Tobacco Garden with Cherry Sticks and Two Miniature Sweatlodges . 171 13. Miniature Sweatlodge in Tobacco Garden 173 1o7 INTRODUCTION.Before offering a detailed account of the Tobacco society it seems desirable to give a brief sketch of Crow ceremonialism. Contrary to opinions sometimes expressed in print, the Crow Indians cannot be characterized as a preeminently ceremonial people. In chis respect they do not even remotely approximate the Village tribes of the Upper Missouri, let alone the Pawnee or Hopi. For example, organizations like the military societies, which elsewhere are charged with a distinctly religious flavor even when they are placed in a lesser category of sacredness, are among the Crow so predominantly secular that they are best treated as purely social clubs; at best they display on]y the outward trappings of ceremonialism. Nor do we find a calendric series of festivals or any other attempt at systematic elaboration.This does not mean that there is any dearth of set observances. The elements of ceremonialism pervade Crow life probably to as great an extent as they do the life of other Plains tribes; but they are rarely synthetized into impressive wholes. This may become clearer by a comparison with the Blackfoot.Crow culture shares the mystical accentuation of four, the altar, the use of incense, the ritualistic song.More important still, it is characterized by the dominance of the vision and the concept that its beneficial results are transferable by sale. With the Blackfoot, however, these featuresdeveloped into an elaborate scheme of bundle rituals. Among the Crow there are comparable phenomena but they seem inferior both quantitatively and in point of integration. The Crow have not only fewer and on the whole less complicated rituals but their rituals do not conform to a pattern so definitely as Blackfoot bundle procedure conforms to the Beaver bundle standard.The contrast is even greater when the Crow are compared with the Hidatsa. The latter have a long series of bundles, including, e.g., the Bird, Missouri River, Soldiers' Sticks, Old Woman, and Wolf bundles, all of which manifestly represent a single ceremonial type. On the other
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