While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
Grandfather or Father Sun, Earth (wadat'ina: wadat', earth, ĭn'ă,
mother),200 Fire (ibat'niko: ibat, grandfather, niko,
fire),201 Lightning (ika adinin: ika, grandmother,
adinin, lightning), Thunder (R. iGahabaGanswa, grandmother, noise
maker, see p. 16),202 Winds,203 Cyclone, God,204
all are referred to by White Moon as supernatural beings, but so vaguely that in
his mind, at least, they appear to have little religious import. Whereas to
ghosts and to certain animals a more definite significance attaches.
The relationship with the animals is the familiar one of supernatural
helper, or, in White Moon's phrase, partner--pi'DO'niwana'gu (R.), "two
are partners with"205 e.g. bear or panther or screech owl or lightning,
pi'Do'niu'ana' cu nauutsi or Gici''206 (R.) or
Ga'e·tsi (R.) or adinin. "You have the same power as your partner," from him you get your power, and such
partners can understand each other. The partnership is established through some
accidental encounter, not through deliberate seeking, and only certain men,
comparatively few, I take it, doctors included, have had such experience. The
following stories show how the experience is come by. The first story is about
White Moon's great-uncle (Gen. II, 12), called Snipe as a youngster, in later
years Kill-deer. He was a hunter of deer and bear, and sometimes served as hunt
leader.
When Snipe
was a little fellow, they would send boys down early in the morning to the
river, to break through the ice. After this morning bath, Snipe would take his
bow and arrows and go hunting, but he never got anything. But one morning, while
a hunting, he heard something mewing. Two panthers came by. They stuck up their
tails and rubbed against him, like a cat. He knew that panthers were mean, still
he ran his hand over one and petted it. The panthers left him and went down over
a hill to his right and disappeared. He looked over there, and there was a herd
of deer. After that Snipe or Kill-deer was graceful like a panther,
keen-sighted, and quick of hearing. And he never would kill a panther, because
it was his friend.207
Several years later the people were camping and one day in moving
camp they left behind a piece of iron to tan deer hides. Kill-deer started back
to fetch it. With him he had a dog he thought a lot of. Going along the creek
the hound went around a bend and began to bark. When Kill-deer got there he
found the dog lying dead. He saw tracks which he knew were panther tracks. He
grew angry, he started to trail the tracks were of three panthers. After a few
hundred yards he found a panther with two cubs up a tree. He killed them, with
the piece of iron.
Why
all this had happened Kill-deer did not know. When a man is out hunting, the
people at home should not fuss; if he was buffalo hunting, for example, they
should not say that perhaps the buffalo would kill him. And so now Kill-deer
thought that his people might have been fussing. He went home and told his
people all about it. He went through the ceremony to ask forgiveness (R.
Dumbakaotsihaadina') from his friend, the panther.
About forty years ago on a hunting trip a certain man got lost, and a
panther attacked him and fractured his skull. On recovery, this man found
himself attached to the panther, and possessed of his power. Now some horses had
been stolen by Caddo from government soldiers who charged it to this man and
wanted to jail him. He got sore about it, he said that he was not going to jail,
they would have to take him dead, he would kill them. But the Chief decided to
give the man up to the soldiers, otherwise the soldiers would punish the whole
tribe. One man said, "I'll go after him. Why should we all get into trouble for
one man?" He went, the (accused) man came out;
he fired off a
shot, he said, "If I live after noon today, nobody will kill me, and many will
be lost." They did not know what he meant, so they decided to kill him. They
waited a while, then they killed him. Already his back had hair on it, spotted
[marked] like a panther; his back had turned panther, he was half panther.
Two men are mentioned as partners with Wolf (R. ta-ca') ,208
Worthless (Gen. I, 19) and Maik't'it'i, and both are reputed thieves, with
thieving power from Wolf. Once Little Mike was jailed, but he got away, they
could not keep him. He was said to have escaped through the keyhole, not through
the help, however, of Wolf, but of another partner, of forgotten name.
Nihi' (R.) or Billy Bowlegs (Gen. II, 8), another great-uncle of White Moon
was partner with nihi', the horned hoot owl. As the family was sitting up
together one night, they heard an owl hooting. Nthi'209 said, "We
have had bad news.” “What?" asked his sister, Chu’'uu. "We are going
to have floods, our crops will be drowned." That summer there were floods and
washouts. One power of the owl is to predict 210 And an owl partner
may be sent to carry messages.
The partner of Mr. Blue (Gen. I, 10), White Moon's father, was Fox (ku'us).
Mr. Blue hung a fox skin, we recall, to the pole in the Ghost dance of which he
was leader. When White Moon was a child, at night a fox used to come up to the
house. "My father would come as a fox to see how I was doing. When I was sick,
the fox would come oftener. My father always knew when I was sick, although,
having married again, he was living in another place."
Supernatural partnership is not limited to the animals, a man may be
partner with Sun or Cyclone—pi'DO'niwana'Gu (R.) s'aku or
shahau', or with Lightning, pi'Do`niwana' gwadinin. Moon-head
appears to have been partner with the Moon.211
Formerly in war certain men figured as
partners with the Clouds. They could make a mist rise and hide them from the
enemy, or they could summon a heavy rain to wash out their tracks.211
Other men would have the power to make you lose your way, by changing the look
of the landscape, they might bring up a tree where it had not been before, but whence this
power was received is obscure.
"Our people are very much afraid of ghosts (kaayu),"
said White Moon. Ghosts are said to be hungry. When anybody gets something fresh
from the store, a bit of it is put into the house fire. The story goes that once
Tom Moonlight (Gen. II, 46) was walking home with groceries and heard something
behind him. He could see nothing. He dropped bits of his supplies on the road
and the sound stopped. Any one walking out at night and hearing something behind
him would drop a piece of meat, if he had it, or would cut off a piece of
tobacco or roll a cigarette and throw it down.213 It is dangerous for
a man to be scared that way (Ingkanish).
Once the Government Indian policeman was going through some timber. He
heard something behind him. It stopped when he stopped. Finally it left him at a
certain stump. He showed the stump the next day to some White fellows. They dug
there. They said they found nothing. The policeman visited the stump and saw an
empty kettle. This had had money in it. The kaayu (ghost) was trying to show it
to him; but the White fellows got it (Ingkanish).
Abroad at night are (R.) habana'di'Gahai (habana', worthless,
di'Gahai, things) or (R.) hacdana'diGahai, dangerous things-evil
spirits would be the approximate English term.
Ha'yacatsi (R.), "lost," are very small, stout people who wander
about, without a home, toward the south, in the bamboo country. They can speak
every language. It is said that when you are out camping, one of them might
approach you and ask you to wrestle. All they think of is wrestling. Small
though they are, they can throw you.214 If you play with these
people, according to Pardon, who live, he thinks, in the mountains, they will
give you power so nobody can throw you.215
_________________________________________ 200 Cp. Mooney, 1096, 1098; Pawnee, Dorsey 3: 14. 201 Ingkanish refers to "Mother Fire." 202ika hobakan' naswa'wa, grandmother, make a noise, going
everywhere (Pardon). He also referred to ibat ihinin, Grandfather
Thunder, to ina koko, Mother Water, ina wadat, Mother Earth,
a'a' sako, Father Sun. 203 Hohutu. "Wind is spoken of as somebody." 204 Năă', father above: ăă' father, na above (Mooney, 1103).
Early in the eighteenth century two Spanish Franciscan missions were established
among the Caddo; in Oklahoma, Baptist, Episcopalian, and Catholic missions were
established in 1872, 1881, and 1894 (Handbook). 205 R, tsi toniwana' Gu, I am partner with. 206 In translating this term White Moon prefers to say tiger, not
panther. "There are still a few tigers in Wichita Mountains," he says. 207 Formerly the taboo on killing panthers was general (Mooney,
1093). 208 Another hunt leader particularly for bear, was Kill-deer's
brother-in-law, Tahbakumshia (Gen. Il, 16), a Shawnee. 209 Nihi' was named for his "partner"; and so, indirectly, was
his brother, Kill-deer; but this name relation does not always occur. 210 Medicine-Screech Owl, a culture hero in the tales recorded by
Dorsey, has the power of prophecy. Among Shawnee the owl predicts misfortune
(Voegelin). Cp. Choctaw, Swanton 2: 199, 216-217. 211 See p. 47 n. 174. 212 See p. 40. Cp. Pawnee, Dorsey 1: 51. 213 Shawnee won't eat outside at night, without dropping a little
food for the ghost; otherwise the ghost would think you were "stingy" and take
revenge. Also Shawnee never wash their dishes after supper, but leave them
covered with a cloth, so if ghosts are about, they can have some food and not
call the persons stingy. Also, no water that has stood overnight is used the
next morning, as ghosts may have been in the house and drunk from the pail
(Voegelin). 214 Cp. Choctaw, Swanton 3: 198. 215 See pp. 62, 63-64.
