[meteorite-list] Bernd Pauli's excellent abstract of Burke, part 4

From: E.P. Grondine <epgrondine_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2008 15:14:41 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID: <993962.90810.qm_at_web36904.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Date: Thu, 08 Apr 1999 18:52:46 +0200
From: Bernd Pauli HD
<bernd.pauli at lehrer1.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de>
To: Meteorite List
<meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Subject: Native Americans and Meteorites - Part 4 of 6

          
 
Jeanne wrote:

> I was also wondering if your book mentions anything
> about Native American usage of Canyon Diablo irons
> for tools, amulets or other spiritual items.

BURKE J.G. (1986) Cosmic Debris - Meteorites in
History, pp. 223-225:

The Skidi Pawnee Indians, whose ancestral home was in
east-central Nebraska along the Platte River, called
meteorites the children of Tirawahat, their chief god.
They wrapped objects believed to be meteorites in
bundles that they considered sacred and that belonged
either to individuals or to the tribe.

A wonderful being named Pahokatawa came from the sky
as a turtle-shaped stone, as legend predicted, and the
tribe carried it with them in a bundle. When the
warriors offered prayers and smoke to it before
battle, they were successful, and there was no disease
when the stone was in the camp. When they moved to
Indian Territory (Oklahoma), they left the stone on a
high hill in western Nebraska.

Other Indian tribes had very similar beliefs about the
Willamette, Wichita County, and Iron Creek meteoritic
irons. We noted in chapter 6 that the Clackamas
Indians of northwestern Oregon venerated the
Willamette meteorite as Tomanowos, or "Visitor from
the Moon," and that before battles the warriors washed
their faces and dipped their arrows in the water that
collected in the hollows of the iron.

The Kiowas, Comanches, and Apaches in Indian Territory
venerated the Wichita County meteorite, whose original
site was just across the Red River in north Texas.
They believed that it came from the Great Spirit, and
well-worn trails indicated frequent visits to it by
these tribes.

[Another stolen meteorite - E.P.]

The Cree and Blackfeet Indians of Alberta,
Saskatchewan, and Montana thought that the
Iron Creek meteorite had fallen from heaven, and
venerated the iron as a "medicine-stone." When white
men removed it about 1870 to a mission house 60 miles
distant, an old medicine man predicted that war,
disease, and a dearth of buffalo would result. In only
a few months famine, plague, and war did come to the
Indians.

[Another stolen meteorite - E.P.]



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Received on Fri 18 Jan 2008 06:14:41 PM PST