Winnebago - Religion and Expressive Culture



Religious Beliefe. Traditional beliefs include a concept of a layered universe, multiple souls, reincarnation, a remote creator called Earth Maker, and a host of more approachable supernaturals representing spiritual expressions of animals, birds, trees, and other natural objects and phenomena. The Morning Star, like the Sun, was a male war deity. A special deity, Disease Giver, meted out life from one side of his body and death from the other. Other spiritual personages were sent to free the world of man-eating giants and other evil spirits and figure in long myth cycles. The benevolent Hare is in charge of the earth in the layered universe, which led early Peyote people to equate him with Jesus Christ. The Winnebago Medicine Lodge Society derived from Algonkian sources, but it differs in many particulars from the Ojibwa Midé ceremonies and emphasizes reincarnation rather than curing. The pervasive focus on warfare is evident throughout Winnebago religion. War bundles were the tribe's most sacred objects and remain so among traditionalists. The ceremonies differ in particulars among the bundles, but all take special cognizance of certain groups of spirits in songs and orations. Missions established late in the nineteenth century in Wisconsin were slow in making converts. The Nebraska Winnebago were accessible to missionaries and many embraced Christianity, but after a period of prosperity from land leases and sales, they felt a sense of powerlessness and lack of direction. Vision-producing peyote, introduced around 1900, attracted increasing numbers of converts who incorporated the Bible and belief in Christ with pan-Indian symbols as a bridge between Indian and White ways. In 1908, Nebraska people introduced peyote to Wisconsin. In the Wittenberg area, virtually the entire community is now affiliated with the Native American Church, and there are members in other communities as well.

Religious Practitioners. Radin recognized what he termed a religious elite, almost priestly leaders in hereditary and other religious societies, versed in the deeper meanings and philosophical significance of myth and ritual. In contrast, shamanism, which Radin attributed to Algonkian influences, was based on sleight of hand and the mechanistic formulae of imitative and contagious magic that could be used for good or evil purposes. Witches, literally "poisoners," could be men or women and usually were old. Healers were primarily learned herbalists, a role reserved to the aged to ensure their support since doctoring worked only if recompensed.

Death and Afterlife. The ideal deaths were either those incurred in warfare or the only kind the Winnebago recognized as natural, which fits the clinical description of extreme osteoporosis when the bones crumble. This was believed to occur at the age of one hundred. Other deaths were believed to be due to witchcraft or breaking taboos, even inadvertently. Old stories indicate scaffolding of the dead, but interment has long been practiced. The decedent is believed to remain in spirit during the course of a four-night wake, when he or she is instructed in the arduous journey to the next world. In traditional cosmology, the next world is an idealized version of life on earth. People whose religious observances, such as Medicine Lodge membership qualify them for reincarnation can live four times on earth, choosing to be reborn much as they were or as an animal, the opposite sex, or even a White person.


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