Caddoan village bundle
Encyclopedia
A village bundle is a bundle
Bundle
Bundle or Bundling may refer to:In marketing:* Product bundling, a marketing strategy that involves offering several products for sale as one combined product...

 or basket
Basket
A basket is a container which is traditionally constructed from stiff fibres, which can be made from a range of materials, including wood splints, runners, and cane. While most baskets are made from plant materials, other materials such as horsehair, baleen, or metal wire can be used. Baskets are...

 filled with ceremonial objects. It represents the spiritual and social organization of the village
Village
A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet with the population ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand , Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New...

 or community
Community
The term community has two distinct meanings:*a group of interacting people, possibly living in close proximity, and often refers to a group that shares some common values, and is attributed with social cohesion within a shared geographical location, generally in social units larger than a household...

 to which it belongs. These are associated with Native American
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...

 groups including the Caddo
Caddo
The Caddo Nation is a confederacy of several Southeastern Native American tribes, who traditionally inhabited much of what is now East Texas, northern Louisiana and portions of southern Arkansas and Oklahoma. Today the Caddo Nation of Oklahoma is a cohesive tribe with its capital at Binger, Oklahoma...

an farming villages. The bundle is possessed by an individual, but the power it contains binds the group together.

For groups such as the Arikara
Arikara
Arikara are a group of Native Americans in North Dakota...

 and the Pawnee, the bundle was a skin envelope with objects inside that could symbolize ideologies
Ideology
An ideology is a set of ideas that constitutes one's goals, expectations, and actions. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things , as in common sense and several philosophical tendencies , or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to...

 and ritual
Ritual
A ritual is a set of actions, performed mainly for their symbolic value. It may be prescribed by a religion or by the traditions of a community. The term usually excludes actions which are arbitrarily chosen by the performers....

s. It is a physical representation of how the people view their world. These objects showed how the keeper of the bundle was descended directly from the original bundle-keeper, all of whom keep the bundles at their homes to be cared for by their wives. In general, the knowledge of the bundle was not common knowledge, but possessed by a priest
Priest
A priest is a person authorized to perform the sacred rites of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities...

 who would slowly pass this knowledge on to a younger relative, who could carry on the knowledge after his death. The powers represented and contained in the bundle assured the survival of the village and therefore the universe. It controlled all production and social relations, so that if the bundle was lost or destroyed, the people of the village would die. While in ideological terms the bundles may maintain the universe, in literal terms, they were very powerful symbols that helped maintain the chief
Tribal chief
A tribal chief is the leader of a tribal society or chiefdom. Tribal societies with social stratification under a single leader emerged in the Neolithic period out of earlier tribal structures with little stratification, and they remained prevalent throughout the Iron Age.In the case of ...

and ensure the loyalty of his people.
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