File:The American Museum journal (c1900-(1918)) (17539392143).jpg

Title: The American Museum journal
Identifier: americanmuseumjo15amer (find matches)
Year: c1900-(1918) (c190s)
Authors: American Museum of Natural History
Subjects: Natural history
Publisher: New York : American Museum of Natural History
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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THE CROW INDIAN SUN DANCE By Robert H. Lowie WHILE I was investigating vari- ous phases of the old Crow culture in 1910, I heard a good deal about the sacred dolls formerly used in the Sun Dance, but without any expectation of ever seeing one "in the flesh" since the last ceremony of this type had been celebrated thirty-five years previously. After a while I learned however, that not only a doll, but what my informants regarded as the most sacred of all dolls, was still in the possession of an elderly widow, named "Pretty-enemy," whose husband had been the real owner. Pretty-enemy, being a woman, was not even permitted to unwrap her precious possession, which was occasionally taken out by old men visitors, who would address it in prayer and restore it to its envelope. The sense of unremunerative ownership evi- dently weighed on the woman's mind, and when she heard that I had bought numerous articles of ethnographical in- terest she approached me through my interpreter with an offer to sell the doll. The price first demanded was so extra- vagant that I felt obliged to decline with regret, but after a lapse of negotiations Pretty-enemy again approached me with a more reasonable offer. Then the purchase was consummated after I had pledged strict secrecy so far as the Reservation people were concerned, for the woman was very much afraid of social ostracism as soon as her action should become known. Looking at the doll with a layman's eye, one would hardly be disposed to set much store by it. It is a stuffed effigy of the human form, about six inches long, with crudely marked eyes and mouth, and a number of half-faded rectangular crosses front and back, to symbolize the
Text Appearing After Image:
One of the most highly venerated of the medicine bimdles of the Crow Indians. It consists of a rawhide envelope in which was kept the sacred doll together with various smaller sacred objects used in the ceremony of the Sun Dance. 23

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