt. 2, pp. 68, 80. 



