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re®ected in the ¤gure to the left of Morning Star (Figure 9.7a). The Okeepa ceremony was intended to renew and assure procreation of the buffalo and took place soon after the summer solstice. Okeeheedee was associated with the sun in Mandan oral tradition. He was a rapacious cannibal, a powerful regenerative spirit, and full of procreative energy. His symbolic mission was to invade the village and pretend intercourse with women and the buffalo impersonators. In so doing, he assured a bountiful hunt. This ¤gure resembles the rawhide cutouts (Figure 9.7b) from the Lakota and Crow groups of the Plains (collected by Fletcher [ca. 1954:70] and pictured in Catlin [1844] and Bancroft-Hunt [1992]), so maybe the type of portrayal we see at Picture Cave is not so unique after all. First Man was the only character who could control Okeeheedee’s lust, which he did with the restricting power of his medicine pipe (as discussed in Catlin’s Folium Reservum). In one of the Winnebago trickster tales, the elder brother (trickster) compares his penis to the staff of the war captain of the Bear Clan. These staffs usually represent the sun’s rays or “horns” at sunset (Radin 1948:67). Usage of these staffs is widespread and often illustrated in nineteenth- and twentiethcentury photographs, drawings, and paintings of war parties from the Western Great Lakes to the Plains of the Upper Missouri. The folk image is that in which the Winnebago trickster awakens with his penis erect and he compares his appendage to the war captain’s staff (Radin 1948:67). From what we have learned about the sun and the placement of vulvar motifs in Missouri, the phallic image is at the basis of an ancient and widespread origin story among the Dhegihan speakers (Radin 1948:67–68). Another motif with possible sexual connotations is the bilobed arrow (Figures 9.8 and 9.9). Jon Muller (1989:15) and Bob Hall (1989:250–255), in their discussions of the bilobed arrow, state that this motif has been considered as referring to a range of things from a symbolic atlatl (spear thrower) to male genitalia. Hall also sees it as possibly being associated with “He-who-wearshuman -heads-as-earrings” and the long-nosed god maskette ear ornament (see Hall 1989:241, ¤g. j). The bilobed arrow was rendered as copper ornaments for use as headdresses in Mississippian societies. Brown (Phillips and Brown 1978:86–87) believes that it depicts a bow and arrow. He also has suggested it is two calumet pipes brought together in a single V-shaped motif as seen in the example on painted robe No. 22 (Three Villages Robe) in Robes of Splendor (Horse Capture 1993:137). Less convincing to us are what is called the pit and groove motif seen at many Missouri rock-art sites including Sharpsburg, Bushnell Ceremonial Cave, and Three Hills Creek. This motif is most often interpreted as phallic but can likewise serve as a vulvaform. 152 Diaz-Granados and Duncan More obvious vulvar motifs abound in Missouri petroglyphs (Figure 9.10). Among the earliest identi¤ed were those at Miller Cave (Figure 9.10a) reported by Fowke (1922) in the early twentieth century. Another style is seen at Three Hills Creek (Figure 9.10b) and in still more detail at Washington State Park-A (Figure 9.10c). Another widely accepted version of the vulvar motif occurs at the Bushberg-Meisner site (Figure 9.11). This portrayal of the vulva faces east from whence it receives the sun’s rays on the summer solstice. Figure 9.7. Male ¤gures with prominent phalli: a, Picture Cave ¤gure; b, Plains rawhide cutout (after BancroftHunt 1992). Figure 9.8. Bilobed arrow petroglyphs at the Maddin Creek site. Power, Wealth, and Sex in Missouri Rock-Art 153 Figure 9.9. Bilobed arrow pictograph (red) at the Lost Creek site. Figure 9.10. Vulvar petroglyphs: a, Miller Cave; b, Three Hills Creek; c, Washington State Park-A; d, Bushberg-Meisner. It is located within a ¤ssure cave whose opening most likely reinforces the idea of a female portal. The great number of these motifs attests to the importance of the female deity in the rituals of daily life, in oral traditions, and in the iconography of many groups. According to tradition, the female deity, or “Old Woman,” is the mother of all things. She is related to the sacred earth, the Lower World, and is often combined with the serpent, also...

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