BADiN] SOCIAL ORGANIZATION — GENERAL DISCUSSION 205 



fact of Winnebago culture, namely, that there are, strictly speaking, 

 no religious societies based on communication from a clan animal. 

 There are, however, clan and clan-bundle (Winter) feasts which, in 

 many respects, are absolutely identical with the religious societies, 

 and which furnish, it seems to us, an example of just those two kinds 

 of influence that we wished to pomt out, one radiating from the clan 

 as an organization, the other from the entire clan imit. 



In the Winter Feasts the unit of organization is the clan. Gen- 

 erally all the clans were represented in the person of the owner of 

 each specific clan war bundle. The order of invitation was tradi- 

 tionally fixed, but it seems that in a number of cases the "friend" 

 clan always had the position of honor. The war-bundle owner was 

 not, however, supposed to represent the clan at all, but the spirits 

 to whom offerings were being made. In every case, although the 

 participants were supposed to represent a fairly large number of 

 animals, the main blessings that were contained in the war bundle 

 were from the thunderbird and night-spirit and the main offerings 

 were indeed made to them. There seem thus to have been two 

 separate ceremonies involved, one to the thunderbird and the other 

 to the night-spirits. 



The question arising with regard to the clan basis of these cere- 

 monial organizations is whether we are to imagine that the cere- 

 monial unit of organization was displaced by the clan unit, or whether 

 we are to suppose that the ceremony is of comparatively recent 

 origin, let us say at least long after the clan organization had been 

 perfected, and that a number of things combined to determine the 

 acceptance of the clan as a unit of organization, as opposed to the 

 traditional ceremonial one. To the foregoing we must also add the 

 fact that the Winter Feast seems to be related to similar ceremonies 

 of the Central Algonquian, whose influence on the Winnebago must 

 first be determined. If, then, we are not in a position at present to 

 suggest the course of development, there can be no doubt that the 

 content of the ceremony is strictly comparable to that of the religious 

 societies, and that there are hints that the ceremonial unit of organi- 

 zation had begun to assert itself. If this could be definitely estab- 

 lished. It would indicate that the clan basis of organization is his- 

 torically primary. 



The clan unit of organization is found in no other Winnebago cere- 

 mony, although the specific clan feasts show marked influences 

 radiating from the clan unit. The clan feast is a typical ceremonial 

 complex, both in type of organization and in content. The differ- 

 ence between it and a society like that of the night-sph-it lies in the 

 fact that although the five principal participants must have specific 

 blessmgs (bundles), they must at the same time belong to the clan. 

 To what extent a member of one clan who has obtained a bundle 



