Red Horn facts for kids
Red Horn is a culture hero in Siouan oral traditions, specifically of the Ioway and Hocąk (Winnebago) nations.
He has different names. Only in Hocąk literature is he known as "Red Horn" (Hešucka), but among the Ioway and Hocągara both, he is known by one of his variant names, "He Who Wears (Man) Faces on His Ears". This name derives from the living faces on his earlobes (Hocąk), or earbobs that come to life when he places them on his ears (Ioway). Elsewhere, he is given yet another name, "Red Man" (Wąkšucka), because his entire body is red from head to toe.
Red Horn was one of the five sons of Earthmaker, whom the Creator fashioned with his own hands and sent to earth to rescue humanity. During his sojourn on earth, he contested both giants and water spirits, and led war parties against the bad spirits who plagued humanity. As Wears Faces on His Ears, he is also said to be a star, although its identity is a subject of controversy. Under the names "One Horn" (Hejąkiga) and "Without Horns" (Herok'aga), he and his sons are chiefs over the small hunting spirits known as the herok'a and the "little children spirits". Red Horn, as chief of the herok'a, has a spiritual and sometimes corporeal identity with the arrow. Archaeologists have speculated that Red Horn is a mythic figure in Mississippian art, represented on a number of Southeastern Ceremonial Complex (SECC) artifacts.
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The son of Earthmaker
According to legend, Red Horn is one of the five great soteriological spirits fashioned by the Creator's own hands, sent to earth to make the world safe for the least endowed of Earthmaker's creation, the "two-legged walkers". The first spirit to be sent down to earth to help humanity was Trickster (Wakdjąkaga), whose foolishness made it necessary to recall him. Earthmaker next sent down Bladder (Wadexuga), whose arrogance led to the loss of all but one of his 20 brothers, so he too was recalled. Then Earthmaker made Turtle (Kecągega) and charged him to teach the humans how to live, but Turtle brought them war, and was in his turn recalled. The fifth and last of these heroes dispatched by Earthmaker was Hare (Wacdjįgega), who conquered all the bad spirits who had preyed on humanity. By accident, however, he introduced death, but made up for it by creating the Medicine Lodge, by whose discipline members could achieve immortality. Earthmaker made Hare in charge of this earth, and to each of the other three spirits he gave an otherworldly paradise to govern. The penultimate savior figure in this series was Redhorn. He had quite nearly succeeded, but was killed in a wrestling match with the enemies of the human race. Although later revived, he too was recalled, although the reasons for his failure are obscure. One source suggests that it was a lack of gravitas.
Then Earthmaker (Mą'ųna) sent down another son, He who Wears Human Heads as Earrings. He went around talking to people, but they would always fix on his earrings which were actual, living, miniature human heads. When these little heads saw someone looking at them, they would wink and make funny faces. In the end, He who Wears Human Heads as Earrings could not accomplish the mission either.
Unlike all the other soteriological spirits, Red Horn is not assigned a paradise over which to rule; and the Medicine Rite omits any mention of Red Horn from its account of the sons of Earthmaker. These facts indicate that Red Horn may have been a recent addition to the role. Meeker even suggested that a certain notable Piegan contemporary of the same name may have simply been elevated to divine status. More recently, Lankford held a similar view: "... Red Horn was a recent addition to the Winnebago pantheon diffused possibly from the Blackfoot tribe."
Red Horn's adventures
The adventures of Red Horn are set out in a set of stories known as the "Red Horn Cycle". The Red Horn Cycle depicts his adventures with Turtle, the thunderbird Storms-as-He-Walks (Mą'e-manįga) and others who contest a race of giants, the Wąge-rucge or "Man-Eaters", who have been killing human beings whom Red Horn has pledged to help. In the episode associated with this name, Red Horn turns himself into an arrow to win a race. After winning the race Red Horn creates heads on his earlobes and makes his hair into a long red braid called a he, "horn", in Hocąk. Thus he becomes known as "Red-horn" (he-šucka) and as "He who Wears (Human) Faces on His Ears" (įco-horúšika).
In one episode, with their lives staked on the outcome, the giants challenge Red Horn and his friends to play kisik (lacrosse). The best player among the giants was a woman with long red hair just like Red Horn's. The little heads on Red Horn's ears caused her to laugh so much that it interfered with her game and the giants lost, but Red Horn married the woman with the red hair. The giants lost all the other contests as well. Then they challenged Red Horn and his friends to a wrestling match in which they threw all but Red Horn's friend Turtle. Since Red Horn and his fellow spirits lost two out of the three matches, they were all slain.
Red Horn as a star
Much has been said about the stellar identity of Red Horn. In 1945, many years after his field work, Paul Radin suggested that Red Horn might be identical to the Morning Star (of Venus), known to the Hocągara as Wiragošge Xetera, "the Great Star". Most archaeologists have accepted this suggestion. However, just three years later, he was less certain, saying only that Red Horn was "either evening- or morning-star", and in 1954 he changed his position yet again, asserting that Red Horn, "probably is identical with the Evening Star". After an extensive discussion of the problem, Lankford summed up by saying, "It appears that the safest conclusion for this study of Morning Star traditions is to accept the Winnebago divinities [Red Horn, Blue Horn, the Twins] as possibly stellar figures but to allow them to remain without a celestial name, insofar as ethnoastronomy is concerned." Nevertheless, the very end of our story identifies Red Horn, in his form as Wears Faces on His Ears, as a fixed star, probably Alnilam of Orion.
"The one star that is shining most greatly of the trio, it is he. The greatly shining white one, and the blue one, and the red one; and Icohorúšika was the yellowish one. And the other ones, his older brothers, are also stars. They are the trio that are bunched together [the Belt Stars of Orion ?]."
Morning Star, of course, is not a fixed star. Their lack of identity is confirmed in another story in which Man Faces on His Ears coexists with Morning Star. The connection between fixed stars and living beings on the ears finds a parallel in another Hocąk story in which Polaris (the North Star) has hummingbirds as earrings.
Red Man, Chief of the Herok'a
In the Red Horn Cycle, when a human chief offers his daughter as a prize in a race, all the fastest spirits in creation show up to compete. Nevertheless, a completely unknown person wins the race by turning himself into the fleetest of all things, an arrow, and shooting himself ahead of all the other competitors. The victor declares that he goes by the name "Red Horn", but that the spirits know him as "Wears Man-Faces on His Ears". The episode shows that Red Horn has a mystical identity with the arrow.
From another story, “The Baldheaded War Club”, we learn more about Red Horn and the herok'a. Trickster (Wakjąkaga) acquired an enormously powerful war club, and to fulfill his role as a savior of humanity, called together a war party to attack the evil spirits who had lorded it over humanity. The members of this select war party were Turtle, Wolf, Sleets as He Walks, Great Black Hawk, Red Horn, Otter, Loon, and the Twins (Flesh and Ghost). Under Trickster's leadership, all kinds of foolish mistakes were made, so a different war leader stepped forward at the critical moment when they were being charged by the evil spirits.
Then the war leader said, "Now then, attendants! I will help you," and at the war leader's forehead stood a single horn, and it was very red. This he took off and struck the water with it, and the water burned like fuel, and there all the bad things were burned up. Then the leader said, "Now then! from henceforth you will no more call me "One Horn". Here the humans are being abused and here I have used my horn, therefore, the humans shall ever call me, "Without Horns", because I have caused myself to be without any," he said. That is why they call them herok'a, meaning "ones without horns".
In this variant, Red Horn is first named "One Horn" (Hejąkiga), then "Without Horns" (Herok'aga), a name which elsewhere is given to his son. This is merely a reflection of the cross-generational identity of Red Horn and his sons. In one story the son of Red Horn is called by one of Red Horn's old lovers by the name "Red Horn"; and in another story, the father of Red Horn is Wears Man-Faces on His Ears, another form of Red Horn himself.
The he, "horn", in the names He-jąki-ga ("One Horn"), He-rok'a-ga ("Without Horns"), and He-šuc-ka ("Red Horn"), can be understood in these sagittary terms. In the myth known as "The Brown Squirrel", the hero of the story terrorizes a bad spirit by constantly pointing a red cedar horn at him. The horn is usually called "the red protruding horn" (he-pųjoge-šujera). However, once it is simply called he-pųjogera, "the protruding horn". At the very end of the myth the bad spirit is turned into a brown squirrel and told, "Humans you tried to abuse, so ever after will boys shoot you with protruding horns (he-pųjogera)." Therefore, arrows are horns, and paradigmatically, red horns. Consequently, the name Hešucka ("Red Horn") not only refers to his red braid or "horn", but to his mystical identity with the arrow. It is also the reason why the race over whom he is chief is called "without horns", since they fire their bows without the need of an arrow. In a race, the Red Horn is triumphant over all the spirits, for he himself is the arrow he shoots to victory.
Red Horn in archaeology
Some images found in or near the SECC area may be of Red Horn, his companions, and his sons. Scattered throughout most of this area are relics of prosopic earpieces, which must have given the wearer an appearance strikingly like that of mythical Red Horn. Other artifacts, such as the bilobed arrow, may shed light on an obscure name held by Red Horn in his youth, "He Who is Hit with Deer Lungs". Intricately carved effigy pipes have been recovered as well, one of which, nicknamed "Big Boy", has been widely identified with Red Horn. There also exist numerous depictions of a raptorial bird whose head has many human features. James A. Brown has argued that this "Birdman", who is often shown wearing prosopic earpieces, is also a form of Red Horn. Pictographs found in caves have also been related to Red Horn. Salzer contends that the scene of Panel 5 at the Gottschall Rockshelter represents Red Horn and his friends confronting the giants. At Picture Cave, discovered by Carol Diaz-Granados, there exists a pictograph the central figure of which wears prosopic earpieces, leading to the suggestion that he represents an early form of Red Horn.
Prosopic earpieces as SECC artifacts
In the Ioway version of the Red Horn story, Wears Man-Heads in His Ears puts on a pair of prosopic earpieces which come to life. Prosopic ear ornaments have been found throughout much of the S.E.C.C. culture area in archaeological excavations and are called "Long-nosed god maskettes". They are typically made of either copper or shell, which were highly valued materials. Most wampum belts, for instance, are made of shells strung together. In contemporary Hotcąk the standard word for wampum is worušik, a word which also denotes earrings. It is a contraction of wa-horušik, "something suspended from the ears". This shows a linguistic "memory" of a time when at least certain earpieces were considered to be wampum. The S.E.C.C. artifacts have a high degree of uniformity except for the size of the nose, which may be either short or extraordinarily long and even crooked. The face is shield-shaped, and has a crown with a notch at its top center rim. The mouth is just a short slit, but the eyes are perfectly circular and large in proportion to the head, giving them an owl-like appearance. The first of these was discovered in Big Mound within St. Louis in 1870, where they lay beside the skull in a grave. Since then nearly two score of these artifacts have been discovered in an area encompassing at least ten states. S.E.C.C. pictorial art shows figures with long-nosed god maskettes on their ears, recalling the appearance of Red Horn and his sons. One of these is a sculpted pipe bowl, nicknamed "Big Boy", showing a seated young man wearing short-nosed prosopic earpieces (discussed below). They came to be called "Long-Nosed God" mask(ette)s because they were correlated with depictions of what appeared to be a deity with a very long nose. One of these has in addition to a long nose, a bilobed arrow attached to his hair, and a single long braid, all characteristics associated with Red Horn. On the other hand, such beings often have a curl at the end of their noses, either bending up or down, a feature not found on their maskette counterparts. In addition a great many prosopic earpieces have only a short nose. This has led Duncan and Diaz-Granados to develop a different theory to account for the variation in nose sizes. They believe that the prosopic earpieces represent the Twins, and that they were worn by war captives who were being assimilated into their new tribe. This is chartered by one surviving Twins myth, in which the wild brother has a very long nose in contrast to the normal nose of his domesticated brother. When the wild Twin is re-adopted into his family, the father trims the nose. Ex hypothesi, the size of the nose on the prosopic earpiece given to the adopted captive was trimmed to reflect the degree to which he had been assimilated.
Struck with Deer Lungs and the pipe ceremony
Not surprisingly, given his status as Chief of the Herok'a, Red Horn has a special connection to deer. The Red Horn Cycle tells us of the time when Red Horn, the youngest brother, was following his other brothers to a race to which he alone was not invited.
The people were saying, "Kunu (eldest born) has come and the one at whom Kunu used to throw deer lungs, his youngest brother, he has also come along." So Kunu looked behind him and, sure enough, there was his little brother following, wearing an untanned deerskin blanket turned inside out. The fur was on the outside.
His cervid identity is expressed in his going about in the outward form of a deer. Right up to the end of the story, Red Horn is known only by the name "He who Gets Hit with Deer Lungs," Kunu explains to his wife, "Once I told him to fast and he refused so I threw a deer lung at him and that is the reason why they called him by that name but no one ever hit him with a deer lung." So Kunu had been giving him the lungs to eat, since he had refused to go without food. Far from being a poor cut of meat, it is something special. In one story, the dogs decide that if their master gives them the deer lung hanging in his lodge, they will make him prosper in game. The reason for the gourmet value of deer lungs (ca raxúra) is explained in connection with an episode in a story entitled "The Fleetfooted Man":
There a Hotcâk village was. To a great warrior was born a baby boy. It was very good. He grew larger, and when he was old enough to eat, whenever his father could, he would feed him only deer lungs. He wanted him to be able to run fast, that is why he did it.
It should come as no great surprise that a diet of deer lungs might be thought to empower a person to have lungs like those of a deer, and the capacity for speed that this endowment would bequeath. So when the youngest brother is struck with deer lungs, it expresses the notion that Red Horn is someone who will have lungs like a deer and therefore a fleetness of foot that will rival a cervid. Indeed, his victory in the foot race, the major event of this episode, is a mere confirmation of this achievement. So the name that is presented as a misnomer, turns out on an esoteric level to be an understated description for the spirit who travels as fast as an arrow.
Archaeologists have attempted to connect the name with a widespread pipe ceremony associated with the affirmation of kinship and adoption. These factors enter the discussion because of the relationship between Red Horn and his sons. Red Horn finds a twin in one of his sons, and a near twin in the other. It is said in the Red Horn Cycle, after the friends of Red Horn have given his sons gifts of their trademark weapons, "Then Red Horn said, 'My sons, I have nothing to give you, for I am not your equal and, besides, you are already just like me.' And indeed they were." Most of all, the sons of Red Horn brought their father back to life. These facts have led archaeologists to see the story of Red Horn in terms of the immortality of reproduction: a man lives on in his sons, to whom he gives a genetic patrimony that makes them just like himself. Consequently, ceremonies of adoption become highly relevant to the understanding of Red Horn, since they represent a ceremonial way of conveying the fundamental meaning of the Red Horn epic. Aside from the knowledge held by Hocągara ceremonial people themselves, little is known of sacred pipe and adoption ceremonies among the Hocągara, so Hall attempts to generalize from what he concludes is a nearly universal, pan-Indian, post-contact pipe ceremony of adoption. Its paradigm is the ceremony of the Osage, a people related in speech to the Hotcągara, and Hall uses the colonial-era French term, "calumet" instead of the Osage or Hocągara names for their ceremonial pipes. Hall sums up his basic argument:
In the Iowa version the two boys put the heads of Human-head-earrings and his two friends on the earth and shoot three arrows into the air, after which the owners of the three heads come to life. This recalls the use of the symbolic gesture with arrows -- the calumets -- to mediate the reconception of the adoptee in the (Pawnee) Hako ceremony. More important, it recalls the third name by which Red Horn or He-who-wears-human-heads-as-earrings was known -- He-who-is-hit-with-deer-lungs -- because the owl feathers attached to the calumets represented deer lungs. The calumet stems represented windpipes as well as arrow shafts, and the combination of windpipe and lungs was believed to introduce a quickening breath into the nose of the adoptee that then descended into his chest and gave him life. Logically, the name He-who-is-hit-with-deer-lungs could derive from a ritual in which an impersonator of He-who-wears-human-heads-as-earrings was symbolically requickened with the calumets.
The Osage actually have a Deer Lung Clan which is active in the ceremony.
Big Boy
"Big Boy", which was uncovered from the Great Mortuary of Craig Mound at Spiro, is a large effigy pipe weighing 11 lbs., 8 oz., probably made of bauxite. It is likely that it was originally a sculpture that was only later converted into a pipe bowl. This remarkable artifact was first illustrated in 1952. The figure is nude, with his hair arranged in an occipital bun and a long braid hanging over his left shoulder. His only body clothing is a cape draped over his back. The cape has a "spade" or feather design, leading most archaeologists to conclude that it was a feather cape, a mantle well known from many Native American cultures in historical times. However, it seems unlikely that it actually is a feather cape.
The blanket ... is decorated with a "spade" design, which, considering the accuracy of detail and faithfulness of depiction in the rest of the pipe, is a detail that should be interpreted literally rather than figuratively. In this light, the "spade" design elements should be regarded as part of the blanket itself.
It once bore a heavy coat of red ochre, some of which is still visible. He also wears a flat cap with a raised border around its top which has an "ogee" design in negative relief. Brown believes that this cap "appears to be a case for displaying a copper plate." The subject of the sculpture also wears a rich, triple-strand necklace of wampum beads. His most interesting feature, however, is a pair of prosopic ear ornaments, clearly of the Short-Nosed God type. Reilly, on the assumption that the SECC clay effigy pipes are of divine subjects, concludes, because of Big Boy's long red braid and prosopic earpieces, that he must represent "Morning Star" (by which he means Red Horn). James A. Brown leans strongly towards this view, but voices a note of caution:
All told, we have in this figure a remarkable combination of the very elements by which the Red Horn hero-deity of the Winnebago is identified in myth. Although this might suggest that the Red Horn identification can be extrapolated into deep antiquity, caution is dictated because of the inherent ambiguities attendant upon the sources of our information, to say nothing of the time spread involved.
In a departure from the received opinion, Duncan and Diaz-Granados contend that the prosopic earpieces represent the Twins and were used by captives being adopted into the tribe. Consequently, they view Big Boy as a representation of such an adoptee, and not as Red Horn himself.
Bird Man
Another figure found in SECC artworks is a raptor with a largely human face, who is often depicted wearing prosopic earpieces. This werebird, known as "Birdman", is also thought by some to be a form of Red Horn.
The Gottschall pictographs
Gottschall Rockshelter (a horizontally shallow cave), located in Muscoda, Wisconsin, contains about forty pictographs. Robert J. Salzer began to excavate the site in 1982, eight years after it had been rediscovered. He identified Panel 5 to be of special interest, since it is a composition containing several figures that seem to be engaged in a single action. Panel 5 is dated with a good measure of confidence to the tenth century A.D. At the outset, Robert L. Hall, the leader in the field, pointed out to Selzer that one of the figures in Panel 5 appeared to have attributes associated with the Red Horn mythology.
Salzer identified the other figures as being two giants, one of whom was the woman that eventually married Red Horn, and other pictographs seemed to be of Turtle and Storms-as-He-Walks, all of whom had gathered together on the occasion of the great lacrosse game between the good spirits and the giants. Salzer believes, contrary to Hall, that the figure to the far right is not a son of Red Horn, but Red Horn himself. The reason why we do not see prosopic earpieces is that part of the tail of the bird in the center of the panel has been painted over Red Horn's ears. Most archaeologists have accepted the idea that the panel is devoted to Red Horn mythology, although a few others have been highly skeptical.
Picture Cave
In Warren County, Missouri, there is a site appropriately styled "Picture Cave". As its name suggests, it contains a wealth of pictographs, including one that has been identified with the Hotcąk spirit Red Horn (Wears Faces on His Ears). Other pictographs in Picture Cave have been dated from about 915 AD to 1066 AD, although the age of the "Red Horn" pictograph has so far not been determined. It differs stylistically from the other pictographs in the cave and has a patina of silica which may suggest that it is older than the others. Almost solely on the basis of the prosopic earpiece, Duncan connects the main character of this scene with Red Horn. He describes the chief figure in the panel as "Morning Star (known by the Winnebago as Red Horn)", an identification which has now become universal among archaeologists (see the section above, "Red Horn as a Star"). He also believes that the Red Horn of Picture Cave is carrying the head of Morning Star, which he describes as an act of self-resurrection. Nevertheless, at one point Duncan says, with respect to the "Red Horn" pictograph, "This 'early' Braden style rendering conforms to the description of He-who-wears-human-heads-as-earrings, or Red Horn, after he wrestled with the 'giants'. Red Horn's head is described as being carried by one of his sons ... this is an unmistakable scene at Picture Cave that is finely and delicately rendered and includes a substantial use of white pigment."
