I'll have to ask my Ikbi. I am sending a copy of this to the other list as it seems to me to be a question about culture. George Ann >From: JohnnyMikeCraven@aol.com >Reply-To: CHOCTAW-SOUTHEAST-L@rootsweb.com >To: CHOCTAW-SOUTHEAST-L@rootsweb.com >Subject: Re: [CHOCTAW-SE] Hopiah >Date: Tue, 23 Jul 2002 02:13:34 EDT > >In a message dated 7/22/2002 10:21:09 AM Central Daylight Time, >wood_owl@hotmail.com writes: > > > > After a prescribed length of mourning (prescribed by > > the medicince man or Ikbi), the bones were taken down and scraped clean >by > > the bone picker who had especially long nails for this purpose. The >cleaned > > bones were then bundled and placed in a common bone house. You can guess > > that this practice was repugnant to Europeans. > > > >Oh, I don't know George Ann, if that would have been very repugnant to >Europeans. >Afterall the relics that the Churches and faithful have accumulated in >reliquaries over the years of so many saints. There was a time that people >went very crazy over getting a relic of a saint or someone who was >considered >very holy and it could get pretty grizzly. > > There's a reliquary here in New Orleans at the Church of Our Lady >of >Prompt Succor but I don't remember whose bones are in it. And recently at >the church I usually go to, we had the relliquary that carried the bones of >the Little Flower, St. Therese of Lisieux. It was extraordinarily ornate. >Very beautiful. > > You mention bone houses. There was something similar in Europe >with >some church I saw in pictures somewhere where people gathered skulls, and >maybe other bones, of the deceased and used them to line the walls of the >church. I can't remember what country in Europe or what church but I do >remember seeing it. > > There also have been a number of "museums", such as in Cambodia, >with >thousands of human skulls from the various wars of genocide that have >occured >in the last century. > > I guess none of these are exactly similar to the bone houses of the >Choctaw >but there are some similarities. > > Were the Choctaw medicine men only called "ikbi" or were they also >called "hopia"? > > John Craven > New Orleans > > >==== CHOCTAW-SOUTHEAST Mailing List ==== >Got a PROBLEM?? Got a GRIPE?? Just wanna'WHINE?? Don't post it to the >list...write to me at CHOCTAW-SOUTHEAST-admin@rootsweb.com > _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx