Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 87.djvu/205

Rh ritual while no less elaborate is objectively associated with a ceremonial bundle, in which the seed is kept and guarded by the official keeper of the whole. In both cases each important step in the process from seed to pipe is one of the fundamentals in a ritual. Many such examples can be found in the special literature of the subject.

If now we give our attention exclusively to planting rituals certain points of general import may be noted. As a convenient example, we may abstract the following from the data on tobacco culture among the Blackfoot Indians: At the planting of the tobacco seed the leading men hold a feast to which they invite their friends. Eight young men are sent out to gather deer, antelope and mountain-sheep dung. They use this dung because these animals run fast and therefore the tobacco will grow rapidly. They do not use the dung of the elk and moose because the animals walk slowly and would thereby delay the growth of the tobacco. The leading men give a feast which lasts four days, during which they dance and sing. The dung is then mashed up together with service berries, and tobacco leaves and water are added. All these make the tobacco seed ready to plant. The seed is now given out among the planters. To prepare the soil a lot of brush is gathered by all the men, women, and children and spread on the ground. At each of the four corners of this place a fire is started, four men watching the fire so as to prevent it from spreading further. After all the brush has been burnt, they make small brooms of brush with which the place is swept clean. Then a number of men procure sticks with curved roots or having curves that can serve as handles. The straight end of this stick is sharpened and used for digging up the ground. With these sharpened sticks they make holes about a foot apart and two inches deep in a row and the ground is divided up into sections in which each man plants his seeds. The seeds are dropped into these holes, the children covering them up by running back and forth over them four times. Should a child fall while doing this, ill luck would surely follow, and the child will die. After the seeds have been planted incense offerings are made on the four corners of the plot and the songs of the ritual sung.

This part of the tobacco ritual is clearly but a formal expression of the recognized method of planting tobacco. We see that the seed is prepared for germination, the seeds and roots of all intrusive plants killed by burning over the surface, the soil leveled and pulverized, then effectively fertilized and the seed planted in a definite way. What after all is the ritual in this case, but a formalized statement of how tobacco should be planted to secure a good crop?

We also note the existence of specific knowledge of the conditions for tobacco growing, which certainly deserves to be considered scientific. The problem then arises as to how this knowledge came to be associated with a ritual. While we have no direct data as to how the Indian arrived at this knowledge, there is no good ground for believing that it