A DUALISM IN POM4O COSMOLOGY
A. Me Halporn
In the courso of linguistic fiold work among the Pomo (1), data was
more or less accidentally gathered which points to a division of the
world, among various Pomo groups, into two mutually exclusivo spheres.
Although the terms applied to these spheres are etymologically variable
from group to group, informants from different groups consistently transm
lated their own terms into English as "the Outside" and "the Inside" re-
spectively, a practice which is adhered to in this paper* Terms designa-
ting tho Inside .vtere not oollected from all groups. VTlhere they wero col-
locted, the literal meaning is "insido of the house," e.g. EaP g&*, NoP
taw. The term for "house" in most Pomo languages also connotes, explicitly
or implicitly, "rancheria, village."t  The terms for the Outside arc moro
variable, but in general, in each language, denote what might be adequate-
ly rendered as ttthe brush," i.e., the wild or uninhabited areas where one
goes to hunt or to collect wild food. The SEP term is cina, and one -says?
"I am going to the cina," meaning "I am going hunting."   SEP cina has no
cognates, so far as my data goes, in other Pomo languageso The EaP term
is   a, whose cognates are SEP Xoqo "tworld, Earth" (thus, Ghost Dance
dreamers claimed to be inspired by XOqo 9oXekOwi "Earthmaker"), NoP ?gog
and SoP gahgo,gag.o "a flat, a field*"  The NoP term is       t "the outsii
(lit.), which is related to the NoP directional prefix g67"out, away"t
(e.g. gohdn "to go out," of. tahin "to come back., go baE, " 0awhun "to
come in, come into," etc.).    Egnaes of this directional preTTx   ccur,
with the same meaning, in some of the other Pomo languages. The SoP torm
is sflu-gul:u, whose meaning is much the same as that of SEP cinap and
which again has no cognates, as far as my data goes, in other Pomo lanW
guages. In some contexts, SoP uses am a Sahtimuy o t"world that lies
Oxtended" as an alternative for gu?luguleu, the difforence being roughly
as between address and reference respectively.   SoP amroa -place, thing,,
world" has cognates of similar meaning in all the other Pomo languages,
but the phrase amea nahtimuyao seems to have no parallelso
.The -ooncept of the-Outside, :and..the dichotomy.betwoon Outside and
Insido, appear to be more uniform throughout the various Pomo groups than
the terms employed* My data are not sufficiently detailed or systematic
to make a statement of minor variations in the concept possibleo I shall
here treat it as if it were the same for all groups and cite data from
various groups to indicate the differont facets of the concept. The SoP
and NoP data are the fullest; my CeP and SW?VP notes contain hardly any
relevant data, but oasual statements by informants indicatod that the
concept was familiar to them in substantially the same form as to thoir
neighbors*
From the terms alone, it is olear that one- facet of the dichotoxnar is
as between the wild and the tame, or nature and civilization.   Thus,
151
F.cP gdwbaX "of the Inside" and YaYo"baX "of tho Outside" are the equiv-
tx.ents respectively of "tame, domestic" and "wild," as are NoP pawk and
gok6.   An EaP informant stated that house cats were first called g1wbaX
das17m t"tame wildcat," a phrase later replaced by a loanword from Spanish.
Pomo mythology attributes the origin of wild things rather consis-
tently to breaches of etiquette, tho breaking of taboos, or incidents
involving the overt expression of hostility. In NoP myths these inci-
dents seem to have no integral connection with the plot but are rather
appended to some myths as concluding episodes. The following appear
typical.
A NoP myth in which Doer is the protagonist reaches its climax in
Deer's marriage to his ovm sister.   Doer remains secluded in his own house
for some time after the wedding and does not go out hunting. Eventually
he is taunted by others for his laziness. He becomes angry, curses them,
and sends them off to be animals here and there, thus bringing on a flood
which destroys the world. The concluding paragraph of the text reads:
"Thon there inside the house those people became wild things
(o)        They flew out through the smokohole and flew away. They became
wild things (gook&) for ever, they became geese, they became deer. So
they wore all gone. They said something they shouldn't, so the world
endede."
Another myth relates tho adventures of Chickenhawk Chief with the
Gilak monster. Returning alive from these adventures, he gives a dance
for all the people. After the danco, Chickenhawk Chief is sitting out-
side the sweathouse. "Then Meadowlark said that he smelled something on
the person who sat there.  TWhat is this thing that smells rotten?' he
said, they say, that Meadowlark. Now since he said this, (Chickenhawk)
flew up from the house. He grasped (Meadowlanrk) with his feet, they say.
Then ho picked him up, he took him away (gol "to the outside, away"),
and he became a wild thing (gosk6) for ever, that Chickenhavwi Chiof."l
In SoP mythology, the final incidont is more closely intograted
with the ploto   In one myt,h Sparrowhawk (litlis) is married to Wildcat,
tho symbol of passionate or promiscuous womon, and the pair have a childo
Wildcat elopes with Screech-owl.   Sparrovwhawk pursues thom and tries to
take the woman baclk but is defeated in the fight for her.  A-fter four
unsuccossful attempts, Sparrowhawk gives up his claim on the woman.   On
the following day she returns of her own will, only to be rejoeted by
her husband. The text continues:
"'IFor what purpose have you come here? You ought to be married to
1nother man.  I don't want youO.t.o t
"Alt dawn he awoke; then he arose; he built a fire and cooked game.
Then he woke his own child; then he fed him game; he didn't feed his own
wife. The child finished eating the gamo. (He said) to his wife, tGo
outi Wic will go away.' He picked up his own child and carriod him
152
outside; he put tho child outsido.   Sp .rrowhrawvk went back into the house.
Then ho set fire to the inside of the houseo Ho sot his own house afire.
"'Then he lifted the child on his back and went, uphill, to the old
tree, ho went, wont, went.   His wtrife went bohind him, the woman.  Ho
arrive-d at his own tree.  He liftod the child on his back; ho clitmbed up
high, up to the top, placing the child in a fork of the treo; then,
'tlit lit lilt lilt lit,' he said.  The chi-ld for his own part gave a call.
Wildcat, his wife, sat close to the trce; she wailed; Mr husband,' she
said; 'My husband, come down.  I want my child,' the woman wailed.
'lilt lilt lif lil li]t,' he said.
"That arm disappeared; it became a wing; dovm grew; feathers grow;
then they became birds and flew away.   Thon his vwife, the woman, 'I in
turn will become a wildcat,' she said and ran down into the brush."
Sic.ilarly, in the myth of Skunk 71oman and her children, Skunk Wloman,
pretending illnoss, sends her children to call their greatuncles, the
Elks, to come and cure her. Pretending to have a pain in her loweer ab-
domen, she causes the Elks to suck there And kills them by breaking windo
Then, sonding the children far off to the ocean to wvash the tripo, she
greedily eats all the good meat& -.-WThen the children return, she tolls
them that Elks came and took the moat and that they must content thom-
solves wirith tripe.
After tho fourth repotition of this incident, the Elks become sus-
picious and rofuse to come when c.alled by tho children.  Lt this, the
children kill all the remaining Elks themselvos by breaking wind in
through the openings of the Elks' swoa"thouse, roast the meat, lnd o.t it.
The text conti nuess
"Their mother, Skunk WI'omcan, having missed them, having missod her
children, went off towards thore c.ftor them. Having done so, she arrived
there, while her childron were eating moat. Those childron becamo angry,
vrhcn their mother came, thoy chased their mlother lviaway  'You (are the
one who) didn't lot us cat good mcat.   (It is) nowr (that) wo oat good
meat.  Don't come in herdt Go awayl'
"'They having done so, their mother, having gone off, turned into a
skunk.  Now, those children ate up the meat   they ate up all the Elks.
Having done so, now) they burned the swreathouse. Having done. so, now,
"'Te will be skunks," (they said, and) they turned into skunks,"
On the basis of these and similar less detailed mythological
pa.ssages (2) the Outside can be char.acterized as the reralm of the animal
ns opposed to the human. Further, tho animal inhabitants of the Outside
:ire, in a more than metaphorical sense, fallen angcls, tho ancient peru
potrators or victims of some destructive-which is to sa:y, sinful-acto
Aboriginally, Pomo parents and chiefs ongaged in considerable moralistic
preaching, .and the burden of much of this was that fighting and quarrel-
ing wore to be avoided   The physical and verbal violenceo which such
153
proeaching dofioied  a.wrong arc substantially th, s..mo kinds of bohavior
that led to tho mythological animc lst becoming vwild things.
Tho propor rttitude towards tho Outsido is one of awe a-nd rcspect.
Any levity towards the Outside, evon on tho part of an anthropologist,
producos nervousness among the Pomo. An anthropologist who rras in the
area at the same time as I innocontly onough produced excollent imita-
tions of the hoot of a certain small owl, which invariably arouscd appre-
hensivo tittering among ^ny Pomo who ,rere writhin earshot.  On one occa-
sion, when I mado a discourteous romark in tho genoral direction of a
noisy moedowlark, I was surprisod to find that I had severely shocked my
NoP informant.  She reprimanded me for tho thoughtless action, saying
that such behavior might come under the categories callod gowkva
barlema?an "to ridicule the Outside" or gow,ka? nanamo"lon "to rivl the
Outside."  Tho former expression also appliest      y transgression of
moral rules or taboos, and the latter to any attompt "to do somothing
which is in the powor of the Outside only."  A SoP oxpression gu:lun
na:namhuy, containing a verb cognato with NoP nanamo9on, wfas transl-tod
'tos"to disoboy tho Outside," C.g., by disregarding an injunction
receivod in a dream, or by disobeying a parent, or by being on bad terms
with f*nyone. Another SoP expression, gu:lun i_:tofay    "to disbclieov
the Outsido," also applies to failurc to pay attontion to one's droams.
In the matter of the owl imitation, there may havo been some assoc-
iation with beliefs conoerning sorcery. Aboriginally, the Pomo would
not normally travel by night oxcepting sorcerers on a mission. These in
some cases travelled in bear disguise, caccompanied by .n assistant who
produced ovwl calls and who was said to be "playing owl" for the sorceror.
The sorcorer would approaoh the house of his victim from outside the
villa Go.
The Outs ide appears from the above as in some sense a source of
power, as a source of supern4atural sanction for moral and religious
rulos, and as the agency of punishmont for infractions of such rules.
As a source of punishment, the Outsido is somnetimes conceivcd of quito
vaguely, the statcmont being madc that if you "do somothing wrrong,"
then at some later time, whon you go to the Outsido, "you might see somo-
thing" or "something might happon to you."   In other cs.ses, specific
localitios have thc poilor to punish specific infractions. Therc is a
NoP belief, for example, that a woman wvho brcalcs menstrual taboos will
bo strickon with siolmess when shc noxt passes near certain bitter
springs (k6mka). A SoP ethnological text tells of n fisherman who,
against his better judgment but instigatod by his wife, broke the taboo
against mixing fish and game by skinning a rabbit during the season when
he wa.s engaged in sotting fish woirs.  On his next trip to his fish woir
he foll into the stream and disappcered.  He was presumod dronmod, but
in actuality had been pulled down by a spirit called the Long-Hairod Fish
'.Voman (hc?teiloh'sa), who reproachod him Las follows:
u"You havo handled unclcan things.  These salmon are my childron.
You, thc orner of the basket-hole Zfish woir7, mado thom go around a
154
polluted place. Your handE are a11 over blood. Not in this way should
you stalk my children. You are unclean, having handled the blood of small
game. On your hands nothing but blood stinks, and you stalk my childrent
Look at this hair of (ciine. Loosening this hair of mine I let it float out
on the water. It is behind my hair that my children come. This being the
case, after this if you wish to set baskets, you shall not touch the blood
of small game. It is in order to tell you this that I took you for a while,
This being the case, go home."
The fisherman then returned home, to the discomfiture of his wife and
relatives, who had already destroyed his possessions and gone into mourning.
This last episode, involving the apparition of a supernatural being,
bears a certain resemblance to reported cases of a kind of catatonic trance
induced by such apparitions. The phenomenon is described in the literarure
under the rubric Itfrightening.el I did not collect any detailed data on
"frighteningt but obtained the impressions from several oblique comments
by informants, that, "frightening" was always punishment by the Outside for
the infraction of a taboo. This impression- receives some confirmation
from a check of the literature in that the actual "frightening" is invari-
ably reported as taking place away from the 'rancheria, and in those cases
where a cause is attributed, it is repoited as the breaking of a taboo.
The cure, of course, is performed at home, in the Inside (3).
Conversely, the Outside is also a source of favor and protection, in
which capacity it is often approached through prayer.   The practice was
still commonly observed in 1940 of uttering a short informal prayer with
the first puff of a cigarette, especially one obtained from some one else.
The smoker would turn slightly away from his companion or companions and
direct the puff of smoke outwards and upwards. He would then usually
utter the invooatory formula SEP E Twe, EaP y6' sumg', NoP y     sime0,
SoP yuhsuwe, yuhsuwelli, with or witout a longer prayer.
Following are portions of EaP smoking prayers which were recited
to me as typical.
it .sum6'. Make it lucky. This summer let me find money,
-let me become a rich man.. '?6w, grant it from the Outside
(d     a  ii r66) at.
"hyo.  This summer let me go around well (i.e., safely).   hyo's
Then, lst me go around with a sound heart (ie., in good health),
let me reach old age. Now, this season has come. 76w, grant it to
me from the Outside (Tapv dk        i)
it YPsum4'. May the day break well, I say beseeching you the
OutsideTfa-l*01 ba'di?kIin);  (give me) things I have not earned,
good magnesite beads, baskets, all kinds of things, money, too,
I say; thus I am praying.    To you of the Outside (mg    .1?60baX)
Our Father, you who made us, I say it.     I say thisto you, UIl Man
tirum_da, who created us. -w, may it come true, I say, being
(    )    ,   t    t~~~~~~#
155
NoP prayers, according to my data, ure not explicitly addressed to the
Outside, but seem implicitly to be so directed, as in the following two
exampleso-
"Let me be healthy, let me be strong.   Do not let anything bad
bome to me.  I have snothing with which to- pay you, sinee I am poor
(ka,i' ayak5) oit
"Accept from me this poor (kapitayake') food, before I let
people eat it.  Have pity (ka_p__   adim_ on me for this.  Let the
peoplets affairs go well.   Do not let people quarrel when they eat
this.  Let everything be well for everybodya   '6&, now ye hear me*"
SoP prayers are addressed usually to am:a KahtLmuyJ0o "tIWorld that lies
extended," as in the followlng smoking prayer:
llruhsuweto Make it good for my childreno Make it clear for
my children. Oh world that lies extended, have pity on me."
In other SoP prayers, similarly addressed, the author of the prayer
is described as "claiming kinship with the Outside (gu3lunhkay nLmn     du)
or even as addressing the Outside as "Father& Mothert"    Thus, in a myth
relating to a time of famine, Old Man Coyote prayed as follows:
"ttW?orld that lies extended, have pity on us, have pity on my
children have pity on my rancheria (amsa J ahtiMuyyos Utbatgacinyan
tbat    ie g      ya, 'i:batga inke no          Sitting on a knoll on
top of a hill, Old Man Coyote was talking. He claimed kinship to the
Outside (      h     ganimaedu)."
Again, a text describes the prayer offered by a doctor at the feast
following a curing ceremony. The doctor stands by a fire with a basket
of food in his hands, faces east, and prays:
"ttThis I eat (sharing it) with you, world that lies extended
(am:a ,            WahtimyAo)o With this offering let me be healthy. I speak
humbly (Xtba taw).    I humbly oall you my kin(g   4imedu)    I
talk humbly to you.  With this offering let me be healthy. With
this offering let (things) be clear (for me),   I eat this food
(sharing it) with you.' He'drops the food into the fire" (4).
The survival of the practioe of praying to the Outside raises almost
automatically the question whether the Outside was not aboriginally the
object of other ritual observances.   Data on this point are exceedingly
sparse, but two relevant observations can be made. First, several of the
Pomo groups did or possibly still do observe a first fruits ceremony in
the spring   The SoP ceremony centered on wild: potatoes, the SWfP ceremony
on wild strawberries, and the SEP ceremony on wild tobacco. A text des-
oribing the SoP ceremony indicates that it was conceived of as a year-
opening ceremony whose nucleus was the yearts first consumption of pro-
ducts of the Outside (5). The SEP ceremony has latterly been carried
156
out on the first Sunday in Mlay and was observed in 1940.  I could not
obtain the text of the sacred song which formed the climax of the ceremony.
The song was followed by the passing of a pipe containing new crop wild
tobacco, from vrhich all present took a puff and then uttered the formula
yo &we with or without a short prayer. Aboriginally, this ceremony ini-
tiated the ceremonial season during which the Kuksu Cult Dances were per-
formed. Second, the name of the SEP Kuksu Cult Ghost ceremony is cinamfo
Xeo The cinamfo, lit. "Outside People," apparently represented siiul;_W
taneously certain aspects of the wild and the ghosts of the recently
dead (6)e
In summary, based oi the data presented here, the Outside, whether
nceived as a concrete ecpanse of territory or as an abstract incorporeal
Nature, can be characterized as the sphere of the wild, the animal, the
dangerous, and as endowed with supernatural powrer to punish and to reward.
The Inside cannot be positively characterized from the data, but it seems
a reasonable inference that it is the sphere of the tame, the human, the
safe, the ordinary, and, vis-a-vis the Outside, as weak, insecure, and
supplicanto Confidence in these characterizations in necessarily limited
by the sporadic nature of the data, which were, as previously noted,
collected incidentally to other inquiriess  The qualification must also
be made that the concept may well be less uniform throughout the Pomo
area than is suggested by this presentation. There are also certain
rather puzzling questions that could be raised concerning the historioal
depth of the concepto I have no doubt that it is aboriginal, although
certain features of the prayers cited above indicate modifications under
the influence of the post-contact Ghost Dance and in all likelihood of
Christianity as well. There is also the matter of the etymological hetero-
geneity of the terms referring to the Outside. One of them, SEP cina,
may well be a loanword, possibly from Patwino The others could plausibly
be interpreted as loan translations of one another.   In this case the
concept, though aboriginal, may quite conceivably be of no great depth,
historically speaking.
From the standpoint of the ethnological present, however, a sufficient
number of ramifications has been indicated to suggest that the Outside-
Inside dichotomy is one of those permeative ideas which sometimes provide
a l-ink of psychological association, if not of logical consistency, between
several practices in a given culture which otherwise might seem superfi-
cially unrelated.
One is also tempted to regard the data presented here as throwing
a useful sidelight on Pomo character structure. The natural environment
in vrhich the Pomo live is far from a hostile one except, one may guess,
insofar as man has projected upon it those capacities for anger and magical
destructiveness which he dares not express in his own behavior. The Pomo
image of man, the Inside thing, seems to be crystallized in the terms
whioh occur so frequently in the prayers: NoP ka pij*yaw and its CeP
and EaP cognates;  SoP Witba:taw and its S.W?P cognate; and SEP Xomago'al.
All appear to have an identical range of meaning, which can be-indicated
by the series "pitiable-wretched-humble-poor.' Consistently with this,
15?
the Pomo seem to live on a fairly high lovel of dpprehensiveness, partic..
ularly with regard to the future.  A fairly common conversational gambit
between ethnographer and informa.nt consisted in the ethnographer taking
leave of the informant with some remark to the effect that he would be
back to see the informant next week; the standard reply was something
like, "Yes, boy, you come back and see meo  I'll be here, if I don't die.o"
This reluctance to commit oneself to a positive prodict'ion of even the
near future may also account for the unusual difficulty experienced in
getting information as to the precise date on which, say, a scheduled
dance or ceremony would take place.
Similarly, the accumulation of wealth in the' form of baskets, shell-
bead money, etc., was still in 1940 undertaken in a compulsive spirit.
The symbols of wealth seemed to bo regarded as a necessary form of in-
surance against some dimly sonsed, but imminent, disaster which could
not be adequately coped with by means of one's inner resources alone.
Man, then, for the Pomo, is an impotent creature, who can achieve
success by self-abasement and by supplication. By these means he may
gain for himself the favorable intervontion of the sources of power.
Conversoly, by self-restraint, by the repression of his impulses and the
strict observance of moral and religious rulos, ho may avoid their un-
favorable intervention. This code is not only subscribed to but fairly
generally observed by typical Pomo--which does not exclude from Pomo
character a rather formidable capacity for hate.
158
EIDNOTES
(1) A linguistic survey of the Pomo family was cctrried out in 1939-40
on funds suppli6d by the Department of Anthropology, University of
Chicago. MlIost of the data cited in this paper are from my unpub-
lished notes and will not be moro specifically cited. Abbroviations
used ares  SoP-Southern Pomo; SlTIP-Southvestern Pomo; CeP-Central
Pomo; NoP-Northern Pomo; EaP-"Eastorn Pomo; SEP-Southeastern Pomo.
The Northeastern Pomo are excluded from consideration.
(2)  See, for example, S. A. Barrett, "Pomo   .!yths," Bulletin of the
Public Mseum of the City of Milwaukee, Vol. 15, esp. pp. 85, 106ff.,
180, 187, and 304.
(3)  Cf. La S. Freeland, "Pomo Doctors and Po.isoners," Univ. of Calif.
Publ. in Amer. Archaeol. and Ethnol., Vol. 20, pp. 57-73.    Especially
interesting is Freeland's report of a Pomo classification of dis-
eases as "from outside" and "from inside," and her statement that
"thoso of the first sort are in the main the 'frightening casesO."
See also Eo Me Loeb, "Pomo Folkways," Univ. of Calif. Publ. in
Amer. Archaeol. and Ethnolo, vol. 19, no. 2, pp322-23, and
E. M. L    7, TheWlfestern Kuksu Cult," Univ. of Califo Publo in
Amer. Archaeol. and Ethnol., vol. 33, no.         pp   .
(4)  The term for "offering" in the text of this passage is benli:, un-
doubtedly a loanword from Spanish.
(5) E. W. Gifford, "Clear Lake Pomo Society," Unive of Calif. Publ. in
Amer. Archaeol. and Ethnol., vol. 18, no. E p. 386, reports that
among the SEP "ffowas never sold, being regarded as 'wild produce*"'
According to my own, recollection of informants' statements, which I
apparently failed to record in writing, the same was true of other
Pomo groups.
(6)  This ceremony is briefly described in E. M. Loeb, "The Wlestern Kuksu
Cult," Unive of Calif. Puble in Amer. Archacol. and Ethnol., vol. 33,
no. 1, pp. 126-27. I rely here also on unpublished notes of my own.
159