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Wakanda or the Wind
The winds had some mystic references to the cross in the Kansas mind—at
least in the Siouan mind. The
Omaha and
Ponca prayed to the wind and
invoked it. In the pipe dance the ceremonial implements had drawn on them
with green paint a cross indicating the four quarters of the world—the
four winds. The Kansas warriors drew out the hearts of their slain enemies
and burned them as a sacrifice to these four winds. In 1882 the Kansas
still sacrificed and made offerings to all their ancient
wakandas—including the four winds. They began with the East Wind, then
they turned to the South Wind, then to the West Wind, and then to the
North Wind. In ancient times they cut pieces of flesh from their own
bodies for these offerings.
The idea or conception that wind was a
wakanda or was supernatural seems to lie at the very
base of Siouan development. It may have been the first wakanda, being
associated with the breath of life. In the Order of the Translucent Stone,
of the Omaha tribe, the Wind or Wind Makers were invoked. The four winds
were associated with the sun in the ceremonies of raising the sun pole. In
the Dakota each of the four quarters of the heaven or winds was counted as
three, making twelve—always a sacred number with mankind. Mr. Dorsey asks
if there might be any reference to three worlds in this custom—an upper
world, our world, a lower world. Or were there three divisions of the
wind, or three kinds of wind—that near the earth, that in mid air, and
that high and bearing the clouds. The wind gentes of the various Siouan
tribes are thus enumerated by Mr. Dorsey:
The following social divisions are assigned to this
category: Kanze, or Wind people, and the Te-da-it'aji,
Touch-not-a-buffalo-skull, or Eagle people, of the Omaha tribe; the Cixida
and Nikadacna gentes of the Ponka; the Kanze (Wind or South Wind people),
Quya (White eagle), Ghost, and perhaps the Large Hanga (Black eagle),
among the Kansa; the Kanze (also called the Wind and South Wind people),
and perhaps the Hanka Utacantse (Black eagle) gens of the Osage; the Pigeon
and Buffalo gentes of the Iowa and the Oto tribes; the Hawk and Momi
(Small bird) subgentes of the Missouri tribe; the Eagle and Pigeon and
perhaps the Hawk subgens of the Winnebago Bird gens.
Each wind or quarter is reckoned as three by the
Dakota and presumably by the Osage, making the four quarters equal to
twelve. Can there be any reference here to a belief in three worlds, the
one in which we live, an upper world, and a world beneath this one? Or
were the winds divided into three classes, those close to the ground,
those in mid air, and those very high in the air? The Kansa seem to make
some such distinction, judging from the names of the divisions of the
Kanze or Wind gens of that tribe.
It would appear to be against reason that a word
which runs through all the mysticism of an Indian linguistic family should
have any alien origin whatever. It is impossible that such a word should
have its origin in any European language. Kansa (the Kansas of our
day) is an old Siouan word. Its application and use go back to the social
organization of the Siouan group. It lies at the foundation of the
political systems of various tribes of the Siouan linguistic family. To
these uses it had been assigned perhaps many centuries prior to the
discovery of America. While the full meaning of the word Kansa may
never be known, it is established beyond question that it does mean—Wind
People, or People of the South Wind. To the Siouans of ancient times it
probably meant much more, but it did mean Wind people, or People of the
South Wind, whatever else it may have included.
So Kansas is the land of the Wind People, or the
land of the People of the South Wind, if we look to the aboriginal tongue
for its signification.
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