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  7. Spiritland

Spiritland

Details
Title

The man who brought his wife back from spiritland

Contributor

Paul Radin
Jana-Iren Hartmann

Country

United States

Genre

Written materials

Format

text/x-eaf+xml

Language

Hoocąk

Persistent Identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/1839/00-0000-0000-0016-7DE6-F

Description

Wagisga, a young man whose beloved wife had died went to the spiritland to bring her back (to life). To accomplish this he had to succeed in several tests imposed on him by ghosts (in the land of the dead). He was helped by eight attendents (they call him grandson) who gave him mental support and appealed to the Earthmaker to help the young man. Wagisga proved to be strong in will and finally took his wife home (back into life). The myth portrays the emergence of initiative and faith in succeeding in his (or anybody's) enterprise. According to PR this myth was used to encourage fasters (it tells much about fasting experience) before it was adopted as the origin myth of the Ghost dance. The sent. 193-207 did not belong to the original text but owe their inclusion to this fact. Sent. 15-23 give the traditional literary description of a person about to die. Numerous tales and myths contain this description in almost exact wording (prob. standardized generations ago).

Description

The text has been recorded by the anthropologist Paul Radin. MS18 wrote down the myth in the Hoocąk syllabary. The text was then dictated to PR by OL; there's no recording. According to PR, the only reason for MS18 to "tell" the myth was to show him how a text like this should be narrated and translated: MS18 "had a cynical contempt for white people who attempted to study the Winnebago and for the Indians who helped them."

Description

Wagisga, a young man whose beloved wife had died went to the spiritland to bring her back (to life). To accomplish this he had to succeed in several tests imposed on him by ghosts (in the land of the dead). He was helped by eight attendents (they call him grandson) who gave him mental support and appealed to the Earthmaker to help the young man. Wagisga proved to be strong in will and finally took his wife home (back into life). The myth portrays the emergence of initiative and faith in succeeding in his (or anybody's) enterprise. According to PR this myth was used to encourage fasters (it tells much about fasting experience) before it was adopted as the origin myth of the Ghost dance. The sent. 193-207 did not belong to the original text but owe their inclusion to this fact. Sent. 15-23 give the traditional literary description of a person about to die. Numerous tales and myths contain this description in almost exact wording (prob. standardized generations ago).

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