! 



524 A STUDY OF SIOUAN CULTS. 



Earth people serve or assist Fire people (§ 35 aud perhaps § 36). Do 

 Water people ever serve Wind-maker people (see address to a stream 

 iu time of war, § 23) ? The Fire i)owers are hostile to the powers of the 

 Water (§§ 75, 77, 117-119); we have yet t) learn whether, in any gens, 

 a subgens named after the Thnuder-beiug sits on the same side of the 

 gentile fireplace with a snbgens named after a power of the Water. Is 

 there a warfare going on between the powers of the Earth and the 

 Wind-makers? The Fire jjowers aud Wind-makers are coucei'ued iu 

 all kinds of sufi'ering, including war, disease, and death (§§ 117, 119, 

 127, 129), and there is no hostility existing between them.' 



The Ka"se gens of the Osage has several names, Wind people. South- 

 wind people, Those who light the pipes (in council), and Fire people. 



The i)owers of the Earth and Water are interested in the preservation 

 of life, and so we may consider them the patrons of peace. "Peace," 

 iu Omaha, Ponka, and j^oiwere, means "The land is good," and "to 

 make peace" is expressed by " to make the laud good." The words for 

 " water " and " life" are identical in some of the Siouau languages, and 

 they differ but slightly iu others. 



It is interesting to note what has been said by Mr. Francis La 

 Flesche^ about water: "Water seems to hold an important place in 

 the practice of this medicine societj', even when roots are used for the 

 healing of wounds. The songs say: ' Water was sent into the wound, 

 ' Water will be sent into his wound,' etc." The mystic songs of the 

 doctors of the order of buffalo shamans tell of the i)ool of water in a 

 buffalo wallow where the wounded one shall be treated. 



But we must note some apparent inconsistencies. While the TJnktehi 

 created the earth and the human race (§ 112), they are believed to feed 

 on human spirits or ghosts; though ghosts are reckoned among the serv- 

 ants of the Unktehi ! And wliile the powers of the Fire and Water are 

 enemies, one is surprised to observe that in the war gens of the Omaha 

 as well as iu the two war geutes of the Kansa, there is the sacred clam 

 shell as well as the war pipe! (See § 36 and Om. Soc, p. 226.) 



THE FOUR QUARTERS. 



§ 366. According to the tradition of the Ifike-sabe, an Omaha buffalo 

 people, the ancestral buffaloes found the East and South winds bad 

 ones; but the North and West winds were good. From this the author 

 infers that the Omaha associated the East with the Fire powers or the 

 sun, the South^ with the Air powers, the North with the Earth powers, 

 and the West with the Water powers. 



On the other hand, an Iowa man told Mr. Hamilton that the South 



'See ^ 33 where there is an accoimt of the invocation of the winds at the consecration of the fire- 

 places. 



^The Omaha Buflalo Medicine Men, in Jour. Amer. Folk-lore, No. X, p. 219, and note. 



3It is interesting to ohserve iu this connection that the Director of the Bureau of Ethnology, in an 

 address entitled " Outlines of the philosojihy of the North American Indians." New York, 1877, 

 (p. 10), spoke of " the god of the south, whose breath is the winds."' 



