PEBBLE QUOTES
Algonkian
Ojibwa.
Use, Ritual, Social Category, Meaning.
VI.B. Indian Pictography.
5. Rites and Symbolic Notations of the Songs of the Wabeno.
Figure 17. A bow and arrow, the latter directed downward. This is represented as an enchanted
bow. There is a post in the centre of the lodge, and five pebbles lying in a row. The Wabeno
affects to shoot through four of them, and the arrow sticks in the fifth, leaving them all strung
upon its point. [page 373]
Wa go nain
Ah wa nain
An au ka aun ?
Os sin een e
Win o bun
Ah au ka aun? (Repeat three times.)
Why! what is it I am firing at, on the ground ? It was pebbles I was firing at (Schoolcraft
1860, v.1:372-373).
Ojibwa.
Use, Ritual, Social Category, Meaning.
XII.4. Magical Dances of the Ontonagons [Ojibwa].
From such sources of information, the following sketches are drawn. By Figs. 1, 2, 3
[Midewiwin birch bark scroll], the meda [Mide']designates himself and his location. They
constitute a sort of introduction. Longitudinal marks, such as 11, 23, 35, 52, occupy the place of
stops, or bars. The first ten figures, from 4 to 11, denote his medical and magical skill. By 4, he
cures a man bleeding at the mouth; by 5 and 6, a tree and moon, he shows his knowledge of
simples; by 7, a beaver, he applies his magical powers to trapping; by 8 and 10, a winged clean
pebble, he shows his magical powers; and not less so by 9, a charmed arrow, that alike penetrates
the earth and heavens (Schoolcraft 1860, v.3:490).
Ojibwa.
Meaning.
XVII.C. (b) Philosophy of Utterance.
But when these radices are taken from homogeneous languages, like the Indian, which admit, at
the same time, the principle of word-building, the etymon preserves an exact parallel with the
sound. Thus, os, in the Algonquin, signifies a father. Put the letter n before it, and a after it, the
meaning is, my father; put k before it, with the same terminal, and the sense is, thy father; but
take away both the n and k, and the meaning is, his or her father. This process, by adding
pronominal or tensal inflections, can be carried on as far as the personal distinctions reach. There
is another class of words based on this root. Os-sin is a pebble, or small, smooth stone, having
Date: 6/29/2016
Page: 1
the same radix. Ossipee signifies river of smooth pebbles, being a compound from ossin, a
pebble, and sipee, a river. Ossinee appears as an adjective prefix, meaning pebbly, as in Ossinewudjo, stony mountain. Os-ti-gwan is a man's head, or skull, and may have originally had
allusion to the shape of the cranium (Schoolcraft 1860, v.5:544).
Iroquoian
Seneca.
Meaning.
VI.C. A. Oral Fictions.
4. The Great Snake or Canandaigua Lake.
An Iroquois Tradition.
June 15th, 1852. John M. Bradford (correspondent).
The Indians affirm that the rounded pebbles, of the size and shape of the human head, to this day
so numerous on the shores of the Canandaigua lake, are the petrified skulls of the people of the
hill, disgorged by the great snake in its death-agony (Schoolcraft 1860, v.3:323).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Schoolcraft, Henry Rowe
1860 Information Respecting the History, Condition, and Prospects of the Indian
Tribes of the United States. 6 vols. J.B. Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia.
Date: 6/29/2016
Page: 2