THE WAYS OF THE WINNEBAGO

Dominion, Volume 18, Issue 117, 9 February 1924, Page 15

THE WAYS OF THE WINNEBAGO

The Winnebago, one of the leastknown tribes of American Indians, are the subject of a valuable monograph by the Bureau of American Ethnology. The Winnebago had- social habits, customs, rites, a. language, and a primitive civilisation of their own. They were once a multitudinous race organised -into clans, each under a chief, with a super-chief as head of all the clans. They are now a diminutive body, but retain many distinctive characteristics. Dr. Paul Radin, the author of the American monograph, spent many years in research and has obtained a great deal of original information. The Winnebago believe in spirits—evil spirits, war spirits, and good spirits of various kinds (writes a reviewer in “John O’London’s Weekly”). Their god is the Earthmaker who after he created all things, created man. Tho Earthmaker put each spirit in charge of something. To man he gave tobacco. _ They were among the first natives, of America to create a tobacco cult. When the French explorers discovered the Winnebago, “the Indians put tobacco in their hands,” but “the French did not know what tobacco was.”

“Suddenly a Frenchman saw an old man smoking and poured water on him. They knew nothing about smoking or tobacco.” Tobacco enters into all. the feasts and rites of the Winnebago. They have somo quaint _ religious rites. They hold four night wakes over their dead, and several long descriptions are. given of wakes. There were special customs for widows of tho Winpebago:— In olden times the widow was supposed to continue single for four years. She is strongly admonished, nevertheless, not to continue in low spirits, and to consider herself free to act in anv way that will make her happy. She is told to play games or dance, or in fact do anything that will make her forget filer sorrow, and she is told that no one will hold her conduct against her as disrespectful to the deceased. . . . The prohibition of weeping is further strengthened by the fact that it is customary to say that any woman who weeps too profusely at the death of her husband is in reality thinking., in the midst of her tears,' of the one she is going to marry next. The people will then tell one another not to put themselves out too much as the widow will soon forget her mourning and show no respect to the memory of the dead, but instead look after her own pleasures. There is a wide range of relationship terms among the Winnebago, who have invented a new relationship. That is a joking relationship.. A. man is not permitted to joke with biis mother-iib* law or father-in-law or take the slightest liberties with them. He can, however, joke with “his mother’s brother’s children; his mother’s brothers and his sisters-in-law and brothers-in-law. In the two cases last-named not only was a man permitted to joke with those relatives but he was supposed to do so whenever he had an onportunity. If a person attempted liberties with

people who did not belong to the category of the ‘joking relationship’ they would stop him immediately, saying ‘What joking relation am I to you,’ . Mothers-in-law enjoy a splendid isolation and worshipful respect among the Winnebago. Dr. Radin discovered the following curious (example of social etiquette. He. says:— In former times t-he mother-in-law and father-in-law taboo was in full force. No man was allowed to talk directly to his mothqr-in-law or to look at her, and the same rule held with regard to the attitude of a woman towards her father-in-law. Even accidental meetings of these relatives, as on the road, were attended with great embarrassment. lie author never learned of any way in which either the mother-in-law or the father-in-law taboo could be relaxed even tcpnpora.rily, much done away with entirely. This versatile tribe have a peculiarly protective treatment for young people of a susceptible <ge, strict marriage customs, and admonitory education, for children. They have games of their own, including lacrosse—for men and women —football, cup and ball, a tree game, women’s dice game, etcetra. They have also the “kicking game,” which is quite simple in its ferocity. “Two men took turns in kicking each other as hard as they could, the one who held out the longer being the winner.”