Maintaining Order in Osage Communities
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The Osage village layout reflects cosmological principles.
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Osage village organization reflects the theme of “complimentary opposition” related in their creation story. A main road runs from east to west, like the path the Sun takes across the sky. The homes of Sky People clans are located on the north side of the road and the homes of Earth People clans on the south. Community social organization reflects this division. There are two sacred pipes, one representing the Sky People and the other representing the Earth People. One of the Earth People clans safeguards both pipes and bring them out when they are needed for rituals. But the pipes can only be filled with tobacco and lit by members the Sky People division. Furthermore, Sky People clans are responsible for performing ceremonies that support the spiritual health of the community, while Earth People clans are responsible for performing ceremonies benefiting the community’s material wellbeing. As with the use of the sacred pipes, no clan can complete its ceremony without the assistance of a partner clan that comes from the opposite division.
In sum, the Osages (along with their linguistic relatives, the Quapaws) maintain community solidarity through a series of mutual obligations that connect opposites into a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. Their creation story demonstrates how this idea of complementary opposition derives from cosmological principles that organize relationships between the Above World, the Middle World, and the Below World.
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