The more important and characteristic sports were organized
and interwoven with social organization and belief so as commonly to take
the form of elaborate ceremonial, in which dancing, feasting, fasting,
symbolic painting, song, and sacrifice played important parts, and these
organized sports were largely fiducial. To many of the early observers the
observances were nothing more than meaningless mummeries; to some they
were sacrilegious, to others sortilegious; to the more careful students,
like Carver, whose notes are of especial value by reason of the author's
clear insight into the Indian character, they were invocations,
expiations, propitiations, expressing profound and overpowering devotion.
Carver says of the "Naudowessie," "They usually dance either before or
after every meal; and by this cheerfulness, probably, render the Great
Spirit, to whom they consider themselves as indebted for every good, a
more acceptable sacrifice than a formal and unanimated thanksgiving;"(46)
and he proceeds to describe the informal dances as well as the more formal
ceremonials preparatory to joining in the chase or setting out on the
warpath. The ceremonial observances of the Siouan tribes were not
different in kind from those of neighboring contemporaries, yet some of
them were developed in remarkable degree--for example, the bloody rites by
which youths were raised to the rank of warriors in some of the prairie
tribes were without parallel in severity among the aborigines of America,
or even among the known primitive peoples of the world.
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