The Interpretation

The Redhorn Pictograph in Picture Cave
The Prosopic Earpieces and the Three Names of Redhorn
Îtco-horúcika (Wears Faces on His Ears)
Îtcorúcika and Morning Star
Redman, Chief of the Herok'a
Horns and Arrows
Herok'a, the Forked Men, and the Bow and Two Arrows
The Headdresses
The Arrow of Space and Time
Wears White Feathers and the Enemies of the Red Man
The Riddle of the Two Morning Stars
The Red Plume
Distant Mirror
The White Plume in Picture Cave
The Mesoamerican Connection
The Hearth Stones and Firesticks of the Stars
Drilling the Hand
God of the Chichimec
The Consort of the Fire God
Summary and Conclusions

Comparative Material

The Constellation Orion in Mythology
Conventional Star Colors
Little People as Enemies of Cranes
Sirius as the Dog Star
x

Links
Stories
Themes
Notes

The Redhorn Pictograph in Picture Cave. In Warren County, Missouri, is a cave appropriately styled "Picture Cave". As its name suggests, it contains a wealth of pictographs, including one that has been identified with the Hotcâk spirit Redhorn (Wears Faces on His Ears). The reproduction of this pictograph is my rather rough pencil drawing (reworked on my computer) based on a photograph [Carol Diaz-Granados, "Marking Stone, Land, Body, and Spirit," in Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand: American Indian Art of the Ancient Midwest and South (New Haven: Yale University Press and The Art Institute of Chicago, 2004) 148.]:

Other pictographs in Picture Cave have been dated from about 915 AD to 1066 AD. The "Redhorn" pictograph has not been dated. It differs stylistically from the other pictographs in the cave and has a patina of silica which may suggest that it is older than the others. [Duncan and Diaz-Granados, "Of Masks and Myths," 4.] Even these dates take us back to Common Dhegiha-Tciwere-Winnebago, which Springer and Witkowski calculate as lasting from ca. 700 AD to ca. 1000 AD. [James W. Springer and Stanley R. Witkowski, "Siouan Historical Linguistics and Oneota Archaeology," in Oneota Studies (, 1982).]

At that time, the linguistic antecedents of the Hotcâgara, Ioway, Oto, Missouria, Osage, Omaha, Kansa, Ponca, and Quapah all spoke the same language. If these dates do indeed correlate, then the pictograph dates from a time in which the antecedents of Hotcâk tradition and the antecedents of Osage tradition were one and the same. It is a time during which these two peoples, whose oral traditions are so often cited in interpretations of this pictograph, were one and the same people. If all this is true, and it represents a rather long line of inference, it would mean that if the pictograph could be understood in terms of Hotcâk religion, then it is fairly likely that the ancestors of the Hotcâgara were once living in this part of Missouri, and that they had composed this pictograph.

Almost solely on the basis of the prosopic earpiece, Duncan identifies the main character of this scene as Redhorn. He accepts the identification of Redhorn as the Morning Star (of Venus), an idea which has now become widespread. ["Morning Star (known by the Winnebago as Red Horn)", Carol Diaz-Granados and James R. Duncan, edd., The Rock-Art of Eastern North America: Capturing Images and Insight (Tuscaloosa & London: University of Alabama Press, 2004) 146, and 148-149 (where, curiously, they say he is also called "Hawk"), 150 (where one of his sons is identified with Morning Star), 203. The identity is maintained elsewhere by Diaz-Granados, Brown (where he is also said to be identical to a falcon-like Birdman), and F. Kent Reilly, who goes so far as to call Sam Blowsnake's Redhorn Cycle, "the Morning Star myth" -- see James A. Brown, "The Cahokian Expression: Creating Court and Cult," in Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand: American Indian Art of the Ancient Midwest and South (New Haven: Yale University Press and The Art Institute of Chicago, 2004) caption to fig. 1, 115; Carol Diaz-Granados, "Marking Stone, Land, Body, and Spirit: Rock Art and Mississippian Iconography," in Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand, 148; F. Kent Reilly, "People of Earth, People of Sky: Visualizing the Sacred in Native American Art of the Mississippian Period," in Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand, 133.] He also believes this Redhorn to be carrying the head of Morning Star, which is he himself being resurrected through his own actions. [However, at one point Duncan says, with respect to the "Red Horn" pictograph, "This 'early' Braden style rendering conforms to the description of He-who-wears-human-heads-as-earrings, or Red Horn, after he wrestled with the 'giants'. Red Horn's head is described as being carried by one of his sons ... this is an unmistakable scene at Picture Cave that is finely and delicately rendered and includes a substantial use of white pigment." Carol Diaz-Granados and James R. Duncan, "The Petroglyphs and Pictographs of Missouri" (Tuscaloosa & London: University of Alabama Press, 2000) 212; much the same is said at James R. Duncan and Carol Diaz-Granados, "Of Masks and Myths," Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology, 25, #1 (Spring, 2000): 1-26 [4].]

The Prosopic Earpieces and the Three Names of Redhorn. The supernatural being that we now commonly call "Redhorn", is actually known by at least three different names: a misnomer, a divine name, and a secular name. The story of how he got these three names is important in understanding their significance. Redhorn is the youngest of ten brothers, and hints at his holiness by always staying at home while his brothers bear the burden of hunting for food. One day the chief declares that there will be a race, and the winner will be awarded his daughter. Much to everyone's surprise, the youngest of the brothers wins the race and is awarded the princess (yûgiwi). The young man decides to give the woman to his oldest brother Kunuga. One day Kunuga came back from hunting and

put his deer-pack down and dressed it. The lungs he laid aside and went on with his task. Then his wife picked them up and threw them at Kunu's little brother, striking him in the breast. She laughed. But Kunu got angry and said, "Why did you do that?" "Well," she answered, "I understand that this is what you always do to him and that is the reason why they called him by that name. That is why I am doing it." "No one ever did that to him before," said Kunu. "Once I told him to fast and he refused, so I threw a deer lung at him and that is the reason why they call him by that name but no one ever hit him with a deer lung." ... Now the little brother stood up and said, "Those in the heavens who created me did not call me by this name, He-who-is-hit-with-deer-lungs. They called me He-who-wears-human-heads-as-earrngs." With that he spat upon his hands and began fingering his ears. And as he did this, little faces suddenly appeared on his ears, laughing, winking and sticking out their tongues. Then he spoke again, "Those on earth, when they speak of me, call me Red Horn." With this he spat upon his hands, and drew them over his hair which then became very long and red. [1]

Much to-do has been made of the name "Hit With Deer Lungs". Some have seen the end of the Redhorn Cycle as supplying the ground work for understanding this name. There Redhorn and his friends are all killed by the Giants, but the heads which the man-eaters had kept as trophies, were recaptured by the two sons of Redhorn. Robert Hall has come to far reaching conclusions by making a few very far reaching inferences:

In the Winnebago version the bones of He-who-wears-human-heads-as-earrings and those of his dead friends are gathered and ground to a powder by the two half-brothers [the sons of Red Horn]. In the Iowa version the two boys put the heads of Human-head-earrings and his two friends on the earth and shoot three arrows into the air, after which the owners of the three heads come to life. This recalls the use of the symbolic gesture with arrows -- the calumets -- to mediate the reconception of the adoptee in the Hako ceremony (chapter 7). More important, it recalls the third name by which Red Horn or He-who-wears-human-heads-as-earrings was known -- He-who-is-hit-with-deer-lungs -- because the owl feathers attached to the calumets represented deer lungs. The calumet stems represented windpipes as well as arrow shafts, and the combination of windpipe and lungs was believed to introduce a quickening breath into the nose of the adoptee that then descended into his chest and gave him life. Logically, the name He-who-is-hit-with-deer-lungs could derive from a ritual in which an impersonator of He-who-wears-human-heads-as-earrings was symbolically requickened with the calumets. [2]

The Hotcâk episode leads to its Ioway counterpart, which uses arrows; arrows remind Hall of the Pawnee calumet ceremony of symbolic resurrection in connection with adoption; and as it happens, the feathers on the pipe, owl feathers, symbolize deer lungs among the Osage. [3] This is an enthymeme worthy of Batman. It's been followed uncritically by James Duncan. In fact, Redhorn (under the name "Redman") was revived the way incarnate spirits always are in Hotcâk literature, by the sweat bath. [4] Hall seems to be unaware of the variant of the Redhorn Cycle, given the inappropriate title, "The Nephews of Redhorn". It presents an alternate version to the arrow episode that is found in the Ioway story. The sons of Redhorn gather the bodies of their father and his friends and plan to revive them so that they can join them on the warpath.

"Here let us have our fathers accompany us," they said. Then there on the ground they put them in a row. Then the youngest one gave a loud shout, "Oh, my fathers! An arrow is about to drop on us, so run," he said. When thus he said, their bones became joined to one another. Again the second time he said it, "Young men, a point of a hill is about to fall on us and over here only is there a space to run," he said, and their sinews appeared on their bones. The third time he said it, "Young men the heavens are falling on us; over this way only is there an open space to run," he said; and they seemed to move even just a little. Again the fourth time they said it. "Oh young men, a war party is upon us so run," he said, and they said, "All right! All right!" they said, and started up, they opened their eyes very wide and looked about. [5]

For the Hotcâgara, the arrow is but the least of the alarms needed to quicken the dead. The theme of alarms to induce the soul to return to the dead is found in a number of Hotcâk stories, perhaps from the similarity between nâghire, "to be afraid", and nâghi(rak), "soul". [6] The other stories of this type make no reference to arrows. Let us leave the Hall conjecture at "Logically, the name... could derive from a ritual ..." Setting aside logical possibility and the enemy Osage tribe, let's examine what we actually know about deer lungs in Hotcâk symbolism. When the woman throws the lungs at Redhorn, they strike him in the breast. This is where his own lungs are found, so it seems like a reasonable hint that the deer lungs belong to his chest, that he is the sort who has deer lungs. However, Kunu explains that he had thrown a deer lung to him because he refused to fast. (Omission of fasting is sometimes a sign that a person is really an incarnation of a spirit and therefore does not need the blessings that might be obtained from such deprivation.) So Kunu is giving him the lungs to eat, since he has refused to go without food. Far from being a poor cut of meat, it is something special. In one story, the dogs decide that if their master gives them the deer lung hanging in his lodge, they will make him prosper in game. [7] The reason for the gourmet value of deer lungs is explained in connection with an episode in The Fleetfooted Man:

There a Hotcâk village was. To a great warrior was born a baby boy. It was very good. He grew larger, and when he was old enough to eat, whenever his father could, he would feed him only deer lungs. He wanted him to be able to run fast, that is why he did it. [8]

It should come as no great surprise that a diet of deer lungs might be thought to empower a person to have lungs like those of a deer, and the capacity for speed that this endowment would bequeath. So when the woman struck him in the breast with deer lungs, she was unwittingly repeating the same message (as myths usually repeat their esoteric content), the notion that Redhorn is someone who will have deer lungs and the fleetness of foot that will rival a cervid. Indeed, his victory in the foot race, the major event of this episode, is a mere confirmation of this achievement. So the name that is presented as a misnomer, turns out on an esoteric level to be an understated description for the spirit who travels as fast as an arrow.

What of his temporal name, "Redhorn"? In Hotcâk, this is Hecutcka, where he means "horn", cutc is "red", and where the suffix -ga, which is a definite article, is used to indicate a personal name. The basic word for scalp lock is hókeré, from ho-, "that which is", and keré, "to put something long, to place upright". However, the usual word for scalp lock is heókeré, which is from he-hókeré, where he- means "horn". When he announces that on earth he is called "Redhorn", he immediately spits on his hands and drawing them across his hair, causes it to become both long and red. So that which he has made long (and vertical) is his hair, and it is this that forms his "horn" (he). The identity of horn and scalp lock is also found in Osage, where hegáxa means both "horn" and "scalp lock", and derives from the stem he, "horn", just as in Hotcâk. The esoteric reason for his having the name "Red-horn" will be explored in detail later.

This leaves his most peculiar name, "Wears Faces on His Ears" (Îtco-horúcika). This is his sacred name, the name the spirits use for him. He established the grounds for this name on earth by applying his own saliva to his ears, causing living faces to appear there. The name Îtco-horúcika is a compound expression. Îtco itself means "face". It is an old word, as can be seen from its cognates: Biloxi, ité, "forehead, face"; Dakota, ite, "face"; it’e, "forehead"; Osage, îcdse, "face". Now it often means "face to face" as in 'îdjera, and as in the compound î´djokipáhi, which means, "butt to butt, end to end; face to face, opposing". The more common word for face is hicdja, icdja. So Îtco-horúcika is also known in one story as Wâgícdjahorùcika, "Wears Man Faces on His Ears". [9] The second part of the compound in Îtco-horúcika's name is horucík (-ka being the definite article used to indicate a personal name). Both Radin-Marino and Miner agree that this word means, "to wear in the ears (as earrings)". This sense is illustrated in the story about Hog, where it says, Kirigi, Xguxgúcega gh'egh'éra hanâtc´ horucíkce ("When he got back, Hog was wearing all the earbobs in his ears"). [10] The stem meaning "to wear" (where the part of the body is unspecified) is -kax-, -kix-; however, most terms pertaining to wearing things are body specific: hadjé, "to wear as a skirt"; hakere, "to wear on a scalp lock"; hodjâ´, hotcâ´, hokidjâ´, "to wear on the foot"; hok’âk, "to wear on the head"; honâkicig, "to wear leggings"; î´, honâzî´, "to wear over the shoulder". So the word horucík means specifically "to wear on the ears". Considering that the faces are alive and animated, it is a bit strange to say that they are "worn" at all. In the Hotcâk story, despite the spirit's name, the faces seem rather to grow on the earlobes. Yet the closely related Ioway have this same character who reifies the notion that the faces are actually worn:

There were once ten brothers, six of whom were good hunters, three poor hunters, while the last was the hero of this tale. The eldest boys all killed big game, and the other three killed only turkeys, raccoons, and skunks respectively. One day it was announced that there was to be a great race around the world, and the tenth boy told the three poor hunters to get boughs and make a sweat lodge. The boys did this, while the six who were good hunters jeered and laughed at them and made their own lodge. However, after they had sweated, and the youngest brother had pulled at their hair till it was very long, then he too sweated and became handsome. He put on his best clothes, placed his human head earbobs in his ears, and came out. When the elder brothers saw how fine the younger ones looked, they became very jealous. [11]

The Ioway call him Wâkx!istowi, "Man Head Earrings". In this tale, the little faces have an independent existence as earbobs. The youngest brother actually places them in his ears. We later learn that they had the power to become animate, just like the more intimately incarnated faces of the Hotcâk Îtcorúcika. This has led Hall and others, this time I think correctly, to identify these earpieces with actual artifacts dating from the Early Mississippian culture. [12] He calls them "long nosed god maskettes", a rather odd designation. It must be observed that a great many of them have short noses. The idea that they represent gods is a supposition for which there is no evidence at all. "Maskette" was an unfortunate choice of words, since it is already employed to denote a kind of headdress worn among the Indians of the American Southwest. If it is to mean "little masks", it deviates from the primary sense, inasmuch as the article is not designed to hide anything. All we can say is that they are prosopic ornaments. So there once were such little comic faces that men actually wore on the ears and in some cases elsewhere. [13] That they are not necessarily earrings or earbobs is made clear even in the mythological context, as it says of Redhorn's sons:

At this time, Red Horn's first wife was pregnant and, finally, the old woman's granddaughter gave birth to a male child who was the very likeness of his father, Red Horn, having long red hair and having human heads hanging from his ears. Not long after this, the giantess also gave birth to a male child whose hair was likewise just like his father's. Instead of having human heads hanging from his ears, he had them attached to his nipples. [14]

Redhorn had two sons who were just beginning to walk, when this [Redhorn's death] happened. One of them was just like his father and the other one had the man faces on his shoulders. [15]

So these faces were also found on the breasts and on the shoulders. However, they remain paradigmatically ear ornaments. The word horucík probably comes from ru-cik, "to hang or suspend by hand". This would most often apply to earrings and earbobs, and so the word became specialized. The Mississippian prosopic earpieces were apparently much sought after and are widely distributed over the midwest. Archaeologists have uncovered as many as 30 of these artifacts, made of bone, shell, and copper. [16] They were certainly considered items of some value. At least in later times strings of shells or even attractive loose shells (especially white ones) were valued above most other things. They could function to some degree as a medium of exchange, as wampum. The Hotcâk word for wampum is worucik, from wa-ho-ru-cik, "something which is hung or suspended by hand". This is our familiar word horucík with the object prefix wa- ("something") attached to it. There is one instance in Hotcâk literature where the noun form of the word is found, that is, horucikra, where -ra is the definite article "the". It is of some interest to note that the translation given to it is wampum. [17] So some earpieces are wampum. The Hotcâk culture may have traces of a time when îtco-horucikra, "the faces hung by hand from the ears", were a prized form of wampum.

Of course, these prosopic earpieces have an esoteric meaning in myth; but do we need to suppose, as the archaeologists seem ever inclined to do, that they must have had some ceremonial function? What did the characters of Hotcâk myth think about their animate versions? Here is what happened when they were seen for the first time,

Then the chieftainess said, "Who is your friend that it takes him so long to come?" "Wait till he comes! You certainly will laugh when you see him." "Why, what is there funny about him that I should laugh?" said the giantess. "Just wait till he comes," said Turtle, "just wait till he comes, and then you will see." Soon after that he came and Turtle said to him, "My friend, let us go over there and look at the sticks of the ball players." "Very well," said he. They went and found the giantess there and, when she saw him, she most certainly laughed and bowed her head. "There you are," said Turtle. "I thought you said you would not laugh at him." "Well," said Turtle, "look at him again." The giantess looked again and the small heads he was wearing in his ears stuck their tongues out at her. Again she laughed and bowed her head. Then Turtle made fun of her. [18]

The living prosopic earpieces were more than anything objects of humor. The Mississippian antecedents seem equally funny, and their owl eyes and optional long noses accentuate their ridiculous appearance. In cultures, like that of the Hotcâgara, which have joking relationships, such ridiculous earpieces can lead to a great deal of fun. In this may have lain their greatest value.

Notes

[1] Paul Radin, Winnebago Hero Cycles: A Study in Aboriginal Literature (Baltimore: Waverly Press, 1948) 115-118.

[2] Robert L. Hall, An Archaeology of the Soul: North American Indian Belief and Ritual (Urbana & Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1997) 151.

[3] Hall, An Archaeology of the Soul, 56, 151.

[4] Paul Radin, "The Red Man," Winnebago Notebooks (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society Library) #6, pp. 61-66.

[5] Paul Radin, "Redhorn's Nephews," Notebooks, Freeman #3860 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1908-1930) Winnebago IV, #7a: 12-13.

[6] Paul Radin, "Coon Skin Fur Coat," Winnebago Notebooks (American Philosophical Society Library) #59, pp. 1-122; Paul Radin, "White Wolf," Winnebago Notebooks (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society Library) #10, pp. 1-64.

[7] Paul Radin, A Man and His Three Dogs, in Notebooks, Freeman Number 3853 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society) Winnebago IV, #6: 143-147.

[8] Jigi Hotcûk' tcínoknôkcgúni. Wâgwácoce xedéra hotcîtcî´nîgiâ gitcoínegi. P'îxdjî. Xedéhi nâúje, hahí warúdjenîk gip'î´giji tcaraxúracana rútcgigis'áje. Sagerékdjege wágiúnâkce. James StCyr, "Fleetfoot," in Paul Radin, Winnebago Notebooks (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society) Notebook 19, Story II, p. 18.

[9] John Harrison, The Giant or The Morning Star, translated by Oliver LaMere, in Paul Radin, Notebooks, Freeman Number 3892 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society) Winnebago III, #11a, Story 8, pp. 112.

[10] Charles Houghton, Untitled, translated by Oliver LaMère, in Paul Radin, Notebooks, Freeman Number 3892 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society) Winnebago III, #11a: 129.

[11] "6. Wâkx!istowi, the Man with the Human Head Earrings," Alanson Skinner, "Traditions of the Iowa Indians," The Journal of American Folklore, vol. 38, #150 (Oct.-Dec., 1925): 427-506 [456-457].

[12] ...

[13] ...

[14] Paul Radin, Winnebago Hero Cycles: A Study in Aboriginal Literature (Baltimore: Waverly Press, 1948) 131-132.

[15] Paul Radin, "Redhorn's Nephews," Notebooks, Freeman #3860 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society) Winnebago IV, #7a: 11.

[16] ...

[17] RS [Rueben StCyr ?], "Snowshoe Strings," in Paul Radin, Notebooks (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society) #60, p. 21.

[18] Paul Radin, Winnebago Hero Cycles: A Study in Aboriginal Literature (Baltimore: Waverly Press, 1948) 123-129.

Îtco-horúcika (Wears Faces on His Ears). Who or what is Îtco-horúcika? There is a waikâ, apparently unknown to archaeologists, that answers this question, at least in part. I have entitled it "Îtcorúcika and His Brothers". Since it is lengthy, it will be summarized:

Ten brothers lived in a longhouse. The eldest, Kunu, had four arms, and the youngest, Îtcorúcika, wore faces on each ear. The brothers desired to marry, and over the course of ten nights, each evening a new bride would arrived at their lodge. Îtcorúcika married the last and most beautiful (fattest) of these. The second oldest brother, Hena, became jealous and persuaded his other brothers that they should rid themselves of Îtcorúcika. The brothers went about the several worlds trying to enlist the support of the spirits for their enterprise, but all refused them, saying, "We have already blessed Îtcorúcika." Then one day, unexpectedly, an oval lodge popped into existence near their own. It contained a beautiful woman who offered to help the brothers. They hatched a plot to trap Îtcorúcika. The brothers induced Îtcorúcika to visit this woman on their behalf, and while he was there, he fell through a false floor and landed in the underworld. After Îtcorúcika disappeared, Hena tried to have his way with Îtcorúcika's wife, but Kunu and the next to youngest brother tried to stop him. They were constantly boxed about the head by the other brothers. The wives fled, and the rebellious brothers set up a lodge apart, leaving Kunu and the youngest brother to live alone. Meanwhile, Îtcorúcika was bound in irons in the underworld of the Waterspirits, who intended to eat him. Otter and Loon petitioned for mercy, but even though they were the nephews (hicûcge) of the chief, they were denied, so they fled to the surface of the world. Îtcorúcika broke his bonds of iron, which caused the Waterspirits to panic and try to flee, but he killed them all with flaming brands except for a single male and a single female, so that the race of Bad Waterspirits (Wakdjexicicik) would not disappear altogether. He hunted down the treacherous woman and killed her. The brothers who had betrayed him became alarmed, and blackened their faces and began to fast. Nevertheless, Îtcorúcika hunted down his errant brothers, striking them with a fire log. When they were hit, a fox jumped out of them. They had been adopted by the other brothers, but had shown themselves unworthy. "And these three were stars. The one star that is shining most greatly of the trio, it is he. The greatly shining white one, and the blue one, and the red one; and Îtcorúcika was the yellowish one. And the other ones, his older brothers, are also stars. They are the trio that are bunched together." [Paul Radin, "Intcohorúcika," Winnebago Notebooks (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society Library) #14, pp. 1-67.]

An examination of the stars of the northern hemisphere shows that only one set is consistent with this configuration (three clustered stars with four outlying "hand" stars), and that is the constellation that the Old World recognizes as Orion. Taking an inductive approach, there are really not too many sets of three prominent bright stars that are grouped together. A list can be tabulated:

		Aquila	Aquilla is a good condidate, with three stars very tightly bunched together and four outlying stars that could serve as the hands.
		Canis Major	There are three bright stars in a bunch, but there are too many lesser stars in the same bundle and no obvious set of four hand stars.
		Columbo	The three stars with Pheathon in the center, are not very tightly bunched together, and one of the candidates for the hand star is more closely bundled with the center than the other hands.
		Lupus	Lupus has an elbow-shaped trio of stars, but with so many other outlying stars that no four of them stand out as hand stars.
		Orion	Orion has three belt stars in tight alignment with four outlying stars (Betelgeuse, Bellatrix, Rigel, and Saiph) that can serve as hand stars. M42 is a nebula and appears hazey.
		Sagittarius	Sagittarius has so many set of three that it none of them stand out, and it is hard to see four outlying stars that can serve as hands.
		Scorpius	Antares is the center of three stars, but there are no candidates for the four hand stars. Shaula is another trio in Scorpius, but this cluster is really a set of six.
		Taurus	The three stars to the right of Bellatrix form a unit, but they are not very prominent, nor are there four obvious candidates for the hand stars.

Aquila is almost on the other side of the celestial sphere from Orion. As it happens, Orion contains important asterisms recognized throughout the world principally for their role in keeping time. Among the kindred Osage, Orion is divided into two asterisms. One of these is the "sword" of Orion, whose stars theta and iota constitute Stars Strung Together (Mikák'e Ukíthats'î); and the other is the belt of Orion which makes up an asterism called, interestingly, "Three Deer" (Ta Thabthî). [Francis La Flesche, The Osage Tribe: Two Versions of the Child-Naming Rite, Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology, 43d Annual Report (Washington, D. C.: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1928) 74.] Three Deer is one of the ten Deities of the Sky. Thus, unlike Aquila, Orion is any important Siouan asterism. The Hotcâgara also manage to preserve in their Orion constellation something of the Plains Indians' concept of these stars as forming a hand. (See The Constellation Orion in Mythology in Comparative Material below). For the plains Indians the belt stars are the wrists, but for the Hotcâgara, each of the four outlying stars is itself a hand. These hands have to do, as we shall show, with the bow. Even the widespread concept in the Old World of Orion being a hunter, as we shall see, is also found in the Hotcâk asterism.

The central bright star in the belt of Orion is Alnilam, and that star is Îtcorúcika. Between May 24 and July 10, Alnilam (Îtcorúcika) dips below the horizon and cannot be seen. During this period the last of the denning occurs for foxes. Their pups are born completely black, like the mourning fox brothers of the story. Also it is at this time that the sun comes into near conjunction with Orion, sitting just above it. So when Orion goes into the underworld, it takes the sun with it. Thus Îtcorúcika has the ultimate firebrand with which to attack the denizens of the lower world. However, since the sun sits above Orion at this time, Îtcorúcika has "red hair", even though he himself is described as being a white or yellowish white star. He loses this head as the sun passes on through the ecliptic, only to have it reunited with him a year later. This seems to be what is going on in the mythic description of the beheading of Redhorn and his friends and their bodily restitution and resurrection long afterwards. It would also explain the name "Redhorn", since the sun is like the hair of Orion, sitting just above this constellation during the period in which is descends into the underworld.

Îtcorúcika and Morning Star. Radin, at one time or another, attempted to identify the Morning or Evening Star with either Redhorn or Bluehorn. [...] As we have seen above, quite a number of scholars have settled on one of these four, contending that it was Redhorn who was in reality Morning Star. There are good reasons for supporting such an identity purely within the Hotcâk tradition. It may be noticed, for instance, that Redhorn's very name is a complement to Bluehorn's, and the latter is the Evening Star (Red Star). Since Morning Star and Red Star are brothers, their names might be expected to reflect their complementarity. Other things could be said for this identity, including Morning Star's association with the Herok'a and the Little Children Spirits, as well as the friends of Redhorn. [John Harrison, The Giant or The Morning Star, translated by Oliver LaMere, in Paul Radin, Notebooks, Winnebago III, #11a, Freeman Number 3892 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society) Story 8, pp. 92-117.] However, the friends of Redhorn become precisely the problem. Redhorn himself is said to be an acquaintance of Morning Star. In Morning Star and His Friends, Redhorn and Morning Star coexist in the same story. In The Origins of the Milky Way, it is said that Earthmaker "dispatched Morning Star, Thunderbird, Wolf, Otter, Sun, Turtle, and Hérok'a" to aid the humans. ["Reason for Milky Way," in Paul Radin, Notebooks, Freeman #3862 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society) Winnebago I, #3: 105, 107b.] Given that Herok'a is Redhorn, here again he is found coexisting with Morning Star. Along the same lines, but more circumstantial, is the evidence from the list of the eight Great Ones. In The Twins Retrieve Red Star's Head, Bluehorn (Evening Star = Red Star) is beheaded by a man who is exactly like him in every respect, so that even his sister cannot tell them apart. The only star that can be considered identical in every way to the Evening Star is the Morning Star (since, as we now know, they are one and the same planet, Venus). As the conqueror of Bluehorn, Great Star (as Morning Star is called), must be a more powerful spirit. In fact he is so powerful that the Twins have to be created to subdue him. So in a list of eight Great Ones, he must be among those mentioned. Yet the list given is: Trickster, Bladder, Turtle, Redhorn, Hare, Sun, and Grandmother Earth. ["The Epic of the Twins, Part One," in Paul Radin, The Evolution of an American Indian Prose Epic. A Study in Comparative Literature, Part I (Basil: Ethnographical Museum, Basil Switzerland, 1954) 24-41. The original text is in Paul Radin, Notebooks (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, n.d.) Winnebago V, #2: 1-123 (syllabic text), 1-38 (English translation).] The waikâ says that the opponent, whom we deduced to be Morning Star, was in fact the satanic Herecgúnina. As an opponent of the Good Spirits, he is always omitted from the list of the Great Ones, even though some have claimed that he is as powerful as Earthmaker. As I have argued elsewhere, Herecgúnina is here identified with Morning Star on the grounds supplied by contact with the whites, where Satan is identical to Lucifer, the Morning Star. This is why he is missing from the list of the eight Great Ones, a list that contains Redhorn as one of those who was to help Red Star against his doppelgänger. So this story too, seems to imply that Redhorn and Morning Star coexist as distinct spirits.

This would seem to finish the thesis that Redhorn is Morning Star were it not for one awkward characteristic of Redhorn: he seems to exist across generations, as we saw above. This allows Duncan, for instance, to see in Picture Cave a representation of Redhorn resurrecting himself in the form of Morning Star. This would not work well in the context of The Twins Retrieve Red Star's Head, as one of the spirits helping Evening Star is Redhorn. That would entail Redhorn helping to destroy the power of Morning Star, that is, of himself. Furthermore, there are, besides the convergent aspects of their respective mythologies, some divergent aspects. For instance, the Great Star has much to do with clouds. His brothers are said to be clouds (in the form of bladders), and he himself bears the unique title, "Wrapped in Blankets". This is never a title of Redhorn, Îtcorúcika, or Herok'a. Furthermore, in the story The Twins Join Redhorn's Warparty, the Twins never address Redhorn as their uncle, despite the fact that Morning Star is said to be Red Star's (Bluehorn's) brother in Grandfather's Two Families; nor do they carry his warbundle as nephews would be expected to do. How indeed could they even be on good terms with someone whom they tried to kill in other stories? What seems truly fatal to the thesis is that while Îtcorúcika has been identified with a star, it is not said to be the Great Star (Wiragocge Xedera). Quite to the contrary, Îtcorúcika (Redhorn) is explicitly identified, along with two of his brothers, with fixed stars. Although a spirit can be a star and much else besides, it would be difficult to argue that a spirit could be two different stars that do not form a cluster or constellation. Therefore, Redhorn (Îtcorúcika, Herok'a, etc.) is not one and the same as the Great Star (Morning Star). Consequently, the thesis advanced by Duncan that the pictograph shows Redhorn resurrecting himself as Morning Star cannot be correct. Nevertheless, it could still be argued that the ascending figure with the white aigrette is Morning Star, as distinct from Redhorn.

Redman, Chief of the Herok'a. One of the identities of Redhorn that is little discussed ties him in with the universe of the hunt, embodied in the figure of Herok'a. This identity is developed in two variant myths, "The Red Man" and "Chief of the Herok'a". The latter waikâ is lengthy, so it will be summarized here:

A great hunter lived with his wife and two small children. He told his wife not to go to the west when looking for wood, but she did just that anyway. Consequently, she was caught in one of his deer traps. This happened over and over again, and whatever trap she was caught in, that ceased to ever after to trap deer. Finally, he had to shoot her. He told his children that there would be a battle between himself and his brothers-in-law, and that they were to flee to the safety of his other sons. So the two children set out with a pail that had in it a deer tail that perpetually regenerated itself. On the fourth day of their journey, they knew of their father's death when the yellow clouds of the west overcame the red clouds of the east. The next morning, the girl noticed that her little brother and the pail had both disappeared. She arrived at her destination, and her brothers informed her that her little brother was living nearby and they would fetch him directly. The little boy had been taken by berdaches. He made good his escape and met his brothers. When the brothers saw the berdaches, they gave chase, but the berdaches hid under leaves. In time the brother and sister had to leave the spirit abode of their brothers. The young man went to court one of ten sister. She had the appearance of a grandmother, but just the same, he selected her as his bride, just as he was instructed by his brothers. On their wedding night, she was transformed into a beautiful young woman. One night his mother-in-law had a nightmare. When she awoke she told them that unless her son-in-law killed a giant black otter that lived in the eastern corner of the world, she would surely die. So the young man went out and killed it with great difficulty. She had intended they he would die at his hands. They made a sick offering of the otter and invited the spirits to partake. Turtle and the Forked Man were among those who showed up. This happened four times, but each time the young man was triumphant. Then the young man announced that his sister would marry whomever among them she chose. She almost chose Wildcat, and Turtle tried to trick her, but in the end she chose the Forked Man as her husband. Then the two of them ascended to heaven through the smoke hole of the lodge. Again the old woman had a nightmare, and when she awoke, she said that the young man must play the game wegodiwa with them. He agreed. The young man with his spirit friends sat on the edge of a cliff while the old woman walked out into the thin air. She and her daughters gave a loud shout, and a gale force wind issued from above, yet the young man and the good spirits held fast. After four such attacks, the good spirits triumphed. It was the sons of the old woman who were making the wind. Herok'a, the one without horns, stood on the water and told his brothers to make the Herok'a breathings. They uttered, ahahe, ahahe, and as they pulled their empty bow strings back and forth, their opponents fell over dead. The young man, Herok'a, became chief over the village that was once ruled by the slain brothers. In time Herok'a had a daughter, and when it was time for her to be married, he set up an ordeal designed to test the worth of her suitors. He caused a jack pine to be pulled up by the roots and turned upside down. Its branches and bark were stripped off and the bare wood was greased. He had his daughter placed at the top where the roots now were. Many suitors tried and failed. Finally, a Forked Man showed up and succeeded in climbing the inverted tree. The couple then set out for his home up above. There in his home, his new bride was warmly greeted by his grandfather. One day as she was looking into the fire, she saw a head that was made red by the heat, yet it had tears rolling down its cheeks. The head explained that she was his granddaughter and that the old man there had beheaded him and placed him in the fire. She lifted the head out of the fire and placed it in a white deerskin. When the Forked Man returned home, the head explained to him all that had happened, and told him that his marriage to his own cousin was alright since they did not know any better. When the grandfather returned, the son scolded him and demanded to know where the body of the detached head was to be found. He grudgingly told him, and they went out and found the body wandering around. They brought it back and made a sweat bath in which the head was reattached to the body. He emerged whole again. He then cursed the old man to become an owl, and he flew away, hooting. The grandfather whose head was reattached, is the chief of the Herok'a. His son is the chief of the Little Children Spirits who have the same power as the Herok'a. [Paul Radin, "The Chief of the Heroka," Winnebago Notebooks (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, n.d.) #33, pp. 1-66.]

How does setting the sea aflame tie into what we know of Îtcorúcika? ... The tears that come down the face of Redman's burning head reflect his presence in the red glow of the Fire, a time at which he is just beginning to emerge from the waters of the Ocean Sea at the edge of the world, a fresh emergence in which he drips with the water of his recent submergence into the submarine realm of the Waterspirits. His face and the metonymic tears are turned red by the Fire, the counterpart in any lodge to the solar fire of the celestial lodge. It is at his submergence into the underworld and his reemergence from harrowing the hell of the enemy Waterspirits, that Redman is both Redhorn and One Horn. The final image of this harrowing experience is the sweat bath by which Redman is put together once more. As Orion emerges from the water, it is as close to the red horn of the sun and the rose colored sky as it will get. His red head is once again attached to his body, and he comes out of the heat of summer and the waters of the Dedjânedja which form his sweat bath. After that, he is able to walk away. Once he passes from this time, his defining time more than any other, he becomes Herok'a, Without Horns, and loses the red horn of hair that is the reddened sky of the sub-horizon sun. As time marches on, Orion separates from this hair-horn and lives as Without Horns, hailed as chief by the lilliputian hunting race that also bears this name. In the Redhorn Cycle versions, when he thus departs from his scalp, horn, or head, his hair turns white. This is the conventional color of stars, and specifically the assigned color of Alnilam, the star of Îtcorúcika. It is the color of holiness.

[Redman myth. Redhorn's decapitated head. Orion chases after the sun in the evening until it disappears from the sky. When it reappears, it precedes the sun, which now chases after it. Therefore, in the middle of his underworld sojourn, Orion is directly under the sun, and therefore in its fireplace. Part of him is captured by the light of the sun, yet he still continues to ambulate. While the head of Redhorn-Orion is with the sun (in the fire), his body is climbing up the road on Nicedah Mound. He is in fact ascending, although the visible part of his being, the place whence his voice emanates (the head), the seat of his life soul, is in the fireplace (sun). When his head is removed from the fireplace, he is still not whole. The head is attached to the body only in a steam bath. This is the condition of the horizon, with the red hot stone being the sun at a remove from Redhorn. When Redhorn reemerges into the sky, his head has already separated from the Fire, although he has not yet become alive (present in the sky). Decapitation in the Cycle. The captivity of Orion-Redhorn is in the north. Thus he is held by the Giants, who are North Spirits. He even marries a redhaired Giant.]

Horns and Arrows. The image at Picture Cave shows the alleged Redhorn figure with a very peculiar headpiece resting on his forehead. It appears to be a cervid antler with five arrows embedded in it point first. Nevertheless, this odd ornament is something that can easily be understood in terms of Hotcâk symbolism, mythology, and ritual. To begin to grasp its significance, we need to examine the waikâ, The Baldheaded Warclub Origin Myth. This little known myth not only tells of the origin of the baldheaded warclub, but gives us yet more names and identities for Redhorn. The following is a summary:

One day while Trickster was living with an old woman, he took it upon himself to create a warclub. He uprooted a black maple tree and carved it into the first and biggest of all baldheaded warclubs. In time a messenger came by and invited Trickster to a feast in preparation for the warpath. All the spirits that were gathered there added something holy to the warbundle, so Trickster added his warclub as well. The warleader (dotcâ) was going to give his daughter to whoever won first war honors. Turtle hoped to get her, so he weakened the others by tossing out one of the holy objects. They set out on the warpath and finally reached the Ocean Sea. During the journey, Trickster's club made the earth quake, so Turtle suggested that this club was such a danger to the cosmos that Trickster ought to be made warleader in order to keep him and his weapon out of the fray. Otherwise the earth itself might be destroyed. This was approved by all. They were going to attack bad spirits who had been created by Herecgúnina. The chiefs of these spirits were one who had a body of steel, another with one of magnetic iron, a third who was made of black rock, and the last who was made of "fat rock" (marble). They lived on an island guarded by powerful fish. Living with them were four others. One was a bird with a long, sharp beak; another had a huge mouth; the third had great ears; and the last projected flames from his eyes. They were all man-eaters. Trickster named the assault team: Turtle, Wolf, Sleets as He Walks, Great Black Hawk, Redhorn, Flesh and Ghost (the Twins), Otter, and Loon. However, the original warleader stayed behind at the shore. Turtle led the warparty underneath the island, and when they came up, they shot the chiefs. A running battle ensued, and all the pursuers were killed. Then the old warleader declared that he himself would do something for them. He took off his single red horn from his forehead and struck the ocean with it, and unexpectedly, it burst into flames, killing all the evil creatures assembled there. "Forevermore," he declared, "they shall not call me 'One Horn', but henceforth, since I have used it up to defend the humans, they shall call me 'Without Horns'." Thus, to this day humans call his race Herok'a, "Those without Horns." The old warleader then gave his daughter to Wolf, who took her and put her in his arrow quiver, but only after loud protestations by Turtle. Trickster decreed that from henceforth the baldheaded warclub would be the weapon of chiefs. [John Rave, "A Wakjonkaga Myth," in Paul Radin, Notebooks (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society Library, n.d.) #37, pp. 1-70.]

That he wears a single red horn on his forehead hints at his identity with Redhorn, who is otherwise named in the story. Just as the Redhorn of the Cycle loses his red haired head to the Giants (Wâge-Rutcge, "Man-Eaters"), so One Horn sacrifices his single red horn to defeat the Man-Eaters once and for all. This horn set the Ocean Sea aflame, just like the firebrands of Îtcorúcika burnt down the palace of the Waterspirits. However, One Horn expends his horn in the process, so that henceforth he is known by yet another name, Herok'aga ("Without Horns"). That Herok'aga is identical to Redhorn is stated explicitly in one story: "Then Redhorn also went back to his home up above. 'Without Horns' (Herok'a), they call certain beings. He was their chief." [Paul Radin, "Redhorn's Nephews," Notebooks, Freeman #3860 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1908-1930) Winnebago IV, #7a: 16.] When we reflect upon the nature of Redhorn, this identity is not at all surprising. In The Race for the Chief's Daughter in the Redhorn Cycle, the hero is able to win the race against the other spirits by turning himself into the fastest of all known things, the arrow. Therefore, Redhorn has a special identity with the arrow. The mystical identity of the arrow with Redhorn is also expressed in the bow and arrow emblem of the Herok'a [see inset]. The Herok'a are actually a race of lilliputian spirits who have magical powers over the hunt. When the Herok'a shoot an arrow, it never misses its mark. [Paul Radin, "Chief of the Heroka," Winnebago Notebooks (American Philosophical Society Library) #33, p. 65.] Thus, the Slow Song of the Herok'a has the lyrics,

The He, "horn", in the names He-jâki-ga ("One Horn"), He-rok'a(ga) ("Without Horns"), and He-cutc-ka ("Red Horn"), can be understood in these sagittary terms. In the myth known as "The Brown Squirrel", the hero of the story terrorizes a bad spirit by constantly pointing a red cedar (waxcutc) arrow at him. The arrow is usually called "the red protruding horn", Ae lo tto Ke dotto Ke s (he-podjoge-cudjera). However, at one point it is simply called Ae dotto Ke s (hecutckera), "the red horn". [Paul Radin, "The Squirrel," Winnebago Notebooks (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society) #22, p. 80.] Therefore, arrows can be red horns. Consequently, the name Hecutcka not only refers to his red hair, but to his mystical identity with the arrow. One of the reasons that the Herok'a, the very embodiment of the arrow, can be called "without horns", is that they can produce the effects of the arrow without actually using the material artifact. All the Herok'a have to do is pull their bowstrings back and forth and utter the inscrutable "Herok'a breathings", ahahe ahahe. [Cf. Osage, áhehe, "I pant". Francis La Flesche, A Dictionary of the Osage Language, Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 109 (Washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office, 1932) s.v. he-he.] Their target falls to the powers of the invisible world. Even without aiming, their unseen shots invariably strike home. They are "without horns", the word he functioning as a metaphor for arrows. They themselves are the spiritual power underlying the arrow, so they do not need the physical object itself. There is also a kindred race of lilliputian archer spirits who have the peculiar property of being able to change themselves into the likeness of infants. They are known as the "Little Children Spirits", or "Those who Turn Themselves into Babies". These too tie into the family of Redhorn, as it says here,

"Without Horns" they call certain beings, he [Redhorn] was their chief; his sons were the chiefs of beings called "Childish People", they say. [Radin, "Redhorn's Nephews," Winnebago IV, #7a: 16]

And the parent [Redhorn] was the Herok'a chief. And the Herok'a village is called Nîjira ghaghará, a village on the Wisconsin River, "On the Edge-Sat-the" (Necide, Wisc.), it is called. It is on this hill [Nicedah Mound], the Without Horns village. Even of late, they knew of their presence there, the Without-Horns. And the son was the chief of the ones called "Little Children" (spirits). They have the same power as the Herok'a. Their arrows they never fail to get anything with, but the "Little Children" are a little bit the holier. [Paul Radin, "The Chief of the Heroka," Winnebago Notebooks (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society Library) #33, p. 65.]

Just as Redhorn himself governs the Herok'a, so the sons of Redhorn govern the nearly identical Little Children Spirits.

Let us take a close look at the climactic scene of the Baldheaded Warclub:

Then the war leader said, "Now then, attendants! I will help you." And at the war leader's forehead stood a single horn, and it was very red. This he took off and struck the water with it and the water burned like fuel. [54-55]

The translation specifically says that the single horn stood on his forehead. This comports with an important rite associated with the Herok'a. In the feast sponsored by the Society of Those who have been Blessed by the Herok'a, "the leader of the Society paints his body the same color as his arrows and has a headdress with a single horn surmounted on it." [Paul Radin, The Winnebago Tribe (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990 [1923]) 295. Informant: a member of the Bear Clan. Some comparison can probably be made to the Old Horn or One Horn Dance of the Pawnee, where the buffalo is imitated, although the members of the dance do not disguise themselves as buffalo, but merely bring their bows, arrows, and spears (Murie, Ceremonies of the Pawnee, 433).] In the painting at Picture Cave, the dominant figure wears a headdress having a single horn, and this piece of head gear is placed on his forehead. All the arrows are projecting out of the cervid horn on the head, with the points as if embedded in the horn. This turns the arrows into horns in their own right. This reinforces the identity of he ("horn") = arrow (and perhaps, = hair, if forelocks existed at this time as they did at Mississipian sites). It is also said of the worshippers of Herok'a in the rite, "Every participant brings his bow and arrows ..." [Radin, The Winnebago Tribe, 295] Likewise, we see the figure in the painting grasping his bow and arrows in his left hand.

So prima facie, we seem to have a case for exploring the working hypothesis that the dominant figure in the Picture Cave painting is indeed Redhorn, the Chief of the Herok'a. Here he appears as Herok'aga, with a single horn on his forehead, a bowed horn with arrows arranged in the headdress in a way resembling the standard emblem of the Herok'a of centuries later. It is said of the rite, furthermore, "Each member paints his bow and arrows in the particular color with which the Herok'a have blessed him ... [and] the leader of the Society paints his body the same color as his arrows ..." [Radin, The Winnebago Tribe, 295.] As Herok'a, this spirit does not bless himself, but comes with a predetermined color. In the painting it is white. In the myth of Îtcorúcika, it was said that, "The one star that is shining most greatly of the trio, it is he [Îtcorúcika]. The greatly shining white one ..." [Radin, "Intcohorúcika," Notebook #14: 67.] Îtcorúcika is the brightest of the Orion belt stars, and it is at least conventionally white, although the author says that it is in fact rather "yellowish" [see Conventional Star Colors below]. As the strongest spirit of the three brothers, its star would be the brightest. As the holiest of the three brothers, his color must be construed as white, since white is the paradigmatic color of holiness. [...] That his stellar valence is being recognized and expressed is not only shown by the color and, of course, the prosopic earpieces, but by a design that occurs at the center of his chest. Diaz-Granados thinks that this is the same dot-in-a-circle design found on the Mr. Head sculpture from Gottschall (q.v.) [James R. Duncan and Carol Diaz-Granados, "Of Masks and Myths," Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology, 25, #1 (Spring, 2000): 1-26 [4].], but there is an important difference. The oval in the Picture Cave pictograph that contains the large dot actually has corners, like an eye. In other words, it is slightly almond shaped, except that its vertical dimension is a bit larger, making it look almost round. This is a conventional eye decoration, which in this context probably denotes a star. Stars are represented as eyes worldwide. [Susan Milbrath, Star Gods of the Maya: Astronomy in Art, Folklore, and Calendars (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1999) 251-253. The Pleiades star cluster is said in Peru to be the eyes of Viracacha, the god of thunder and creation. Anthony Aveni, Stairways to the Stars: Skywatching in Three Great Ancient Cultures (New York: J. Wiley, 1997) 153. A raconteur of a Shoshone story says that after the Cottontail brothers made the Moon out of the Sun's gall bladder, "They made stars out of some other part of the body -- maybe the eyes." Annie Bealer, "Cottontail Shoots the Sun," in Anne M. Smith, Shoshone Tales (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1993 [1939]) 100.] As we have seen, Îtcorúcika is the star Alnilam, so the eye motif in a field of white would be an added identification device, and is therefore consistent with the other features of the painting which suggest that it is of Redhorn (Herok'a, Îtcorúcika, etc.).

However, this is not all. In the Herok'a rite, as the participants file in, "The bows are stuck in the ground in a row with the arrows behind them". [Radin, The Winnebago Tribe, 295] We certainly seem to be seeing something very much like this. In the pictograph, behind the figure of Herok'a is an upright bow which is not being held up by any visible means. It is as if it had been stuck in the ground. There is but one arrow, and that is situated in front of the bow and like it, appears to be upright. That an upright bow and an arrow are left by themselves behind the chief figure is at least an approximation to the procedure described for the Herok'a rite. It would be surprising indeed if every detail of this rite persisted unaltered in any respect for numerous centuries. This bow and arrow reinforces the identity of the main figure as Herok'aga, the chief of the race that is spiritually responsible for good fortune in the hunt. As we shall see below, the symbolism of pictograph and rite also embrace the image of the inverted cervid seen at the lower right of the work.

Herok'a, the Forked Men, and the Bow and Two Arrows. The world of the herok'a is first and foremost the world of the bow and arrow. Their chief, Redhorn or Herok'a, is known for transforming himself into an arrow which he shoots from his own bow. Similarly, the daughter of Herok'a is transported in Wolf's quiver along with the "other" arrows. When the herok'a shoot, they pull on an empty bow, retracting the string over and over while they perform magical breathings. As these spirits are the embodiment of the arrow, they need only pull on their unarmed bowstrings to magically produce the effects of the arrow shot. These arrow-beings have married into their own blood line, a clan of men called the "Forked Men". Each Forked Man is a compound person joined at the waist, and therefore possessed of two heads and four arms. They are said to be forked-tailed birds. It is not a very difficult inference to the conclusion that the Forked Men are the spirits of the bow, the complement and mate to the arrow, made of the same substance, and bent to the same purpose. When the arrow is cocked in the bow, the two halves of the bow becomes as wings, and the feathers of the arrow form a bird's tail, a forked tail. The head of this bird-image is the head of the arrow, which projects beyond the two wings formed by the bent bow. Thus Flint is their (grand)father, their Head. The other image of the Forked Men is that of a humanoid with two bodies joined at the waist. This image is formed by the bow in the hand of a human. This compound has only the two legs of the human, but the human's two arms that are operating the bow have counterparts in the two segments of the bowstring, each an arm in its own right, with the two string loops connecting to the bow forming two "hands" that grip the tips of the bow. The human's head finds its counterpart in the head of the arrow which is located between the two "shoulders" of the bow. Since the Hotcâk bow had no notch on which the arrow could rest, it had to be tipped at an angle so that the bottom of the bow was about waist high. Two heads, two arms, two bodies joined at the waist with one set of legs -- this is another discription of the bow and the archer who operates it. In the story of Îtcorúcika and his brothers, the oldest brother is said to have four hands. Since we know that Îtcorúcika is one and the same as Herok'a, we know that he is an Arrow Spirit. Since his elder brother has four hands, it is safe to say that he is either a Forked Man, or his symbolic equivalent. Kunu's brothers are arrows, and he himself, as the eldest, is the head of the arrow and the bow that leads and directs them. The grandfather of the Forked Men, the brother-in-law of Herok'a, is Flint. It is he, who in other myths, is hammered by Hare, causing his stoney body to fragment in a myriad of flint chips. We are explicitly told that these stones are the arrowheads that people even today find on the ground. Thus, in the family of Herok'a we have represented the flint arrowhead, the bow, and the arrow itself.

These brothers and their relatives also belong to an astronomical code. As we have seen, the three brothers are the belt stars to Orion, with Kunu as Mintaka and the outlying "hand" stars. The three stars form the arrow and the hands of Kunu form the bow. That the three belt stars of Orion form an arrow is by no means a unique idea. In Vedic myth, these stars are an arrow (the Tripartite Arrow) that has been shot from the bow of an angry hunter, a role played by the nearby star, Sirius. [O'Flaherty, Hindu Myths, 30 nt 11; C. L. N. Ruggles, Ancient Astronomy: an Encyclopedia of Cosmologies and Myth (Santa Barabara: ABC-CLIO, 2005) 322.] We have, however, no astronomical identity assigned to Flint, who should form the arrowhead. We know that the Pleiades are the Tca-cîtc, the Deer Rump, the obvious target for the bow and arrow stars. However, in a directly line from the arrow stars to the Deer Rump lies the bright star Aldebaran, with the Hyades scattered about it. Aldebaran makes a rather obvious candidate for Flint, and the Hyades, a cluster of small stars, could stand for the flint fragments into which the body of Flint disintegrated. The whole of the Hyades, including Aldebaran, forms a V tilted on its side, the shape of an arrowhead.

If we accept the idea that the Herok'a petroglyph at Picture Cave is highly symbolic, we should expect that the bows and arrows in particular would be of some importance given the strong similarity between the central human figure and Herok'a. In a dramatic gesture, this figure extends his left, or bow, arm forward while grasping the figure to his right. In the grasp of his left hand is a bow and two arrows. Given the symbolism of Îtcorúcika and his two brothers, where Kunu is a four-handed counterpart of the Forked Men, and his younger brothers are arrows, the obvious symbolic valence of the bow and two arrows is the three belt stars of Orion. One arrow represents the penultimate youngest brother (Alnitak), the second arrow is Îtcorúcika himself (Alnilam), and the bow is the four-handed Kunu (Mintaka).

The Headdresses. [the three tines of the stag horn. Horn is bow-shaped. He = arrow. the five arrows and the quincunx of the Lakota and Aztecs.] The three tines are the Sword Stars.

The occipital headdress is of a well known Mississippian style. It contains three feathers secured in such a way that they fan out. At the very least, in a symbolic picture of the spirit Herok'a, whom we know to be Îtcorúcika, the three feathers ought to represent the three stars of Orion. These are the three brothers of the myth. [mâcu, Os. môshô]

As we have seen, the next symbolic object in this sequence is the bow with two arrows. This too represents the three brothers, with Kunu being the bow. So here we have a spatial counterpart to the oral repetition of themes in the telling of a myth. The theme and variation runs from the three-tined antler, to the three-feathered occipital headdress, and finally to the bow with two arrows.

The Arrow of Space and Time.

The pictograph which we have argued is Herok'a has a Mississippian occipital headdress. [examples from Brown ...] In it he has what appear to be three feathers. These would tie in nicely with a very pronounced characteristic of Redhorn, what we might style as his "triadic nature". When it comes to Redhorn, things tend to come in threes, including Redhorn himself. The first hint of this comes in the Redhorn Cycle:

[Redhorn's first wife, the girl in the white beaverskin wrap, gave birth to a son who had the same red hair as his father and even the human heads hanging from his ears. Redhorn's second wife, the Giantess, also gave birth to a red haired boy, but he had living faces where his nipples should have been.] [Paul Radin, Winnebago Hero Cycles: A Study in Aboriginal Literature (Baltimore: Waverly Press, 1948) 131-132.]

Redhorn had two sons who were just beginning to walk when this happened. One of them was just like his father and the other one had the man faces on his shoulders. [Paul Radin, "Redhorn's Nephews," Notebooks, Freeman #3860 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1908-1930) Winnebago IV, #7a: 1-16.]

His two sons are not given names, but they are almost exactly like their father. In each case there is a left/right symmetry in the placement of the little man faces. Later in the cycle, it appears that the son that looks just like Redhorn comes to be called "Redhorn" himself.

In another story, Redhorn's Father, the identity is closer still. We are told at one point in the story that Young Man was also known as "Human Heads for Earrings", on account of the living heads that dangled from his ears. This is the familiar Îtcorúcika. However, at the end of the story, we are told that his first son was called "Redhorn", even though we know from other stories that Redhorn just is Human Heads for Earrings. This same pattern is repeated in The Chief of the Herok'a, when we learn that the parent is the Chief of the Herok'a, and his eldest son is called "Herok'a". It is standard naming practice to have the chief take the name of his people, so by implication, both he and his son are called Herok'a. In the story Redhorn's Father, the identity spreads to the friends of Human Heads as Earrings. The first friend of Young Man (Hotcîtcînîka) was Naked One (Nanoka, Naroka, Oka) [these names do not occur in the text, but represent what they should be given our knowledge of Hotcâk.], who was just like him in every respect, except that he was without clothing and wore a snake band on his head. Later they befriend an old woman's grandson.

Young Man said, "I have a plan: let's take the old woman's grandson and let him sleep between us." So it was, and in the morning they made him a costume just like the one they were wearing: red leggings, a white blanket, and a fisherskin pouch. When the old woman woke up she was amazed not to find her grandson in his usual place by the door, so she went outside looking for him. When she got back the three of them were standing there dressed in the same kind of costume. "Grandmother," said Young Man, "which of us is the one who stays with you?" "He is," she said pointing to Naked One. When she was told of her mistake, she pointed to Young Man. When they showed her that they had placed her grandson in the middle, she was pleased. [W. C. McKern, "A Winnebago Myth," Yearbook, Public Museum of the City of Milwaukee, 9 (1929): 215-230.]

So we see several different ways of expressing this triad: three names (Redhorn, Îtcorúcika, Herok'a), three brother-stars (of Orion's belt), Redhorn and his two like sons, Young Man as his two nearly identical friends, and Redhorn and his three faces. Often, two of these have a closer identity than the third. Two of his faces form a miniature pair, unlike his normal face; Young Man, who is Redhorn, has a son named "Redhorn"; Redhorn's Father have a special friendship relation (hîtcakoro); Redhorn and his eldest son seem to go by the same name, and the like is true of Herok'a; Redhorn and his eldest son are exactly alike, but the youngest son is slightly different; of Îtcorúcika's three brothers, the eldest has four hands, setting him apart from him and his younger brother; one is Chief of the Herok'a, the other one or two are chiefs over the Little Children Spirits. The marriage of Redhorn consists of himself and two wives. So the triad is really a dyad plus one.

[explains why Îtcorúcika has faces on his ears. pa = nose, to point. Symbolism of ears. 4 quarters, sound. others, left/right. Fire and sun as centers, the fifth direction. Wives -- moon and dawn. White beaver skin. Beaver = wood + water. Luni-solar -- time. Temporary identity with sun and fire in myth.] [Orion in the time of Moctezuma was used by the Aztecs to mark the eastern cardinal point. [Aveni, Skywatchers, 35-36.] ]

Wears White Feathers and the Enemies of the Red Man. There exists a Hotcâk waikâ about a young man called "Wears White Feathers on His Head", which immediately suggests itself as pertinant to our inquiry about the cave painting showing a man who wears a white feather on his head. This story I have entitled, "Wears White Feathers on His Head" --

There was a lodge in the wilderness where a boy lived. He was all alone, and knew nothing of his origins, since he had awakened into consciousness just as he now found himself. He spent most of his time fasting, often going for a month at a time without eating anything at all. But now he had boiled himself some meat and was just about to bite into a piece when he heard the sound of a loud hiss. Immediately, he got up and walked outside to see who could have made this noise, but found no one. Twice more this happened, each time just as he was about to take a bite from his meat, yet on no occasion could he find out who had done this. Therefore, he did not eat. When the same thing happened a fourth time, he was determined to find out what was going on, so he ascended to the heavens and asked everyone there if they knew who had hissed at him. Everyone said they did not, so he next traversed the whole surface of the earth, with the same negative results. Then he entered below the earth and below the waters, yet no one in the nether regions knew anything. Therefore, he gave up trying to find out. On his way home he came across a hill. From the other side he could hear a commotion of voices and wondered what it could be about, so he climbed up the hill where he could see. He saw a plain dotted here and there with oak trees. They were shouting as they shot at a gray squirrel who leapt from one tree branch to another. So he walked down and asked a man just standing by and watching, "When I was in my own lodge, someone hissed at me, and I have traveled over the whole of creation trying to find who it was. Do you know anything about this?" The man not only ignored him, but walked away. As the boy stood there feeling rebuffed, the squirrel had worked its way so that it was directly above him. The boy took out his bow and shot the squirrel dead. The others who came up were disappointed, and said sarcastically, "Well, well, it looks like he can shoot but we can't." Another man, who had been standing by watching the action, walked up to the boy and said, "They will never answer you, since these are the ones who hissed at you. I am your older brother. Grandfather sent me here to find you and take you back with me to his lodge. It was he who sent you to where you have been living. He sent you there to fast, and this you have done conscientiously since you were a small child." So he and his brother set out for their grandfather's place. The boy's brother was very unusual: he had two bodies joined at the hips, and although he had but two legs, he had four arms and two heads. Finally they arrived at their destination. There he found his younger brother, as yet but a small boy, and his grandfather was also there. Grandfather spoke to the Forked Man and said, "He looks very promising." Then he addressed the young man and said, "Those whom you encountered were the ones who hissed at you. They did the same to me all my life, but I killed many of them. So now they are going to try you. This is what you must do: take your two brothers with you and take your little grandfather along as well. He must be very hungry by now. Look over there by the wall, that is where you will find him." The young man went over to the wall and there he found the "little grandfather", a sword. Then his grandfather cautioned him: "Don't ever cross in front of it: it is very dangerous to do such a thing. You must carry it yourself." The three brothers left, but on the way they fell into horseplay, and the youngest of them ran on ahead of the rest. Then, unexpectedly, his body split in two right down the middle. The other two brothers were shocked, and decided they had better return home with the news. When grandfather heard it, he said, "I forbade it, yet you did it anyway; so now you must put it back. However, look at the wall and there you will see another little grandfather. Take him instead." It was a baldheaded warclub, small, but it possessed the peculiar quality of having teeth. Grandfather spoke of it and gave them a charge: "It was very fond of chiefs: it used to leave nothing but their bones. It must be very hungry by now. You shall carry this back home with you." So the young man and his brother, the Forked Man, set out for where the boy had lived and carried the little grandfather with them. When they reached the lodge, the Forked Man recalled, "When I was in the wilderness, a warparty used to chase me. Let's try our little grandfather on them." His brother replied, "All right!" While they were roaming about they heard someone shout, and immediately they ran back towards their lodge; but they never made it: they were overwhelmed and taken captive. They were tied so that their backs bent backwards and the whip was laid upon them. At the village, they were forced to do the prisoner's farewell dance. So they danced and sang all the way to the end of the village shaking the gourd as the villagers looked on from the side of the road. The young man saw his little brother dancing in front of him, but when he looked again, he saw his little grandfather. When the Forked Man saw it, he threw down his gourd and defiantly smashed it with his foot and crushed its feathered ensign along with it. The young man did the same. They were now standing before the chiefs who sat in their own separate row. The young man grabbed the warclub, and with a single swipe, it chewed up all the chiefs, leaving nothing but their bones to bleach in the sun. In like fashion they mowed down the row on the other side of the road. Now the people there rose up as one and attacked them in hoards. The little grandfather mowed them down too in their multitudes, yet they still came on. The Forked Man warned: "It is going to be very difficult now. Let's move back towards our lodge." The enemy pressed them strongly, but they were still being mowed down and chewed up. The Forked Man said, "Let's make an end of it," and each of them took one head apiece and set off for their grandfather's house. When they got there they shouted, "Grandfather we are coming back!" He threw open the door and they rolled the heads inside. All the while, the heads chattered their teeth. The old man, transposed by this victory over his old enemies, grabbed one head in each hand and danced with them and sang to himself as he did. Grandfather asked, "I am tired -- give the victory whoop for me, grandsons!" At this his grandsons gave a thunderous whoop. Even the spirits -- those under the earth and those under the water -- heard it and said among themselves, "They must have tested Wears White Feathers on His Head." "Grandfather," said the young man, "when I was blessed, the spirits of the heavens, of the earth, and of the waters counseled me and called me 'Wears White Feathers on His Head'." And he replied to his grandson, "It is good." Then the old man killed the heads. That night the old man tossed and turned in the grips of a nightmare. When they woke him up, he told them, "It will be very difficult now for us. We must flee to your grandfather who lives on an island in the middle of the Ocean Sea. Let us go there at first light." When it was time, they left, and after a long journey they finally reached the ocean, where they could see in the distance a green island. They gave a loud shout, and they could see someone on the island's shore enter a boat and start towards them. Unfortunately, he soon returned and put his boat back on land. They turned to their grandfather and told what they had seen off in the distance. He told them, "Your grandfather is indeed a cranky old man -- I knew he would not ferry us across the waters. Open up my bag." All they found inside was a small fish hook. Their grandfather told him, "Your little grandfather used to be a great one. Throw him in the water and tell him to get the boat." So they did as they were bidden, and tossed the hook into the water, telling it, "Grandfather, go after the boat!" The hook got a hold of the boat and dragged it back with a loud rattling sound. The shrill sound of an old woman's voice could be heard from quite a distance: "I told you that you should have gone after them, as that hook never fails in anything!" After the boat came to shore, they all packed in it and headed to the old man's place. There on the island they found a long lodge and when they entered in, their grandfather said, "Ah, older brother! We have come back to you." Grandfather used to live with him, but had gone off on the warpath long ago. The old man of the lodge said, "Brother, this island is about to be invaded -- look across the waters." They went out and looked towards the horizon, and there unexpectedly they saw a giant man whose body was painted completely red. He was about to inundate the island, so Grandfather immediately ordered his grandsons: "Get the same grandfather who fetched the boat for us and send him to get the red man." So they threw it in the water and before long it had dragged this man to the shore where they slew him and chopped off his head. They took his head and boiled it nicely and made a meal out of it. Even the old woman had some to eat. The old man of the lodge scolded his wife in a quiet tone so as not to be overheard: "You have joined in their bad affairs, and now you must have made the kettle bad." Grandfather told the men, "Go over to the other side of the island and scout it out," so they set out in that direction. At first they thought no one was around, since they couldn't see anyone, but as they listened very carefully, they could detect the sound of low voices coming from somewhere beneath the surface of the earth. They quickly returned and reported this to their grandfather. He told them, "Take little grandfather and wait there. When they get near the surface, strike them and chase after them." The little grandfather he had in mind was the warclub with teeth. When the brothers got back to the other end of the island they could hear the voices again. When the sound got very near the surface, they struck down hard with the club, which created a sizable hole. They jumped down the hole chasing after their opponents and killed many of them. When each had come out with a man's head, they knocked the top of the hole in and filled it with water. When they got back to the lodge, they boiled the heads and made a meal out of them. Again the woman ate with them, and the old man scolded her to himself. After they had finished eating, Grandfather told the brothers, "Don't go to sleep tonight, but take little grandfather and watch the center of the lodge -- they will try something during the night." So they took down the sword, as that was what their grandfather had meant. They sat waiting patiently until finally, at the very middle of the night, suddenly a snake thrust its head up from the ground at the center of the lodge. Immediately, they cut its head off. Then another serpent stuck its head up from below, and it too was beheaded. They took these heads and ate them just as they had the others before them. For two more nights the serpents tested them, and they feasted on their heads. Finally, the snakes gave up. Wears White Feathers on His Head told them, "My mission here is complete. Now I shall returned to where I came from." He was the chief of the White Cranes, and he departed for the heavens. His brother, the Forked Man, was a forked-tailed bird, and an enemy of everything that lived on the earth. Their grandfather was what they call a Hîdja Owl, therefore he too was an enemy to those things that live on the face of the earth. The old couple that lived on the island also fought the things of the earth. They were called Tcarutcge, "Head Eaters". They were fighting the living things on earth such as mice, snakes, and such things. [Paul Radin, "Wears White Feathers on His Head," Winnebago Notebooks (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society) #4, pp. 1-50.]

[White Feathers fits in an astronomical code. Proof?]

Who is Wears White Feathers? It would be very tempting to identify him with Morning Star, especially in light of the fact that the influential Pawnee make Sirius the trickster who fools the wolves into thinking that he is Morning Star. However, the situation is symmetrical. Sirius is constant -- it always has its heliacal rising at the same place and time of the year. The Morning Star on the other hand, has a complex eight year cycle in which it is often not present in the sky. Of the two, it has the most erratic presentation, the trickiest to predict in a pre-scientific society. It can therefore be argued that its rising just before Sirius tricks some into thinking that it just is Sirius. Nevertheless, apparently the world over, Sirius is the Dog Star. In every myth about Wears White Feathers and his cognates, the hero is transformed into a dog. This leaves no doubt that Wears White Feathers is Sirius, and that it is Morning Star that plays the role of imposter and trickster. In Hotcâk he is explicitly said to be a Waterspirit and chief of the white cranes. Therefore, he is the automatic enemy of Redhorn in that tradition.

However, Morning Star is closely allied to Herok'a and therefore Redhorn. In Morning Star and His Friend, he is incarnated as a human being, only to find that he has awakened in a state of amnesia. Four men of the Herok'a come to his aid, and teach him archery. With their help, he is able to acquire the culture needed for his survival. He then befriends one of the Little Children Spirits, the same over whom the sons of Redhorn are said to rule. He is also a friend of Turtle, and he fights the Giants with the complete success that eluded Redhorn. So Morning Star has a close positive association with Orion. The exact opposite is the case for Wears White Feathers. His grandfather (called "Flint" elsewhere) is the assassin of Redhorn in other stories. In the story Wears White Feathers, the grandfather leads the defense against a giant red man who appears in the sea and threatens their family. Wears White Feathers and his brothers are able to slay this enemy, who may be Redhorn in a negative guise. They cook and eat his head. So Wears White Feathers is possibly an enemy of Redhorn, and this alone is incompatible with his being identified with Morning Star. In order to find out who Wears White Feathers really is, we need to examine another waikâ in which he is the star.

The Riddle of the Two Morning Stars. There are a number of very similar stories that will tell us something about the identity of Wears White Feathers. The one of the most immediate interest appears in a collection of Ioway stories, but the name of the chief character shows that it is of Osage provenance.

Two young women went out to the wilderness to cry to the spirits that they might be blessed to marry White Plumed Man (Wagre Kagre). Many animals came forth and pretended to be him, but when questioned, they could not hide their real identity, so the sisters continued on. Finally, a man came to them wearing a white plume. The girls asked him, "What sort of things do you normally kill?" He replied, "I kill such things as deer, bear, turkeys -- those things that people normally eat." The older sister accepted him immediately, but her younger sister remained sceptical. They argued, and in the end, the younger sister said, "Then you marry him. I'm going to wait." So the older sister married this man, but the only game animals he ever brought home were rabbits. One day a voice came to the younger sister and announced that at noon the next day White Plume would appear. Just as it had presaged, White Plume appeared with a chorus of birds announcing his arrival. The younger sister accepted him. The next day the two who claimed to be White Plume went out hunting, and the second one brought home deer and bears, but the first could only manage rabbits. His father-in-law quickly appreciated who he was, and even the elder sister realized that her husband was an imposter, but this only made her jealous. The next day the two of them went hunting again. While they were out the imposter changed White Plume into a dog, and when he returned he said White Plume went another direction, but that he had found his dog. The younger sister treated the dog well and even let it sleep in the lodge. When they went hunting, this dog could flush out bears, but the imposter, who in reality was a Giant, could only get rabbits. One day the dog spoke to the younger sister and instructed her on how to help him. She took him to a hollow log, where he entered at one end, and upon emerging at the other, he had shed his skin like a snake, and now he had returned to his human form. Once again the two went out hunting, but during the expedition the Giant froze to death. White Plume went home again to his wives. He told them that he was not really a human being but a bird, an eagle. When men wish to be good hunters he said they should wear a white eagle plume in the hair. Then he flew away, and I came home too. ["7. White Plume," in Alanson Skinner, "Traditions of the Iowa Indians," The Journal of American Folklore, vol. 38, #150 (Oct.-Dec., 1925): 427-506 [458-461].]

Who is Wagre Kagre? In the Ioway parallel to Old Man and White Feathers, the hero, Wagre Kagre, is called "White Plume" in English. Jimm Goodtracks, an expert on the Ioway, finds some remotely similar words in Ioway, but was able to track down much closer parallels in Osage. [Jimm Goodtracks, personal communication, 4.9.2006. He notes, "I have searched and not found any term similar to it. That doesn't mean to say that there may not have been one. ... The last part Kagre may be Hga'gredhe (white, spotted/ stripped); wagre may be - xra gredhe (spotted eagle)."] The Osage word most resembling wagre is wagthe, "a symbolic plume made of a downy feather of an eagle". [La Flesche, Dictionary of Osage, 189, s.v.] This certainly puts us in the right universe of discourse. Given the substitution of Osage /th/ here with Ioway /r/, the second word (kagre) should be derived from something like kagthe in Osage. Indeed, we do find a nearly perfect match in çkágthe, "a white downy feather taken from the under part of an eagle's wing or tail and used as a symbolic or decorative plume." [La Fleshe, Dictionary of Osage, 31, s.v.] The çkágthe seems to be merely a special case of the wagthe. The word çka, which we have already encountered, means "white"; and to -gthe, compare gthe-dô´, "hawk, falcon". [La Flesche, Dictionary of Osage, 54, s.v.] So Wagre-Kagre seems clearly borrowed from an Osage original, *Wagthe-Çkagthe, "White Down Feather (Tail or Wing) of an Eagle". Indeed, at the end of the story, the hero turns into this very bird. This shows that the Ioway story of White Plume was, at least in part, borrowed from an Osage original. In a poem about the çkágthe, the symbolism of the white plume is transfered to sun dogs, who stand to the right and left of the sun respectively.

Çká-gthe, the White Plume (Tsí-zhu version)

Of the god of day,
I, as a person, have made my symbol.
There is a god who never fails to appear at the beginning of day,
The god who lies as though dipped in red (dawn).
Of that god I have made my symbol.
By the side of the god who never fails to appear (the sun),
Even at his left side,
Stands a plumelike shaft of light.
Of this plume I have made my symbol.
When the little ones make their plumes of this shaft of light,
They shall live to see old age.
Having their plumes like the shaft of light,
Their symbolic plumes shall never droop.
Also at the right side of the god who never fails to appear (the sun)
Stands another plumelike shaft of light.
When the little ones use these shafts of light,
Their symbolic plumes shall never droop as they travel the path of life. [Francis La Fleshe, The Osage Tribe: Rite of the Chiefs; Sayings of the Ancient Men. Thirty-sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1914-15 (Washington: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1921) 126-127, lines 57-80; La Flesche, Dictionary of Osage, 365.]

The two feathers seem to represent sun dogs, shafts of light (usually circular and polychrome) occasionally seen to the right and left of the sun. However, the feathers apparently have more general valences, as it says here:

The cognate Hotcâk story to *Wagthe-Çkagthe diverges not only in symbolism, but in the nature of the bird from which the feather is taken. The Hotcâk story has been titled, "The Old Man and White Feathers":

A young man lived with his grandfather, who encouraged him to fast for blessings. The young man announced that in the upper world he was called "Wears White Feathers on His Head", and in the world below they call him "Wears Sparrows for a Coat". He had a coat made of live sparrows who would sing when he shook it, and for a headdress he had a living loon and a very white feather. The next day he was challenged to a race to the edge of the world and back. At the starting line they told him to recline on a tree, but when he stretched out, they bent the tree back and launched him as from a catapult. He landed in the fork of a great oak tree on the edge of the Ocean Sea, and there he stuck fast. However, a passing hawk to pity on him and broke the fork of the tree to free him. He began running and ended up far ahead. He sat down and began smoking. When his opponent came up, he asked if he could smoke, since he was going to die anyway. White Feathers put out the pipe, and said, "You must have said the same thing to my brothers." He killed his opponent with a warclub, then crossed the finish line alone. As he did so, his loons could be heard singing. During the night, he noticed a second fireplace in the lodge and that it had moved closer. The next day they were going to race again, but this time when he climbed on the tree, he changed himself into a squirrel, and began running up and down the tree so that they could not launch him as they had done before. The same things happened as before, and White Feathers again won the race. That night the second fireplace in the lodge moved closer still. That morning they raced again, and this time he was pitted against the youngest of them. As they were racing, this young opponent threw a vine at him, and his feet became tangled up. He fell behind, but before his opponent could get too far, he threw a piece of the vine at him and tripped him up. Eventually, White Feathers passed his opponent and stopped for a smoke. Things went as before, and as White Feathers was about to strike him dead with his club, when unexpectedly, the man turned into an old woman, pleading with her hands outstretched. This made him pause, but he resolve anew to strike, when suddenly she changed into a beautiful young woman, who cried out in alarm. He could not bring himself to kill her. She said that if he would spare her she would tell him a secret. He agreed, so she told him about two beautiful princesses that they could marry. This appealed to him, so they went off together for the village where they lived. On the way, they stopped for the night and built a grass lodge with a deer hide covering. It snowed. During the night he was seduced by a beautiful woman, but while he was sleeping, his companion took hold of his body twisted his mouth to the side, made his elbows and ankles longer, and generally made him look like an ugly old man. He robbed him of his voice, save that he could say "Ho". His companion took everything he owned, and even assumed his form. Then the two of them went on their way. They came to where the two sisters, Hinu and Wiha, lived with their father the chief. Hinu had dreamt of Wears White Feathers, and when she saw the man with the white plume she knew immediately that it must be him. He entered the lodge to a warm reception. He told the sisters, "The one outside is my dog," but Wiha said, "Never is it told that White Feathers has a man for a dog." "He is not human, but only a dog," insisted the imposter. Nevertheless, Wiha took him in and cared for him. The next day the imposter went out and killed a wildcat, but Hinu would not feed either Wiha or the dog-man. So the next day the "dog" went out and kicked and stump, and a bear fell out dead. He packed it home and they alone ate bear meat. So the imposter went out and did the same thing, but when he told Hinu to go out and prepare the bear, all that was there was an old stump. This sort of thing happened every time he went out. However, when the mother of the sisters visited, he retreated into the wilderness. There he was told by a woman how to rejuvenate himself. So he came back and took Wiha to the wilderness with him. There he dipped into a lake four times, and when he came out he was restored to his former self. They returned with the form of the old man rolled up as a pack. When they met the imposter, after they smoked, he threw the old man form at him, and immediately he returned to being an old man. They chased after him, but as he fled, he transformed into an owl and flew away hooting. White Feathers was a great boon to the community. Whenever he smoked, turkeys would come out of his pipe. He showed the people how to make wampum out of the feathers. He killed many buffalo. Hinu felt rejected, so she returned to her spirit home, but before she left, she told them that she would have their first child. One day that child was pulled under the waters. He had been taken by Hinu, who was a Waterspirit. One day the boy's father was walking along the seashore when the boy spoke from the waters and told him that when their lives were over they would join him in the Waterspirit land. And so it was. [Paul Radin, "Old Man and His Grandfather," Winnebago Notebooks (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society Library) #53, 1-107.]

There are three cognate stories in other traditions. The closest is the Dakota story of Cáxpi ("Warclub"), who is also known as "Wearer of the White Feather" (Ta-waciñhe-ska). In this story a figure called "The Man of Wood" appears to instruct him on how to proceed. He has a human head, but the rest of him is wood. (Such a figure appears in the Hotcâk myth, "The Dipper", and probably represents an asterism.) A race occurs and just as in the Hotcâk, he trips his opponent with a vine. Before his last race, the Man of Wood tells him that he must turn into an elk to protect himself from the most beautiful woman in the world. He met this woman, but she was actually the last Giant. She wept, and said that she had intended to marry him, but he was in the form of an elk. So he changed back into human form and went to sleep with his head on her lap. "She" then broke his back and turned him into a dog. He assumed the form of White Feather and they went to the village where the two daughters of the chief lived. The eldest one married the imposter, but the youngest took good care of the dog. As in the Hotcâk, the imposter cannot match the hunting magic of the real White Feathers. The chief summoned the man and his dog to his teepee, only to find that the dog had transformed back into a man. When the man smoked, he regained his speech and told them what had happened. The chief turned the impostor into a dog, and they stoned it to death. Cáxpi then married the youngest daughter. ["Tau-Wau-Chee-Hezkaw, or The White Feather," in Henry R. Schoolcraft, Schoolcraft's Indian Legends, ed. Mentor L. Williams (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1991 [1956]) 34-38; Lewis Spence, Myths of the North American Indians (London: George G. Harrap & Company, 1916) 296-301.] The second Dakota version is the most divergent of the set. Here White Plume is the son of Dead Shot, a great archer, and Pretty Dove. He is able to speak at birth. When he grows older, his father gives him special painted arrows, and with the red one, he shoots down an amazing bird of variegated color and having a white tuft of feathers on its head. The bird is put on a pole, and during a feast, as it faces the setting sun, a cloud forms over the sun like in appearance to the bird itself. This presages the greatness of the young man and he is named "White Plume" then and there. A village some ways off asks for aid against three witches in the form of animals. When he goes to their aid, he is tricked by Unktomi into climbing a tree, where Unktomi causes him to become stuck. Unktomi takes his clothing and weapons, and presents himself at the village as White Plume. They immediately give him the elder of the two daughters of the chief as his wife. However, he is unable to achieve the archery skills of the real White Plume and fails to kill any of the animal-witches. The younger daughter discovers the real White Plume while she is out looking for wood. She frees him from the tree, and they return to the village, where Unktomi surrenders his clothing and weapons. However, the clothing is wrinkled and the bow and arrows are twisted out of shape, but White Feathers passes his hand over them, and they are restored. He was then able to kill the three witches. Unktomi was punished and fled. [Marie L. McLaughlin, Myths and Legends of the Sioux (Bismarck, North Dakota: Bismarck Tribune Company, 1916).] The Ioway-Osage version also shows some innovations, but is essentially the same story of mistaken identity. Two young woman go out to fast. They hope to marry White Plume (Wagre-Kagre < Osage, Wagthe-Çkagthe). In their visions many spirits pretend to be him, but on examination turn out to be imposters. Finally, one comes who seems to be White Plume. The older sister accepts him immediately, but the younger one is skeptical. Finally, as presaged to her in a vision, the real White Plume shows up and is accepted by the younger sister. He hunts big game while the impostor can only get rabbits. One day the imposter turns White Plume into a dog and says that White Plume went off somewhere. When they went hunting, this dog could flush out bears, but the imposter, who in reality was a Giant, could only get rabbits. One day the dog spoke to the younger sister and instructed her on how to help him. She took him to a hollow log, where he entered at one end, and upon emerging at the other, he had shed his skin like a snake, and now he had returned to his human form. Once again the two went out hunting, but during the expedition the Giant froze to death. [Witch episode] White Plume went home again to his wives. He told them that he was not really a human being but a bird, an eagle. When men wish to be good hunters he said they should wear a white eagle plume in the hair. Then he flew away. ["7. White Plume," in Alanson Skinner, "Traditions of the Iowa Indians," The Journal of American Folklore, vol. 38, #150 (Oct.-Dec., 1925): 427-506 [458-461].] All the versions agree on a basic story in which a great archer named "White Plume" or "White Feathers" is tricked by someone, who turns him into a dog, while he assumes the other man's identity as White Plume. The two of them meet two princesses who expect to marry White Plume. The eldest is falls for the imposter, while the youngest is skeptical. She takes good care of the dog. However, the imposter cannot live up to the reputation of White Plume, and even the dog out does him in hunting prowess. People become suspicious. With the aid of the younger daughter, the dog is restored to his true form. The imposter is exposed, and he flees or is killed. White Plume marries the youngest daughter.

We are able to glean a bit more information out of the Hotcâk tradition since we have two different stories about White Feathers. Like Bluehorn, Wears White Feathers is a Waterspirit, and we were told previously that he is chief of the white "cranes" (egrets). In addition to white feathers, he wears a living loon on his head. We learn from the Îtcorúcika story that Loon was once high placed among the Waterspirits, but abandoned them to live above ground. The loon is a diving bird, but also capable of flight. The squirrel is a mammal that is similar in traversing the worlds, this time moving from the above to the ground and back. This suggests that Wears White Feathers is, like the Waterspirit Bluehorn, a stellar being as well, and one that dips below the horizon for a time. The loon has a loud clarion voice, and using sound for light, it suggests that the "headdress" of White Feathers is a bright light, one that is as white as the feathers that he wears next to the loons. When he loses his voice, he also loses his headdress, a description of a star that passes under the horizon. Who is it that enslaves him? His enemy is a shape-changer par excellance, and in the end turns into an owl and flies away. This second being, behind whom the first trails, is there for a time, but in the end flies away as an owl, a frequent symbol for the other night-flyers, the stars. [The Pawnee say that the owl is the chief of the night just as the eagle is of the day (Fletcher, The Hako: A Pawnee Ceremony, 40). The priests of the Yellow, White, Red, and Black Meteoritic Stars all wear the fethered skins of owls (Murie, Ceremonies of the Pawnee, 122).] He can be young or old, male or female, beautiful or ugly. He is an enemy of Waterspirits, and given the fact that White Feathers participated in the eating of Redman's (Redhorn's) head, he is an enemy of the enemies of Redhorn. White Feathers, on the other hand, is said by him to be a dog. This can be restated in the form of a riddle -- What star is allied with Redhorn, an opponent of Waterspirits, a shape-changer, can be mistaken for another bright white "dog" star, and who, in the end, flies away from his doppelgänger? This riddle is so easy the answer is obvious. It is satisfied by the Morning Star, and clearly his doppelgänger is Sirius, the "dog star", the brightest star in the sky other than Venus. The two often appear together when there is a heliacal rising of Sirius in late July and for some time thereafter. The Old Man is said to be the last of the Giants. There is, indeed, a connection between Morning Star and Giants, as we see in the title "The Giant, or The Morning Star." [John Harrison, The Giant or The Morning Star, translated by Oliver LaMere, in Paul Radin, Notebooks, Winnebago III, #11a, Freeman Number 3892 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society) Story 8, pp. 92-117.] It is Morning Star who is the friend of the Herok'a spirits, the hunter spirits over whom the star in the center of Orion is chief. Morning Star is a shape changer, sometimes very bright when, as we now know, he is full; and significantly dimmer when he is a crescent. He is only in the sky for 263 days at a stretch, so this means that he is with Sirius only part of the time, then as a wandering star, a planet, he "flies off" as Sirius and his associated stars run after him. When he flies off never to be seen for a long period, he can be said to be "old". He is absent during superior conjunction, followed by the Evening Star phase, and then by the eight day inferior conjunction. However, Sirius always rises with the sun in late July (setting aside the precession of the equinoxes). So in this waikâ White Feathers is the one who is impersonated. This is because when Morning Star reappears in the sky after a long period of absence, he will sometimes rise first, and initially Sirius will still be below the horizon. So in the story, Morning Star enters the (celestial) lodge looking like White Feathers, while the real White Feathers sits outside as befits the star who is so intimately associated with dogs.

It is the Pawnee tradition that gives us real insight into why a number of distant and unconnected cultures have come to this same view of Sirius. They say that the wolves howl at the Morning Star because its rising indicates the approach of dawn. However, when Sirius rises with the sun when Morning Star is no longer in the sky, they say that the wolves become confused and howl at this star thinking that it is the Morning Star, the true herald of the dawn. This case of mistaken identity has led them to call Sirius, Tskirixki Tiuhats ("Wolf He is Deceived"). (See Sirius as the Dog Star below) [James R. Murie, Ceremonies of the Pawnee. Studies in the Anthropology of North American Indians (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press for the American Indian Studies Research Institute, Indiana University, 1989) 41, who has Ckiri Ti'u-hac, "Wolf Got Fooled" for Sirius (see also, p. 45). The truth is that canines just happen to howl at dawn and do so to vocalize at other canines in an expression of territorial behavior. However, the Pawnee notion that they are howling at celestial bodies could be spread worldwide and may account for the very odd coincidence that Sirius is known as a "dog" star in places that have had no contact with one another.] The view of Sirius as a dog is best known from the Old World, where the Greeks called Sirius the "dog star" (Seírios Kúôn), and said of him that he was the hunting dog of Orion. Among the Osage, who have a reasonably close relationship to the Hotcâgara, Sirius is also viewed as a dog star. They call Sirius, Shô´ge Agak'egô, the "Dog as though Suspended in the Sky", as it says in this prayer:

Verily, the Chief Messenger
Hastened to
The side of the heavens,
Where lay Shô´ge, the dog (Sirius) as though suspended in the sky,
And returned with him to the people,
They spake to him, saying: O grandfather,
The little ones have nothing of which to make their symbols. [Francis La Flesche, A Dictionary of the Osage Language, Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 109 (Washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office, 1932) s.v. Shô´-ge a-ga-k'e gô; Louis F. Burns, Osage Indian Customs and Myths (Tuscaloosa, Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 2005 [1984]) 204.]

Among the Hotcâgara, however, this dog star has a decidedly hostile relationship to Orion (as Îtcorúcika). Morning Star is inferred to be the star that beheaded Evening Star since they are identical twins. Wears White Feathers, as we learned from the story of that name, is a Waterspirit just like Bluehorn, so Morning Star, who has strong affinities to the Thunderbirds (as does Redhorn), is consistently inimical to Waterspirits. Morning Star also looks very much like Sirius (at least to a dog), and is found near him and Orion when both are making their heliacal risings in the hot days of summer. In this story Morning Star is playing the "bad guy", just as he did with Bluehorn when, in recent times, he was identified with Lucifer.

The Red Plume. Just as among the Osage where the red plume is a complement to the white plume, so in myth we find that to the story of Wears White Feathers on His Head is another and related story in which the feathers are now red. The Hotcâk version of this story I have called, "Red Feather".

In the center of a circular village lived a chief who had two very beautiful daughters. Near his lodge grew a great tree where, unexpectedly, there alighted a bird of bright red plumage, and when he landed there, a red glow seemed to fall upon all the lodges of the village. The chief greatly admired the bird's plumage and coveted its feathers for himself, so much so that he declared that whoever could shoot the bird for him would be given one of his daughters to wed. Among the best shoots was a man called "Ape", who was a notorious cheat. He came very close to hitting the bird, and the crowd gave out a shout of excitement every time an arrow whizzed by it. An orphan boy who lived at the edge of the village with his grandmother heard the commotion, and went to see what it was all about. When he returned that evening, he told his grandmother about the contest and said he should try his skill at it. His grandmother scoffed at him and said, "Don't be foolish. You are just an orphan, how can you possibly compete against real archers and men who have been blessed with great powers by the spirits?" Nevertheless, the next day he snuck out with his own bow and arrows. He noticed that when anyone shot at the bird, Ape would simultaneously shoot his own arrow. Finally, the orphan stepped up to shoot. Both he and Ape shot together, but the orphan's arrow hit the bird and shot him dead. However, when the orphan picked up the bird, Ape angrily shouted, "I was the one who shot him, so hand him over!" In their struggle, Ape pulled the bird away from the orphan and presented it to the chief. The chief gave Ape many thanks, and bestowed upon him his eldest daughter. However, the orphan had not come away empty handed, for when he had struggled for possession of the bird, he had pulled out a single red feather and this he took home concealed under his blanket. By the time he got home, this single feather had grown into a whole new bird, a bird with feathers of a far more brilliant hue than the first bird's. The orphan told his grandmother all about what had happened, but she did not believe a word of what he said. So he took a rawhide hoop and told her to roll it across the floor of the lodge. When she did, he shot right through the center of the moving hoop, and the instant that the arrow crossed into the hoop, the rawhide unexpectedly changed into a young buffalo heifer who fell over dead. He told his grandmother to cook up the best meat from the heifer and bring it to the chief. When she had done this and arrived at the chief's lodge, instead of going in, she slipped it through the lodge door and said, "This is from your son-in-law." By the time the chief's attendants peeked out to see who it was, she was gone. Three more times she did this, but on the fourth occasion, they saw who it was. They followed her and soon discovered the orphan boy and his brilliant red bird. When all this was related to the chief, he decided to give him his second daughter, a woman who surpassed even her sister in beauty. However, the orphan was a mess: his hair was matted with his own hair grease, and he was covered with grime and dirt. Nevertheless, she loved him very much. When she took him with her to visit her sister, they would not allow her husband to so much as touch anything they owned. The younger sister scolded them, and told them that they should instead pity him. The next day, the orphan's wife cried all day out of pity for his condition. The orphan decided to take his wife with him to the nearby lake, where he told her that he would jump in and emerge in far better condition. In fact, he expected to be so much improved by the bath that he showed her a unique scar on his leg by which she would be able to recognize him when he reappeared. Wasting no time, he jumped right in the water. However, much time went by, and he never came back to the surface. Soon it became apparent to his young wife that he had drowned. She knelt down by the lake side and cried all day long until at last sleep overtook her grief. Then, unexpectedly, she was awakened by a handsome young man dressed in magnificent robes. He told her, "Let's go home, wife." She did not know what to make of the stranger's remark, and told him, "My husband dove into the lake this morning, and alas, he has drowned!" The mysterious man declared, "I am he. See the scar on my leg." Only when she saw it did she know who he was. He explained to her that he had transformed himself in the lake and that all of this had