(Medicine Bundle From an Unidentified Branch of the Kiowah Tribe; ca. 1918, M.L. Aday, photographer; courtesy of the Frontier Museum, Ft. Davis, Texas)
Dream Capsules
"Another example of the inseparability of the material and spiritual in Native Americana can be found in the so-called 'medicine bundles' that encapsulated a tribe's successes in hunting, battle, crops or visionary dreams. The contents of such a bundle - often preserved in an animal-skin pouch and containing significant miscellany such as broken arrows, scalps and rare animal skulls - were used in regular, ritualistic ceremony and sustained a virtual universe for the tribe, the loss of which could result in disbandment. The most tragic of these occurrences on record involved Nevada's mythical Meemaw, a gratuitous clan whose medicine bundle had served largely in their bigamous marriage ceremonies and buffalo meat orgies."

--Karson C. Klugen, "Dawn of Spiritual America," from The Fort Lauderdale Journal of Christian Theory: Issue No. 345; April 1999

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