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From: Archaeology, Ethnicity, and Oral Tradition.
(C) 1994 John P. Staeck, Revised Version (C) 1998 John P. Staeck
Dissertation, Rutgers University-New Brunswick, Anthropology Program, 1994
*Note, the term Winnebago is used here because of its academic history. No disrespect or slander is intended to the Ho-Chunk, who possess and maintain a vibrant tradition worthy of respect.
Chapter 6
Oral Tradition, Social Structure, and Identity
Introduction
This chapter discusses data which contradicts the social structure and ethnic identity commonly ascribed to the Winnebago by ethnohistorians and archaeologists (see chapters 3, 4, and 5). In particular, it is argued that the Winnebago were once organized according to hierarchical principles and that social organization centered around three or four clans, most notably the Thunderer and Water Spirit. Evidence from myths and legends also seems to reflect a period when greater social prestige was accorded to women based on calculation of descent. Evidence also suggests but does not clearly demonstrate that there may have been a period when post-marital residence was either matrilocal or uxorilocal and, in some instances, when descent may have been reckoned primarily through females. Several myths, legends, and oral traditions seem to reflect such organization.
As a whole, the analyses of the myths, legends, and oral traditions discussed in this chapter provide important avenues into understanding how social structure was mobilized to create a salient identity among the Winnebago. Significantly, oral traditions provide a fertile data set through which to interpret the symbolism that links social structure with ethnic identity and, archaeologically, to material representations of both. Ultimately, however, the data also suggests that this social structure and the identity derived from it continued to evolve throughout the historic era and continues to evolve today. Hence, anthropological discussions of Winnebago social structure and identity must account for the dynamics of culture change and cannot rely solely on notions of culture as a static concept (see chapter 2).
Evidence for the arguments presented here is drawn principally from the ethnographic and historical accounts of Radin (1909, 1910, 1913, 1914a, 1914b, 1915b, 1915e, 1923, 1926c, 1945, 1949, 1950) and Lurie (1952, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1974, 1978), the linguistic work of Grimm (1985) as well as Springer and Witkowski (1982), and from Radin's field notes on Winnebago oral traditions. Table 10 presents a summary of oral traditions discussed in this chapter; linguistic and ethnographic traditions are discussed in detail in chapter 3.
It must be noted at the outset that Radin's published versions of many Winnebago tales have been edited and differ, sometimes significantly, from the original transcriptions. Radin's notes contain three versions of most tales, one hand-written in a Winnebago syllabary, a second hand-written transcription of each tale, usually with the English transcription entered on the line beneath the Winnebago syllabic entry, and a final typed copy derived from the hand-written English transcription. The differences between later published versions of the tales and those contained in Radin's notes apparently reflect editorial considerations. Many tales are condensed and in several cases, most notably in Blue Horn's Nephews, important passages are omitted or restructured. In the case of Blue Horn's Nephews, the invincible warrior who fathers the nephews is glossed by Radin (1950) as a slave. No such transcription exists in the original, however, and it is quite clear that Radin is condensing the complex relationship between the warrior, his two wives, and their adopted brother, the Water Spirit Blue Horn. The appearance of the term slave seems to derive from the fact that the warrior's sons, the heroes of the tale, are raised by Blue Horn and that their father is only infrequently mentioned in the tale. In the longer, unpublished version, however, the warrior ascends to the chieftainship of the village as a consequence of his marriage to the former chief's two daughters. There is no doubt in the unpublished version that the warrior is not a slave but an influential and powerful man. This is discussed at length later in this chapter, as are the inferred mechanisms for the warrior's rise to the chieftainship of the village.
To return to the theoretical and methodological basis for this analysis, the interpretations of the tales discussed below are made in light of narrative elements. The approach adopted in this discussion utilizes notions developed and emphasized in part by Boas (1891, 1896, 1914, 1916, 1925), Malinowski (1926), and Propp (1968). These approaches are essentially functional or psychological-functional (Doty 1986) and emphasize the importance of actions within tales rather than the plot of the tales. Both Boas and Propp argued that tales included narrative activities with which both the raconteurs and the audience were familiar. Consequently, it has also been argued that the basic actions of the characters, although not necessarily the physical or temporal settings of these actions, reflect behaviors in existence at the time the tales originated, were collected, or which preceded such events (Boas 1916; Radin 1915a, 1926a; Jacobs 1959; Dundes 1986).
In addition, it is argued that the tales were originally designed to be performed for the benefit and entertainment of ethnically homogenous audiences or audiences which were familiar with the ethnicity of the raconteur (Braroe 1975; Boas 1918; Propp 1968; Dundes 1986). The foundation of this position lies in the role that oral traditions play in defining and reinforcing social structure (Orso 1974; Peacock 1968; Gumperz 1958; Blom 1969; Blom and Gumperz 1968) and in how ethnic identity derived from such structures is variably projected given different social environments (Goffman 1956, 1959, 1963a, 1963b; Braroe 1975; Gluckman 1962) (see also chapter 2).
The suggestion that oral traditions and myth complexes can be analyzed in order to extract socially important information is not new. Oral traditions, especially myths, tend to be conservative features of culture (Boas 1891, 1896, 1914, 1916, 1925; Malinowski 1926; Bascom 1954, 1984; Schmidt 1983; see also chapter 2). Consequently, long after cultures have changed, myths and other oral traditions can be identified that reflect former social structures and ideologies. This does not preclude traditions and myths from changing, and several authors (Boas 1891, 1896, 1916; Malinowski 1926; Eliade 1984; Dundes 1968, 1984; Levi-Strauss 1967b; Propp 1968; Radin 1926a, 1926b, 1948) have discussed the ways in which these may change. In general, however, older forms of behavior are recorded either directly or symbolically in literary traditions, whether oral or written. It is these records that provide valuable insights into long-abandoned social structures and ideology (e.g., Linke 1989; Levi-Strauss 1967a; Mbunwe-Samba 1989; Pettazzoni 1984; Radin 1915a, 1948).
As Radin noted, this is particularly the case with waika, a class of tales among the Winnebago that are considered to be true. While such traditions are not alive per se, they are the connection between the living and the sacred past. Moreover, such traditions are the particular province of individuals who have sought out such tales and are therefore expected to care for the traditions and to render them properly when appropriate to do so. The essential element to note is that waika are the symbolic links to the sacred past and play important roles in Winnebago concepts of the sacred, most especially in their concepts of reincarnation and cultural immortality. It is unlikely that any form of waika could be dramatically changed in short order. It is, however, possible for such traditions to be interpreted differently across the vast areas of time and space that are being discussed in this volume. It would be naive to assume that individual interpretations of any form of oral tradition did not vary from individual to individual and from place to place. Yet, the essential elements of performance and recapitulation of belief are the things that link these individuals and places together within a common range of symbolic identity symboling and reception.
Given this position, what we should look for are reflections of social structure injected into tales and traditions by their originators and reflecting the world these people were familiar with. Such material often appears as what might be considered background material, actions that take place in the tales but do not affect the dramatic actions that earlier research has focused on (e.g., Radin 1915b, 1926a, 1926b, 1948, 1954, 1956). In general, the more subtle recording of behaviors discussed here has gone largely unexamined by archaeologists and ethnohistorians. The detail provided in this background material is important, however, because it provides potential insights into details of life and behavior.
Significantly, it is this behavioral ingredient that is currently absent from archaeological models for Winnebago identity. By interpreting the material remains that we can recover through excavation within the context of the behaviors identified in myths, archaeologists should be able to generate research strategies capable of testing for the presence of remains indicative of former identities.
Ethnographic Evidence for Hierarchical Organization
Arguments for the presence, in some earlier time, of a hierarchical social system were first made by Radin (1923, 1945) and Lurie (1960, 1978), both of whom suggest the presence of a central community chief among the Winnebago is indicative of some form of ranking. Lurie (1978) argues that some individuals were empowered to make decisions on behalf of entire villages and wielded an unspecified level of real power, that is they maintained authority greater than what might be expected to be wielded by a so-called big man. Significantly, Lurie also argues that the Winnebago leaders were not chiefs appointed by Europeans during or after the fur-trade era, a common practice adopted by many Europeans in order to assure they dealt with Indian leaders who supported European intentions (Lurie 1978; Mason 1988). Instead, Lurie (1960, 1978) argues that the role of Winnebago chief as described by Radin, and as she is familiar with it, implies direct control over a village or similar community and may predate European influences.
This view is bolstered by Radin's (1923, 1948) suggestion for rank within Winnebago society. Although his suggestions are brief and little more than a sidebar to a longer consideration of Native American literary traditions, the implications of Radin's comments are far-reaching, especially given accepted notions of Winnebago egalitarianism.
There is, for instance, evidence of the existence of real rank. The chief and his family occupy a very special position. His daughter, for instance, sits on a special platform to view the foot race.(1) (Radin 1948:45)
Internal evidence, myth, tradition, custom, all point to a period in Winnebago history where descent was reckoned in the female line, not, as now, in the male line, where society was stratified, where the wolf, not the thunderbird, clan held the chieftainship of the tribe and where turtle was one of the most important deities and a heroic figure in their mythology. (Radin 1948:45)
Unfortunately, Radin does not present a detailed discussion of these claims. Instead, he returns to the principal theme of his work, the illustration of grand motifs, such as "...the saving of man and the final crushing of his enemies..." (Radin 1948:45) within a Winnebago literary tradition. In fact, Radin's comments regarding matrilineality and stratified behavior among the Winnebago constitute a tangential discussion that derives from his discussion of the treatment of women in the Red Horn cycle. Additional work is warranted to specifically identify which elements in Winnebago tales reflect matrilineal and hierarchical behavior, something which critical readers of anthropology today certainly would require. As discussed below, such evidence is present in Winnebago traditions which, in turn, hold other important clues regarding the past social structure of the Winnebago.
For instance, in the tale The Red Horn, one of the principal characters, Turtle, marries the daughter of the chief of a village. Through mechanisms discussed later and suggestive of inheritance of political power through females, Turtle succeeds his father-in-law as chief of the village, assuming responsibility for the welfare and defense of the village residents. The tale continues to relate how Turtle increasingly fails to meet the needs of his village, especially in regard to defense against attack. Nonetheless, the tale illustrates the role the chief was expected to play in his village; that of an organizing agent for the community. This is significant because such a role functions across kinship boundaries and is equivalent to the organizing principles Sahlins (1968) and Service (1971) predict must develop as a precondition for increased social differentiation.
Similarly, in the tale Blue Horn's Nephews, a warrior marries the two daughters of a village chief. As in The Red Horn, through mechanisms of political inheritance, the warrior replaces his father-in-law as village chief. The tale briefly mentions that the warrior becomes a good chief, looking after the needs of all of his people. The tale also suggests sororal polygyny may have been adopted as a strategy to avoid multiple claims to political authority by daughters married to different husbands.
In the tales The man who visited the Thunderbirds and The man who married a Thunder-bird, depictions of village chiefs are equally strong. In both of these instances, the chief of a village of Thunderbirds (spirits) exerts direct authority over his entire community. In both tales, the chief assembles the important warriors of his village and provides them with instructions on the treatment of an important human guest. At the same time, these important warriors counsel the chief on what gift or gifts are appropriate for presentation to the visitor, although it is the chief who ultimately decides the matter. An examination of the specific accounts of such behaviors will prove useful in demonstrating the detail and cohesiveness with which the activities are recounted. As mentioned above, The Red Horn myth illustrates the passage of political power to Turtle through his marriage to the chief's daughter. The circumstances and the manner through which the marriage is arranged provide important insights into Winnebago values as reflected in the traditions.
On the night the marriage is arranged, Turtle and three other warriors are about to lead a war party on a dangerous but very prestigious war path. The village chief has agreed to the war party only because of the reputations of the four men leading it. As was common among the Winnebago, the four leaders are ranked according to their prestige and perceived abilities (Radin 1948, n.d.). The most prestigious of the leaders is Red Horn, who is not identified as belonging to any particular clan. As discussed later, however, Red Horn may be a representation of He-Who-Wears-Human Heads-As-Earrings (Hall 1989a), a Winnebago hero derived from the pan-Siouan figure Morning Star (Radin 1948). Second in importance is Wolf, a warrior or spirit from the Wolf clan, third is Storms-As-He-Walks, a warrior or spirit from the Thunderbird clan, and fourth is Turtle, who, like Red Horn, has no apparent affiliation with any clan. In many of tales, especially the most recent ones, Turtle is a variably defined mythical character. He is always a hero but is often portrayed as a trickster-like figure who leads people into, and out of, trouble (Radin 1948).
During the final night of preparations, the war party had assembled and was singing. The myth explains that during this night of singing it was customary for women to present moccasins to men they favored. If moccasins were given by an unmarried woman to an unmarried man, it was agreed that they would marry upon the man's return from the warpath. It was during this night that the daughter of the chief came to the war party's fire with moccasins. She is the first person who is allowed to offer moccasins to members of the war party. Selecting the most prestigious of the warriors, she first offers the moccasins to Red Horn, who declines to accept them. Embarrassed, the chief's daughter offers the moccasins to Wolf, who also declines. Further embarrassed, she offers the moccasins to Storms-As-He-Walks and is again rejected. Finally, she moves to offer the moccasins to Turtle, who takes them before they are formally given. The princess,(2) now betrothed to Turtle, leaves the camp very much embarrassed.
During the same night, an elderly woman sends her granddaughter to the war party with moccasins. The tale describes the granddaughter as being fearful of rejection because those "superior to herself" (Radin n.d.) had been rejected by the warriors. This single statement suggests other women, in addition to the chief's daughter, had offered moccasins to members of the war party and had been rejected. The reference to superiors, coupled with the apparently disenfranchised status of the girl (she has been raised by her grandmother and is therefore probably an orphan) also suggests that some form of social rules existed which allowed women to offer moccasins in a particular order. Given that the chief's daughter is first to be allowed to offer moccasins, and that the orphaned girl identifies herself as relatively low in the order which determines such offerings, a strong inference for the presence of a social hierarchy is made.
The privileges of this hierarchy, however, are not always cast in a flattering light by the tale. Red Horn, for example, accepts the moccasins from the orphan girl while having rejected those from the chief's daughter. Similarly, it is Turtle, the least of the war party's leaders, who accepts the moccasins from the chief's daughter, grabbing them from her hand before they can be properly offered to him. The woman is embarrassed in view of the entire village as it becomes clear that she offered moccasins to the leaders of the party in order of their prowess as warriors and has been rejected by all but Turtle. Turtle's acceptance, however, saves the woman little face as he violates existing rules of etiquette and precedence by grabbing the moccasins from the woman's hands before they are offered. Thus, the chief's daughter is humiliated despite her privileged status.
On the other extreme, the most prestigious of all the warriors, Red Horn, accepts an offer of marriage from a woman who is among the lowest-ranking females in the village. The implications are that the Winnebago society described in the tale valued achieved status and worth, for the orphan proves to be an excellent wife and mother, in addition to ascribed status. Nonetheless, social hierarchy is depicted as an important, functioning part of society.
The presence of respect for both achieved and ascribed status suggests that the Winnebago may have shared concepts of complementariness between the genders. Most Native American societies divide labor and ownership according to principles of intra- and extra-group activities, females engaging primarily in intragroup activities and males in extragroup activities. If we accept that ascribed status, as present in the tales examined here, is tied to matrilineages, then females would inherit some level of status. Males, on the other hand, may inherit a certain level of status, as described by references to many heroes being the sons of chiefs, but it is their actions which most strongly mark their actual status in society.
For example, in The chief's daughter and the orphan the hero becomes an acceptable marriage partner and leader through his actions, not his distant and, according to Radin (1926a), unknown relationship to a former chief. These actions demonstrate the hero as a great hunter, who always finds and kills game, and as spiritually powerful, as he brings the chief's daughter back from the grave. Similar patterns are exemplified in The Red Horn, where Turtle proves to be an incapable leader and unwilling warrior despite his marriage to the chief's daughter, while Red Horn is seen as a role model for his village. Likewise, similar patterns exist in the Thunderbird tales, where males achieve status among other groups, regardless of their past, while females are ascribed a social rank at the outset.
A caveat to this system appears to be that it is less rigid for males than for females. Males of unknown or average status can marry a chief's daughter and themselves become chiefs, as evidenced by the legends The chief's daughter and the orphan, Blue Horn's Nephews, and both of the Thunderbird tales cited previously. In each case, males of unknown or unremarkable status prove themselves to be powerful warriors, hunters, or spiritually blessed and marry into a chieftainship. Their social mobility is upward and there are no constraints, other than personal shortcomings, which limit this mobility.
On the other hand, females of high-status, especially the daughters of chiefs, appear to be more rigidly constrained in their selection of mates. In the tales The woman who married her half brother, The woman who married a snake, and The chief's daughter and the orphan, we are told that a chief's daughter can marry whomever she likes. In the case of The woman who married her half brother this privilege extends even to marrying a half brother without fear of censure from the community. In both cases, however, the women are portrayed as being concerned with the status and achievements of prospective mates, both in terms of their own status and with regard to how a potential marriage might affect the status of their brothers. While the right to accept or reject prospective mates is not unique in North America, the ability of high status females to cross normally accepted rules for selecting mates and their accentuated concern over the status of potential mates are together suggestive of a social hierarchy that has not survived into the this century.
Radin (1949) touches on this subject in several notes appended to the tale of the Chief's daughter and the orphan, entitled How an orphan restored the chief's daughter to life in the 1949 publication. Radin notes that in modern Winnebago society, women cannot court men. He sees the woman's consternation over loving an orphan, a low-status individual, as a plot device that heightens the tragedy of the tale because it separates a woman from her true love. The orphan's disenfranchised status makes him socially unacceptable as a suitor for the chief's daughter and this serves to further the potential tragedy of love between the two characters. Ultimately, Radin suggests this is the true tragedy of the tale, that the two would-be lovers are separated by seemingly arbitrary social rules. Taken in this light, the remainder of the tale can be seen as the means through which the orphan proves himself worthy of marrying the high-status daughter of a chief.
Later in his notes, however, Radin suggests that his interpretation of female privileges (e.g., not being able to court someone) is problematic. The chief's daughter does, in fact, consider courting the orphan but seems to reject the idea because of the dramatic difference in social status that separates her from the orphan. Radin then continues to speculate that this might reflect an era when females possessed more power and prestige than recorded historically.
Considerable internal evidence exists to show that the Winnebago, at one time, possessed a stratified society as did the southern Sioux when they were first encountered by Europeans. ... One might even hazard the guess that the unusual behavior of the heroine [by modern Winnebago standards] is a distorted reflection of this older structure of society, when the position of woman was much higher than it subsequently became and when, in all likelihood, descent was reckoned in the female line as it was among the western Sioux groups, Hidatsa, Crow, and Mandan. (Radin 1949:99)
Unfortunately, Radin again drops his discussion of these matters at this point and does not present what he means by "considerable internal evidence" (see also chapter 3 and Radin 1948). As discussed in the first three chapters here, this evidence is probably related, or perhaps identical, to the material presented in this volume.
Evidence for this sort of privileged behavior among females is also found in other forms of performance among the Winnebago. Frank Speck (in notes on file at the American Philosophical Society Library) collected a class of Winnebago flageolet songs (flute songs, often closely associated with courtship) restricted in use to chiefs' daughters. According to Speck, chiefs' daughters are free to court any individual they choose and there exists a range of songs and behaviors unique to this activity. The songs which accompany such courting are used exclusively by chief's daughters and cannot be performed by others. It is interesting to note that in other American Indian cultures, flageolet songs are performed by males during courting activities and only rarely by females. The significance is that males are usually perceived to be the initiators of mating activities. In the case of high-status Winnebago females, however, this seems to be reversed. It also contradicts conventional views of Winnebago courting behavior (e.g., Radin 1949:98).
Yet, as noted previously, the women in the tales are always concerned that their choice of marriage partners might be beneath their station and thus cause them, or their immediate family, embarrassment. In the tale The chief's daughter and the orphan, the woman's consternation over loving an orphan, someone identified as "not her equal" (Radin 1926a:27; see also Radin 1949:86), causes her death. In The Red Horn, the status of the war party leaders attracts the attention of the chief's daughter. This attention is directed toward these men in the order of their perceived abilities and prestige. In combination, the tales suggest that there is an unstated restriction which requires women of high status to marry high-status males.
This stricture is mitigated only in cases where the male has proven himself an exceptional figure and has achieved a high status as a warrior, hunter, or spiritually powerful man. It is the hero's achievements which mitigate the social barriers between the chief's daughter and the orphan in that tale. Similar achievements by the heroes of both Thunderbird legends discussed here enable high-status women to marry men of unremarkable descent. Likewise, in Blue Horn's Nephews it is the groom's achieved status as an invincible warrior that eventually allows him to marry the chief's daughters. This prestige also earns the warrior the blessings and guidance of his wives' brother, Blue Horn.
Changes in Heroic Identities as Indicators of Ranking and the Definition of Social Identity
Additional suggestions of hierarchical behavior can be traced through the identities given to Winnebago heroes. Radin (1948) has suggested that in the past Turtle, Sun, and Morning Star were culture heroes, while Red Horn seems to be a more recent addition. In fact, Radin makes a connection between Red Horn and Morning Star, noting that both are represented as the youngest of a group of brothers. The similarities in the actions of the figures led Radin to suggest that the two characters were essentially the same, with Red Horn being the more popular and more recent version of the heroic figure among the Winnebago. The cosmological figure Sun may also be involved in this complex of culture heroes as an antecedent to both Morning Star and Red Horn. This is discussed more fully below.
Hall (1989a) has noted that Red Horn is also referred to as He-Who-Wears-Human-Heads-as-Earrings or He-Who-Gets-Hit-with-Deer-Lungs, a figure closely related to the Ioway hero named Human-Head-Earrings. Given the close relationships between the Winnebago and the Ioway discussed previously, it is entirely possible that such a hero appears in the oral traditions of both cultures. Hall (1989a) also links Red Horn to a larger tradition of culture heroes, including Red Horn's human wife,(3) She-Who-Wears-a-White-Beaver-Skin-as-a-Wrap and who may be linked to the cosmological figure White Buffalo Calf Woman, who appears in the traditions of Lakota-speaking populations (cf. Powers 1977). Similarly, Red Horn is likened to One Hunter and Seven Hunter among the Maya. Through the actions of these characters both in Winnebago and Maya cosmology, the mythical figures The Twins are brought into the world (Hall 1989a).
More significantly, Hall argues for a link (see below) between these figures and the so-called long-nosed god and bi-lobed arrow motifs. Such motifs are common and important elements in the pan-regional archaeological manifestation known as the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex or the Southern Cult (Waring and Holder 1945, 1968; Willey 1948; Williams and Goggin 1956; Phillips and Brown 1978; Hamilton, Hamilton, and Chapman 1974; see also chapter 5).
Hall (1989a, 1989b) also has argued that the presence of the figure Red Horn in Winnebago oral traditions reflects the presence of Mississippian ideology, at least to some currently undefined degree. Of special importance to Hall's arguments are the potential, perhaps probable, relationships between Red Horn as He-Who-Wears-Human-Heads-as-Earrings and the long-nosed god on one hand and Red Horn as He-Who-Gets-Hit-with-Deer-Lungs and the bi-lobed arrow motif on the other hand.
The former association is linked by Hall (1989a, 1991a) to the presence of Red Horn's animated earrings and their similarities to other depictions of long-nosed god figures. The connection is particularly important here since such long-nosed god images are associated with the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex and privileged or elite individuals within that complex (see Hall 1989a; see also chapter 5). The association of a heroic figure with the long-nosed god images attaches a marker of social prestige to the wearer of long-nosed god images. The symbolic association is similar to that described by Clark (1983) between falcon imagery and pharaonic power (see chapter 2). In the case of Red Horn and his earrings, the equation may be represented as follows:
long-nosed god = prestige/power.
Red Horn possesses/wears animated long-nosed god masks.
Therefore, Red Horn = prestige/power.
This sequence becomes particularly important for the Winnebago in light of the work at Gottschall Rockshelter (see chapter 5). Here, petroglyphs thought to represent Red Horn or his sons have been associated with a carved effigy head (perhaps representing Red Horn)(4) and a shrine (Salzer 1992, 1992 personal communication). Significantly, this complex of paintings and the effigy head are argued by Salzer to perhaps represent some form of pan-ethnic sodality, perhaps designed to promote social unification (see chapters 2 and 5). By creating a complex of symbols that extend across lineage or other group boundaries, members of potentially competing lineages can be united and organized as a single unit (cf. Adams 1989).
The key here is that the petroglyphs and the effigy head, which may be yet another depiction of Red Horn, center on the heroic figure of Red Horn. In terms of defining identity, Red Horn becomes a landmark for social identification and, in the process, is elevated to an important sociopolitical position. By extension, those people who associate themselves with Red Horn also share in the special status accorded the heroic figure. Hence, the sequence associating Red Horn with power and prestige can be extended as follows:
long-nosed god reflects prestige/power.
Red Horn possesses/wears animated long-nosed god masks.
Red Horn reflects prestige/power.
Therefore, those identified with Red Horn are associated with that power/prestige.
Consequently, the Gottschall site may be seen as an attempt by someone or some group to define a salient identity by associating themselves with the figure symbolized by the carving. Likewise, that attempt may also involve the definition of incipient social ranks based on associations with cosmological/mythological heroes. Indeed, Radin (1948) speculates that precisely such events may have taken place early in the formation of the Winnebago (see chapter 3). If it can be verified that the carved head does represent Red Horn (perhaps by the presence of long-nosed god masks) then the ancestors of the Winnebago and related Chiwere-speaking peoples (vis-à-vis their associations with Red Horn imagery) may have been involved in precisely this sort of activity in southwestern Wisconsin prior to the development of Oneota material culture (see chapter 7).
Hall's second linkage is still more complex and potentially significant in terms of defining social structure. Hall equates the bi-lobed arrow, a symbol in the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex, with solar activity, to Siouan cosmology, and with the Calumet Ceremony (Hall 1989a, 1991a, 1991b). The structure of the bi-lobed arrow is suggested to represent a light refraction associated with the solar pillar; such refractions are sometimes called "sun dogs" (Hall 1989a, 1991b). The link Hall draws is that the bi-lobed arrow is a representation of cosmological beliefs held by Caddoan- and Siouan-speaking groups, especially the Pawnee and Dhegiha-speaking populations. These beliefs are symbolized in Calumet ceremonialism, in which death in battle and subsequent reincarnation are portrayed (see also La Flesche 1939). Given the previously discussed linguistic and cultural links among the Central Siouan language family (see chapter 3), similar beliefs may have been present among the Winnebago. Such an association seems even stronger in light of the Red Horn myths, which recount Red Horns capture and death at the hands of his enemies and his eventual reincarnation (Hall 1986).
In Hall's view, Red Horn, in his manifestation as He-Who-Gets-Hit-With-Deer-Lungs, symbolizes a figure blessed by the cosmological activity represented by the solar pillar. Hall (1986) argues that "deer lungs" is a direct reference to the bi-lobed arrow motif of the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex (see chapter 5). Symbolically, the two lobes of the arrow represent the bronchial tubes and/or lungs while the central shaft of the motif represents the wind-pipe (Hall 1986, 1989a). Hall argues, however, that the same symbolism also applies to sun dogs, that is the refracted light associated with sunlight and the cosmological figure Sun. In effect, the symbolism can be charted as follows:
Sun Dog = Sun, cosmological hero and warrior
Sun Dog = bi-lobed arrow
Bi-lobed arrow = lungs and heart
Consequently, anyone blessed by deer lungs, such as He-Who-Gets-Hit-With-Deer-Lungs (also known as Red Horn), is associated with a Sun Dog, the bi-lobed arrow, and the special provenances of warfare vis-à-vis Calumet symbolism and the cosmological figure Sun. The latter figure becomes involved since a sun dog is a refraction of direct sunlight and can only be seen while facing the sun (Hall 1989a). Through such associations, Red Horn represents an incarnation of a cosmologically blessed individual, probably Morning Star. Significantly, Morning Star is best known as a warrior and is linked to the cosmological figure Sun, who is primarily associated with warfare (Lurie personal communication, 1991).
This transposition of identity is exemplified in a Winnebago tale entitled The Morning Star (Radin n.d.). In this tale, Sun is the primary Winnebago hero. Sun defeats a large number of the giants, enemies of the Winnebago, at tests of speed, strength, and cunning. Yet the tale also explains that Morning Star, the youngest of Sun's 10 sons, would have defeated the giants had his father not been present. In effect, the tale casts Morning Star as a diminutive form of Sun, but nonetheless as someone endowed with all of the abilities of the older figure. The title of the tale as recorded by Radin suggests either that Radin asked his informant to tell him a tale about Morning Star and that he recorded what he was told under that heading or that the figures of Sun and Morning Star had become, at least on the level of warfare and competition, essentially interchangeable in the mind of raconteur. Radin (1948) favored the latter explanation, as does Hall (1989a), who finds a similar association between Sun and Morning Star among other Siouan-speaking peoples.
The presence of such a cosmological link between Red Horn and a broader Siouan cosmological outlook would link the Winnebago to their Siouan-speaking relatives. It might also reflect ties to the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex through Red Horn and his various associations with the bi-lobed arrow and long-nosed god masks. Significantly, the latter association would also tie the Winnebago to Mississippian cultural influences and the spread of ideology and political power from Cahokia or other Mississippian centers. By extension, the Mississippian or Mississippian influenced settlement at Aztalan, the Silvernale sites, and/or the Apple River sites are implicated as potential players in the development of the Winnebago.
Hall's arguments (1986, 1989a, 1989b, 1991a) also match Radin's (1948) assessment of Red Horn's identity. As previously mentioned, Radin believed this character replaced successively Turtle, Sun, and Morning Star as the primary Winnebago culture hero. The actions of the tales stayed essentially the same but the performing hero's identity was shifted to reflect preferences for the new character, Red Horn.
Significantly, the shift probably also brought with it a new way of defining social identity. This, in turn, may reflect changes in the underlying social structure of the people adopting the new symbolism. As discussed previously, Red Horn may be associated with an ideology, the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex, that was used to emphasize social ranking and the formation of distinct identities within culture groups. Southeastern Ceremonial Complex materials were displayed as outward symbols that were used to define horizontal cleavages within a culture group. In the case of the Winnebago and their late prehistoric antecedents, display of symbols associated with Red Horn may have evoked similar ideas of social differentiation. In turn, this would mark the emergence of a hierarchical social structure.
The adoption of Red Horn as a culture hero and the accompanying symbolic representations most likely took place while the Winnebago were still associated with the Chiwere-speaking populations since Red Horn also appears in similar form in their oral traditions (Skinner 1925). This would place the emergence of a hierarchical social structure sometime before 1500 A.D. and possibly as early as 1000 A.D. Interestingly, the period bracketed by these dates, approximately 1100 to 1300 A.D., witnesses the florescence of Mississippian or Mississippian influenced populations in the Western Great Lakes region. There may be a correlation between the spread of such ideologies and the formation of Winnebago identity as defined by the emergence of Red Horn.
This is not to suggest that Red Horn is a Mississippian figure borrowed wholesale across cultural boundaries. As discussed in chapter 2, meanings that are projected from one ethnic group toward another through material remains are subject to reinterpretation by the receiving group. In the case of Winnebago and their ancestors, it seems clear that the symbolic representation of warfare and cultural identity achieved through combat was passed from figures such as Sun to Red Horn. The shift in the identity of the hero need not reflect the borrowing of a completely new religious or social complex but may instead represent the reinterpretation and integration of foreign symbols into an evolving social structure. Hence, the emergence of Red Horn as a culture hero represents the continuation of some pre-existing social ideologies, namely warfare and the inevitability of victory, set against the development of new social structures, such as the rise of a privileged social class.
A second transition in heroic identity parallels that described above for Red Horn. In the traditions examined for this volume, Water Spirits are portrayed alternately as evil creatures, as in Holy One, or as diligent providers for humans, as in Blue Horn's Nephews. Radin (1923, 1945) identifies the mythological Water Spirit closely with the Algonquian idea of the water panther; that is, this is a powerful creature living in water that must be appeased in order for people to benefit or, in some cases, merely to cross water. However, in long tales, such as Blue Horn's Nephews, Water Spirits are more closely associated with the earth than with water. Blue Horn lives near a spring and clearly has powers in water, as do his nephews, but they are not restricted to water nor do they require offerings or prayers to allow people to cross water.
Part of the dichotomy portrayed in the tales may be related to the popularization of raptor and Thunderbird imagery, perhaps at the expense of Water Spirit imagery, and substantial Algonquian influences upon the Winnebago during the historic era. Lurie (1988) has obtained a gloss of Wakjiji Huunk (Wakjayxi-Hounk-ka in Lurie's lexicography)(5), or Water Spirit, that is very different from Radin's interpretation. Rather than identifying the concept described by Waxjiji Huunk with the Algonquian view of the water panther, the John Blackhawk gloss is "mystic animal chief." Lurie notes that Huunk is clearly a reference to chief while Wacjiji (Wakjayxi in Lurie 1988) has no direct translation but is perhaps better associated with mystical power than with water and the attributes of the water panther.
The point here, however, is that the concept is clearly associated with political and spiritual power. Further, the Water Spirits themselves need not always be associated with negative uses of powers, that is, use of power to harm humans. This is reinforced by Radin (1923), who notes that Water Spirit blessings were considered to be extremely important among the Winnebago he interviewed at the turn of the century. Consequently, although less well-documented than the evidence involving Red Horn and Morning Star, changes in the interpretation of Water Spirits may reflect corresponding shifts in Winnebago social structure. In this case such changes may have taken place relatively late and are potentially associated with the consolidation of Thunderer sociopolitical power or, perhaps more likely given the rise to power of the Bear clan, with the increasing influence exerted on the Winnebago by Algonquian speakers.
Suggestions of Hierarchy in Accounts of Village and Clan Organization
As noted in chapter 3, Radin (1923) provides descriptions of two opposing versions of village structures while Lurie provides a third account. As discussed in chapter 3, however, the third account seems to represent a camp circle associated with mobility rather than a permanent or semi-permanent village. Hence, the information obtained by Lurie is not directly comparable to that of Radin but nonetheless provides significant insights into Winnebago social organization (see also chapter 3).
For purposes of social structure, it is significant that the village descriptions obtained by Radin both emphasize four particular clans, Thunderer, Warrior/Hawk, Bear, and Buffalo. Each of these clans is specifically associated with a particular function that affects the entire village, Thunderers with leadership, Warrior/Hawk with warfare, Bears with internal enforcement and regulation, and Buffalo with dissemination of information. The Wolf, Water Spirit and Elk clans are identified as less important clans performing similar or less important functions. Assuming Radin did not single the primary clans out for identification when questioning his informants about village structure, something that is unlikely given Radin's thoroughness, the consistent presence of these clans suggests their roles were important to village functions. Moreover, the emphasis on these clans suggests some link between clan membership, clan function, and social status within a Winnebago village existed in the past.
The importance of the symbolic structuring of space within communities has been noted by anthropologists working throughout the world (see discussion of Kus 1981 in chapter 2; see also Ashmore 1989, 1991; Hodder 1978, 1984, 1987; Donley 1982 among others), including in the American Upper Midwest (Emerson and Jackson 1984; Mehrer 1988; O'Brien 1991; Wittry 1977; Pauketat 1992; Emerson 1991a; Hall 1976, 1985, 1991). In both Winnebago village layouts, the four clans mentioned in association with important village functions dominate the diagrams and are specifically located within the village layouts. The primary difference between the diagrams as they relate to the clans is not moietal division, as suggested by Radin's first diagram (Radin 1923: figure 33, figure 12 here), since such a division is violated by the Buffalo clan's position on the side of the above-earth moiety in this diagram. Rather, the principal difference is in the symbolic representation attached to the positioning of the four clans in association with defining the limits of a Winnebago village.
Seen in this light, the distinction between the descriptions lies in the lodges of these clans resting at the perimeters of Winnebago villages in the above-earth moiety's model and in the center of a large cleared area in the beneath-sky moiety's model. In the latter model, instead of outlining the village, the clans seem to define the heart of the village, or perhaps the entire village itself. In both cases, however, the other clans are peripheral to the positioning and presence of these defining clans. Consequently, in both diagrams the four clans delimit the Winnebago villages, although as seen by different portions of the Winnebago community, the above-earth moiety and the beneath-sky moiety.
As argued by Levi-Strauss (1967), the diagrams can be seen as similar symbolic depictions of a single cultural construction, village layout, but as described by different elements of society. The above-earth depiction suggests that the other Winnebago clans are contained within the boundaries set by the four defining clans. That is to say the presence of these other clans within a perimeter marked by the lodges of the four clans reflects the concept that these unnamed clans are joined together through the functioning of the named clans. The paradigm of the diagram is derived from the perspective of the above-earth moiety, a moiety dominated by the Thunderers and the Hawk/Warriors, people whose functions are primarily directed outward from the Winnebago group. Thunderers, for instance, are recorded, at least recently, as the principal chiefs of the group, presumably carrying on negotiations and liaisons with foreign populations. They are supported by the primary warriors of the Winnebago tribe, the Hawk/Warrior clan. Thus, the placement of the four named clans at the outskirts of the diagram can be seen as a reflection of group boundary marking similar to those defined by Barth (1969) and Hodder (1982).
On the other hand, the second diagram is presented by members of the beneath-sky moiety. The purpose of the two named clans in this diagram are, in the case of the Bear clan, to enforce internal policies and security, and, in the case of the Buffalo clan, to relay information from the Thunderer chiefs throughout the other clans. Both the Bear and Buffalo clans carry out functions designed to make the Winnebago operate as a homogenous ethnicity. Unlike the Thunderer and Hawk/Warrior clans whose functions are directed at least in large part outward from the Winnebago, the Bear and Buffalo clans' roles are focused on working within the Winnebago population, looking away from external policy in favor of managing internal cohesion and safety.
This may initially seem incongruous with previous discussions of the powers of these two clans, especially in relation to the Bear clan's role in organizing Winnebago intercessions against threats. The essential similarity, and hence the homogeneity of the roles, however, is expressed by Radin (1923, 1945), who notes it is the function of the Bear clan to organize the Winnebago themselves. Consequently, even though the roles of the Bear clan may involve interaction and conflict with external forces, something primarily associated in the previous discussion with the above-earth people, the power the Bear clan derives in exercising such functions is directly tied to their organization of Winnebago people, a distinctly in-group activity. Viewed from this perspective, the presence of the four named clans at the core of a village area can be seen as an internal defining device.
Hence, these clans, along with the other named clans, define a central portion of Winnebago social structure. This definition is then projected outward on two levels. At the broadest level, the population intimately associated and integrated with the defining groups project an identity outward; they define a vertical cleavage between themselves and others. At the more specific level, the defining clans themselves project a second identity that functions within the boundaries of the more broadly defined ethnic group. This second identity defines a horizontal cleavage that marks internal ranking.
Nagata's (1981) example of the construction of Malayan identity provides a useful illustration of how such a system can develop and function. Under pressure from immigrants from China and India, previously distinct Malayan ethnic groups combine to form a single ethnic population defined by their common identity as Malayan. In dealing with the immigrant populations, these combined ethnic groups project a single identity that serves to help insure access to jobs and to maintain what the group defines as Malayan culture. In effect, they have redefined the boundaries of their own ethnic identity in order to define a vertical cleavage between themselves and people collectively defined as non-Malayan (e.g., in the rubric of chapter 2, as others).
Internally, however, the Malayan populations maintain horizontal cleavages that identify and separate the previously existing ethnic identities from another. Even though these groups have allied and can function as a more or less cohesive ethnic group, they also maintain internal distinctions. Hence, the Malayans function according to flexible ethnic divisions with one set of identifying symbols designed to be received by non-Malayans and a second set designed to be received solely by Malayans. A similar system is argued to have been developed by the Winnebago to cope with both internal and external social pressures.
Support for the importance of the four clans named in the diagrams can be drawn from the organization of the clans themselves. Radin (1923) has noted that the above-earth people, wangeregi herera, were occasionally referred to as a single clan, the bird clan (wanink hokik'aradjera), by his informants. Radin also noted similarities in the origin myths and clan practices of these groups.
...the four clans composing this side are so intimately related, and their origin myths so similar, that the assumption of the four clans representing one clan that subsequently split up into a number of divisions is not outside the realm of historical possibility. (Radin 1923:142)
The presence of a single avian clan with multiple subgens would closely approximate the avian clan structures of the Oto (Whitman 1968, 1938) and Ioway populations (Skinner 1926; Dorsey 1886). The possibility that this form of organization was present among the Winnebago articulates well with previously discussed oral tradition and glottochronological work which suggest the Chiwere-speakers and the Winnebago formerly represented a single population.
Among the Winnebago, however, the presence of a single avian clan which has come to dominate both political leadership, through the Thunderer clan, and military leadership, through the Hawk/Warrior clan, suggests that a single clan may have been extremely powerful. At the same time, the presence of only a single avian clan would support the beneath-sky moiety's description of a Winnebago village. Were the Hawk/Warrior and Thunderers part of the same clan in the past, it is doubtful they would have divided themselves as suggested in figure 12 (Radin 1923: figure 33). It is much more likely to suggest that a single clan occupied mutually proximal locations within the village, as is suggested by figure 13 (Radin 1923: figure 34).
More significantly, the presence of a single avian clan suggests that the symbols and functions now attributed to the Hawk/Warrior and Thunderer clans would have been concentrated within a single clan. Thus, this clan would have been associated with ideas of leadership, warfare, and perhaps, the empyrean nature of Thunderbirds, a supernatural connection. The combination of such symbols coupled with residence at the center or other important location within a village is suggestive of enhanced social status.
Analogies drawn from the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex further support the possibility that a horizontal cleavage once existed among the Winnebago and their predecessors. As noted above and in chapter 3, the principal warrior clan among the Winnebago is also identified with hawks, even to the extent of sometimes being referred to as the Hawk clan. Likewise, the Thunderer clan is also associated with raptor imagery by way of the depiction of Thunderbirds, predatory empyrean creatures (Radin 1915, 1923). Throughout the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex connections exist between raptor imagery, warfare, and social prestige. For instance, shell engravings from Spiro, Oklahoma have been recovered which depict warrior or warrior-like figures depicted in bird imagery. The figures have been argued to be either men impersonating birds or combination creatures, but in any event the figures are strongly associated with warfare and death (Phillips and Brown 1978; Strong 1989). One of the best examples of such an association is the Potter gorget from Cairo Lowland, southeastern Missouri (Phillips and Brown 1978: figure 229). The gorget depicts one triumphant warrior striking a second, defeated warrior with a warclub. The defeated warrior's face is decorated with the so-called weeping eye motif, which has been argued to depict a raptor's eye markings (Willoughby 1932; Strong 1989).
A similar set of markings is present on a series of bird-men from the Etowah site in Georgia. A number of shell gorgets, decapitated bird-men are consistently depicted with the weeping eye motif. Strong (1989) has interpreted Willoughby's suggestion that a series of four gorgets from Etowah are related, the first two depicting victory in combat and the second two depicting a victory celebration over the vanquished, as essentially correct. Similar depictions exist on so-called falcon dancers or bird-man impersonators throughout much of the region influenced by the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex (Phillips and Brown 1978; Brown 1989; Strong 1989).
Knight (1989), Emerson (1989) and Helms (1992) have argued that the representations of Southeastern Ceremonial Complex motifs, especially those depicting cosmological creatures such as flying serpents and thunderbird images, are efforts to limit social and political control to elite members of society. Such arguments are based on the concept that knowledge of the sacred world brings with it power. Thus, those individuals who control access to such sacred knowledge command elevated levels of respect, prestige, and political leverage (Knight 1989). The arguments are supported by the association of cosmological iconographic material with rare items such as beaten copper plates and with elite or enhanced status burials or occupation areas. The presence of similar features in Winnebago oral traditions, particularly in sacred tales (waikan), suggests that similar forms of symbolic control may have existed.
In terms of the Winnebago, avian imagery is associated with the above-earth moiety. This same moiety controls political power through the Thunderer clan, also sometimes referred to as the Thunderbird clan, and military prowess through the Warrior clan, also referred to as the Hawk clan (Radin 1915, 1923). Coupled with Lurie's (1978) suggestion that the historically known clan structure of the Winnebago may have still been evolving at the time of European contact, it is possible that the development of political power associated with a bird clan, or indeed the entire above-earth moiety, may have its origins in ideas associating avian imagery with military and political prowess among a restricted group of people. Significantly, such ideas seem to have been prevalent throughout developed Mississippian archaeological sites and sites associated with the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex.
In addition, a similar argument may be made linking the Water Spirit clan to Mississippian combination or empyrean creatures. Water Spirits are consistently depicted as composite creatures which are part serpent and part bird or flying animal. Even into the historic era, as noted by the depiction of the Water Spirit clan on the 19th-century drawing obtained by Lurie and discussed above, the Water Spirit is a composite creature, a bird with horns and some form of tail. Similar depictions of creatures have been recovered from throughout Mississippian and Caddoan archaeological sites (Emerson 1989; Hamilton 1952; Howard 1968; Phillips and Brown 1978).
Hence, in terms of the Winnebago, the association of cosmological creatures with clan identification may have served as a symbolic statement of power. As with Clark's discussion of falcon imagery, pharaohs, and Horus, images of Thunderbirds and Water Spirits are symbolic references to powerful spirits with the powers to help or hinder humans. By being linked to spiritually powerful beings, members of the Thunderer and Water Spirit clans may have been entitled, either explicitly or implicitly, to more prestige or resources than were other clans.
An interesting implication of such an argument places the Water Spirit in symbolic and mythological opposition to Thunderbirds among the Winnebago. In terms of symbolism, Thunderbirds represent composite creatures of the sky while Water Spirits represent similar manifestations living in the earth and water. Mythologically, the two groups are frequently in competition or engaging in overt hostilities. Such oppositions are known ethnographically (Radin 1923) and are well represented in Winnebago oral traditions such as Blue Horn's Nephews, The Thunderbird, The man who visited the Thunder-birds, and other tales. A basic structural opposition exists between the two concepts in the Winnebago world; the Thunderbirds are classified as above-earth creatures while Water Spirits are beneath-sky creatures. Likewise, both creatures are empyrean in nature, the only two representatives present in the Winnebago clan structure. Tales depict the opposed creatures as constant and implacable foes, both very powerful and both capable of bestowing powerful blessings on worthy Winnebagos.
Yet, as time passes, the Thunderbird imagery remains and is reinforced while Water Spirits increasingly become identified as foes of mankind (Radin 1948). Given the potential link between the rise of these creatures and social control, as well as the dual chieftainship as practiced by the Chiwere-speakers (Whitman 1936; Skinner 1915,1926; see also chapter 3), it is possible that the two clans emerged as rival political groups among the Winnebago. Currently, the Bear clan is viewed as the more important beneath-sky clan, but in the past it may have been the Water Spirit clan (Radin 1923). The dichotomies of earth:sky and spring leadership:fall leadership (see Skinner 1926) may have been extended to include the opposition of the Water Spirit and Thunderer clans.
If such a situation did exist in the past, we may reason that either the ideological concepts argued to be associated with cosmological symbolism among Mississippian populations culminated in increased conflict between the two Winnebago clans or that the Water Spirit clan, for unknown reasons, ceased to be viable in terms of providing leadership. Ultimately, the Thunderbird motif appears consistently associated with the dominant clan and the dichotomy was extended to associate the Thunderbirds with positive deeds and the Water Spirits with negative deeds. In the meantime, the clan using the Thunderbird (e.g. the Thunderer clan) motif may have come to dominate both sides of the dual political leadership, in effect, achieving a position as the clan that provided the hereditary leaders for all of the Winnebago. As with previous discussions dealing with oral traditions and complexity, the situation discussed here articulates closely with Sahlins (1968) and Service's (1971) models for increased political complexity (see chapter 3). Alternatively, the dual chieftainship concept may have been incorporated into Winnebago society in a fashion similar to that which provides the Bear clan with special privileges and duties which, in some cases, supersede the authority of the Thunderer chiefs (Radin 1923, 1945).
Mississippian influences are also implicated in another set of Winnebago traditions, those dealing with the so-called big village (Lurie 1960, 1972). According to this tradition, the Winnebago claimed they once resided in a village that was so large that people at one end of the village did not know what was happening at the other end of the settlement. Likewise, the garden beds for this settlement were several arrow shots in both length and breadth (Lurie 1972). Neither archaeological or historical evidence has suggested the presence of such a settlement anywhere in the Western Great Lakes region. As noted in chapter 5, most villages in this region were small to moderate in size, with domestic middens associated with the Lakes and Lake Winnebago phase occupations as large or larger than any villages known from elsewhere in the region.
In fact, the nearest large village that approximates the scale suggested by the oral tradition is Cahokia. Other Mississippian settlements such as Moundville in Alabama or perhaps even Angel in southern Indiana might also approximate such settlement sizes. The presence of the Mississippian settlements in the region, however, plus their suggested ties to Mississippian developments in Illinois (Freeman 1986; Hall 1991a; Gibbon 1991), and the presence of Oneota ceramics during the Vulcan phase (AD 1400-1600) in the American Bottom (Milner et. al. 1984) suggests that the aforementioned oral tradition may have its roots in the Mississippian florescence at Cahokia.
Lurie (1972) argues that still another line of evidence for hierarchical, perhaps Mississippian-influenced, behaviors is present in Radin's (1923) collection of traditions regarding residential structures. Lurie argues that Radin's accounts suggest the presence of large, rectangular structures that may have included raised sleeping platforms for high-status individuals.
According to the oldest informants, the earliest type of lodge used by the Winnebago was the ten-fire gable lodge, of which there were two types, rectangular in form, one built on a platform and the other on the ground. ...Beds were placed along both of the long sides on a platform raised 2 feet. Frequently, a platform 4 to 5 feet high was erected in the rear of the lodge and partitioned off. Here the favorite child of the family lived when he was fasting. (Radin 1923:56-57)
Lurie (1972) emphasizes the presence of platforms within the structure, especially the larger platform apparently reserved for a favorite child. Radin (1923) reports that his informants told him the platforms were erected as protection against the dampness of the ground. Lurie notes that such an explanation for the constructions within the lodges was impractical since an earthen mound inside the structure would be just as damp as the flat ground within the structure. Further, Lurie argues that if the platforms were wooden there would be difficulty in safely establishing and controlling fires within the lodges. Consequently, the platforms may have been earthen and may suggest a connection to historically known Winnebago bedding platforms within lodges. Lurie suggests some confusion in the issue arises from Radin's limited vocabulary for terms such as "platform" as well as from Radin's lack of attention toward material details. Lurie concludes by commenting that it is curious that greater attention was not given to this problem of the platforms.
Radin's (1923) description of the ten-fire gabled lodges, however, indicates the presence of structures constructed on the tops of mounds, a fact that may be more suggestive of Mississippian connections than the presence of platforms within the structures themselves (see page 403 for an more on the use of the number ten). Excavations at Mississippian sites throughout the southeast and mid-south regions of the United States have revealed that structures were constructed on the tops of Mississippian pyramidal mounds, including the mounds at Aztalan (see chapter 5). No other late prehistoric mounds in the Western Great Lakes region, or anywhere in the Woodland or Plains regions of North America for that matter, have been identified which include the construction of such structures atop mounds. There seems to be a direct reference in traditions of early Winnebago house types to Mississippian behaviors. In addition, structures atop mounds on Mississippian sites have been assumed to represent elite or special purpose structures. Thus, the reference to the large rectangular structures among the Winnebago may also indicate the presence of a socio-political hierarchy, with some domestic structures constructed atop mounds while others were constructed on unmodified, or at least unmounded, terrain. Significantly, however, unpublished research in the La Crosse, Wisconsin area may suggest the presence of low platforms underlying some domestic structures at some classic Oneota sites (Hollinger, personal communication 1992).
Structurally speaking, a pattern is emerging through the numerous and sometimes disparate lines of evidence. First, Levi-Strauss (1960, 1967) has provided two basic structural analyses of elements of Winnebago culture. These can be summarized as oppositions between above and beneath as seen both in tales (Levi-Strauss 1960) and in the moietal social structure of the Winnebago (Levi-Strauss 1967). As discussed above, this may now be extended to an ethnically central, perhaps elite or privileged, class and a less socially emphasized class. This division, however, does not suggest a segregation of class or rank based solely upon moietal divisions since clans from both moieties are utilized in defining Winnebago village structure and, by extension, ethnic boundaries. Rather, the division seems to suggest the presence of privileged groups in both moieties. This type of social structure articulates well with the potential for a dual chieftainship to have once existed among the Winnebago or, at least, with the presence of ranked clans within each moiety as present among the Ioway, Oto, and Missouri (see Whitman 1937; Skinner 1926).
As Levi-Strauss (1957, 1967) has observed, if these social structures are present in the ideology of the population, then they will probably be reflected in the material culture of that population. This should focus the attention of archaeologists on the symbolic aspects of community patterning. In particular, researchers need to integrate the structure of archaeological sites and stylistic expressions of material culture with socially meaningful ideological concepts (see chapter 7).
Suggestions of Matrilineality in the Past
As discussed in chapter 3, historical records describe Winnebago lifestyles as similar to those of their Algonquian-speaking neighbors. Rather than relying on a central chief, the Algonquian-speaking groups depended upon clan relationships and leadership to control localized affairs (Lurie 1978; Callender 1978). Such organization was usually focused on patrilineal and patrilocal social structures that tended to emphasize obligations to lineage members. The Winnebago utilize a clan system that is usually assumed to function in a manner similar to the Algonquian model (Radin 1915b, 1923; Lurie 1978; Callender 1978) (see also chapter 3).
Lurie (1978), however, has challenged this notion on several counts. As discussed above, she argues that the Winnebago emphasized a centralized political figure with some unspecified measure of real power across clan lines. The preceding discussion of Winnebago oral traditions supports this contention. Consequently, the presence of such social organization raises potential questions about our assumptions concerning other elements of past Winnebago social structure. In particular, the antiquity of patrilineal and patrilocal organization normally associated with Algonquian clan structure needs to be questioned. Since there is strong evidence supporting an increased level of sociopolitical elaboration among the Winnebago as compared to their Algonquian contemporaries, at least those for which we have ethnographic accounts (cf. Callender 1978a, 1978b, 1978c), other assumptions about the nature of Winnebago clan structure derived from analogy to Algonquian populations need to be questioned.
This is reinforced by Lurie's (1978) observation that Radin (1923) reported instability in the clan structure of the Winnebago prior to their removal to reservations. As discussed above, this is reflected in terms of political control by the Thunderer clans political ascendancy over all of the other clans, a situation that is not paralleled among the Chiwere-speakers (Whitman 1937; Miner 1911; Skinner 1926; Lurie 1978). Radin (1923) commented briefly on this and suggested that the Water Spirit clan may have once played a greater role in sociopolitical leadership among the Winnebago than was historically observed.
Such discrepancies extend even deeper into Winnebago social structure, affecting the calculation of descent. Lurie (1978) reports that war bundles, important symbols of clan identity and beliefs, were occasionally inherited matrilineally rather than patrilineally, as was commonly expected. Further, some children traced their names and kinship through their mother's rather than their father's lineage. Radin (1923) explains such events as products of reservation period social shifts or from the financial ability of some females' lineages to better afford raising children than their husbands' lineages. Lurie, however, suggests such practices may reflect older behaviors which were overridden during the historical era. In particular, she rejects Radin's economic arguments for calculating descent as unconvincing and, perhaps, as products of Radin's personal biases (Lurie 1978; 1991 personal communication).(6)
In light of the oral traditions regarding the presence of ten-fire, rectangular gabled lodges discussed above, it is possible that these residences represent domestic structures for lineage groups. Although Lurie (1974) has suggested that the reported size of the lodges may reflect an emphasis on the number of people such a lodge might hold, it is also possible that the number of fires represents the number of domestic hearths which could be contained within the structure. If each fire is interpreted as representing the domestic center of one or two nuclear families, such as is present among Iroquoian populations (Fenton 1978; Heidenreich 1971; Trigger 1969; Sagard 1939), then the lodge might represent the dwelling of a lineage group. Even allowing for there to be fewer than 10 fires, it is nonetheless feasible that the reference is not to the physical size of the structure alone, but to a lineage group. In light of Lurie's (1978) suggestions for Winnebago clans representing unstable or transitional organizing groups, the presence of such a lineage house system might have preceded clan organization as recorded historically. Additionally, coupled with the suggestions for matrilineality discussed later in this chapter, it is also possible that the large gabled houses of oral traditions represent matriclans. Although firm evidence for such speculations is currently absent, methods for testing this possibility are discussed in the next chapter.
An interesting aspect of such speculations regarding the presence of matriclan organization relates to the purpose of the four- to five-foot elevated and partitioned platform reported present in the gabled lodges (Radin 1923) (see also above). Radin tied the current patrilineal organization of the Winnebago to oral traditions regarding the use of the platform by a favorite male child during fasting. This certainly is feasible. However, given the arguments for matrilineal descent made by Lurie and Radin, the evidence discussed below as well as the possible presence of lineage houses, the platforms may have been utilized by a favored female child, perhaps the woman who was in position to inherit the matriarchy of the lineage. The use of such a platform is then reminiscent of Radin's (1948) interpretation of the platform occupied by the chief's daughter in the Red Horn cycle. In this instance, the high status female is accorded a segregated and prominent place which designates her as a privileged individual. It is possible that the segregated and elevated platform within the large lodges served a similar function. As discussed in the following chapter, additional research is required to test this possibility.
Lurie and Inferred Changes in Kinship Calculation
It is useful to preface this discussion with a brief review of some fundamental concepts in kinship studies. Fox (1967:31) has proposed four principles which summarize what he terms "the facts of life" relevant to kinship. These principles are:
1. Women have the children.
2. Men impregnate the women.
3. Men usually exercise control.
4. Primary kin do not mate with one another.
Principles one and two are basic biological truths and need not be discussed further. Principle four accounts for the near-universal taboo on incest, an interesting topic but one which need not be pursued in this volume (see Fox 1980 for further discussion of this topic).
Fox's third principle, however, is of special importance to the following discussions since it deals with social control. According to this principle men tend to exercise social and political control, regardless of whether they inherit such power through their matrilineage or patrilineage. This is not to say, however, that women will not play potentially significant roles in selecting male leaders, as in the Iroquois case, or influencing the decisions of males through kinship mechanisms. Nonetheless, in most kinship and political systems known to have existed in North America prior to European contact, men served as political and social leaders more frequently than did women even though in several cases the acquisition of political and social power was matrilineal.(7)
Fox (1967:112-114) also discusses three generalized forms of matrilineal organization. Since we are primarily discussing suggestions for matrilineal descent, and hence the corresponding social structure that should result from such, it is useful to also review Fox's discussion of these basic forms. The three basic forms are:
1. That based on mother-daughter-sister roles and matrilocal residence. Here the burden of control and continuity is to some extent shifted onto the women, and in societies with this basis it is usually the case that women have higher prestige and influence than in others.
2. That based on the brother-sister-nephew roles, with avunculocal residence preferred, or, failing this, some means whereby the mother's brother can control his nephews. In this type the status of women is usually lower, as control and continuity are monopolized by men.
3. That based on the full constellation of consanguine matrilineal roles: mother-daughter, brother sister, mother's brother-sister's son. Here control and continuity are primarily in the hands of men, but the status of the women need not be low - it will perhaps be intermediate between that in 1 and 2. (Fox 1967:112-13)
Finally, Fox (1967:102-106) has suggested that most matrilineal systems arose from a residence system that, for whatever reasons, was designed to keep related women together while dispersing related men. Significantly, such residential systems have been argued to arise among groups where external warfare (that is conflict with other peoples) is either common or a constant threat. Divale (1984), for example, has suggested that matrilocality develops in response to culture-contact situations that threaten to produce violent conflict. Ember and Ember (1971) have suggested that matrilocal residence is preferred in general among people who are at war with neighboring populations while patrilocal residence is preferred in situations where intragroup conflict is common. More recently Keegan and MacLachlan (1989) have argued for the development of avunculocal chiefdoms among the Taino in the Bahaman archipelago between A.D. 800 and 1500 in response to strong external threats from neighboring peoples.
Since many of the Winnebago myths, legends, and traditions discussed in the following pages center on conflict with external groups and matrilineal descent has been argued to have existed among the Winnebago in the past, it is possible that a connection may indeed be made between residence patterns and descent calculation. Such connections are especially important in light of the problematic but suggestive nature of arguments for matrilineality among the Winnebago or their immediate antecedents.
Let us now return to the specific arguments at hand. In arguing for a period of matrilineality sometime in the past among the Winnebago, Lurie (1978) notes that proscriptions exist against marriages within clans and "...between people who were deemed close matrilineal relatives, reckoned through a fairly conventional Omaha kinship system" (Lurie 1978:695; see also chapter 2). It is unclear, however, whether Lurie's observation of proscriptions refer to parallel cousins, who in either a Crow or Omaha system would be considered siblings and thus make them ineligible as potential marriage partners, or whether a wider segment of the matrilineage is involved.
Lurie continues, arguing that such proscriptions are complemented by a strong emphasis on avuncular ties to mother's brother, or neega(8) (Lurie 1978, personal communication 1992). While a distinction is commonly made between father's brother, termed father, and mother's brother, termed uncle (neega in Winnebago), in an Omaha system, Lurie notes that the Winnebago envision the tie between mother's children and mother's brother to be one of the same body.
The statement of his relationship embodies the idea that the uncle is closer to nieces and nephews than to his own children because they are of the same body, that is, share the same female line. (Lurie 1978:695)
She concludes her arguments describing the special relationship that exists between mother's children and mother's brother. The mother's brother is expected to help instruct mother's children in Winnebago life. Especially important is the relationship between the uncle and his nephews, whom the uncle teaches how to become responsible Winnebago men. The uncle, for example, is expected to take his nephews on their first warpath. In adulthood, the relationship between nephews and nieces and uncle is expected to be warm, with the uncle providing asked for gifts and the nephews and nieces providing asked for services (Lurie 1978).
Two points regarding Lurie's arguments need to be made here. First, to Lurie the assertion that mother's brother (maternal uncle) is considered of the same flesh as mother's children and is closer to his nieces and nephews than to his own children is more than a recognition by a woman's children of the sibling relationship between their mother and her brother. The point Lurie tries to make and that she expressed to me (Lurie personal communication 1991) is that she believes a mother's brother and his nieces and nephews may have once shared the same family identity while a father and his children formerly did not. The implications are that descent was traced matrilineally rather than patrilineally and that authority over a woman's children was vested in her brothers.
This brings us to the second point that Lurie (1978) does not elaborate on but which is essential to understanding her arguments. She notes that it is a child's maternal uncles (the child's mother's brothers) who are called upon to punish the child whenever such actions are deemed necessary. Lurie interprets this to mean that the males of the mother's line have authority over their sister's children. In such instances a matrilineal kinship system might be inferred since control over the children resides with the males of the mother's lineage.
There is a potential problem with this interpretation, though. If, as Lurie (1978) suggests, the authority over a woman's children extends to both her brothers and their children then this may reflect patrilineal descent as seen in an Omaha kinship system. In such a system, ego classifies mother's brother and mother's brother's sons as fathers and mother's brother's daughters as mothers. Hence, Lurie's arguments for a maternal uncle's authority over his nieces and nephews may reflect a patrilineal system just as well as a matrilineal system. The potential conflict in interpretations is not as easily reconciled as we might like it to be, however, since numerous variations exist in precisely how much, if any, authority any given relative actually exists within any kinship system (Fox 1967; Barnard and Good 1984:67-70).
Similarly, Fortes (1959) has discussed the idea of "complementary filiation," which in its simplest form is a recognition of the fact that a child is biologically linked to both its mother and father. Hence, a child is likely to be aware of both of its biological lineages although it may identify only one as the lineage to which it belongs. Even such a recognition may be overly simplistic, however, since some positions, identities, or materials may be passed on through different through different lineages, that is some items are passed to a child through its matrilineage and others through its patrilineage. This is symptomatic of double-descent (descent is calculated through both patri- and matrilineages) but might also occur in unilineal systems (Radcliffe-Brown 1935; Fox 1967; Barnard and Good 1984).
Descent in Winnebago Tales
The strongest suggestions for matrilineal organization and descent can be found in the tale Blue Horn's Nephews. Here the relationship between mother's brother and mother's children is particularly well-documented and inferences can be made regarding the inheritance of identity and, perhaps, political offices. The first half of the tale centers on the role Blue Horn takes in arranging his adoptive sisters' marriages and then in raising his nephews. The relationship between Blue Horn and his nephews is so strong that the nephews track and rescue Blue Horn after he has been captured by his traditional enemies, the Thunderbirds. Throughout his captivity and torture, Blue Horn sings that his nephews will avenge him. His nephews fulfill this duty but go beyond that to destroy most of the Thunderbirds and then carry their uncle back to his lodge. En route home the nephews take special care to retrace the steps taken by the Thunderbirds when transporting Blue Horn and, by so doing, return their uncle to health. Significantly, at the end of the tale the nephews are sent by Earth-Maker to reside forever in the earth, the domain of the Water Spirits. As will be discussed later this may be a symbolic representation of the nephews succeeding to their uncle's position as the leader of the Water Spirits.
A similar narrative is presented in The man who visited the Thunder-birds. In the tale, a sister has been lured away by an evil spirit disguised as her Thunderbird lover. She leaves her son behind in the care of her brothers and goes to live with the evil spirit, who eventually corrupts the woman's ideas about her brothers. One by one, the brothers set off in search of their sister, only to be tricked by her and the evil spirit to their deaths. At last, the youngest of the ten brothers(9) leaves food for his nephew and sets out to find his sister and brothers. He eventually finds his sister but is warned by an old woman of the treachery which awaits him. The brother proves to be a powerful hunter and warrior and survives all of the traps which killed his brothers. He eventually is asked to hunt with his brother-in-law, a request which he cannot refuse but which he knows to be a ploy to arrange his murder. As the evil spirit is about to murder his brother-in-law, the tenth brother, a Thunderbird spirit intervenes and slays the evil spirit. The Thunderbird is none other than the nephew, who has discovered his identity as a spirit and has sought out his uncle to help him. As in Blue Horn's Nephews, the nephew restores his uncle to health and the two go on to live good lives, aiding one another whenever required. What is less clear in this tale, however, is whether or not the uncle has any authority over his nephew or whether the nephew inherits any of the positions or possessions of his uncles. Thus, although the behavior is similar to that described in Blue Horn's Nephews, there is no good indication of whether the tale describes a matrilineal system or whether it describes only a reciprocal relationship between mother's brother and sister's son, something that exists in both matrilineal and patrilineal societies (Radcliffe-Brown 1924).
Some evidence from tales, however, may be interpreted to more strongly support the idea that the Winnebago once functioned matrilineally. A brief examination of the inheritance of political power illustrates the case for, and perhaps against, matrilineal descent and provides insights suggestive of the mechanisms for the transfer of political power. At the same time, these tales also strengthen Radin's (1923, 1948) and Lurie's (1960, 1978) suggestions for concentration of political power in the hands of a single individual.
Alternative interpretations of the material presented below can also be made. Radcliffe-Brown (1924), for example, has argued that the reciprocal relationship between a mother's brother and his sister's children in Africa more commonly reflect patrilineal rather than matrilineal descent. Such opposing interpretations will be discussed following the presentation of material suggestive of the presence of matrilineal descent in the past.
The Red Horn presents a clear description of how political power is passed along in the community described in the tale. As noted previously in the section discussing the presence of a single chief within Winnebago communities, Turtle marries the daughter of a village chief. The marriage is arranged on the eve of an important war party and takes place upon Turtle's return from the successful expedition. The day following the marriage, Turtle emerges from his wife's lodge and visits his friends Red Horn, Wolf, and Storms-as-he-walks. During this visit Turtle announces that he has been made chief of the village.
No explanation is given for the passing of political leadership. No council is held to elect a new chief, no demise of the former chief is mentioned, nor are any reprisals for the shift in political leadership noted. The absence of these elements suggests the transfer of leadership was an ordinary occurrence. In fact, the lack of mention of the event would be anticipated were the audience hearing the tale to know that the culturally appropriate action would be for Turtle to become chief. The fulfillment of that expectation then serves to reinforce extant social structure by illustrating that proper behaviors are being adhered to by both the raconteur and the characters in the tale. As discussed in chapter 2, it is this behavior that helps reinforce ethnic boundaries and serves to unify those participating in the retelling of the tradition.
The presence of a single event of this nature would not necessarily indicate that the described shift in power was a regular event in Winnebago culture. Similar events are described in other tales, however. In Blue Horn's Nephews the warrior who marries the chief's two daughters is also elevated to the political leadership of the village. Although the time frame this occurs in is less well defined in Blue Horn's Nephews than in The Red Horn, there again is no mention of the death or departure of the former chief. Likewise, no mention is made of political or social reprisals having occurred in response to the shift to a new chief. In none of the traditions dealing with the passage of political power examined for this volume was this pattern violated.
In Blue Horn's Nephews, the process of marriage and ascension to political power is similar to that experienced by Turtle in The Red Horn, but involves polygyny. An unnamed warrior of great renown marries the two daughters of the village leader and is shortly thereafter elevated to the village chieftainship. At the opening of the tale, however, the warrior is depicted as a poor and violent husband. He has numerous wives and treats them all poorly. Yet, because he is such an accomplished warrior, and no one in the village can kill him, he courts or pursues any woman he chooses. During the course of the story, the warrior tries to marry the chief's eldest daughter by telling her that if she does not consent, the warrior will kill the chief. Rather than have her fathered killed and be taken by force, the eldest daughter flees the village in the hope of dying in the wilderness. She is eventually saved by the chief of the Water Spirits, Blue Horn, and becomes his adopted sister. The action repeats itself with the chief's remaining daughter and she too is adopted by Blue Horn.
Blue Horn eventually returns the women to their village and persuades the warrior to return all of his current wives to their original families. The warrior agrees to this because Blue Horn is the most powerful of all Water Spirits and even the invulnerable warrior cannot kill him. Following the return of his first wives, the warrior marries both of the chief's daughters. Under the guidance of Blue Horn, the marriages are successful and the warrior is made chief shortly after the two women consummate the marriage.
In both tales, it is the daughters of the current chief who actually control the inheritance of political power. It is their mate who ascends to the chieftainship of the village shortly after the marriage. In cases where more than one daughter is present, as is the case in Blue Horn's Nephews, sororal polygyny is suggested as a solution to potential problems of multiple claims to political leadership. By marrying all females whose lineages entitle their mates to inherit political leadership to a single individual, the inheritance of power is concentrated in that single individual.
As with the Blue Horn and Red Horn tales, in The chief's daughter and the orphan political power is passed on to the daughter's husband, in this case an orphan. Unlike the two previous tales, however, this one contains a direct reference to the former chief and his wife. Both remain in the village after their daughter's marriage and help to raise their daughter's child. In fact, at the end of the tale, which may actually be a derivative of the Wolf Clan origin myth as recorded by Radin (1923), the grandparents care for their grandchild when its parents transform themselves into wolf spirits and return to the spirit world.
A fourth example of the inheritance of political power through a female is found in The woman who loved her half-brother. In this tale the half-brother of a chief's daughter flees his village when his half-sister seeks to marry him. The male feels that the relationship would be incestuous while the female argues that she is the chief's daughter and therefore can marry whomever she likes. Ultimately, the male finds his way to a neighboring village. There he marries the village chief's daughter. In the next narrative action of the tale, the male has been made chief of his new village. Moreover, at the end of the tale, there is a reference to his wife's family and her father, who is alive, well, and living in the same village as his daughter's husband, the chief.
As noted at the outset of this discussion, alternate explanations exist for many of the behaviors described above. Such alternatives do not infer matrilineal descent and may, indeed, be suggestive of patrilineal organization. For example, the transfer of political leadership to the husband of a chief's daughter in the tales may reflect a literary motif rather than an actual event common in Winnebago society. That is, the rise of some male to the position of chief may parallel European tales where a young man marries a princess and inherits a kingdom. Such actions take place in the European tales only because the princess' father has no male heir to succeed him and throne of the kingdom must be passed on through the daughter, there is no other choice. Such tales do not reflect matrilineality but are motifs that emphasize the heroic nature of the male character that eventually succeeds to the throne. Consequently, there is an alternative explanation for the events of the Winnebago tales discussed here that does not involve matrilineal descent of power.
Similarly, the way the tales were transcribed by, and presumably relayed to, Radin raises concerns over the identity of the person from whom a chief's daughter derives prestige. The fact that the woman through whom political power is argued to be passed is always referred to as the daughter of the chief suggests that her social position, and perhaps her position as the link between political leaders (e.g., her father and her husband) as well, derives from her father, the chief. If this is the case then descent would appear to be patrilineal with the chief's daughter perhaps reflecting the sole mechanism through which authority could be passed from one generation to the next.
Two factors mitigate against such an interpretation, though. First, in The woman who loved her half-brother a son of the chief is present in the village. Were patrilineal descent the expected behavior then the son would be the likely heir to the chieftainship. Further, the enormous leeway given to his half-sister would be inconsistent with Fox's fourth rule of kinship, that close relatives tend not to marry. More significantly, it raises the question of whether or not the female possessed a higher status than the male since she was allowed to be the aggressor in mating behavior and while his solution was to depart. Were males to control heirs and the social structure (Fox's third rule), then we might reasonably expect the male to have some recourse other than flight for resolving the situation. While this line of argument does not necessarily negate the possibility that the system described in the myths reflects patrilineality, it does certainly raise questions about the strength of whoever was in control of the situation.
Second, it should noted that the chief's sister's children would be considered the chief's sons and daughters in many kinship systems. Hence, the term chief's daughter might reflect a matrilineal constellation in which a woman's sons inherit the positions of the woman's brothers. As noted above, the lack of male offspring in the line may require that such offices be passed on to the husbands of the woman's daughters. The same logic prevails here that prevails in the preceding discussion dealing with son-in-law descent in Europe.
Two interesting interpretations based on this theme can be derived from the tales discussed above. First, in The woman who loved her half-brother, we are left to puzzle over the precise nature of the relationship between the brother and sister. It would be tempting to interpret the description of the male and female as half-siblings as a function of the raconteur's social milieu, that is that it is a product of relatively recent shifts in the kinship calculation of the Winnebago. Certainly such shifts could be expected given the traumatic history of the Winnebago people discussed previously (see chapter 4). If this were the case then the origins of the half-sibling relationship might reside in the recognition that the male and female had different parents, that is, the male was the son of the chief and the woman was the daughter of the chief's sister. The raconteur, faced with an uncertain social connection between the primary male and female figures of the tale, might have opted to solve the problem by using the term half-brother. This would allow him to recount the plot of the tale with minimal alterations, something he was being paid to do by Radin. Unfortunately there is no way to test such a hypothesis, but it does raise concerns over patrilineal interpretations of the tale.
In the second case we must return to the eventual fate of Blue Horn's nephews and their relationship with their maternal uncle. At the end of the tale the nephews are sent by Earth-Maker to reside in the cliffs overlooking the confluence of the Wisconsin and the Mississippi Rivers. Their resting place is in the earth, where they are said to still reside.
In effect, the nephews have replaced their uncle as the primary spirits living in the earth. As significantly, the conflict of the nephews with the Thunderbirds reflects their alliance with the structural opposites of the Thunderbirds, the Water Spirits. Blue Horn is the chief of the Water Spirits and, prior to the retirement of his nephews into the cliffs, the primary spirit living in the earth. Symbolically this may be interpreted as the nephews replacing their uncle both in their position as powerful spirits and in their residence in the earth. If this is the case then the nephews have inherited the position of their maternal uncle and the tale may reflect matrilineal descent. That is, the nephews acquire their position from their mother's brother, a classically matrilineal behavior.
A second group of narrative actions, some within the tales mentioned above and some in other tales, tends to support suggestions for the transmission of political power through a female. Although this second group of narrative actions does not directly describe the transference of political authority or prestige, it describes instances in which the chief's daughter dies or marries inappropriately. An additional element is present in these tales which suggests that chiefs' daughters were required to reside in their native villages, an element that may be related to the importance high-ranking women may have played in establishing political descent.
In each instance in which a chief's daughter dies or leaves the village permanently (e.g., marries and moves to her husband's village) the chief's village or its residents suffer or become unhappy. Such undesirable results are ultimately rectified when the woman is returned to life or to her home village. For example, in The chief's daughter and the orphan, as mentioned above, the daughter of a chief falls in love with an orphan. Despite the tale noting that the woman was free to marry any man she chose to, the woman fears that she will disgrace her family by marrying the low-status orphan. Her consternation over the situation eventually leads to her death. In mourning, the entire village is moved as a consequence of the woman's death.(10) When she is revived by the orphan and taken to her family's new village, the entire population returns to the original village. There the orphan and the woman are married and the orphan made the new chief.
In a separate tale, The woman who married a snake, the daughter of a chief marries a man, apparently the son of a chief from another village. Although the tale is not explicit in defining the cultural affiliation of this other village, it is apparently non-Winnebago. Following the marriage, the woman moves to her husband's village. The tale continues to relate how her family and the members of her home village missed her greatly. The message transmitted by statements of such sorrow may be tied to emotional concerns but may be more strongly linked to the woman's position in the political descent system of her village. The woman had no sisters and, consequently, when the woman moved away, her village was deprived of its mechanism for political descent.
After a period of time, the woman's family and some members of her initial village decide to visit her in the village of her husband. Upon arriving in that village they learn that the woman did not marry any man from the settlement and that the people there had not seen her. The woman's friends deduce that she must have been abducted by a snake spirit and set off to find her. With the aid of a Water Spirit which had secretly been living among them, the villagers retrieve the woman from the village of snakes, located in an underground den. At the end of the tale the woman is reunited with her family and village and life returns to normal. The story concludes with the raconteur explaining that the woman had not been harmed by her snake husband and that, in fact, the snake people were very happy. She, however, had been very sad because she was forced to stay underground with her legs folded under her like a snake.
Symbolically, the tale can be argued to illustrate contact between two ethnic groups. The first group, that of the woman, lives above ground and apparently prefers the chief's daughter to remain in the village where she was born after marriage, potentially for purposes of either or both ethnic bounding (the chief's daughter symbolizing group identity and therefore it is desirable for her to be with the group) or political inheritance (the woman is the only child of the chief and, as described previously, whomever she marries will probably ascend to the chieftainship). The second ethnic population operates differently, living underground and utilizing a patrilocal or virilocal residence system. No antagonism is reported from the tale and no accounts of fighting or anger between the two groups are presented. On the contrary, the woman seems to suggest that the snake people were very pleasant, but very different. Given that the woman's group utilizes matrilocality and that Radin (n.d.) believes the tale to be of Winnebago origin, it is possible that the second group in the tale is meant to reflect an Algonquian population. In light of previous arguments that the basic narrative elements of tales tend to illustrate aspects of proper and improper behavior (see chapter 2 and the introduction to this chapter), the events of the tale may be viewed as reinforcing matrilocality.
Elements of the tale The man who visited the Thunder-birds could also illustrate the contradiction between continued residence within an ethnic group, in this case one which uses matrilocal residence(11), and residence outside of the ethnic group, in this case in a second group which uses patrilocal, or at least non-matrilocal, residence(12). The tale opens with a woman living with her ten brothers. The woman is visited by and eventually falls in love with a Thunderbird spirit. The two cohabit nightly and, although they know someone has been sleeping with the woman, the brothers can neither see nor hear the Thunderbird. Eventually the woman has a child by the spirit, much to the delight of her brothers. The child's uncles care and provide for both the child and its mother.
Later, however, an evil spirit disguised as the father of the child visits the woman. This second spirit convinces the woman to leave her brothers and the child and move to his residence. The woman eventually agrees to the arrangement and leaves her lodge in the night. Her brothers find her missing in the morning and begin searching for her. They leave the youngest brother behind to care for the child while the others are away. After a long period of time, the youngest brother begins to worry about his brothers, as none have returned from their searches. After more time passes, during which the brother continues to raise and care for his nephew, the youngest brother decides he must search for his siblings. He leaves food for his nephew, who is still tied to a cradle board, and sets out to search.
The youngest brother subsequently finds his sister and her husband, who claim to have no knowledge of the other brothers. An old woman living nearby, however, feeds the youngest brother and tells him that his brothers were tricked and killed by the evil spirit with the aid of his wife, the brothers' sister. Armed with this information, the brother survives all of the deadly tasks set out for him by his brother-in-law. Finally, the evil spirit asks the youngest brother to go hunting with him. The brother knows this is only a ploy to arrange an ambush in which he will be killed. Yet, his kinship obligations require that he do as his brother-in-law asks.
In an isolated spot away from the village, the evil spirit prepares to kill the youngest brother. As he is about to strike, however, a Thunderbird spirit intervenes and slays the evil spirit. The Thunderbird identifies himself as the youngest brother's nephew who, learning of his ancestry, grew up immediately and came to help his uncle. The two then return to the residence of the sister, the Thunderbird's mother, and slay her for her part in killing the brothers. Radin (1926a) notes that the killing of a family member is considered a terrible offense by the Winnebago but, in this case, it was justified because of the actions of the woman.
A basic dichotomy of action is established by this tale. When the woman was living with her brothers, all of the characters were happy. She and her child were well-cared for and her husband was a benevolent and very powerful spirit. When she moves away, however, her brothers are killed and she is made unhappy. At the end of the tale she is also slain for leaving her home and helping to kill her brothers. The maintenance of matrilocal residence is presented in association with good or desirable things while the abandonment of this pattern results in the death of both the woman and nine of her brothers. This would seem to reinforce matrifocal behavior as opposed to other forms of lineage and locality behaviors.
It must be stressed here that, depending on how the reader elects to view the evidence, either matrilineal or patrilineal descent could be represented by the tales. Given Winnebago oral traditions for warfare with external groups and the previously discussed associations of (1) matrilocality or avunculocality with situations of external conflict and (2) matrilocal residence systems with the rise of matrilineality, it is reasonable to argue for the potential presence of matrilineality among the Winnebago. As will be discussed in the following chapter, archaeologists must account for such possibilities in their research of Winnebago social structure and identity. Ultimately, the preparation of a testable model for identifying such structure and identity is the goal of this research.
In the end, however, I suspect that there was indeed a period in the past when the Winnebago and/or their immediate antecedents calculated descent matrilineally, at least for purposes of passing on political leadership and social prestige. I recognize that there are alternative interpretations and that these cannot be discounted given the data available to us. Nonetheless, the combination of the tales, the history of conflict between the Winnebago and others, our inability to locate a distinctive Winnebago archaeological signature, and my personal bias toward cultural evolutionary theory, lead me to suspect that a period of matrilineality did, in fact, exist. This theme and the reasons for my interpretations will be returned to in the following chapter.
The Antiquity of Matrifocal and Hierarchical Behaviors
As discussed above, there are suggestions of an era of matrilocality, and perhaps matrilineality, in the Winnebago past. Both kinship and clan relations suggest that the ethnic identity now ascribed to the Winnebago may reflect an idealized goal for social developments, perhaps established by the Winnebago themselves in adopting a more Algonquian lifestyle or constructed by anthropologists seeking to classify the Winnebago system. In either case doubts have been cast on the temporal depth of the ethnographically recorded Winnebago social structure and, hence, the salient identity defined by this structure.
The tales discussed here reflect accounts of matricentered and hierarchical behaviors, behaviors that Radin (1948) and Lurie (1960, 1974, 1978) both suggest are hinted at by some other elements of Winnebago culture. These claims are reinforced and expanded upon by the interpretations of the tales presented above. Difficulty, however, still remains in assessing the order in which the various tales were developed and to which historic or prehistoric periods they belong.
Radin (1948) suggests that there was a period in the past when the Wolf rather than the Thunderer clan was the principal clan among the Winnebago. Likewise, Lurie (1978) notes that there was probably a time in the past when the Winnebago utilized different clan or social structures and tribal leadership may have been open to additional clans or other organizing groups.
Precedents for such structures exist among both the Ioway and Oto, two Chiwere-speaking populations. Unfortunately, little detailed information is available on the third Chiwere population, the Missouri. Both the Ioway and Oto divide leadership of their populations by season, the Buffalo clan of each tribe(13) leading in the spring and the Bear clan leading in the fall (Whitman 1937; Skinner 1926). Likewise, the clans of these tribes arrange themselves hierarchically, each clan being divided into four subclans of varying importance (Whitman 1937; Skinner 1915, 1926). Radin (1923) reports vestiges of a similar structure among the Winnebago, although he does not explore the manner in which the lineages were ranked or, indeed, how the clans themselves were ranked. According to Lurie (1978), it was in part re-evaluation of these structures which helped convince Radin that the Winnebago had once been stratified.
In terms of the antiquity of these shared behaviors, we must postulate that their origins predate the separation of the Chiwere-speaking populations from the Winnebago. It is more parsimonious to suggest that traditions dealing with Red Horn, quadripartite clan structures, and moietal divisions were developed by a single population than to suggest that similar structures developed in multiple, separated groups. Consequently, researchers may be dealing with a unified Chiwere-Winnebago cultural identity until as late as approximately 1500 A.D.
In light of these concepts, it is possible to propose a chronological sequence which provides relative indications of the ages of the particular versions of the tales recorded by Radin. These relative ages are important because they provisionally reflect shifts in Winnebago behaviors over time that have survived in the various versions of the traditions considered here. Consequently, and in light of previous discussions regarding the relative stability of myths, it is possible to order on a broad scale the changes Winnebago social structure has undergone and, perhaps, assess some of the influences which stimulated these shifts. Because of the nominal forms of data involved, however, it is important that the proposed ordering be understood as a description of a general trend and not a ratio scale that fixes each tale precisely in time and space (e.g., Shennan 1988:10-12; Thomas 1986:18-28).
Both historically and ethnographically we know the Winnebago possess a patrilineal society. We also know that relatively late in the historical sequence they were involved in the fur trade, engaged in a mobile life-style, and in many ways were similar in behaviors to their Algonquian-speaking neighbors. Although previous chapters have questioned the time depth of these behaviors, there is no doubt that these behaviors did exist historically.
At the opposite end of the behavioral spectrum, Lurie and Radin have argued that at some point in the past the Winnebago were a matrilineal society with marked hierarchical distinctions. This era is hypothesized to represent an earlier Winnebago or pre-Winnebago ethnic identity that existed during the late prehistoric and proto-historic eras in the Western Great Lakes region.
For purposes of developing a model for Winnebago ethnogenesis and given these arguments, we can assign structural elements within the tales to relative poles. Those tales emphasizing Mississippian and Southeastern Ceremonial Complex ideologies, such as those represented by combination creatures and the long-nosed-god complex, are argued to postdate Central Siouan cosmological ideologies and constructs, such as heroes such as Sun, Turtle, and Morning Star. This assessment is made because similar cosmological constructs are found throughout Central Siouan-speaking populations, including those suspected to have had little or no contact with classic Mississippian populations. Those populations, such as the Lakota, maintain cosmological beliefs which emphasize these figures while populations such as the Chiwere- and Dhegiha-speakers have a mixed complex of heroes, with the cosmological elements apparently predating or being eclipsed by the Mississippian elements. Although no direct correlation can yet be established between an ethnographically known population and a specific archaeological culture, it appears likely that the antecedents of the speakers of the various Central Siouan dialects inhabited the Western Great Lakes region prior to the arrival of Europeans (see chapters 3 and 4). Hence, it is possible to postulate a broad connection between some of the archaeological remains and the ethnographically-known populations.
Second, as discussed in chapter 5, prehistoric settlement patterns in the Western Great Lakes region shift from small, single-family homesteads to large, fortified, multi-family villages. The tales discussed in this chapter can be organized according to the settlement types they portray. Tales such as The Morning Star describe small settlements while tales such as The Red Horn and Blue Horn's Nephews clearly portray life in large, multi-family villages.
Consequently, two sets of variables can be utilized to propose a seriation of structural elements within the Winnebago tales. The variable sets are ordered as follows:
1. Central Siouan cosmological symbols predate Mississippian symbols.
2. Small, single-family homesteads predate large, multi-family villages.
When these sets are applied to the tales examined for this study, a clear pattern emerges. Three groups of tales emerge as distinct from one another (see table 11). The earliest group includes tales which center on the organization of the world and the emergence of specific populations without reference to either patrilineality or Mississippian iconography. The principal heroes of these tales are spirits associated with the founding of a village for the dead, as in Holy One or with the exploits of cosmological heroes, as in The Morning Star.
The second and largest of the sets of tales revolve around the exploits of figures associated with Mississippian icons, especially Thunderbirds and Water Spirits. These tales are also fundamentally different from the tales in the previous set because they refer to a Winnebago population or a population founded at Red Banks. As discussed later in this chapter, the origin myths of many of the Winnebago clans describe an agreement made at Red Banks to form a single population from distinct groups. The tales in the previous group refer only to the founding of these smaller groups and make no mention of being part of a larger socio-political organization. Consequently, the tales in the second group appear to refer to a more recent time period than do the tales in the previous group.
Similarly, the tales included in this second grouping clearly emphasize the importance of the two empyrean constructs, the Thunderbirds and Water Spirits, to the raconteurs and their audiences. Each tale involves either one or both of these figures usually to the exclusion of other spirit figures and always to the exclusion of other cosmological heroes. As discussed under the topic of ethnic identity as constructed through tale-telling, this shift in heroic identity reflects a basic shift in the ethnic identity of the participating populations. The audiences and raconteurs no longer center their attention on the cosmological structure of the world as represented by heroes such as Sun and Morning Star, but instead focus their attention, and hence their shared experiences, on the activities of the combination cosmological creatures (e.g., Thunderbirds and Water Spirits). Significantly, these creatures are manifest in the political and social structures of the audience in the form of the clans that take their names from these figures. If we accept Radin's (1923) suggestion that the Water Spirit clan once shared power with the Thunderer clan, a concept which has been argued to be correct on structural grounds elsewhere in this volume, then the tales in the last two groups of tales presented in table 11 reinforce the importance and influence of these two clans.
Interestingly, the decline of the Water Spirit clan may be reflected in this group of tales by the presence of a new Bear origin myth. This tale relates the arrival of the Bear clan or population at the Red Banks conclave and then emphasizes the importance of the Bear clan to the larger socio-political entity which developed out of the conclave. In this instance, the Bear clan's importance is seen as begining to replace the Water Spirit clan's authority and this may be related to a decline in biological or political viability of the latter.
Significantly, tales associated with small settlements and Central Siouan cosmological figures tend to emphasize the roles of women in the transference of political leadership from one generation to the next. However, in tales depicting large, multi-family villages emphasis is placed on the role and positions of male descendants of chiefs and father-son relations, rather than on the importance of female descendants of chiefs, or more specifically their wives, and matrilateral avuncular relationships. As with the previous group of tales, strong Mississippian symbolism is also present in the tales within this group.
I think this pattern is suggestive, although clearly not conclusive proof, of a shift from an emphasis on the roles of females in the transference of political leadership and prestige to the increasing importance of males in the system. Given the potential for social organization to shift from patterns of matrilineal descent to patrilineal descent (Fox 1967), the trend identified in the tales examined here may be a reflection of the shift from the former to the latter form of descent.
Significantly, it is in The Red Horn that we see the strongest emphasis on the relationship between a father and his sons. Red Horn's sons rescue him from the village of the giants and restore him to life. In fact, the sequence of events in this myth parallel those found in Blue Horn's Nephews. Three key differences are present, though. Firstly, in The Red Horn, Red Horn's sons are the cosmological figures known as The Twins and, secondly, they combat a foreign group, giants from the east. In Blue Horn's Nephews, The Twins are represented by Blue Horn's sisters' daughters and the combat is between Thunderbirds and Water Spirits, cosmological figures which both find expression within Winnebago clan structure. Thirdly, Water Spirits form an essential element in Blue Horn's Nephews while in The Red Horn such figures are entirely absent. This suggests that the latter tale may date to a period after the Water Spirit clan had already declined, or, if not the clan, the substantial importance of the cosmological figures represented by Water Spirits.
Beyond these three differences there are a great many parallels between the tales. Both depict the marriage of the chief's daughter (or daughters in the case of the Blue Horn tale) to a male who is then made the new chief. Both tales describe multi-family villages, although the Red Horn tale refers to the size of the settlement more often than does the Blue Horn tale and makes more frequent references to large-scale conflicts, implying the presence of a large population.
The overall sequence of tales appears to reflect the merging of two distinct tale-telling traditions. The earliest tales reflect the importance of cosmological symbolism and strong spirit characters in the form of Sun, bears, hawks, wolves, etc. No division is made between those creatures which live in the sky and those which live in or on the earth. This is clearly contradictory to the later moietal division of the Winnebago based precisely on these concepts. It is also opposed to the structure of events and ideas presented in the tales in the second and third groups. In these latter groups, there is a definite and firm moietal division among the clans and among supernatural creatures as well, such as evidenced by the opposition of the Thunderbirds and Water Spirits. This increase in social complexity is argued in chapter 7 to be both archaeologically visible and related to increased population aggregation.
As discussed in chapter 2, population aggregation brings with it increased needs to define and manage social identities. In the case of the emergence of Winnebago identity, these needs were met through the association of symbols of power and unification, such as Thunderbirds, raptors, and Water Spirits, with specific clans. In turn, these clans were charged with functions essential to the integration of diverse lineage groups into a single, functional population.
Symbolic Elements of Winnebago Tales
An examination of the tales selected for this project reveals that there are important similarities between the individual tales. There is a consistent directionality to the action of the heroes as well as an association between idealized concepts, such as beneficial and detrimental, with the cardinal points. In addition, the tales describe a cyclical series of actions that oscillate between the human world and the spirit world. These regularities may have their origin in the historic location of Siouan-speaking populations closely related to the Winnebago as well as in American Indian political and military resistance to the policies of Euroamerican governments. The composition of these actions and the overall world views portrayed by the tales serve to help define and bound Winnebago ethnic identity.
Story Cycles
The majority of the tales examined for this project describe a sequence of actions which begins and ends in the world of humans but which force mortal characters into the villages or dens of spirits. Ultimately, the mortal characters return to their own worlds where the action ends. In each case the tale closes with the characters or their offspring about to face the same social and environmental situations that began the original cycle of activity. While cycles of events in general are not unique to the Winnebago, the specific events, characters, and messages encoded in the cycles discussed here are, as a group, specific to the Winnebago and how these people define their identity.
As discussed in chapter 2 (see also Radin 1945, 1949), this cycle of activity serves two primary functions. At one level, the tales make it clear that each generation must address difficult or unpleasant situations. In this capacity, the tales serve as a series of templates which model ethnically appropriate and inappropriate behaviors. Appropriate behaviors by characters within the tales are rewarded with what Winnebago audiences would consider successes while inappropriate actions are punished with failures. Thus, the tales define and reinforce ethnic identity through the presentation of examples.
At another level the tales are portraits of Winnebago social structure. While the tales model correct and incorrect behaviors, as noted above, they also serve to define the Winnebago world. In such constructions the continuation of Winnebago ideals, such as spirits and ritual behaviors, are emphasized (e.g., Radin 1945).
As with many cultures, one of the essential elements in the Winnebago construction of their world is cultural immortality as defined and endured by the group (Radin 1945). The tales consistently construct a strongly bounded corporate entity composed of Winnebago. This entity and its members are identified by their adherence to ethnically specific beliefs regardless of what challenges are presented to the group as a whole or its constituent individuals. The tales record these challenges and how the Winnebago corporate identity, either through combined or individual actions, triumphs over these obstacles. In this fashion, the tales depict a timeless tradition of Winnebago ethnic survival and thus of cultural immortality.
In particular, the tales The woman who married a snake, The woman who loved her half-brother, and Daughter-in-law's jealousy describe this cycle. Similar movements are found in other tales, such as The man who married a Thunderbird and The man who visited the Thunderbirds. The patterning here establishes the mortal and spirit worlds as balanced ends of a continuum but tends to emphasize the deeds of the spirits that helped to construct the world (Radin 1915, 1926b, 1957). It is this structure which Radin (1945) suggested may be partially responsible for the rapid acceptance of the Native American Church among the Winnebago. The doctrine of the Native American Church emphasizes similar cyclical structures in the modern world.
It is important to note that the cyclical nature of tales discussed here is fundamentally different from the concept of hero cycles discussed by Radin in Winnebago Hero Cycles: A Study in Aboriginal Literature (1948). In this work, Radin was principally concerned with cycles as sets of tales, characters, and plots as they define genres of precontact literature. The concept as employed in the current volume views a cycle as symbolic representations of Winnebago ideas about what constitutes the world and how this completion is reflected in oral performance. Hence, the current discussion, although based on materials collected by Radin, employs an paradigm much more similar to that proposed Levi-Strauss (1960, 1973) and foreshadowed by Radin (1945) (see also chapter 3).
Specific Cycles: The Woman Who Married a Snake
The form of these cycles is simplest in The woman who married a snake. In this tale, the daughter of a chief marries a man she believes to be the son of a chief from a powerful non-Winnebago village located at some distance from her own home. Following the marriage, the woman moves to her husband's village. Eventually, her family travels to see her and learns that she did not marry a man from that village. The family deduces that the woman must have been deceived by a snake spirit and sets out to rescue her. An unpopular (ugly?, as suggested by Radin, n.d.) man from the woman's original village helps the family locate an entrance into the spirit snake village and then proceeds to transform himself into a Water Spirit. He rescues the woman and returns her to her family. The Water Spirit resumes his form as a human and leaves. The remaining villagers return to their homes with the chief's daughter.
The action of the tale begins in the mortal world with the chief's daughter marrying what seems to be another mortal. Everything is normal and there is nothing unpleasant occurring in the woman's village prior to her marriage. Following her marriage and subsequent travel to the village of the snake spirits, however, the people of her village become very unhappy and lonely. As noted previously, this may be related to the woman's violation of expected postmarital residence patterns, especially as they appear to relate to the daughters of chiefs.
The next significant action of the tale is the rescue of the woman from the spirit village. This rescue was accomplished only with the aid of a Water Spirit, one of the two most powerful spirit groups known from Winnebago mythology. Finally, the woman is restored to her village and the Water Spirit leaves the village.
At this point the characters, except for the Water Spirit, have resumed the positions they held at the outset of the tale. From a Winnebago perspective, however, the Water Spirit has not truly disappeared from their world. Since Water Spirits are powerful creatures which the Winnebago conceive of as part of cosmos, it is understood by the Winnebago that the creature has simply opted to live away from humans. It is neither dead nor inaccessible to those who endure the rigors of the world in a culturally appropriate fashion. For example, religious individuals in danger, such as the chief's daughters in Blue Horn's Nephews, or fasting youths may still be contacted by the spirit. Thus, the Water Spirit effectively occupies the same position, vis-à-vis mortals and spirits, as it did at the opening of the tale, concealed or invisible, but still alive and well within the Winnebago cosmology.
It is also important to note the symbolic importance of the rescue of the chief's daughter by the Water Spirit. At the point in the narrative when the rescue takes place, the characters in the tale occupy pivotal positions in terms of Winnebago world views. The Winnebago villagers have been deprived of their chief's only daughter and thus have also been deprived of their preferred avenue of political descent. They cannot alter their physical forms to enter the snake hole in an effort to rescue the woman and thus have no means of recovering the woman. The villagers are thus totally destitute as their corporate entity, their village, has been deprived of its future (the arrival of a new chief) and they have no recourse to rectify the situation. In effect, this village has died.
In opposition to the Winnebago are the snake spirits. These creatures are clearly non-Winnebago in description; snake spirits are neither common nor popular beings in Winnebago world constructions, although they do exist.(14) Perhaps more significantly, the snake population in the tale is patricentric. Yet, at this point in the narrative they control the fate of the Winnebago village through its chief's daughter.
The intervention of the Water Spirit, however, reverses the situation in a distinctive fashion. The creature is strongly associated with Winnebago values and cosmology. Its position as one of the most powerful of all Winnebago spirits makes it a symbol of Winnebago beliefs and ethnic identity. Thus, when the Water Spirit rescues the Winnebago woman from her non-Winnebago captors the action represents a Winnebago triumph over foreigners. This is symbolically a victory of Winnebago beliefs via cosmological constructions, here symbolized by the Water Spirit, over foreign cosmological constructions, symbolized by the snake spirits.
The manner in which the rescue takes place also serves to mark Winnebago values. It is not until the mortals are completely helpless, having exhausted all efforts to rescue their chief's daughter, that the spirit intervenes. Likewise, at the time of intervention, the Winnebago are isolated from the safety of their village and were ill-prepared to spend long periods in the wild without hunting or war equipment. The villagers are clearly displayed as courageous in their pursuit of the woman but also as desperate and vulnerable.
This is precisely the condition that the Winnebago expect their youths to be in when seeking blessings from spirits. Every Winnebago tale which depicts or relates such efforts clearly describes how children are expected to push the limits of their courage and endurance while staying away from the safety of their homes. It is at the moment when a fasting youth reaches the pinnacle of hopelessness and begins to resign himself to accepting certain failure or demise in the wild that a spirit usually elects to bless the youth.
It is in just such a position that the villagers find themselves and, as with fasting youths, it is a spirit that delivers them. Moreover, just as a spirit empowers a fasting youth with its actions and blessings, the Winnebago villagers are empowered by the return of their chief's daughter. Thus, the action of the rescue again reconstructs and defines Winnebago ethnic identity through references to Winnebago cosmological and spiritual constructions.
Specifc Cycles: Daughter-in-Law's Jealousy
Similar actions take place in Daughter-in-law's jealousy. In this tale a man is lured away from his mortal wife by a Thunderbird. He settles in with his new wife for a period of time but is subsequently lured away from her by a Water Spirit woman. The man is subsequently lured away again by another Thunderbird and then again by another Water Spirit. The man tries to bring all of his wives together into one lodge but there is too much hostility between the women for this to succeed. In the end, the older brothers of each of the females tell the man to choose one wife and to return the others to their homes. The man eventually chooses a Thunderbird wife who remains with him as a mortal in the mortal world. The remaining women return to their spirit homes.
The action of the tale again begins in the mortal world with the husband dwelling with his human wife. He is lured away from her into the spirit world where he undergoes a series of adventures. In each adventure, he fails to return to a normal life and is continually lured away by different women. In the end, the brothers of the female spirits involved intervene and force the man to choose. He selects a single mate who is transformed into a mortal and the spirits, including his former wives, return to their homes. At the end, the man is in precisely the same position he occupied prior to his first encounter with a spirit. The stage is set for him to either continue living as a mortal with his now mortal bride or to repeat his follies, probably at the risk of inciting the ire of the numerous spirits who just recently intervened to resolve the structural dilemma of the tale.
In addition to providing a template for proper marriage patterns, in this case monogamy, the structure of the tale also defines and bounds Winnebago ethnic identity. As can be seen from table 11, however, the identity championed by the tale falls into the later stages of ethnogenesis; that is, this tale reflects Mississippian (Thunderbirds, Water spirits, and hierarchy) and Algonquian (patrilocality) elements. The principal characters in the tales are the man, his series of wives, either Thunderbirds or Water Spirits, and the brothers of these women. Based on the clan and cosmological structures of the Winnebago, it is clear that the Thunderbirds and Water Spirits are diametrically opposed constructions. As spirits, both are empyrean creatures while as clans they seem to have once represented competing but perhaps complementary corporate groups (see chapter 2 and previous discussions in this chapter).
This opposition is used to drive the action within the tale. The rivalry between the Thunderbirds and the Water Spirits becomes the motive for a sequence of marital raids designed to steal away the mortal Winnebago male. In so doing, the structure of the Winnebago world is paralleled. In the center of the world is the mortal, represented by the male Winnebago, while surrounding him are a series of spirits. These spirits are clearly differentiated according to their spheres of influence with Thunderbirds reflecting the above-earth creatures and Water Spirits representing beneath-sky creatures. Finally, order is applied to this structure through the actions of the older spirit brothers, who do not combat each other as do the women, but dictate a choice to the mortal male. In the end, the man must make a decision and live with it.
As noted previously in this chapter, the intervention of spirits to impose order on human affairs reinforces hierarchical behavior. Radin (1945) suggested that prior to European contact the Winnebago shifted religious emphasis from ideals based on individual interactions with spirits to ideals based on a class of priest-philosophers (see also chapter 3). In the former situation, spirits blessed or harmed humans but did not directly dictate behaviors or enforce policies upon people. Certainly characters in tales that violated proper behavior came to misfortune but this occurred directly through their own actions and perhaps only indirectly through the actions of spirits. In the case of the tale here, there is a direct dictation of behavior and enforcement from spirits to mortals. It is also significant that the dictating spirits are Water Spirits and Thunderbirds. As argued previously in this chapter, the Thunderbird and Water Spirit clans represent horizontally defined ethnic units (cf. Steward 1955; see also chapter 2) that use their association with spiritual ideals to reinforce their social rank. Thus the dictation of behavior and threat of enforcement on the part of the Thunderbirds and Water Spirits in this tale symbolically reproduces the authority invested in the clans that bear these names.
The actions of this tale also provide useful insights into the sequence of cultural reactions developed by the Winnebago to combat increasing population and resource base losses. As discussed previously in this chapter and in chapter 1, there is ample evidence to suggest the Winnebago were once matricentric and, due to a series of pressures, eventually adopted patricentric behaviors. The tale discussed here contains an unusual mixture of elements that reflect both matricentric and patricentric behaviors. Consequently, the tale may reflect a class of transitional works which have strong references to both male- and female- centered behaviors.
Matricentric behaviors within this tale are depicted through both residence patterns and social structure. For example, except for the final marriage sequence, each time the mortal man marries he relocates to the lodge of his new wife. The movement clearly depicts female ownership and maintenance of the lodge, something that was common throughout many of the eastern North American Indian populations prior to the modern era (Wood 1981; Heckewelder 1981; Jemison 1981). The presence of this pattern in the tale reflects the matrilocal or uxorilocal behaviors previously argued to perhaps have existed among the Winnebago and their immediate antecedents.
Likewise, the kinship system may depict matrilineal descent with an emphasis on brothers providing for or taking care of their sisters; this approximates the duties Lurie (1978) suggests are represented by the role of mother's brother to the Winnebago. At the end of the tale, it is the brothers of the mortal's wives who settle the issue of marriage. It is these individuals who are expected to provide this form of support to females within their lineage in a matrilineal system. Significantly, it is the offspring of sisters who may inherit the offices and titles of their matrilateral uncles and who are thus the heirs to the brothers in the tales. In a patrilineal system, authoritative control over the offspring would more properly rest in the hands of the father's lineage, thus limiting the direct control the children's matrilateral male relatives could exert on them. In effect, although mother's brothers play important roles in both patrilineal and matrilineal systems, they have more of a vested interest in exercising control over their sisters' children in a matrilineal situation.
The most notable exception to this order exists in the tale of Turtle and the trader. This tale, however, depicts the relationship between Turtle and the only Euroamerican trader (nationality unknown) who will give Turtle credit. The actions of the tale suggest that it is of relatively recent origin and may have been borrowed from neighboring populations. This appears to be the case since Turtle is clearly a rogue in this tale while in earlier Winnebago tales, such as The Morning Star and the Red Horn tales, Turtle is more heroic and less comical.
The transition to male-centered behavior is also portrayed in the tale. At the end of the tale, the mortal male attempts to maintain non-sororal polygynous relations with a series of Thunderbird and Water Spirit wives. He establishes his own residence and brings his wives to live with him, thus violating matrilocal principles in favor of virilocal residence. The man's attempt is a failure, however, because the women from the different lineages cannot work or live together. The tale explains that women of the same family, hence lineage, might work well together but those of different families clearly cannot do so. Interestingly, all but one wife is taken from the mortal, thus suggesting that at least non-sororal polygyny was depicted as inappropriate here. This may be a result of later modifications to the tale, perhaps reflecting later social reorganization among the Winnebago, the personal preferences of the raconteur, or may reflect a pattern in which sororal polygyny is appropriate in some instances but not others. Perhaps of significance, the only clear representation of sororal polygyny is present in Blue Horn's Nephews and involves the two daughters of a chief who marry the same man who then inherits the chieftainship.
The switch to patrilocality and non-sororal polygyny precipitates intervention by the wives' brothers. The situation of the mortal's marriages is resolved by allowing the male to maintain his patrilocal residence but forcing monogamy upon him. Further, the single wife that he selects is made mortal, depriving her of her status as a spirit. Thus, monogamy and matrilocality are reinforced while sororal polygyny and patrilocality are punished.
In effect, the tale has stripped the mortal and his final wife of their ethnic identity. Symbolically, the transformation of the female from a Thunderbird, a core element in Winnebago cosmology, into a mortal living patrilocally alienates the female from her family. Moreover, the alienation is both physical and spiritual in the sense that the woman is now mortal and unable to visit her former relatives, Thunderbirds.
Similarly, the male is also stripped of his contact with his family and his spirituality. The man can no longer return to his initial family since he has abandoned them for a series of unsuccessful marriages and repeated relocations. At the same time, both the Water Spirits and the Thunderer spirits have displayed hostility toward him and have thus, symbolically, abandoned him. This abandonment is important because it delineates the man's alienation from two of the most important empyrean creatures in Winnebago cosmological constructions and thus the spirit world as a whole.
It must also be noted that this is one of the few Winnebago tales which does not subscribe to the cyclical construction of cultural immortality. At the end of the tale, the man, his wife, and any potential children are removed from the positions the adults held at the outset of the tale. The male has no family to care for him and the female, no longer a spirit, has no family other than her husband. Since the actions of the characters have resulted in their alienation from Winnebago ethnicity this should be expected. The couple does not adhere to culturally appropriate Winnebago values and are therefore no longer Winnebago. Consequently, they are no longer entitled to be a part of the cultural immortality reserved for members of their former ethnicity.
The apparent inconsistencies of the tale provide examples of precisely the types of changes we might expect to see as a result of shifts in social structure such as are postulated to have occurred for the Winnebago (see chapters 3 and 4). The tale structurally reflects portions of this process. Matricentric behaviors are seen as appropriate and adherence to these older, more Winnebago behaviors is rewarded. Adherence to rival behaviors, and thus implicitly the ethnicity of others, represented in the tale by patricentric activities, is punished.
Directionality
As demonstrated previously in this chapter, the Winnebago tales examined for this study attach meaning and actions to the cardinal directions. This should not be surprising in any Native American context, especially given Winnebago cosmology as discussed by Radin (1945) and summarized in chapter 3 of this volume. The attachment of significant meaning to directional events is accomplished through the oscillation of characters between the world of mortals, the spirit world, and the cardinal points. The purpose of such connections appears to be a further construction and explication of Winnebago world views and ethnic identity. Further, this alternating movement serves to outline the fundamental questions of Winnebago existence, those related to balancing life and death, concepts of proper and improper, and even nature and culture (Radin 1945; see also chapter 3).
The pattern of directional movements varies with the identity of the main characters. In tales where the principal character is human the action usually begins in the east, in the world of mortals, proceeds to the north and the world of spirits, to the west and back to the mortal world, and finally to the south and the spirit world once again. Such tales usually end with the action having just moved or about to move back to the east and the mortal world. The movement parallels the path of the sun with the initial entry into the spirit world usually associated with upward movement and the secondary entrance associated with a downward movement. Hence, north and south may be equated with up and down as well as with more commonly conceived cardinal directions. A similar patterning is evident in Radin's narrations of the Medicine Rite and clan feasts (Radin 1923, 1945, 1950). In each of these cases, speakers address those assembled for the rituals from points in a lodge or room which reflect this same distribution of cardinal directions. In terms of ethnicity, the authority, or at least the significance, of a speaker's words are related to the individual's prestige within the community (Radin 1923, 1945) but this is highlighted and underscored by the individual occupying a point in the assembly that has direct reference to Winnebago concepts of world origin and anchoring (see chapter 3). By underscoring the importance of both the individual speakers and their respective locations within the room, the ceremonies make reference to Winnebago world construction and, hence, identity.
As noted above, an interesting observation to this directionality is that the movements of the characters mimic the cycle of the sun. Sun is also one of the most powerful heroic figures in Winnebago mythology, arguably even greater than Turtle and certainly more reliable. Lurie has suggested that Sun once occupied the position now attributed to Earth Maker, that is as Grandfather. She also notes Sun was in the past intimately associated with warfare (Lurie personal communication 1991). In any challenge faced by Sun, regardless of the odds or opponents, the character always succeeds. Although the relationship between the directionality of tales and the mythological hero Sun is unclear, the hoped-for inevitability of the rising of the sun may account at least in part for the hero's power and the structure of the tales as exemplified in the tale The Morning Star. Perhaps as significantly, the reference to a traditional Winnebago hero may reflect still another instance of ethnic reinforcement, relating the structure of tales not only to Winnebago concepts of the world but to cosmologically-based heroes as well.
The tales within this group also establish a form of structural balance between ethnically appropriate and inappropriate actions. This balance is tied directly to travel between the secular and spirit worlds as well as travel between the cardinal points. The tales begin in the world of humans with all characters in a balance, that is acting according to culturally appropriate standards. Shortly after the opening the tale, whether due to personal errors or outside impetus, the characters fall out of balance through some culturally inappropriate action or actions.
The tale then proceeds into the spirit world for the first time where the situation remains out of balance. In fact, in tales such as The man who married a Thunder-bird, it is the entrance into the spirit realm that causes the situation to become unbalanced. During this phase of the tale, however, steps are taken to begin to rectify the difficulty.
In the next phase of the tale the characters return to the mortal world in the west. Here they frequently visit other Native Americans living in what are described as traditional manners and learn ceremonies designed to restore these traditional values. It is also in the west that the heroes of the tales learn how to correct the errors made by mortals in the east. Perhaps significantly, the west is also home to Earth Maker, as represented in both the Red Horn and Blue Horn tales, and the village where Holy One's brother is chief; the village of the dead (cf. Radin n.d. (Holy One, Blue Horn's Nephews); Radin 1948)
The characters then proceed into the spirit world where culturally appropriate values are again established. It is at this point that the balance is restored to the characters in the tale and frequently the tales end here. This second trip into the spirit realm is essential to the structure of the tales because it completes the cycle established by the sun. It also serves to balance the importance of spirits from both above and beneath the earth. As noted previously, this is the fundamental differentiation the Winnebago make in defining the types of spirits.
As noted previously, it is understood by the participants in the tale's performance (i.e., the performers and the audience) that the cycle is completed in this fashion. The characters at the end of the story are now ethnically affiliated with a Winnebago identity and it is up to them to continue with this tradition. At the same time, the spirit world is now also balanced and a new cycle of events may begin.
Tales centering on the exploits of spirits have a slightly different structure than do those tales dealing with human actions. In those instances where the tales involve mythological beings, such as in those tales which describe the founding of the world (Radin's hero cycles and The Legend of Mother-of-all-Earth), the action begins in the spirit world. In these tales, however, the oscillation is not between the cardinal points, although north is often associated with the origin of spirits and the Winnebago (Radin 1990), but between the sacred world of spirits and the secular world where humans live or are being created.
Definition of Ethnic Identity via Directionality
Both classes of Winnebago tales defined in chapter 3, waikaan (that which is true) and woorak (that which is said), serve to construct and bound Winnebago ethnic identity. As discussed above and in the theoretical underpinnings, oral traditions function within culture on multiple levels. On one level of construction, traditions serve as templates for specific actions while on a second level they serve more to define Winnebago cosmology. In this case, the secular tales (woorak) deal more with the mechanical interactions of individuals and ethnically linked behaviors via association with directionality while sacred tales (waikaan) serve more to define the world in which the Winnebago live.
The reasons for the difference in mechanics are complex and open to debate. At one level it is clear that the tales define a dualistic nature for the world in which spirits and humans co-exist, the former as the sacred and the latter as the profane. The point at which the two realms, spirit/sacred and human/profane, intersect is the place in both geography and ideology where the Winnebago myths take place, reflecting elements both of the natural and supernatural worlds.
The support for this construction is found throughout known Winnebago tales. According to these tales, in order to be a Winnebago a person must possess a particular world view and must be recognized by the spirits as truly belonging to the Winnebago. Throughout the tales, Winnebago ethnic identity is reinforced through the recognition of mortals by spirits. Thus, identification with spirits such as the Thunderbirds and Water Spirits can be used to define salient identities. The only place where such recognitions can occur, however, is at the interface between the sacred and secular worlds.
This implies characters must possess a certain level of belief in ethnically specific spirituality. Such beliefs are exemplified by the actions of the orphan in The chief's daughter and the orphan, Morning Star in The Morning Star, and the hero of The man who visited the Thunderbirds. Numerous other examples exist in the tales that clearly depict spiritually potent individuals who practice ethnically appropriate behaviors, such as matrilineality and matrilocality, epitomizing Winnebago identity.
As noted above, the west is the home to sacred elements in the Winnebago world view. It is here that Blue Horn's nephews and Red Horn's sons eventually find their way to meet with Earth Maker. It is also here that Holy One's brother goes, after Holy One fails to completely resurrect him. As a consequence of Holy One's actions (he instigates the appearance of death among humans), his brother becomes the chief of the village of those who must now die. It is also in the west that the sun sets As noted previously, Sun was once one of the primary cosmological heroes of the Winnebago, often being associated with victory in warfare (Lurie, personal communication, 1991). Hence, Sun may also also be associated with conflict and death.
Directionality within Specific Tales: The Chief's Daughter and the Orphan
Perhaps the best example of directionality within Winnebago tales is found in The chief's daughter and the orphan. As noted previously, this tale relates the story of a chief's daughter who loves an orphan. During the course of the story the orphan revives the chief's daughter from death, helps to re-establish the village which fell into decline upon her death, and then transforms himself and his wife into spirits. In the end they leave behind their only child in the care of the woman's parents, thus completing the cycle of events.
The tale begins in a village where a chief has a single daughter. The woman loves an orphan who has little social status and is poor. Even though she is allowed to marry anyone she desires, she fears that the orphan's station is so low that any marriage will embarrass her family. The woman eventually dies as a result of this consternation and the village is abandoned for a new spot to the west. Thus, the abandoned village is at the easternmost geographic point in the tale.
Returning home late from hunting one evening, the orphan passes through the abandoned village. There the ghost of the chief's daughter reveals her presence to the orphan and asks him to rescue her from death. The orphan agrees and accomplishes a series of tasks during four consecutive nights in the abandoned lodge of the chief.
These tasks pit the orphan against the actions of spirits. The boy rests on a raised mound of earth in the chief's lodge and lies perfectly still regardless of what the spirits do to him. Levi-Strauss (1960) has argued that the fact the orphan rests on a raised platform symbolically raises him, albeit only slightly, above the face of the earth. Thus, the spirits which accost him are not from the underworld as Westerners might expect, but from the sky or the above-earth classification. This is confirmed by the rain and storming that occurs during the last night of the orphan's trials. Such weather is usually associated with the Thunderbirds and, more specifically, a class of more aggressive and sometimes belligerent Thunderbirds (Radin 1923). Of note here is the fact that the Thunderers are not mentioned by name, although there is an association of these figures with storms (Radin 1923; Lurie 1978; see also chapter 3).
Following the successful revival of the woman, she and the orphan agree to marry. They then travel together to the west to retrieve her family and their village. Upon learning that the woman was again alive, the entire village moves back to its original location.
The tale continues, however, and the couple have a son. While the child is still an infant, the orphan informs his wife that he is really a spirit and must return to the spirit world. The woman decides she will accompany him and the couple seek the permission of the woman's parents to move away. The permission is granted and the two turn into wolf spirits. They then leave the village to live in the spirit world, leaving their human child behind in the care of the woman's parents. This represents the second entrance into the spirit realm and concludes the action of the narrative.
In overview the directionality of this tale is clear. The tale opens in the east with a thriving village. Upon the death of the chief's daughter, who as noted previously controls political descent via her choice of marriage partners, the village is abandoned and the people move westward, toward the symbolic location of the village of the dead. This westward movement is a symbolic act of mourning, the only daughter of the chief having died. In light of the previous discussion for the potential of matrilineal descent of political power, this period of mourning should be expected since, in a symbolic sense, the village has also died; it has been deprived of the expected mechanisms for political descent. Hence, the subsequent rescue of the woman from death is a double rescue, the village of the woman is also given new life through such action.
The next action of the tale has the orphan rescuing the chief's daughter from the grave while enduring the aggression of above-earth spirits. This phase of the tale represents the first movement of the hero into the world of spirits. It also unites him with the chief's daughter who has entered the spirit world separately. Symbolically, then, the union of the woman with the orphan is supernatural and more closely associated with the spirit rather than the secular world.
The third movement of the tale has the hero and the chief's daughter moving to the west to, in effect, rescue the village from death. There the orphan restores the woman to her rightful position as chief's daughter and effectively restores the political viability of the village. The village then moves again, this time to its original location at the outset of the tale. This movement opposes the westward shift of the village in the earlier phases of the story. At one level this action represents the restoration of the village to the condition in which it existed at the outset of the tale. On a more structural level, however, this movement symbolizes the rebirth of the village and the continuation of ethnically appropriate behavior. This reflects directly on Radin's (1945) argument that the Winnebago maintained a tradition of immortality or rebirth even prior to their adoption of the Medicine Rite.
This inevitability of survival or persistence may also be linked to the cosmological figure Sun. At the beginning of the tale the village is in the east, the place where the sun rises. The village then passes to the west when the chief's daughter dies. This death also symbolically kills the village since it is deprived of its means of political perpetuation. These actions take place in the west, the place where the sun sets. With the restoration of the woman and consequently her village, a rebirth takes place symbolized by the birth of the child of the orphan and the chief's daughter. This occurs with the re-establishment of the village in the east, the place nearest which the sun rises. As noted previously, the figure Sun is always victorious in his efforts, regardless of the odds or situations opposing him. This inevitable victory is tied to the cycle of the sun and the idea of cultural immortality among the Winnebago.
The final phase of the tale depicts the orphan and his wife becoming wolf spirits. Such spirits are categorized by the Winnebago as belonging to the beneath-sky category of spirits and are thus structurally opposed to the spirits encountered earlier in the tale. At this point the orphan and his wife leave, leaving their child behind to carry on among mortal Winnebagos.
This final action restores the balance of the tale. The child symbolizes the next generation of Winnebago and is in place to, upon achieving adulthood, pick up where the original characters began the tale. At this point the child of the chief's daughter and the orphan resides in the east and has himself become an orphan of sorts. Like his father he will be raised by his grandparents and is spiritually powerful, the child of a spirit. This repetition of position completes the cycle of cultural immortality discussed previously in this chapter (see also chapter 3 and Radin 1945).
The directionality of this tale may also function on a different level. There is evidence to suggest that the form of the tale collected by Radin belongs to the period after the Winnebago began shifting toward patricentric behavior. For example, the lone child that the couple leaves behind is male. Therefore, when the chief's daughter leaves the village without producing a female offspring, the village is again left without matrilineal mechanisms for passing on political power. This behavior suggests that patrilineality is reflected in the tale or that the fact the chief's wife is still alive and may yet bear female offspring mitigates the impact of her leaving the village. However, the couple move to live with other wolf spirits and this implies patrilocality (the orphan is a wolf spirit). These behaviors seem to contradict arguments for matricentric behaviors.
The presence of such inferences needs to be considered in light of previous discussions of hierarchical symbolism. The orphan is a wolf spirit and, as noted previously, mortals and spirits may not dwell together for long periods of time. This spirit-human dichotomy takes precedence over all other forms of behavior in each tale examined. Therefore, the appearance of patrilocality is mitigated through the more important stricture preventing mortals and spirits from dwelling together for long periods of time. To do so would violate the separation of sacred and secular realms.
This distinction may have been at the heart of Radin's (1948) suggestion that the wolf clan may have once been a primary clan among the Winnebago. The rationale for this suggestion rests in the argument that the separation between spirits and mortals is symbolic of hierarchical organization and represents the presence of an elite or proto-elite class among the Winnebago or their antecedents. As previously discussed, both the Water Spirit and the Thunderer clans are associated with political power, social control, and spiritual authority. Such power and accompanying prestige are manifest in the separation of the spirits associated with these clans from the identities of other non-empowered clans as represented by mortals not blessed by either Water Spirits or Thunderbirds. In light of this process, the separation of the wolf spirits from the mortals may represent a similar association between the wolf clan and hierarchical power.
It is also possible that the tale was in the process of being transformed when Radin transcribed it. Van Baaren (1972) has argued that once a tale is transcribed it ceases to evolve. The written words cannot change although the spoken version of the tale and the cultural milieu in which it exists frequently do change. In terms of this tale, it appears as though some elements reflect the patricentric perspectives of Radin's informants while others reflect more distantly removed matricentric behaviors of the past. It is in such a state that the tale has been frozen by its transcription. The tale need not reflect a homogenous or complete reinterpretation of older behaviors and should be viewed in terms of changes along a continuum rather than as changes between discrete, internally consistent interpretations. Radin (1948) comments on similar transitions in the identity of specific heroic figures, such as Morning Star, Red Horn, and Sun, and it is reasonable to predict such transitions may be extended to other elements of oral traditions.
Broader Implications of Directionality and Cycles
The functions of the tales, whether template construction or cosmological definition, cannot be seen as existing in isolation from one another. Each tale reproduces in microcosm significant elements of Winnebago world outlooks. This reproduction serves to define and bound Winnebago identity in a sophisticated, yet subtle manner. When viewed together, however, a cross-section of Winnebago social structure and ethnic identity can be seen.
Specific Examples: Blue Horn's Nephews
One of the best examples of such a composite depiction is the legend Blue Horn's Nephews. The tale portrays the actions of two generations of Winnebago and their relationships to each other. The action is related according to the structural and symbolic patterns discussed above and encompasses a broad range of both acceptable and unacceptable behaviors.
Of the several common threads within the narrative, one of the most significant is the model established for Winnebago male achievements. As noted previously, it is males who seem to be the focus of achieved status in Winnebago society while females are the focus of ascribed status. Blue Horn and his nephews portray idealized role models for Winnebago males to emulate. The patterns of this tale are therefore particularly important because they may have served to shape the overall world outlook for generations of Winnebago males.
The tale opens with the eldest of two daughters of a village chief being courted by an invincible warrior. The warrior already has a number of wives and treats them all poorly. The chief's daughter refuses the advances of the warrior and explains to him that, because she is the daughter of a chief, she is free to marry whomever she chooses. The warrior counters with a threat to kill her father unless she acquiesces. The implication is that with the death of her father and no brothers to assist her, the daughter will be defenseless and subject to physical attack.
The woman responds by fleeing into the wilderness in the hopes of dying. After having run as far as she could and on the verge of collapse, the woman stops to rest on a hill. She quickly realizes that she has no means of surviving alone and resigns herself to die atop the hill.
At that point she is rescued by the Water Spirit named Blue Horn. The hill the woman collapsed upon is discovered to be Blue Horn's lodge(15) and the Water Spirit takes her in, adopting her as a sister.
The action then repeats itself for the younger daughter of the chief. She too is adopted by Blue Horn and lives in the hill for a short time.
Eventually Blue Horn tells the women that they can no longer dwell with him because they are humans and he is a spirit. He convinces the women to return to their village and pledges to solve the problem with the invincible warrior.
True to his word, Blue Horn convinces the warrior to return all of his current wives and to marry the chief's daughters. He warns the warrior that if he does not treat the women well the warrior will be killed by the Water Spirit. The warrior agrees, realizing that Blue Horn is the chief of the Water spirits and is one of the few beings which could, in fact, kill him. Blue Horn again reassures his adopted sisters that the marriage will work and they acquiesce to the Water Spirit's wishes. At this point in the tale, it is clear that Blue Horn is functioning in the role of an older brother to both women.
The marriage is a success and each woman bears the warrior a son. In the meantime, the warrior is chosen chief of the village and, under the tutelage of Blue Horn, proves to be a capable leader. Blue Horn visits his nephews regularly and begins to teach them how to be warriors and hunters. Blue Horn fulfills the expected social roles of mother's brother to the children and develops a strong relationship with his nephews. As argued by Lurie (1978; see also chapter 2), such a relationship might be indicative of matrilineal system. As discussed previously in this chapter, however, this might equally reflect patrilineal descent (see Radcliffe-Brown 1927).
As time passes the elder sister begins to become jealous of the attention Blue Horn pays to her nephew. Although the story makes it clear the children are being treated equally, a rivalry has developed between the sisters over the abilities of their children.
One day after the children have nearly grown and are out traveling, the elder sister seeks out a group of Thunderbirds. She convinces them that she can soothe her brother, Blue Horn, to sleep and they can then capture him. The Thunderbirds agree to this since they are the mortal enemies of the Water Spirits and could otherwise not harm Blue Horn, the Water Spirit chief.
The elder sister succeeds in lulling Blue Horn to sleep by combing his hair. The Thunderbirds then attack and capture Blue Horn, although he kills many of them despite being taken unaware. Following the capture, the Thunderbirds carry Blue Horn back to their village with the intent of killing him. As they pass through each village they cut off another part of the Water Spirit's legs and devour these. Blue Horn, physically helpless, continues to sing of his nephews and how they will avenge him.
In the meantime, the nephews have discovered Blue Horn's capture and that their mother/aunt has betrayed him. They immediately kill her for this betrayal and set out to rescue Blue Horn. After a series of adventures, the nephews succeed in finding the Water Spirit. They then slay all the Thunderbirds who did not flee their wrath and free their maimed uncle. On the way back to Blue Horn's lodge the nephews carry their uncle through every village where he had body parts removed. As they pass through these villages the body parts regenerate. Upon their arrival at Blue Horn's lodge, the Water Spirit is again whole.
Once back, Blue Horn revives the sister who betrayed him and questions her motives for the actions. Upon learning of her jealousy the young men tell her they have been treated as equals and she apologizes. Blue Horn then returns her and his nephews to their village.
After a short stay, the nephews again set out to travel the world. Throughout their travels they seek out and kill all the evil spirits they encounter. Eventually, however, an unknown spirit which they cannot harm chases them. They flee but always westward, in the direction the creature wishes them to. The nephews are eventually cornered in a great lodge far to the west. Here they meet Earthmaker.
Earthmaker explains that the creature which chased them was created by him for just that purpose. He also explains that the work of the young men was over, they had killed all of the evil spirits they were meant to slay. The world was now safe for mortals. Finally, he instructs the nephews to return east to their homeland and reside there forever.
The nephews follow the path of the Missouri River eastward and then the Mississippi northward. At the confluence of the Wisconsin River, the nephews meld into the cliffs on the Minnesota side of the river and dwell there forever.
A structural analysis of this tale demonstrates that it follows the same directionality and ethnic patterns that are depicted in previously discussed narratives. For the nephews, the primary heroes of the tale because of their killing of evil spirits, the action of the tale begins in the normal world and carries them into the spirit world of the Thunderers. They then return to the normal world after rescuing their uncle and again set out westward. They eventually return to their homeland and again enter the spirit world, this time as Water Spirits sleeping in the cliffs overlooking the Wisconsin and Mississippi rivers.
Likewise, the templates created for appropriate behavior seem to reflect matricentric activities. Their mothers control access to political power and reside matrilocally. It is their mothers' brother, Blue Horn, who raises them and teaches them. Most significantly, however, they have succeeded to the position of their matrilateral uncle as powerful spirits who live in the earth. Hence, the nephews have symbolically inherited their uncle's office, an event that is suggestive of matrilineality.
As in many Native American myths, the life cycle of the heroes reflect the spiritually significant number four. Their lives follow a four-phased scheme that parallels the directional movements depicted in the tale. The first phase is their development within the family and the establishment of familial ties.
This is followed by their achieving successes within and on behalf of their family. This phase is highlighted by their rescue of Blue Horn from the Thunderers and their part in helping him successfully regenerate. This phase also encompasses their rightful punishment and eventual forgiveness of family members who betray and effectively kill other family members. Although the forgiveness is sometimes unclear in the tale, it fits well with Lurie's (personal communication 1990) and Radin's (1926a) notation of Winnebago abhorrence toward slaying family members.
The third phase of the nephews' lives is their achievement on the behalf of all Winnebago. This achievement is represented by their slaying of all evil spirits. This activity has made the world safe and is a fulfillment of Earthmaker's mission for them. The nephews thus fulfill their destiny.
The final phase of the lives of the nephews is their ascension to the status of immortal spirits. Although they end the tale residing in the cliffs overlooking the Mississippi River, the nephews have achieved the status of powerful spirits. Their activities and services to the Winnebago have become a core part of Winnebago tale-telling traditions. Consequently, the nephews have achieved a form of immortality based on their actions.
To the Winnebago, the model depicted here is powerful. It details in four broad phases the means for people to live good lives and thus achieve immortality. They must first learn how to function within their families. By extension, family might also include clan since the two concepts overlap in those societies where clans are present. Among the clan-oriented Winnebago, it is likely that such an extension is made although the connection cannot be definitively inferred from the tales.
The second step of the model is then to provide service to the family and clan. Through this means, status is established within the clan. The clan, in turn, benefits from whatever services are provided to it or on its behalf, thus gaining internal benefits or perhaps prestige within the larger tribal or chiefly structure. In the course of Blue Horn's Nephews, this service is established by rescuing a family member and also by defeating traditional enemies, Thunderbirds.(16)
The third step toward immortality is to provide great service to the entire population. This service is in addition to services on behalf of the family or clan although there clearly is an overlap. By aiding the population as a whole, an individual is also aiding his clan and family. On the other hand, an individual aiding his family or clan may not necessarily be aiding the population as a whole.
In the context of the tale, this service is provided by going on the warpath against all spirits which traditionally harm humans. The nephews seek out and destroy these creatures, thus benefiting their entire population while also marking their own prowess as warriors. In a broader context, such activities can be seen as achieving fame or notoriety across populations. In so doing, the warrior's reputation serves as a beacon to all members of his ethnicity and, potentially, as a point of fear or recognition among foes.
The last stage of movement toward immortality has two phases. The first is to be spiritually aware and strong enough to lead a religious life.(17) The second is to be powerful enough to be recognized by the spirits themselves. The nephews in the tale achieve both levels. They are strong and pure enough to be able to hunt spirits while still maintaining Winnebago values and behaviors. They are also sufficiently capable to be noticed by a spirit such as Earthmaker and be incorporated into this being's plans. Through this mechanism, the nephews ultimately also provide service to the spirit world.
As a final note, the final resting point the nephews select is on the Iowa side of the Mississippi River at the confluence of the Wisconsin River. The area atop these cliffs is the location of a large concentration of effigy mounds and is immediately adjacent to Effigy Mounds National Historic Monument. The specific relationships between this area and the Winnebago is unknown but it is interesting to note that Radin (1911a, 1923) reported that the Winnebago claimed authorship of the mounds (see chapter 5). It is also near this point that Oneota remains are strongly associated with Ioway occupations of the region (Mott 1938). Although the rationale for raconteurs identifying this portion of the Western Great Lakes region as the final resting place for the nephews is unclear, several possibilities exist. It may be that some attempt was being made to legitimate Winnebago claim to the area or it may be that this area was once part of a Winnebago or Winnebago-Chiwere heartland region. In light of this and previous discussions regarding the meaning of archaeological cultures (see chapter 2), it is also possible that the Winnebago are in some fashion related to Effigy Mound peoples and may be a part of a large population whose members once utilized multiple subsistence and economic patterns, those we now label as Oneota, Effigy Mound, Late Woodland, and Mississippian. The ramifications of such a possibility are discussed in chapter 7.
The Red Horn
Like Blue Horn's Nephews, The Red Horn deals with the actions of two generations of Winnebago beings. The first generation is composed of Red Horn, a Water Spirit, Storms-As-He-Walks, a Thunderbird spirit, Wolf, a Wolf spirit, and Turtle, a Winnebago spirit unaffiliated with any particular clan or class of spirits. The second generation includes Red Horn's sons from his two wives.
The tale opens with Red Horn and the other three spirits preparing to led a war party on a prestigious raid. The endeavor is undefined but is clearly considered very dangerous. The village chief only assents to the war path because of the great reputations of the four warriors, the aforementioned spirits, leading the war party.
The tale relates how the war party is very successful and how Turtle eventually marries the village chief's daughter. Returning from the victory, the four warriors establish permanent residence in the village now led by Turtle.
This village is periodically raided or engages in warfare, frequently with hostile giants from across a large lake to the east. The four heroes defeat the giants many times and Red Horn eventually marries a captive giantess as a second wife. Shortly thereafter, both wives conceive and deliver sons.
As time passes, the giants' raids become more frequent and achieve greater success. It is only the prowess of the four heroes which save the Winnebago village. During one particular raid, however, Turtle fails to help his three friends and they are slain. Turtle himself is then slain since he cannot fight all of the giants by himself. The four heroes are carried off to the east and their skeletons hung at the doors of the giant chief's lodge.
Time passes and the Winnebago village declines. The two sons of Red Horn, however, thrive and grow quickly. One day, as adolescents, they discover what really became of their father and uncles (the other three spirits). Deciding it improper to leave their father's and uncles' deaths unavenged, the boys set out to the east to recover the bodies and slay the giants.
Even as boys, Red Horn's sons are extraordinarily powerful. They are spiritually blessed, as was their father, and they display all of the prowess as warriors as did their father and uncles. Moreover, they have significant powers over nature and other creatures, including giants.
The boys eventually attack the giant village and recover the remains of their father and uncles. They then revive the skeletons which regenerate. They then return as a group to their village, leaving a trail of dead giants in their wake.
The presence of such powers in the boys is unsurprising. These abilities stem from the previously mentioned Winnebago belief in cultural immortality. The brothers embody all of the powers achieved by their ancestors and, in exchange for being blessed with these abilities, are obliged to avenge the deaths of their ancestors at the hands of the giants. In this fashion they achieve a prototypical Winnebago ethnicity and broadcast this identity to their traditional foes, the giants.
Red Horn's sons, who represent the Winnebago mythical characters The Twins, then set out across the world. In the course of their adventures they achieve great status and renown by serving the needs of humans. At the end of the tale, it is clear that they have become immortalized as role models for Winnebago ideology. It is important to note that as role models The Twins provide a template for behavior that will, when actualized among living populations, define a salient identity for those who adopt it.
The directionality and structure of this tale are more complex than that of Blue Horn's Nephews, although the two tales are in several ways similar (see previous discussion, this chapter). In this tale, two distinct sets of heroes exist and their exploits related. The first generation, Red Horn and his companions, again begin their journey in the east. They achieve victories, apparently over spirits, and found a village in the west. This is where they stay and settle.
When they are killed by giants, however, they again enter the spirit world. They are brought back to the east by the giants where they remained until rescued by Red Horn's sons.
The rescue by the sons, the second generation present in the tale, seems to violate the east to west movement described above. Clearly, the boys begin in the west, travel to the east, and then return to the west. This movement, however, is not their primary function in the tale and they serve as surrogates for their dead father and uncles in this journey.
The sons are still children and are therefore not considered complete members of Winnebago society. Even though they are very powerful, the boys must rebel against their mothers to avenge their ancestors. The fact the boys must rebel and disobey their mothers clearly indicates that they are socially classified as juveniles and not as adults. It is not until after they have retrieved these individuals that the boys mature and then set out on their own again. As adults, the sons do set out to the west and follow the pattern of the sun in their travels.
Thus, the first phase of The Red Horn deals with Red Horn and his spirit brethren. As with the action in Blue Horn's Nephews, the heroes first establish familial relationships and then serve the needs of this family. This is done by their first war party success and their leading roles in the village. After they are revived by Red Horn's sons they then serve all of mankind by destroying many of the giants. The effects of the combat are so terrible to the giants that they are deterred from ever raiding the Winnebago village again. In the end, the four heroes of the first phase are immortalized in myth. They do not, however, figure into the narratives after deterring the giants and the inference is that they returned home. This first hero group has completed its role in the east, the direction from which its members originally began their adventures.
The second phase of the tale describes actions similar to those undertaken by Blue Horn's nephews. Red Horn's sons travel the world slaying evil spirits and essentially engage in the same activities as do Blue Horn's nephews. Their adventures are sometimes humorous and always of importance. In the end, these characters too become immortalized.
Lurie (1991 personal communication) has noted that in their capacity as the mythological twins, Red Horn's sons adopt two distinct personalities. The same can also be noted of Blue Horn's nephews, although the narrative for these heroes is noticeably shorter than is the tale of Red Horn's sons. In both tales, however, one twin represents Spirit and the other Flesh. In their more humorous exploits, Flesh is always dying just as some great task is to be accomplished. Spirit then revives his brother and the two continue with their exploits.
Each death and revival action of Flesh and Spirit reproduces the essential ethnic bounding and construction of world views that the larger tales construct. As argued previously, one of the major themes to the tales is to construct and reinforce a cultural continuity between generations. For example, in The Red Horn and Blue Horn's Nephews, even though the parental generation disappears or dies, the next generation continues on. Through this continuation the second generation reaffirms Winnebago values and activities just as did their parents. At the end of the tales, the generations of heroes have left their world to the mortal Winnebagos. Implicit in the cycling of the tales is that the living Winnebago, the performers and audiences of the tales, must now continue to reaffirm these values and outlooks.
Such reaffirmations symbolically occur each time Flesh dies and is reborn, whole again, through the actions of Spirit. Each death is the end of one generation and each birth is the beginning of a new generation. Thus, tales such as The Red Horn and Blue Horn's Nephews continuously emphasize cultural continuity through generations via a form of immortality.
This emphasis is a key method of defining and strongly bounding ethnicity. The implicit message of the cycle is that to be Winnebago is to never die. Although a mortal's body, symbolized by Flesh, may be slain or fall ill, its twin, symbolized by Spirit, is undying. Further, so long as Spirit is strong, he will always revive Flesh. In this manner, Winnebago identity and beliefs, indeed the world of the Winnebago, is undying.
This metaphor is strongly linked to the Winnebago construction of the natural world as described by Radin (1923, 1945, 1948, 1949). This construction holds that the world is divided into the sacred and the secular; spirits are sacred while mortals are secular. In terms of the actions of The Twins, this dichotomy associates the twin Flesh with the mortal world and the Winnebago. The twin Spirit is then associated with the sacred world, the world of spirits, and the natural world itself. Just as the character Flesh lives, dies, and makes errors, so too do the Winnebago. No matter what Flesh does, however, Spirit revives and fortifies him. The implication is that no matter what the Winnebago do, so long as they are the brothers of the sacred world, they too will be revived and their culture will thrive.
On a more functional level, it can also be argued, that a similar ideology once operated within the social and political realms of the Winnebago or their ancestors. For example, the dual nature of life, flesh vs. spirit, is extended by the Winnebago (Radin 1945) to nature vs. culture. At the same time, if viewed in a socio-political light, the same concept seems to operate between elite and non-elite portions of the populations. If the elite represent portions of the population who control access to sacred or specialized knowledge, as is argued to be the case for Mississippian cultures elsewhere in the United States, then this same elite controls access to spiritual ideologies and power. Such ideologies should therefore be reflected in the division of the overall population, intra-village settlement patterns, and access to power and prestige (Levi-Strauss 1957). They transcend individuals' life spans and are part of the natural world, or at least how that world is culturally constructed by the peoples who live in it.
These ideologies, however, cannot be manifest without their acceptance by the population at large. Corporate labor projects such as the construction of mounds cannot be completed without labor from the non-elite (i.e. those portions of the population which do not have regular access to sacred knowledge). In effect, actions of these non-elite recapitulate the functions carried out by the twin Flesh. This character dies with regularity but is revived by his brother, Spirit. Together, they represent a powerful icon with Spirit representing ideology backed by sacred, hence spiritual knowledge, and Flesh representing the labor force required to realize such ideologies in the cultural world of humans. In effect, the tales of The Twins coupled with the structural ordering of the world as reflected in all Winnebago tales can be seen as blueprints for proper behavior which reinforce a dual organization of Winnebago (or pre-Winnebago) society and reinforced hierarchical social and political divisions.
If we couple this with Radin's (1945) arguments for the rise of an interpretive priesthood among the Winnebago, perhaps reflected by some form of elite or privileged class, we can make a case that it was this group of people that sought to attach hierarchical meaning to the tales. The people who controlled sacred access to the spirit world and who, by the fact of their mediatory roles received enhanced status, derived their socio-political power from the manner in which narratives were interpreted by the entire population.
The tales reviewed during the course of this project depict meaningful structural and symbolic patterns. These patterns both provide templates defining ethnically correct values and construct ethnically specific views of the world and cosmology. Both patterns are relayed to the audience through the actions of characters and must be seen as complementary rather than as isolated mechanisms.
The templates defining ethnically appropriate actions can be viewed as a mechanical level of teaching. An audience is presented with a range of behaviors implicitly attached to social values and then learns, through the action of the tale, the results of these behaviors. Those behaviors which both the performer and the audience accept as correct are rewarded while inappropriate behaviors are punished or corrected. This process is directly analogous to the function of European allegories, parables, and passion plays. It also compares favorably to an orally defined computer model. Possibilities are examined and feedback is provided to the programmer and audience. Ultimately, it is up to the programmer and the audience to decide what is meaningful and what is not.
At a more symbolic level, the tales define and construct the Winnebago worlds. Clear dichotomies are depicted between the sacred and the secular. These realms transcend all levels of Winnebago culture and operate even among spirits. At the same time, these dichotomies drive the actions of both people and spirits. The balance between secular and sacred must be maintained. So long as this balance exists, then the Winnebago and their world thrive. When the balance fails, misfortune occurs among both mortals, in the secular portion of the world, and spirits, in the sacred portion.
It is important to realize, however, that the world view these tales embody is now nearly a century old. Further, suggestions of matrilineality and other behaviors depicted in the tale were no longer in practice when Radin collected these tales. This suggests that these world views are even older.
From an ethnohistorical viewpoint, such antiquity of tales is a valued commodity. To cultural anthropologists interested in culture change, however, the data set is incomplete. It may therefore prove valuable to collect a sample of modern tales that includes current versions of the tales gathered by Radin. A recorded version of a narrative ceases to evolve. People, however, do continue to change and as they change, so do their oral traditions and performances. Consequently, the collection of new tales would afford anthropologists the opportunity to examine how reflections of Winnebago values have changed in their tales.
An additional avenue of research is to examine how different tales are performed. The clear division between sacred and secular topics is carried over into oral performances. As noted previously, waikaan performances are considered sacred and may be undertaken only when snow is on the ground. Woorak performances are secular and may be undertaken at any time during the year. A great deal may be learned about how the Winnebago categorize their tales and how they act toward the different classes of tales. This aspect of performer-audience interaction is absent from this analysis because of the nature of the data set. Nonetheless, future research may find it useful to engage in such activities during the collection of new data sets.
Suggestions of a Multi-Ethnic Base for the Winnebago
Against this background suggestive of matrilineal and hierarchical behavior, we must now also consider Winnebago origin myths. Unlike other ethnic identities which purport to represent a homogenous population which was created primordially or in the distant past (see, for example, Knight 1981), the Winnebago trace their ethnic origins to the meeting of spirits at a location known variably as mogosuc, meaning Red Banks, ni jahe, meaning "cliff place," or derok, meaning "within lake" (Radin 1923; Lurie 1974). According to the myth complex, the Winnebago originated from a collection of previously independent spirits or people associated with these spirits, that banded together into a single, unified population. Each clan has its own origin myths which record traditions and histories specific to that clan. These traditions are then interwoven with the myth complexes of other clans to account for a Winnebago genesis as described by Radin (1923).
If this collective genesis of ethnic identity is taken as a symbolic representation of how the Winnebago conceive of their origin, which has, in fact, been argued to be the foundation of all genesis myths where such traditions are held as true (Boas 1914, 1916; Radin 1914b, 1927, 1937, 1953), then there is a descriptive scheme represented by the origin sequence. The basic theme common to the origins as told to Radin by the majority of clans is that each clan, its spirit originators, or its divinely inspired first human members met with similar beings from the other clans. Each group arrived at a meeting place, frequently called Red Banks (Radin 1923), and there opted to become a part of the larger organization. The specific order in which the founding individuals arrived at the meeting and the purposes for their presence vary according to the clan from which Radin obtained the tales.
For instance, the Thunderer clan maintains they were taught to be powerful and spiritual by either Thunderbirds or four men who had themselves learned from these spirits. One example of the Thunderer origin myth claims that four spirits were sent to earth by Earthmaker, the creator of the world. Radin notes that in some versions these figures are actually spirits while in other versions, Radin's informants assured him that the four figures were humans who had been taught by Thunderbird spirits. These latter claims are particularly important because Hall (1991) has suggested that the Mississippian site at Aztalan reflects the arrival into Wisconsin of Illinois Late Woodland population that had been strongly influenced by Mississippian traditions. Thus the suggestion that the founding figures were humans who had been influenced by spirits may be a reference to members of a Woodland population that had been influenced by Mississippian philosophies. Such an argument relies heavily upon the symbolism ascribed to the Southeast Ceremonial Complex and its similarity to Winnebago symbolism (see chapter 5 and previous discussions in this chapter).
These figures were first visited by the "War clan people" (Radin 1923:166), who came from the west. Then came the Thunderers, who became known as the youngest brothers, apparently in reference to the combined affiliation between the Thunderers and the War people, also referred to as the Hawk clan people, vis-à-vis avian imagery. This inference is derived from the claim that the subsequent clans to visit the four figures are all from the beneath-sky moiety. In order of appearance, these clans are Deer, Snake, Elk, Bear, Fish, and Water Spirit.
The reference to the arrival of the "War clan people" from the west may be important, perhaps reflecting the movement of people eastward from the Mississippi River area. On a more symbolic level, the reference to the west being linked to the war people may be a tie to death imagery, the village of the dead being located in the west. As discussed above under the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex, the so-called weeping eye motif is associated with death and warfare. Here it is also related to the Winnebago avian clans, in particular to the Hawk clan. As noted in chapter 3, the Hawk clan is closely associated with warfare and hence death.
A second version of the myth holds that the four figures were spirits who came to earth. They traveled for a time, naming everything they came across. Eventually they arrived at Green Bay, where the myth relates that other clans joined them. Apparently unstated in the version of the myth collected by Radin (1923:169-170, n.d.) is the idea that humans had begun to follow the four spirits or that somehow a population existed at Red Banks which became friendly and hosted these figures. Such an assumption is necessary because the spirits encounter people residing at this place. Regardless of specifics, however, the key point is that, as with the previously described tradition, existing groups of people joined together and began to intermarry at a meeting place. The tradition relates that exogamous moieties were established as a consequence of the manner in which the spirits themselves married, selecting mates from specific clans of the beneath-sky moiety. Interestingly, the specific clans mentioned as descending from the founding of the Winnebago are the Thunderer, Warrior/Hawk, Bear, and Water Spirit. As discussed elsewhere, the presence of the latter clan in these origin myths may suggest that a structural balance once existed between the Water Spirit and Thunderer clans. This is supported by Radin (1923) who records that a few older people, including members of the Bear clan, recalled that chiefs were once selected from the Water Spirit clan and that this clan was once primary within the beneath-sky moiety. Radin speculated privately about such possibilities but did not explore this line of thought in print (Lurie 1960).
Likewise, the Bear, Buffalo, and Deer clans also recount how they came to join the gathering that resulted in the genesis of the Winnebago. As with the previous myths, each group existed prior to becoming part of the Winnebago and each maintained some form of self-identity after becoming Winnebago through the establishment of a clan system.
The fact that the Winnebago clans recount traditions of autonomy, or at least traditions of existing prior to becoming part of a larger Winnebago ethnic group and the founding of the clan and moiety systems, articulates well with Lurie's (1978) suggestion that the historically recorded clan system of the Winnebago represents a transitional system. Perhaps more significantly, it also suggests that the Winnebago represent a collection of previously autonomous populations which allied together to form the Winnebago. Moreover, the fact that the traditions are so vividly and similarly recorded throughout Winnebago society suggests that this is a relatively recent coalescence. As with Radin's (1945, 1948) arguments for transitions in Winnebago heroes, there also seems to be a parallel coalescence of ethnic identity. It is quite possible that, if Radin's arguments for shifts in the names of characters in Winnebago oral traditions are accepted, then there is a link between the processes responsible for such shifts and the continued coalescence of a distinct Winnebago ethnic identity.
An interesting aspect of this possibility is that the origin traditions may record or reflect the ethnicities of other populations with which the Winnebago came into contact or by whom they were influenced. For example, one of the primary customs learned by the clans during their initial gathering was the maintenance of a sacred fire(18). Knowledge of this fire is passed on from figures who are either themselves Thunderbirds or people who were the immediate students or contacts of such beings. In either event, there is an element of sacred or restricted knowledge in the notion that divine beings or people who have access to these creatures also have knowledge of specialized behaviors or rituals.
Moreover, these beings who possessed this knowledge passed it on to members of the avian clans among the Winnebago. These clans, in turn, came to dominate Winnebago political organization and, as noted above, are consistently identified as groups within Winnebago society which possess special and important roles. This situation matches precisely with the aforementioned arguments for hierarchical behavior and perpetuation of political power through access to specialized knowledge.
Also as noted previously, there is an association, yet to be firmly defined, between Mississippian political ideology and iconographic representations typical to the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex. If empyrean creatures such as Thunderbirds are associated with such a complex, and by extension associated with Mississippian populations, then such populations are implicated in the spread of ideologies to the Winnebago. This diffusion may be represented in the myth complexes by the identification of humans who have been trained by cosmological creatures to have access to specialized knowledge, and it is these individuals who are responsible for spreading such specialized knowledge to the Winnebago. Consequently, it might be speculated that the individuals with specialized knowledge mentioned in the myths may be people who are part of a Mississippian cultural belief system who served as disseminators of Mississippian ideologies to local populations.
The precise mechanisms for the dissemination of cultural traits becomes a central issue in discussing the emergenceof a Winnebago identity. If we postulate that a founding population composed of Mississippian people moved into the Western Great Lakes and then intermarried with local peoples then we are essentially following Griffin (1937, 1960) and Lurie (1960, 1974). In this case we should expect a site like Aztalan to hold important clues about precisely how Mississippian influences came into the region. If we postulate the movement of a Mississippian-influenced population into the region and that these people subsequently passed on their cultural preferences to local people then we are following Hall (1991). Again, a site such as Aztalan should hold important clues to understanding how the influences identified in Winnebago myths developed. Of note, however, is the possibility that, because of the diffusive nature of this argument, less obviously Mississippian sites might prove just as important as Aztalan in providing information about Winnebago ethnogenesis. Oneota sites become obvious potential disseminators of Mississippian or Mississippian-like beliefs in this case.
Alternatively, pressures exerted by Mississippian expansion on local populations may have also resulted in the eventual genesis of a distinctive identity on the part of local peoples without having to propose a genetic relationship with Mississippian peoples. A second pressure-induced model might argue for the formation of a strong Winnebago identity and population in response to Algonquian migrations from the east. In this case a local population with some Mississippian connections or knowledge may have sought to mobilize this distinctive iconography to provide cohesiveness against populations moving into the Western Great Lakes from the east.
Regardless of researcher preference, however, all such arguments suggest that archaeologists may wish to focus additional attention on archaeological sites which emphasize Mississippian contacts with other populations. As will be discussed in next chapter, Aztalan and sites associated with the Silvernale and Apple River phases near the Mississippi River may prove to be especially promising areas for future research or reinterpretation. This is especially the case in light of Wendt and Dobbs' (1989) recent work at the Mero complex and Hall's (1986, 1991) suggestions about the Illinois Late Woodland origin for the founders of Aztalan.
Of more immediate concern here are the suggestions of group fusion present among the Winnebago origin myths. The fact that the myth complex can be argued to contain strong evidence for the amalgamation of extant ethnic groups to form a Winnebago population, coupled with suggestions of early Mississippian influences on some of these amalgamating groups, suggests that archaeological interpretations of the prehistoric and protohistoric records emphasizing the homogenous nature of archaeologically defined cultures may be misleading. For instance, in the case outlined above, the amalgamating groups seem to represent populations variably predisposed toward Mississippian belief systems. The populations which formed the avian clan or clans, as well as populations which are initially removed from that belief system, might have been derived from Woodland or Effigy Mound groups. Consequently, multiple belief systems and identities may have been merged into a single, broader ethnic identity much as the various indigenous peoples have done in Malaysia (see Nagata 1981).
The rationale for such a distinction lies in the trend for the populations which eventually formed the beneath-sky moiety to learn religious or sacred beliefs, especially regarding the maintenance of a sacred fire in the chief's lodge, from the avian clan(s). Similarly, the myths consistently identify the four Thunderbird spirits or the four figures trained by these spirits as individuals who organized and defined the Winnebago clan and moiety system. While it is clearly debatable whether or not four specific individuals performed such tasks, the key point is that the avian clan or clans are always associated with such activities. This trend for relatively small groups of peoples to define identity, prestige, and power through the conscious manipulation of symbols may be part of the central cultural adaptations that allowed Mississippian elites to develop near the end of the first millennium A.D. (Knight 1981, 1989). That the Winnebago tales are structured so as to emphasize the dissemination of sacred beliefs from a small group of people, represented by the four Thunderbirds (a synthesis of the sacred number four and the cosmological creatures known as Thunderbirds), may reflect an attempt on the part of a proto-elite to define power and prestige during the ethnogenesis of the Winnebago.
In terms of inter- and intra-group relations and concepts of ethnic identity, it appears as though the populations associated with avian imagery were more hierarchically and socially ordered than were the populations which came to be grouped in the beneath-sky moiety. Teaching of ritual behaviors, a known vector for the demarcation and reinforcement of ethnic identity (see chapter 2), is performed by the avian populations and adopted by their beneath-sky counterparts. Consequently, demarcation and definition of group identity and the construction of ethnicity is concentrated on the former populations. In effect, the transfer of belief systems from the avian-affiliated populations to the terrestrial and aquatic-affiliated populations is an act of ethnic definition in which all of the subsets blend their traditions into a single complex of complementary beliefs. Because of their claims to sacred knowledge and tie to the mythological origin of the combined group, the avian clans then serve as political leaders for the newly constructed ethnicity.
Toward Modeling An Ethnogenesis
In terms of modeling the formation of a Winnebago ethnic identity, the origin traditions, coupled with concepts of ethnic interaction, suggest that the generative event may have occurred relatively recently. Although no specific date can be assigned to the event, linguistic data regarding dialect fissioning discussed previously supplies a probable date sometime between approximately 1000 A.D. and 1500 A.D. Archaeological interpretations of the past should therefore account for social and political conditions which may have been responsible for the beginnings of this ethnogenesis during this period. Likewise, models which seek to project a single Winnebago ethnic identity backward into the prehistoric era in accordance with the presence of an archaeologically defined culture must somehow account for the Winnebago origin traditions.
As an example, assignment of a Winnebago ethnicity to Oneota remains as a whole is questionable since Oneota remains are well established in the Western Great Lakes region by 700 A.D., 300 years prior to the earliest proposed date for the appearance of a Winnebago identity. Perhaps more significantly, such an early date would also have to account for the apparently significant Mississippian influences upon Winnebago belief systems. As noted in chapter 5, the earliest documented Mississippian influences in the Western Great Lakes region date to approximately 1000 A.D. Stronger and more established Mississippian influences do not appear until nearly 200 years later, both in central Wisconsin and along the Mississippi River separating Minnesota from Wisconsin. Consequently, it is difficult to postulate that the Winnebago are represented solely, or even primarily, by Oneota remains. It is possible, however, that specific Oneota phases may be associated with Winnebago or Winnebago-Chiwere identities (see chapter 7).
As discussed previously, it is also difficult to view the Winnebago as descending directly from a Mississippian population from Aztalan or similar site. Although the timing of Aztalan's abandonment coincides with the linguistically identified period which likely saw the emergence of a distinct Winnebago identity, the origin myths do not relate the story of a single displaced population. As discussed above, the myths instead focus on the amalgamation of distinct populations, only one or a few of which seem to have been influenced toward Mississippian beliefs. Consequently, it is possible to argue that some surviving members of the Aztalan population were involved in the generation of a Winnebago ethnic identity but not that these survivors represent the entire Winnebago population. It is also important to note that other Mississippian sites or Mississippian-influenced populations other than those from Aztalan may have also accomplished precisely the same ends. Admittedly, Aztalan is the best known center of Mississippian - Woodland interaction in Wisconsin but it need not be the only one. As Hall (1962) notes, Carcajou Point also demonstrates Mississippian interactions with indigenous Wisconsin populations as may the whole of the Silvernale Focus in western Wisconsin and eastern Minnesota.
In place of either of these models, inferences drawn from the origin myths argue for the inclusion of several distinct populations into a Winnebago identity. At least one element of this population was probably derived from Mississippian or Mississippian-influenced populations. In the myths, this element is likely represented by the populations which learned ritual behaviors from the four Thunderbirds or their disciples. These populations are invariably referred to via avian or functional names (e.g., Warrior) and specifically represent the Thunderer clan and the Warrior or Hawk clan.
A second distinct element seems to be composed of non-Mississippian influenced populations. Each of these clans is named for a terrestrial or aquatic animal. Specific mention among the myths include the Bear, Elk, Deer, Snake, Fish, and Water Spirit. This latter group causes some problems in terms of interpretation since it represents an empyrean creature and, as argued elsewhere, may have once been the structural opposite of the Thunderer clan in terms of social structure. The difficulty can be at least partially accounted for, however, if Lurie's (1978) hypothesis that the clan and moiety system encountered and historically recorded represents a changed or changing system is accepted. In this case, the newly formed Winnebago social structure might be argued to have been segregated originally into moieties on the basis of genetic, political, or historical relationship to Mississippian populations.
Given the apparent mythological association between avian clans and Mississippian imagery as well as the initial disassociation of the beneath-sky clans from such beliefs, the moiety division may reflect a sociopolitical distinction made precisely on these lines. However, since at least some of the groups incorporated into the Winnebago held belief systems akin to those of the Chiwere-speakers, a tradition of dual political leadership may have existed. This system may have been operationalized either in the alternation of chiefs as recorded for the Ioway and Oto, or in the separation of external and internal politics as recorded historically among the Winnebago. In either case, as Radin speculated (1923; see also Lurie 1960), the Water Spirit clan was selected to represent that moiety in political leadership. Their leadership position opposite of the Thunderer clan, itself named for a cosmological entity or class of entities, may have necessitated the naming of the opposed clan after a second empyrean concept in order to achieve a structural balance. As time passed, however, the Water Spirit clan's fortunes and membership waned, perhaps resulting in the rise to prominence of the Bear clan in the beneath-sky moiety.
Table 11, mentioned previously in relation to time-depth analysis of the myths, also illustrates a trend relevant to the current discussion. There appears to be a progression within the Winnebago tales which reflects the melding of an extant ideological view characterized by the presence of cosmological heroes and heroic spirit animals and a view characterized by cosmological heroes and emphasis on weak spirit animals. Radin (1945) touched tangentially upon this subject when discussing what he saw as a formalization of Winnebago tales by a few Winnebago philosophers (priestly elite?). Radin saw the dichotomy between the types of tales as representing, in the case of the former set of tales, a personalized concept of spirituality and nature which was at some point overridden by a more formalized concept of spirituality which emphasized mediation between humans and the spirit world through priest-philosophers. Radin, however, did not have access to the information now available regarding Mississippian symbolism or the many different manifestations of the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex throughout the American Southeast, although he does seem to have been aware that the latter existed. Rather, Radin chose to see the changes in myths in terms of Mexican ideology, postulating a spread of complex ideologies northward from the Valley of Mexico.
In summary, it appears likely that the Winnebago represent a collection of populations perhaps characterized by different archaeologically defined cultures and representing previously developed but perhaps related ethnic identities at the time they were united. At least one element of the collected population seems to represent either a Mississippian or Mississippian-influenced population. The other elements are unknown, although the connection of the Chiwere-speakers with Oneota materials suggests there may be a connection along these lines. Archaeologically, however, it can also be argued that if populations from Aztalan were involved, then some of the eventual population which coalesced into the Winnebago represents Effigy Mound or other Woodland populations.
It is conceivable that the Winnebago represent elements from all of these populations. As discussed previously, there is no inherent and firm relationship between archaeologically defined cultures and real social groups. The former are merely designed to function as heuristic devices; they are not, or should not be, devices which determine archaeological interpretation. Unfortunately, the rigid nature of archaeological terminology and the reification it receives through the educational system for archaeologists sometimes combine to elevate descriptive concepts such as archaeological culture names to the level of accepted reality. In short, labels become so entrenched that they begin to be perceived as reflecting reality and are no longer questioned. These labels then serve as guides for research and interpretation rather than vehicles designed simply to facilitate discussion. This is precisely what has happened in terms of interpreting culture process in the Western Great Lakes region and it is a trend which may serve to camouflage rather than elucidate explanations of past behaviors.
Clearly there is no way to demonstrate beyond any doubt that this scenario for Winnebago ethnogenesis is entirely accurate. The model outlined above, however, follows basic premises developed by cultural anthropologists and does not postulate any unique or unconventional behaviors. To the contrary, every custom postulated in this model has been documented and discussed previously in this volume. Moreover, the activities discussed in the preceding paragraphs are based on a traditional symbolic interpretation of mythology as proposed by Boas, Malinowski, and Radin. There is certainly room for significant refinements or different interpretations based upon individual assessments of the data available on the topic.
Synthesis
The discussions presented above represent a series of disparate threads regarding possible avenues for the development of Winnebago ethnic identities. Each thread suggests that in the past the Winnebago and the Chiwere-speaking populations shared a common social structure, at least at the level of marking identity and membership through shared behaviors, beliefs, and oral traditions. Further, this structure does not seem to have been continued among any of the historically known populations of the prehistoric pan-Siouan-speaking population (i.e., the historic Winnebago, Ioway, Oto, or Missouri). Clans as known historically may have been less important or may have been entirely absent among this population. Evidence suggests that descent may have been traced matrilineally and that some form of residence system emphasizing post-marital residence of females in or near their home villages was preferred. A strong emphasis on ties between mother's brother and mother's children, perhaps including the inheritance of the former's positions by the latter, may also suggest the presence of matricentric behavior.
Similarly, village populations were subject to hierarchical rules of organization dominated by a single community chief. Village leadership was passed down through the female line with the husband of a chief's daughter acquiring leadership through marriage to the woman. This process for the transfer of authority articulates well with females remaining in the villages into which they were born following marriage. Were those females controlling access to political leadership to marry and move into the villages or communities of their husbands, the villages which the females left would be deprived of political leaders. Moreover, a single village could have multiple males claiming to be chiefs were each of these men to marry a chief's daughter from different villages and then return to reside with their fathers' community. In situations where a chief has more than one daughter, sororal polygyny as evidenced in the tale Blue Horn's Nephews may have been practiced to avoid potential complications in the transfer of political power.
Additional hierarchical relationships suggest certain social groups, represented historically by the Thunderer, Hawk/Warrior, Water Spirit, Bear, and Buffalo clans, held special places in Winnebago society. In particular, these groups functioned in specifically defined roles of leadership, warfare, or internal organization. Such roles are essential to the maintenance of any hierarchical system (Service 1975) and may have been reinforced among the Winnebago through the predefinition of residence locations within villages for groups executing these duties.
A tantalizing possibility exists which connects both the residence locations of such important groups with the types of structures they may have occupied. As noted previously, Winnebago oral traditions claim that some large residential structures were constructed atop earthen mounds and may have been internally subdivided. Other, similar structures were also present in Winnebago villages but were not constructed on earthen mounds. There may be a symbolic connection between structures elevated above other, comparable structures and displays of power and prestige (Kus 1981, 1983; Hodder 1984; Ashmore 1989a, 1991; Kent 1990, Leone 1984). Given the previously discussed emphasis on the four, or perhaps three,(19) clans named in Radin's (1915, 1923) village models and traditions for the presence of special locations of some residences, there may be a correlation between the clans and the structures atop the mounds. The emphasized clans may have been entitled to privileged or symbolically elevated residential locations in the past. As will be discussed in the following chapter, archaeological investigations may be able to shed additional light on such possibilities.
An equally tantalizing correlation may be indicated by the superimposition of such a system atop the site plan of Aztalan. Here three earthen mounds were raised in the corners of the stockaded villages. These mounds seem to have been the locations of ritually important or specialized activities, perhaps associated with an elite or proto-elite class of residents (Freeman 1986; Goldstein and Richards 1991; Rowe 1958; see also chapter 5). The presence of an equal number of emphasized clans, mounds potentially associated with elite structures, and their presence in the corners of the village as suggested by one of the models for Winnebago villages collected by Radin (1923), all suggest that there may a connection between Aztalan, and hence Mississippian culture, and the Winnebago. At this particular time such suggestions are only speculative and, at best, based on circumstantial evidence. Nonetheless, additional research into the roles Mississippian influences may have played in the development of a Winnebago social structure and ethnic identity is warranted. The form and structure such research may take are discussed in more detail in the following chapter.
Summary
This chapter has discussed a variety of different lines of evidence germane to determining precontact Winnebago social structure and ethnic identity. In terms of the second and third goals established for this research (see chapter 1), it is argued that Winnebago traditions do contain sufficient references to social structure and ethnic boundary marking to warrant their use in developing archaeological models. Although such references must be used cautiously, the consistent patterning of events within the Winnebago tales suggests that they are sufficiently reliable to serve as a base of archaeological predictions.
In light of this, Lurie's and Radin's various arguments have been intertwined with new analyses of previously collected Winnebago oral traditions. The results of these analyses elaborate upon suggestions that at sometime in the past the Winnebago may have been organized hierarchically and/or matrilineally. Additionally, although concepts of clan organization have been retained for discussions in this chapter, it is possible that forms of organizing descent groups other than the historically defined Winnebago clan system may have been utilized in the past.
Likewise, based on interpretations of archaeological uses of space, the spread of socio-political ideology, and descriptive research pertaining to Mississippian culture, this chapter has argued that there is strong circumstantial evidence which links Winnebago oral traditions to Mississippian influences. In particular, there may be a correlation between traditional village layouts and the organization of Winnebago clans, especially the Thunderer, Water Spirit, Hawk/Warrior, Bear, and Buffalo clans. Unfortunately, direct evidence supporting such connections is currently absent.
A composite portrait of precontact customs which is argued to approximate cultural processes among an early or proto-Winnebago ethnic population has also been presented. The development of such a composite view of early Winnebago social structure, and hence ethnicity, is significant because the new construction can be used to replace historically defined conceptualizations of precontact Winnebago culture and identity. This, in turn, offers an alternative cultural model to researchers employing direct historical methods in an attempt to reconstruct the culture history of the Winnebago. Although the replacement of old models with a new one may prove promising, additional testing is required to determine the validity of the hypothesized cultural description.
Similarly, and as argued in chapters 4 and 5, culture processes known to have existed historically may not have been present in prehistory. In particular, the Winnebago may have been part of a larger, macropopulation which also included the Chiwere-speaking populations. As argued in chapter 4, this macropopulation may have been involved in thwarting or slowing the westward expansion of the fur trade and those Native American populations involved in it. Such activities are not accounted for in the historical record and direct historical models derived directly from the historical record. Consequently, new lines of research designed to test for such unrecorded events and consequences must be undertaken.
In addition, the overview of the population suggested by the materials discussed in this chapter does not resemble any population known historically from the Western Great Lakes region. This fact should not be surprising and, in fact, may be expected. In light of discussions in chapter 4 regarding historical misidentifications of populations, as well as in consideration of disease patterns noted for the Western Great Lakes and Upper Midwest (Tanner 1986; Lurie 1960; Ramenofsky 1987), researchers should anticipate the probability that drastic social changes may have affected the indigenous populations of the region. Taken together, the material discussed previously in this volume may necessitate reevaluation of paradigms and methodologies designed to uncover cultural and political activities during the late prehistoric period of the Western Great Lakes region. New paradigms and alternative methodological approaches to those commonly employed in the region are presented in the following chapter.
1. 0 The foot race referred to is an element of the Red Horn Cycle, discussed and presented in Winnebago Hero Cycles: A Study in Aboriginal Literature (1948). 0 This is Radin's translation for the title of the woman. 0 According to the Red Horn myths, this hero had a second wife, a giantess from the east. 0 The head has vertical bands of red pigment painted across its face. According to Salzer the only representation of a head similar to the Gottschall carving comes from unpublished research in Missouri in which a painted figure is represented on ear spools. In the Missouri instance, however, the figure wears long-nosed god masks as earrings and, consequently, may symbolize Red Horn (He-Who-Wears-Human-Heads-As-Earrings). As of yet, the matrix clinging to the area around the Gottschall carving's ears has not been removed since Salzer wishes to ensure that any pigment from this area is recovered. Given the Missouri material, it is possible that long-nosed god masks may be portrayed as earrings on the carving. 0 This gloss is derived from the John Blackhawk Manuscript. See Lurie (1988) for a reproduction of this document and an analysis of its contents. 0 Lurie observes that Radin, like all of us, was a product of his upbringing and education. Consequently, like many people of his era, Radin emphasized male-centered activities, although, as noted previously, he did postulate that women once played more central roles in Winnebago social structure than they did in the early 20th century. 0 For further discussion of this see to Harris (1971), Biedelman (1971), Hammond and Jablow (1973) and Coontz and Henderson (1986). See also Leacock (1981) for a collected group of essays challenging this notion. 0 This term was provided by Nancy Lurie and represents an orthographic system that varies from Radin's and the system employed in chapter 3. 0 Ten is a common number for brothers. The 10th brother is usually portrayed as spiritually powerful and in various tales is referred to as Morning Star or Red Horn. Radin (1948) suggests that these figures may be one and the same, a hypothesis which seems to be supported by the tales read for this volume. There may also be a connection between ten brothers and ten-fire gabled lodges, but this is speculative at this time. 0 Although perhaps impossible to test archaeologically, population movement to a new location following the death of a politically important individual would explain the frequent abandonment of some archaeologically known settlements after only short durations. Along the same lines, the subsequent reoccupation of these villages may be linked to mourning periods or the length of time it takes to replace the deceased individual (e.g., acquire through birth or adoption a new female heir). 0 The woman presented in the tale begins the tale living with her brothers. Her husband visits her in this house and leaves every morning. The couple's child is also raised in this house by the mother's brothers. 0 The spirit which eventually tricks the woman into leaving her home resides near the lodge of an old woman. The tale is unclear as to whether or not this woman is related to the spirit, the woman, or neither. 0 Tribe is used here in order to remain consistent with Skinner's (1926) and Whitman's (1937) terminology. No specific form of political organization should be inferred from this term. 0 Snakes appear as messengers in some tales and are best recounted in this role in Holy One. However, their affiliation in this tale is with destructive forces. On a related note, Radin (1923) argued that the snake clan was a relatively recent additional to Winnebago social structure and did not have great temporal depth. 0 It is interesting to speculate on whether or not there may be a connection between this hill, representing the lodge of a Water Spirit chief, and Mississippian pyramidal mounds. There is no published evidence that might suggest this is so but it may prove insightful to examine the material remains associated with the Mississippian mounds at Aztalan in an effort to identify whether or not one or more of the mounds might contain evidence for Water Spirit symbolism. 0 This inference is sound and derives from the traditional rivalry between Thunderers and Water Spirits. Since Blue Horn is a Water Spirit and therefore an enemy of the Thunderers, the antagonism between the groups can be extended to Blue Horn's family, especially his nephews. 0It must be noted that concepts of religion among western and non-western societies vary. Thus, it is inappropriate to assume that a religious life among the Winnebago resembles or parallels what we might ordinarily conceive of as a religious life. 0 It is perhaps noteworthy that one of the pervasive symbols in the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex is fire, whether represented by the so-called "cross and circle" motif or perhaps by solar pillars, so-called "sun dogs." 0 As discussed previously in this chapter, there is evidence which Radin (1923) felt suggested that the four avian clans of the Winnebago were formerly represented by a single avian clan.
