 |
|
In the Great Plains cultures, for a woman was a great honour her membership into the society of porcupine quill embroiderers, as was for a man his affiliation in a warrior society. Membership required that the woman would demonstrate adequate moral qualities, besides her skill and devotion to the craft. The quillwork was regarded as a sacred activity, transmitted to women by a peculiar character of Lakota mythology, “Double Woman” or “Double Face” (anukite). According to Lakota cosmology, at the beginning of time, when mankind still inhabited the underground world, a beautiful woman existed, named ite, who was married with tate, the Wind god, from whom she had given birth to four children. The trickster, inktomi, a person who always tried some ruse to create confusion and spread the ridicule about the world, convinced her old parents and the woman herself to take advantage of her beauty and become the companion of the Sun, wi. Struck by the woman’s beauty, the Sun invites her to the feast of the gods. Inktomi instructs her to sit herself in the vacant seat just next to wi. This was the place reserved for hanwi, the Moon, Sun’s partner, who had been late because he was adorning herself, always on the mocking advise of inktomi. When at last she comes to the feast, the Moon sees a beautiful human female sitting at her place besides the Sun: she sits behind the Sun, covering her head in shame with her robe, while all are laughing at her. |
Young Lakota woman portrayed in 1890 by David F. Barry (Nebraska State Historical Society) |
|
|
At this juncture, škan, or takuškanškan, “Something that moves”, the spirit who governs the creation process and the dynamic force which produces every kinds of movement, decides to intervene. He establishes that from then on Sun and Moon shall be separated, both shall go on their own way: they shall produce the alternation of day and night. Moreover, the Moon shall rule a third period, “the interval between the time she went from him until she returned to him” (Walker 1917: p. 166). Such a rather enigmatic description seems to refer to the lunar cycle, because the Moon, ashamed by this episode, covers her face when she is “near the Sun” and uncovers herself only when she is far away from him.
 |
Arapaho shield with painted images of the sun and the moon with the rainbow above them (American Museum of Natural History, New York) |
The fate of the beautiful ite was to be sent on the earth, far away from the house of her former husband and children. She should keep her beautiful face but only for one half: she would have another face, so horrid that those who look upon it would fly from her or go mad. Thus she became anukite, the “Double Woman” or “Double Face” (Powers 1977: p. 69-71).
The woman with one half of her face beautiful and seductive, while the other half was horrible and disgusting, seems to recall the double role played by menstrual blood, at the same time source of generative power but also of danger and pollution. The Lakota tale does not mention the menstrual cycle, but the entire story revolve around the institution of the astronomic cycles, the separation of Sun and Moon and the creation of the lunar cycle. The extension of this periodicity to woman’s physiology seems an implicit consequence.
|
Animals