Súumesh - Wéyekin - Baaxpée
Some Perimeters - No Definition - Acknowledge variations and exceptions
Story Texts: Young Man's Visitors while on a Fast, the Mole, Earth and Internal Bleeding, Little People at John's Home (Crow examples)
sometimes referred to as “medicine”
Amotqn - “the one who sits at the head mountain” (Coeur d'Alene) - Akbaatatdía "maker of all things first" (Crow) - the Creator (originates with)
Titwa-tityá-ya - “Animal Peoples” - "Amotqn's Messengers" (any spirit being, not just "animal"; clarifies nature, application and restrictions; it is an exclusive, personal relationship; these are the same beings as in perennial creation time)
Story Text: Salmon in Creation time or Eagle while traveling and hand raised
Mediated and expressed in/through song and medicine bundle contents/objects -
Story Texts: Eagle Feathers in a medicine bundle, Little People and an evening's visit World of the Crow p.69, or John and the Squirrel
Snqhepi'wes - “where the spirit lives, from horizon to horizon” (may entail physical properties but its power, volition, animation and efficacy resides in the transcendent, the spiritual)
Story Text: Brew and Diabetes or Gift of the Eagle Feathers while on a drive from Billings (World of the Crow p. 96)
Alters the lives of all peoples (human, fish, animal, plant, landscape itself), its power and vitality can transform, perpetuate and bring life, health and well-being to others.
Understood as very real and tangible; not based upon "belief," not a psychological state.
Story Texts: Vietnam Solider and Medicine Pouch, White Woman at the Sundance (World of the Crow p. 64). Healing Ceremonies.
“The Dove” p. 176 "Landscape . . . ."
Súumesh songs/objects should be differentiated from a range of other songs/objects, such as snqhepi'wes songs used while hunting or root digging, during a sweat or a wake, or, even in vary degrees of spiritual reverence, at a powwow (some powwow songs are more social and publicly shared, while others more revered and "sacred," and entitled to be sung by a few).
While súumesh songs seek to renew a kinship with one's particular and personal Titwa-tityá-ya and thus the Creator in order to apply its transformative powers and "give back," snqhepi'wes songs seek to renew a kinship with the snqhepi'wes in general in order to facilitate a communications with it, to offer a prayer.
While súumesh songs are derived from an exclusive, personal relationship with an Animal Person, snqhepi'wes songs are more generally linked with the spirit world, and can be shared and passed to others more readily, such as when an elder teaches and passes along certain hunting songs to his grandkids or certain powwow songs are shared with a new generation of singers.
"The Songs are For . . ." p. 220 "Landscape . . . . "
"Song is the Hoof Glue of Our People" p. 238 "Landscape . . . "