ANTHROPOLOGY: A. C. FLETCHER 
573 
or a cosmic force, as the Wind. Thus unconsciously, the children 
drifted into the atmosphere of the Indian's belief, that he, as man, was 
included in the great unity of Nature's family. 
The children also learned the place assigned to each village (gens) 
in the tribal order. While the people were on the great tribal buffalo 
hunt and during the elaborate ceremonies that took place at its close, 
the tribe camped in the ceremonial order. At this time the Omaha 
encampment was in a circular form with an opening toward the east. 
The north half of the circle, with its five villages (gentes), formed the 
Sky division; the south half of the circle, with its five villages (gentes), 
formed the Earth division. In this way, the dual forces, that were 
regarded as formative instruments in Nature, were represented. There 
is an interesting bit of evidence as to the use of native logic observable 
in the following arrangement whereby all the leaders in the ceremonies 
connected with the material welfare of the people, as, the securing of 
food by cultivating the maize, hunting, etc., and those, relating to the 
secular government and to war, were men who belonged to the Earth 
division; while those rites that were concerned with the securing of help 
from the supernatural and the maintenance of the tribal order, such 
as those cited above that pertain to the child, were in charge of leaders 
who belonged to the Sky division. 
The vital existence of the abstract dual forces represented in the tribal 
organization was made real to the boys and fixed in their minds by the 
following custom. Fighting was ordinarily not encouraged among the 
lads, but there was one occasion when it was not interfered with by the 
elders, and that was when boys crossed the invisible line that divided 
the Earth from the Sky division while the tribe was camped in the 
ceremonial order. If a boy should be sent by his father on an errand 
that required the lad to cross this line, he did not dare to go alone, he 
would gather his friends, belonging to his own division, to go with him 
and help him in the battling that was sure to take place. It may truly 
be said that it was by hard knocks that this fundamental division of 
the tribe was beaten into the heads of the boys. 
The children learned the rudiments of tribal beliefs through object 
lessons, such as those described above, rather than through oral teach- 
ing. A child was always obliged to observe certain forms of respect 
toward the symbol sacred to its village (gens), it must not touch or 
taste that which was associated with the symbol, for the symbol belonged 
to the tribal rites through which the people appealed to Wakonda, 
therefore, whatever was connected with the symbol was set apart from 
any familiar use. Beyond the insistence upon this form of respect to 
