20 YEARBOOK, PUBLIC MUSEUM, MILWAUKEE [Vol. II. 



siding there have definitely abandoned their customs in favor of ours. 

 Further, within the last three years, they had a final ceremony, after 

 which they destroyed their sacred medicine bundles and other Indian 

 paraphernalia. 



The loway Indians are little known and are particularly worthy of 

 interest. While they belong to one linguistic family, the Siouan, their 

 material culture and folklore are largely identified with the greater 

 number of component peoples of another group, the Algonkian. In 

 other words, the loway, like their close relatives, the Winnebago, once 

 possessed a material culture wholly based upon that of the Central 

 Algonkians, with only a few radical departures in type towards the 

 plains, with a certain development of some features, such as decorative 

 art, to an exuberance seldom found among the founders of the parent 

 culture. 



So far as the mental life of the loway is concerned, that is, with re- 

 gard to their political life, social organization, societies, and other feat- 

 ures, perhaps excepting their religion, they show more originality. They 

 are identified strongly with their linguistic relatives, the Winnebago, 

 Oto, Missouri, Omaha, Osage, and Ponca, who, contrary to the evi- 

 dence of material culture, seem to have reacted strongly upon the Cen- 

 tral Algonkians, among whom those tribes most closely in contact with 

 the Southern Siouans seem to have experienced a certain tightening 

 up of social life, a remodeling of customs according to the more definite- 

 ly organized Siouan type, quite different from that of the uninfluenced 

 Algonkians. This seems more probable because in the east those Al- 

 gonkians who came in contact with the Iroquois have also abandoned 

 their ancient ways and adopted the matriarchal system of the Five 

 Nations, as can be readily observed in studying the customs of the Dela- 

 ware and Mahikan, for example. 



So far as their religious life is concerned, the great rite known as 

 the Medicine Dance has been bodily taken over by the loway and their 

 Tciwere relatives, and, after some modification according to tribal 

 standards or patterns, has become the principal religious rite of the tribe. 



In common with the Central Algonkians, the loway had learned the 

 art of weaving with thread made from the inner fibre ,of the basswood, 

 cedar, and nettle. They used knot bowls and also spoons of wood and 

 buffalo horn, and stone corn crushers and metates. Rawhide was 

 freely used for the making of receptacles. They had buffalo hide shields 

 and hard soled moccasins, dwelt in earth, wattle and daub, bark, and 

 mat houses, and even used the buffalo hide tipi. 



