Customs and Beliefs. The
Kickapoo, lived in fixed villages, occupying bark houses in the summer and
flag-reed oval lodges during the winter. They raised corn, beans, and
squashes, and while dwelling on the east side of the Mississippi they
often wandered out on the plains to hunt buffalo. On these hunting trips
they came to know the horse, and previous to the Civil war they had gone
as far as Texas for the sole purpose of stealing horses and mules from the
Comanche. No other Algonquians of the central group were more familiar
with the Indians of the plains than the Kickapoo; and yet, with all this
contact, their culture has remained essentially the same as that of the
Sauk and the Foxes.
Like the Sauk and Foxes they believe in a cosmic
substance prevailing throughout all nature, and the objects endowed with
the mystic property are given special reverence. Far in the past they
claim to have practiced the Midéwiwin;
but to-day their most sacred ceremony is the Kigänowini,
the feast dance of the clans. The dog is held in special veneration and is
made an object of sacrifice and offering to the manitos. The mythology is
rich, and is characterized by a mass of beast fable. The great cosmic myth
centers about the death of the younger brother of the culture hero, whose
name is Wisa käa. To him
they attribute all the good things of this world and the hope of life in
the spirit world, over which the younger brother presides. The brothers
are idealized as youths.
The gentile system prevailed, and marriage was outside
of the gens. The name had an intimate connection with the gens, and
children followed the gens of the father. The gentes to-day are:
