The Funeral Practices of the Thunderbird Clan

by a member of the Thunderbird Clan

Hōcąk Syllabic Text — The Funeral Practices of the Thunderbird Clan

Original Texts: | 83 | 84 | 85 | 86 | 87 |

	Based on BAE 37: 248
	The Funereal Paint Described in the Text

(83) Also this: it was in war that men found their death. The first man of war, when he lived, was called "Thunderbird," as it was from these that he had come. Therefore, (when) someone dies, someone from the group went there to come away with him to (put him in) the ground. Because he would talk, he painted his face (thus), and because he would have cause to take his warclub with him, and the one burying him in the ground, because the one to be buried in the ground (84) he himself owns it, and because he himself is the one who does the digging, this body has the face (painted as) he has.

Then he came. He began talking to the ghost. He made preparations. They handed a warclub over to him, and a tobacco bundle, and he made a red line across his forehead. Then he applied black there. Thus he made stripes. All the way to the end of his nose, and his chin and mouth, he made red. (85) His throat, also all of his windpipe, and he went thus far, and he said,

You have labored the hearts of your relatives. A lot of life you have left behind on earth. As you go home, you will find along the way every good feather and every good plant. Good clays are scattered around here and there, blue clays, red ones, (86) white clays; meadow rue; Life: for these you will ask. And as you go on, if anything should cross your path, you will throw it behind you without looking around. The mediators that you will use will be furnished to you. For four nights they will tell you what to do. (87) And when they hear you singing on the way, they will know that it's you. There you will live. You are going to sing the songs that you are going to be using.

And then they sang for one another.

And having dug the grave, he returned. The grave having been finished, it was time, and they took him in front as they walked. Then the mourners followed. They laid him in the grave.

Radin's Translation. When a member of the clan dies they send after a man of the Thunderbird clan who is to speak to the corpse, paint it, and give him a war club to take along with him (to the land of the spirits). Then they go after a man from the lower phratry to bury him, for these clans (of the lower phratry) belong on earth and they have the right to dig into the ground and bury people.

When the one who is to be the general overseer arrives and arranges everything, he prepares the corpse, putting a sack of tobacco in one hand and a war club in the other. Then he paints him. He paints the forehead with a red and a black mark and paints the lower part of the face to the end of the nose with scattered dots. He paints the jaw red and he makes a red mark across the mouth and the throat. Then he speaks as follows:

You have departed at this (young) age. You have taken your relatives by surprise and have left them a long part of your life (i. e., you have lived but a small part of your apportioned share of years). As you go to spirit land, you will find on the road many feathers, many good plants, and many good kinds of clay, scattered around, the blue clay, the red clay, and the white clay. You will also find the sweet-smelling plants and good life. For all these things do you ask. If anything comes across your path, throw it behind you without looking around. In four days you will depart and objects with which to mediate between us and the spirits will soon be furnished you. For four nights your people will tell you what to do and when they hear you singing on the road they will know that it is you. There (in spirit land) you will go to live and the songs that I will sing you will sing as you travel on your road.

Then he sings (the four clan songs).

When the grave diggers are finished they take the body and carry it to the grave, the mourners following. They take the body to the grave and there lower it.

Commentary. "it was in war that men found their death" — that is to say, "real men." It was the paradigm constantly preached by one's father, that it is good to die in war, and that one is expected to do so. Such men were thought to have the power, granted by Earthmaker, to freely select a place and circumstance of rebirth should they choose to do so.

"from these" — the clans of the Lower Moiety were descended from animals, although the case of Waterspirit clansmen presents some anomalies in this regard. They were quick to deny that members of the Thunderbird Clan were literal descendants of the Thunderbirds themselves, since these celestial beings were Spirits and not mere fauna. The Earth clans insisted that at most the Thunderbird Clan ancestors had been merely transported by the Thunderbirds to the original Creation Council where the Hōcąk nation had been formed. To say that "from such as these they had come," is ambiguous, consistent with both spiritual descent and merely being conveyed to earth by the Thunderbirds.

"the group" — this refers to members of the Lower, or Earth, Moiety who have the exclusive right to govern the physical land since the members of this moiety are derived from creatures of the lower world (the land or water).

"he himself" — the narrator is trying awkwardly to say that it is because the Lower Moiety man is digging the grave, it is he who supervises the painting of the body's face, and it is also he who delivers the dead man's warclub to him in the grave. The rationale for burying the warclub with the body is that the it belonged to, and was carried by, the deceased; but also that he might have some cause to use it on the trek to Spiritland.

"a lot of life you have left behind on earth" — the theory is that every person has an allotted life span, and that those who die young have a large unused remainder of life which is theirs to dispose of. Consequently, they will ask that the deceased give them what he or she never got to use owing to their premature death.

"home" — referring to the clan home in Spiritland.

"meadow rue" — xąwįpąnąpįra, literally, "good smelling plants." This is the expression used to denote meadow rue, Thalictrum dasycarpum, so called because it is used to perfume smoke.¹

"behind you without looking around" — in Hōcąk theology, space and time, especially on a sacred road, are highly symmetrical. Hare attempted to acquire immortality for humanity.² To do so, he needed to circumnavigate the edge of the world. Inasmuch as it forms a circle, and the circle has no beginning nor end in space, such a holy action should endow the recipient with a time that has no end. However, as Hare went along he was distracted and committed the fatal error of looking back. Looking back in space means looking back in time. He no longer sees limitless future time, but sees instead history. The ancient Greeks had just this view themselves. Charon, the ferryman of the dead, had his head on backwards, because as he ferried the souls of the dead across the river Styx, they as human beings had no future, but only a past. If the soul of the Thunderbird clansman had turned around, what he had cast behind him would have been frozen in the past, nullifying his intention that what he cast aside was to be in the future of those on earth. See also here.

"mediators" — these are unspecified objects that will be buried with him that are meant to facilitate his interaction with the Spirits. Among them would certainly have been a pipe and some tobacco. This would be needed on the road to Spiritland, where the soul could be expected to encounter in succession four Spirit beings who will give him advice on how to proceed. He will need to offer them a smoke.

Notes to the Commentary

¹ Kelly Kindscher and Dana P. Hurlburt, "Huron Smith's Ethnobotany of the Hocąk (Winnebago)," Economic Botany, 52, #4 (Oct. - Dec., 1998), 352-372. At the Hocąk Wazijaci Language and Culture Program, Sheila Shigley and Kenneth Funmaker, Sr. corrected the spelling of Hocąk plant names and informed us of the history of the Hocąk people and the meaning of their name. Kenneth Funmaker also provided the Hocąk translation of his statement. This list was thoroughly revised, and extended from Smith's original notebooks, by Sheila Shigley in August 2019.
² Radin, Winnebago Hero Cycles, 113-114. Radin, The Winnebago Tribe, 302-311.

Source

Paul Radin, "Funeral practices of the Thunderbird Clan," Winnebago Notebooks (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, n.d.) Winnebago V, #24: 83-87 (syllabic text). English translation published in Paul Radin, The Winnebago Tribe (Washington: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1923) 146.