Cross Reference: Portraiture as Calumet
“Adoption in the neighboring Awatíkihu (Five Villages) that surrounded Fort Clark happened through the calumet.[13] Calumets were common among Missouri River peoples as a means to create the adoptive kin relationships needed for trade. A typical trade event lasted for days and could occur between hostile parties, as long as the calumet was invoked, to create a temporary connection:
Exchange events typically began with advance messengers giving notice to a host community that a group planned a trading visit. Following a period of preparation on both sides, the host community extended an invitation to enter the village and feasts were held, along with a council to fix prices. After several days the calumet ceremony itself was held, cementing a fictive kinship relationship between leading men of each group, and by extensions [sic] their followers, both men and women. The event concluded with social dances, dancing for gifts, and gambling. Goods changed hands at each step of this complex process.[14]
As exceptionally effective tools for binding parties together, calumets later became a central feature of the pays d'en haut and the shared customs of the French fur trade.[15]” Go to page.