Weather Control
Still another type of doctor is represented in Tsa'biti, Mr. Cedar.136
He is a rain-maker. His rain-making ceremony lasts six days. In it he uses the
pole which is used in the Ghost dance and is painted dark blue to represent
clouds. In time of drought, people will say, "Let us go to Mr. Cedar." But Mr.
Cedar has been criticized as "going to extremes." For this reason his ceremony
has been known to intensify the drought and burn up the crops instead of
bringing rain. (Mr. Cedar died in 1921.)
Kanushe, the curing doctor, was also described by Ingkanish as a rainmaker,
in time of war. Once he went with four or five men to steal horses from the
Comanche. He made a fog to enable the raiders to steal the horses within the
camp, and he made rain to wash out the tracks of the raiders.137 He
had a medicine to make the enemy crazy.
Kadit'si was a doctor who died thirty years ago (Pardon). He both doctored
the sick and controlled weather. He could draw rain or cyclone. Once in
Louisiana he drew a cyclone against white soldiers in pursuit of the tribe. He
made use of Cyclone only to protect the tribe in danger.138 His rain
ceremony he kept secret, and he had no helper. He would perform his ritual at a
spring, staying there only a few minutes. He would plunge a stick with a black
cloth on the top into the water.139 If the kerchief floated and a
mist rose up two feet above the water, Kadit'si knew it was going to rain.
Inferably, rain-making or weather control
and curing were merely different functions,
and shamans themselves were not
differentiated into rainmakers and curers. __________________________________________________
136 When Mr. Cedar was a child he was rescued from the Texans and
restored to his people by White Moon's great grandfather (Gen. II, 4). The boy
had been left behind by the people on their escape from northern Texas into
Oklahoma. White Moon's forebear returned twice to Texas for things which had
been forgotten. The second time he was killed. His horse returned riderless and
bloody. They went to search for the rider, but could not find him.
137 See p. 59.
138 One Bat'nint'iti, Little-button, who died in 1906 is mentioned as
protecting a house against a cyclone by going outside and making certain
motions, causing the cyclone to keep away from the house. (Cp. Dorsey 2:56;
Shawnee, Voegelin; Kiowa, Parsons, 15-17).
139 Shawnee make rain by dipping a buffalo tail in a spring
(Voegelin). Back |
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Notes on the Caddo
Notes About the Book:
Source: Notes on the Caddo, Memories of the American
Anthropological Association, Elsie Clews Parsons, 1921.
Online Publication: The manuscript was scanned and
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some errors in the textual output.
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