Summarising slightly, 'freedom' in modern societies implies a lack of hierarchical order in the universe; and the hierarchical order is dependent on oppositional encounters (such as in the Winnebego village symmetries.)
The clans are a higher-level hierarchy (than individuals), and one of Radin's typical themes (also in Primitive Religion) is the mismatch between the religious formulator (shaman) and the man-of-action (often called esoteric versus exoteric)
This comes out in the war-bundle feast (Thunderbird clan) and description of the Peyote Cult. The latter was a type of degradation of old rituals into the religious formulations of John Rave and others who offended traditionalists by 'going white' (ie Christian.)
The Thunderbird clan war-bundle feast was originally a gathering of warriors led by the Thunderbird host. As the pursuit of war became less important (owing to white influence)
..our original gathering of warriors, while still remaining a gathering of warriors, also became a ceremonial organisation, on which offerings were made to the entire Winnebego pantheon of spirits. (page 386)
Radin argues that the 'type' of individual required for a war-bundle was quite special, and thisctended to mean there was only one bundle in each clan - which then became associated with the clan as an emblem.
The reason for the small number of war-bundles is to be sought in the fact that there was a very small number of individuals possessed of the necessary qualifications, and that it was probably originally associated with villages or groups of villages. (page 387)
The distinction between individual and clan goes back to ancient Greek drama and the rebellious person/family who get into trouble with the authorities (city-state.) According to Radin,
If, therefore, the actual owners resent this claim of clan proprietorship both by reason of actual possession, of inheritance and consciousness of the sacrifices and expense they and their ancestors have incurred in maintaining the ceremonial connected with these bundles it is nevertheless a fact that their viewpoint is probably wrong in so far as it is supposed to represent the entire truth, either now or in the past. The actual unit of organisation found at the feast is the clan and there, at any rate, the war-bundle is a clan palladium. (page 387)
This sort of in-depth argument between types and the 'state' or upper hierarchy goes through Radin's work and is truly enlightening. In other words, the 'facts' depend entirely on interpretation. It puts all sorts of doubts into the testimony of people who are ostensibly Winnebego, but have lost the thread of the traditions. Their testimonies are varied and sometimes contradictory.
Part of the reason is there are different 'types'; part of the reason is the clan and the family of a warrior are different levels of hierarchy.
The real problem with the present day Winnebego (or Cree) is that the active life is missing and is often replaced by a religious or ceremonial formulation (of the priest.) There's is a sort of religious overthought.
In terms of origin, The Medicine Dance is for sure the most authentic depiction in dance ritual of
..the popular cycles relating to the Trickster, Hare, Turtle, Red-Horn, and the Twins. (page 390)
The Medicine Dance is to do with the presence of death, and in some respects similar to the Orpheus myth, where Orpheus in the underworld rescuing Eurydice was told "not to look back" or she would be lost forever.
Around the earth they started. "Not to look back," grandmother said. "I wonder why she said it." Thus he thought. So he looked back just the least bit to his left. The place he had started from caved in instantaneously. "O my! O my! A man I thought you were a person of prominence, and I had encouraged you very much. But now, Grandson, decay, death can, in no way, be taken back." That is what she meant, it is said. (page 305)
Rituals of departure and bad spirits of course feature in the Dance. If the Medicine origin is to do with aging, it shows the overarching factor of time and how this is depicted
All this implies movement - the athletic body, sinuous, the singing throat- and this is also so for the animal emblem of each clan. The animals are 'real animals' (bear, deer) and the ancestry goes back to the origin where animals could shape-change to humans.
The practice of having a ceremony where animals are depicted as spirits is almost a degradation of the active life of clan and communes.
Now, I want to extend this further to the idea that modernity is not an active society (of the body, dance), but a passive one of the head. Our 'priests' are the shaman and religious formulator. They don't deal with the body in an active (expressive) state of dance and ritual, but in an isolated state of dessicated, passive survival where the head is convinced by 'facts' (of its dominance.)
Interpretation of 'facts' (in ethnology) is dependent on theevel of hierarchy one chooses, be it isolated points at one extreme, or villages and star-constellations at the other.
Movement - of the body, in the commune - deter ines behaviour, in that a dance is movement in ritual behaviour. All this is a process of bone, skin, muscle, the finely stretched frame that dances and expresses stories of meaning.
This is meaning in the hierarchy; a hierarchy is the level above the body, the level where the body is moving and expressing itself
In other words, the entire universe of hierarchical movement is something modern priests are not dealing with. They are concerned with isolated points (individuals), dessicated labs, a d the information they obtain, the algorithms that result.
A Medicine Dance is movement, meaning and hierarchy (clan, commune), something that is nor a millionmiles away from Buffy's
ADAMyoutu.be/WrgM3OpkTTw (from Illuminations, 1969, acoustic with Buchla 100 synthesizer)
