Blessing for a Long Time: The Sacred Pole of the Omaha Tribe

Robin Ridington and Dennis Hastings ingeniously adopt the conventions of Omaha oral narratives to tell the story and convey the significance of the Sacred Pole. Portions of classic anthropological texts (particularly Fletcher and La Flesche’s The Omaha Tribe), Omaha narratives, and other historical and contemporary accounts are repeated—each time in a different, more enlightening context—in a circle of stories seamlessly woven around Umon’hon’ti. The result is an innovative account th…