DETAILS ABOUT THE MAKING OF "THE OPENING OF THE MEDICINE BUNDLE"
SOME INFORMATION SUPPLIED BY JOHN HELLSON, CURATOR OF TECHNOLOGY, MANITOBA MUSEUM OF MAN AND NATURE, WINNIPEG, CANADA
In the piece called "Opening of the Sacred Thunder Pipe Bundle" by Bob Scriver, the owner of the Bundle is meant to be Crow Chief or Charlie Reevis. (Now deceased. Henry Little Dog posed in reality.) He is holding the Pipe and standing erect beside the opened Bundle. The next man to his left is George Kicking Woman, who is also a Bundle owner. The second man to the pipe owners' left is Louis Plenty Treaty, who is a member of the Horn Society and owns a Bundle that belongs to the ceremonies of that group. The third man is Tom Many Guns.
Next is Richard Little Dog who is wearing a hair style unique to members of the Pigeon Society of the Blood and South Piegan Blackfeet tribes. The hair is pulled up to the front and cut, leaving a sort of brush-cut effect and red ochre paint is applied to this heavily, to stiffen it. This haircut is known as the bear haircut. Also, Richard is wearing a red cloth shirt decorated with a fringe of weasel tails across the shoulders and back. This shirt is a ceremonial shirt and could be treated and used as a Bundle itself.
The man next to Richard is a visitor, a Blood Indian, Joe Gambler, who is dressed in a capote made from a Hudson Bay blanket and he is wearing a headpiece of two eagle feathers with porcupine quilled supports on the shafts. He is a member of the Crazy Dog society and entitled to wear whatever sort of apparel or decoration strikes his fancy. Joe is carrying a gun and knife. In earlier times the Blood were always rather suspicious of any other group and even up into the 20's and 30's the Bloods still insisted on carrying guns with them even when on their farms for fear of an attack by the Cree or Crow. As a Crazy Dog Society member, he might have been asked by the Pipe owner to formally police the ceremony.
Bsside the pipe owner is the Bundle, consisting of a case, wrapping and several smaller internal bundles. The wrappings should include an elk hide, a bear skin, and a tartan shawl. The case and all other accessories are covered with red ochre paint, a colour considered sacred and called "the seventh paint." Internal bundles should include the Pipe itself, kept in a red Stroud cloth "poke". (Stroud cloth is called that because it is woven there: Stroud, England.) Also, the secondary pipe or woman's pipe, is not as elaborate as the main pipe, being the length of a gun barrel sawed off a rifle to make the gun easier to use on horseback, then decorated with beads and feathers. The rest include a rattle, or perhaps two whistles; an owl wrapped so it's head sticks out, painted green (the Thunder colour); a loon, also wrapped so its head sticks out; newly born antelope skins; a bittern; a crane; a swan; a pelican; a brant, a grebe, a dog skin; and so on. The headpiece is for the owner: the longest wing feather of a golden eagle would be in the Bundle along with a head band used in a transfer. The quilled and horsehair-tufted altar sticks and the four eagle plumes used at the corners of the altar, would also be in a Bundle.
At the point in time portrayed, the Pipe has been unwrapped and is being held and prayed with by the owner. The altar supports have been put up in front of the Bundle and, resting on these supports on one end, are the secondary pipe, the owl, the loonskin, the whistle and the rattle.
In front of the supports, towards the door which is always on the east side of the tipi, is the dugout altar, painted half-black and half-red. Again to the east of the dugout altar, there is a mound of dirt which was removed from the dugout and levelled so as to serve as an altar for the coals which burn the incense. In this case the incense is the needles of the sweet pine. The incense tongs which are used by the orderly to bring coals to the incense altar lies with a small bag of the needles to the north side of the altar.
The orderly himself sits inside the circle on the men's side along with the tobacco bag, the tobacco board, and the knife used for mincing the old-time twist tobacco, a tamper and the smoking pipe whicih is handed back and forth among the men during the ceremony. It is the orderly's responsibility to keep the pipe ready and hot coals glowing on the incense altar. The man acting as the orderly here is Jim Whitecalf Jr., grandson of the famous "Chief" White Calf.
The woman who sits beside the Bundle is the pipe owner's wife. (Blackfeet were polygynous but the primary wife was called "the sits beside" wife. One must have at least one wife to take proper care of a Bundle.) In this case, since Mrs. Reevis is dead, Mary Jane Fish posed. In earlier times holy women or Sun Dance sponsors did not braid their hair but let it hang loosely when attending any sort of ceremony. She has hers cut short as a sign of mourning.
A Medicine Pipe is looked after by the wife. The woman is the caretaker of the lodge, clothing, and so on. It is her duty in summer and sometimes in the winter months to take the Bundle outside the tipi, hang it on a tripod and move it sunwise at least four times during the day to follow the sun right around the tipi. At night the Bundle is brought into the tipi. She must also burn a smudge at sunrise and sunset. If the wife of the keeper passes away or is unable to attend the ceremony, the keeper can request another woman to represent his wife.
Next to Mrs. Fish sits Maggie Plenty Treaty and then Margaret Many Guns. The women sit in the same order as their husbands. Mrs. Many Guns has been a Beaver Bundle keeper and has participated in many of the North Blackfoot Beaver Bundle ceremonies during the Tobacco Planting Rituals. Both of these women are Canadian Blackfoot.
The drummers sit inside the circle in front of the women. The oldest and most knowledgeable drummers sit the closest to the Pipe Keepers. From the Pipe Keeper towards the east, they are Joseph Young Eagle, Joe Old Chief, Louis Fish Wolf Robe, and Joe Turtle.
After the keeper finishes praying, the drummer will sing the forward songs where he stands ready to dance. Then they will commence the pipe songs for the Pipe dance which he will execute. He will dance clockwise around the altar and the fireplace inside the tipi and will make four stops. There are four songs, actually one song repeated four times. When he reaches the other side of the tipi he will hand the Pipe to his wife and she will place it on her shoulders, first left and then right, four times and then pray with it and return it to the Bundle. At some point the owner will take the Pipe out of the tipi and hold it up in each of the four directions to show Thunder that it is being taken care of well.
Over 300 songs are associated with this Medicine Pipe Bundle. The Medicine Pipe or the Sacred Pipe or the Sacred Calument is distributed very widely. Almost every tribe other than the coastal tribes or the Eastern Woodland tribes has owned and used this type of Medicine Pipe. The Medicine Pipe is not to be smoked. Only on rare occasions is the Medicine Pipe smoked and that is after a war party at a Sun Dance when the Medicine Pipe is opened at the center of the encampment in a special ceremony. The pipe is connected with war and sometimes taken to war as pictographic records show. Sometimes a Medicine Pipe Owner would attack the enemy with the pipe alone and no other protection, believing that the power of the Pipe would certainly settle the dispute and overpower the enemy.
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