A STUDY FROM THE OMAHA TRIBE: THE IMPORT OF THE TOTEM.' By ALICE C. FLETCHER,2 Peabody Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. In this study of the significance of the Omaha totem, the aim will be to set forth, as clearly as possible, first, what these Indians believed concerning their totems, and, secondly, what these totems stood for in the tribal structure. There will be no attempt in this paper to treat the subject of totems in a world sense. The experience of many years of research within a limited area has shown the writer that close, careful studies of the various tribes and races of the two hemispheres are as yet too few to afford sufficient evidence for a final summing up from which to deduce points held in common, or the equally important lines of divergence, found in the beliefs and customs involved in the use of totems. It is proper to call attention at the outset to a few of the perplexities of a research at first hand in a matter as recondite as that under consideration. There is the difficulty of adjusting one's own mental attitude, of preventing one's own mental atmosphere from deflecting and distorting the image of the Indian's thought. The fact that the impli cations of the totem are so rooted in the Indian's mentality that he is unconscious of any strangeness in them, and is unable to discuss them objectively, constitutes a grave obstacle to be overcome. Explanations of his beliefs, customs, and practices have to be sought by indirect rather than by direct methods, have to be eliminated from a tangle of contradictions and verified by the careful noting of the many little unconscious acts and sayings of the people, which let in a flood of light, revealing the Indian's mode of thought, and disclosing its underlying ideas. By these slow processes, with the analysis of his songs, rituals, and ceremonies, we can at last come upon his beliefs concerning nature and life, and it is upon these that the totem is based. 1 The vowels in the Indian words have the continental sound. n is the nasal n; pa sound between b and p; t = a sound between d and t; ż=a sound between z and th; th=th in thither; dhth in the; h=the German sound of ch as in bach; ĕe in met. A paper read before the section of anthropology of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, at the Detroit meeting, August, 1897. SM 97-37 577 There were two classes of totems known among the Omahas: The personal, belonging to the individual, and the social, that of societies and gentes. The personal totem.-The question first to arise is, How did the individual obtain his totem? We learn that it was not received from an ancestor, was not the gift of any living person, but was derived through a certain rite by the man himself. In the Legend of the Sacred Pole of the Omahas, which has been handed down from generations, and which gives a rapid history of the people from the time when "they opened their eyes and beheld the day" to the completed organization of the tribe, we are told: "The people felt themselves weak and poor. Then the old men gathered together and said: Let us make our children cry to Wa-kon'-da. So all the parents took their children, covered their faces * The old When what with soft clay, and sent them forth to lonely places. men said, You shall go forth to cry to Wa kon'-da. on the hills you shall not ask for any particular thing ever is good, that may Wa-kon'da give. * Four days and nights upon the hills the youth shall pray, crying, and when he stops, shall wipe his tears with the palms of his hands, lift his wet hands to heaven, then lay them on the earth. This was the people's first appeal to Wa-kon'-da." * * This rite, called by the untranslatable name Non'-zhin-zhon, has been observed up to the present time. When the youth had reached the age of puberty he was instructed by his parents as to what he was to do. Moistened earth was put upon his head and face, a small bow and arrows given him, and he was directed to seek a secluded spot upon the hills and there to chant the prayer which he had been taught and to lift his hands, wet with his tears, to heaven and then to lay them upon the earth; and he was to fast until at last he fell into a trance or sleep. If in his trance or dream he saw or heard anything, that thing was to become the special medium through which he could receive supernatural aid. The ordeal over, the youth returned home to partake of food and to rest. No one questioned him, and for four days he spoke but little, for if within that time he should reveal his vision it would be the same as lost to him. Afterwards he could confide it to some old man known to have had a similar manifestation, and it then became the duty of the youth to seek until he should find the animal he had seen in his trance, when he must slay it and preserve some part of it (in cases where the vision had been of no concrete form symbols were taken to represent it). This memento was ever after to be the sign of his vision, his totem, the most sacred thing he could ever possess, for by it his natural powers were to be so reenforced as to give him success as a hunter, victory as a warrior, and even the power to see into the future. Belief concerning nature and life.-The foundation of the Indian's faith in the efficacy of the totem rested upon his belief concerning nature |