Takī́ra

by Mark J. Green (Wą́nihegá)
translated by Bill Hall (Hų̄ka)

William Hall, ca. 1895

Many years have passed when the Winnebago lived around the Lake Winnebago. In this area, wild rice grew, also other things beneficial. Here also the Winnebagoes grew gardens.

Sometime later some Menominees came. They had all their belongings with them. They wandered around awhile, then settled there some place to plant gardens for themselves. When they had done this, they marked their gardens.

There's a practice called "Do-ki-la", this is the Indian name for it. It means to beg from families or households by a group. They sometimes made long trips to do this, the term includes the trips. Also it includes the wearing of an animal skin on the head. They went and were gone for some time. Spring came and they had not returned. After a time though, they returned when [it was] about the time [that] the gardens were ripe. Each knew where his garden was because they were marked. All their crops from the gardens, they stored away. Then fall came.¹

Commentary

CC Toma Silo, Modified
Lake Winnebago at Sunset		Map of Lake Winnebago

"Lake Winnebago" — known in Hōcąk as Tē Xete (te xeAe te), "Great Lake."

"Do-ki-la" — this is for Takī́ra, from ta, "to ask, beg"; kī́-, "to make oneself X"; and -ra, the definite article: "the making oneself to beg," or "the practice of making oneself beg." The letter /d/ was in the XIXᵀᴴ century often used for what we now represent as /t/; and the /l/ was used then to represent /r/, which is often also confused with /d/ or /n/. This is an unfamiliar practice, but since it has a Hōcąk name, it may well have been practiced by the Hōcągara. It does seem odd that the gardens would be planted, but not attended. How much could be salvaged from such gardens is unclear, since they would have been visited by various animals and other pests given that no one was present to ward them off. It would also have been plagued by weeds. So the output of such gardens would have been less than normal, but apparently not so much less that the stored harvest was not sufficient for the rest of the year until the next harvest.

"the term includes the trips" — in other words, Takī́ražą would be such an expedition, as well as the begging done at the destination. It would seem that some kind of problem with the stored harvest would have led to the need to do Takī́ražą.

"the wearing of an animal skin on the head" — in many cultures, people cover their heads when approaching a dead person. The practice of covering the head in proximity of the dead is a worldwide practice stemming from the theory that the life soul has its dwelling in what the Greeks called muelos (μυελός), the set of all fluids resembling the marrow of bones. This viscous fluid was thought to be the constituent of the brain, and therefore, where the soul had its primary seat.² The Hōcąk word for marrow is wa-horugóp, which is a descriptive term meaning, "that which is scooped out."³ This is in reference to the marrow of animal bones, which must be scraped out to be eaten. The brain is called, nąsu horugóp > nąsurugóp, which is to say, "the (wa-)horugóp of the head."⁴ The life soul's seat is the innermost part of a person's being, which in this case is literally the innermost reaches of a person's bones. This is where the nąǧirak, or life soul, dwells. After death when the nąǧirak meets Spirit Woman on the path to Spiritland, after feeding the ghost, she cracks open his skull, which is his final death. So it is little wonder that where the wahorugóp is most concentrated is the place most associated with the soul. This is why it is a head-dress that is most effective in governing the actions of the soul. In stories about the Twins, this headdress is made of an inflated turkey bladder. The turkey is the bird of the arrow (mą), and therefore the bird of time (mą). This is because the turkey's feathers make up the vane of the arrow, its "wings," and give it the power of flight and accuracy. Rušewe, the Chief of Birds, the turkey that chases after the Twins, is the bird of the arrow of time. It is time that dogs the steps of the Twins, Ghost and Flesh, and as we mortals all know, leads to their final separation. In this context, though, the turkey headdress keeps Ghost and Flesh together, since it was inflated with the breath of their father. The Hōcąk verb meaning "to breathe," ni, also means, "to live." By a fortunate homonym, ni also means "water," the special abode of the soul. The band going about doing Takī́ražą would not have been without the ability to hunt. Putting an animal on top of one's head could symbolize that their life (ni), seated as it is in the nąsurugóp, is being sustained only by the consumption of meat. This fact would make it necessary to beg garden food from other communities.

Comparative Material. For a Greek parallel, see above.

Links: Lake Winnebago.

Stories: set at Lake Winnebago (Te Xete): Lake Winnebago Origin Myth, The First Fox and Sauk War, White Thunder's Warpath, Traveler and the Thunderbird War (v. 2), The Great Fish, The Wild Rose, The Two Boys, Great Walker's Warpath, The Blessing of a Bear Clansman, The Fox-Hocąk War, Holy Song, First Contact (v. 2), Lakes of the Wazija Origin Myth, The Two Children (?); mentioning the Menominee: Origin of the Name "Winnebago" (Menominee), The Hocąk Arrival Myth, Bear Clan Origin Myth (v. 2b) (Origins of the Menominee), The Fox-Hocąk War, First Contact, The Magical Powers of Lincoln's Grandfather, The Annihilation of the Hocągara I (v. 2), Annihilation of the Hocągara II, The Prophet Visits the Hōcągara, Two Roads to Spiritland, A Menominee Visit, Song to the Chiefs, Takira, The Two Children, A Waterspirit Blesses Mąnį́xete’ų́ga, The Journey of the Prophet’s Acolyte, Gatschet's Hocank hit’e (Extracts ...), Introduction.

Themes: ...

Notes

¹ "How Winnebago and Menominee lived and worked together near the Great Lake." Archives of Traditional Music (ATM), Indiana University, translation by William Hall, Original Typescript (Black River Falls: ca. 1960-1970) F10-11, recording by Milford G. Chandler of Mark J. Green - vocals, bef. 1922, Black River Falls, Jackson County, Wisconsin. ATL no. 528.12 8743.4, Recording 74.SCY 18400156, Collection number (collection identifier): 54-196-F, p. 77 of 87; OT 7696; APS accession number 7239. See The Hōcąk and Menominee Farm Side-by-Side as Friends, which purports to be a version of the present story, but differs too substantially to have such a relationship to it.

² Richard Broxton Onians, The Origins of European Thought about the Body, the Mind, the Soul, the World, Time, and Fate (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1951) 96-100, 123-32, 236-8, 236; Weston La Barre, Muelos: A Stone Age Superstition about Sexuality (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984) 49; Robert L. Hall, An Archaeology of the Soul: North American Indian Belief and Ritual (Urbana & Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1997) 30-31.

³ See Albert Samuel Gatschet, "Hocank hit’e," in Linguistic and Ethnological Material on the Winnebago, Manuscript 1989-a (Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institution National Anthropological Archives, 1889, 1890-1891) s.v. wahúrukop, "marrow"; Thomas J. George, Winnebago Vocabulary, 4989 Winnebago (Washington: Smithsonian Institution, National Anthropological Archives, 1885) s.v. wahurugobera (wah-hoo-du-gobe-er-rah), "marrow"; Paul Radin, Winnebago Linguistic Notes, Manuscript 1800a-e (Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institution, National Anthropological Archives, 1908-1909) wahurírugop, "marrow"; Miner, Winnebago Field Lexicon, s.v. hųšéregorugóp (< hųšerek-horugop), "bone marrow" (a nonce), cp. s.v. horugóp, "to scoop out."

⁴ See Mary Carolyn Marino, A Dictionary of Winnebago: An Analysis and Reference Grammar of the Radin Lexical File (Ph.D. Thesis, University of California, Berkeley, December 14, 1968 [69-14,947]), ss.vv. nąsu horugóp, nąsuragop, "brains"; Miner, Winnebago Field Lexicon, s.v. nąsúrugóp, "brains"; James Owen Dorsey, Winnebago-English Vocabulary and Winnebago Verbal Notes, 4800 Dorsey Papers: Winnebago (3.3.2) 321 [old no. 1226] (Washington: Smithsonian Institution, National Anthropological Archives, 1888) s.v. nasúrugúbara, "the brain"; Marino, A Dictionary of Winnebago, ss.vv. nos’urogobenįk, nosųrogobenįk, "brains"; Charles N. Houghton, "The Orphan who Conquered Death," in Paul Radin, Winnebago Notebooks (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, n.d.) Notebook 70, 1-52 [p. 2]: canąsúrogóbenįk, "deer-brains." The -nįk suffixed to many of these examples is a diminutive.