The Comanches as Aboriginal Skeptics

Abstract

vention, syncretism, multiple religious participation) and the role of individualistic ritual are overshadowed. Much of the qualitative dimension-the uniqueness of the constellation of meanings assembled by particular culture groups-is lost. Ultimately, those tribes that fall outside the pale of big ritual trait distribution are liable to be assigned a secondary status as atypical or In light of the prevailing documentation of their religious behavior (Wallace and Hoebel 1952), and by the usual criteria for Plains religion, the Comanches might indeed appear to be marginal. They had little of the Sun Dance or Ghost Dance, there were only traces of medicine societies among them, no tribal fetishes, and their mythic corpus seemed a patchwork in comparison with the myth cycles of other tribes. For revelations they practiced the Plains-style vision quest, but also relied on unsought dreams as the western tribes did. Though