CUSTOMS AND CEREMONIES
Few Europeans can look at the world from the Amerind point of view,
because few know what it means to have lands free. Happy the man who
has trod the wilderness primeval, and tasted the world in its original
freshness. He alone can understand what the Amerind has lost forever.
When I first went into the West about thirty years ago, the regions we
traversed were untamed, and often we did not meet even Amerinds for
weeks at a time. Such a condition has its charms, and when we remember
that, except in the southern regions of Mexico, the native American
was born and bred to it, we can see that it must be a difficult matter
for him to suddenly change. But a few generations hence, where once he
scaled the cliffs, or followed the deer, he will be sitting down to
a course dinner in a swallow-tail coat. He has already conquered at
football, and the rest of the downward road will be easy for him!
[Illustration: MOKI WICKER CRADLE WITH AWNING CARRYING BASKET OF THE
ARIKAREES
In the smaller figure the awning is over the bowed end
]
Our general impression of the native American, the Amerind, is that he
is a kind of human demon, or wild animal, never to be trusted, unable
to keep a compact, always thirsting for gore; but it is a mistake. He
is not altogether unreliable. The Iroquois maintained the “covenant
chain” with the British unbroken for a round century. The Amerind
never broke faith with Penn, and it is seldom that he will violate any
compact that he fully understands he has entered into. His daily life
in the earlier days was by no means bloodthirsty. Powell has truly
said that the scalping-knife was no more the emblem of pre-Columbian
society than the bayonet is of ours of the nineteenth century. In the
United States existence of a trifle over a hundred years have been
waged several long and bloody wars, one the most gigantic known to
history, all police records are full of horrible crimes the Amerind
was a stranger to, and within a year or so _white people_ have
burned alive several victims. When anyone defends the Amerind he is
accused of trying to make an angel of him, but this only shows again
how universally unjust toward him we are. We are blind to our own
shortcomings and exaggerate those of the Amerind. It was inevitable
that the weaker race should be forced to the wall, but we can at least
give it credit for any good that was in it without injuring ourselves.
In estimating their traits we do not regard them enough from their own
standpoint, and without so regarding them we cannot understand them.
The Amerind was something of a farmer, of an architect, of an engineer,
of a statesman, of an artist, the amount and quality of his interest
in these things depending, as with us, on circumstances. In most
localities, he achieved for all what all are with us still dreaming to
attain, “liberty and a living,” and his methods of government possessed
admirable qualities. We call him lazy and despise him for it, but many
of our people would not work if they could avoid it. One of Balzac’s
characters is made to say: “I fear God; but I am still more afraid of
the hell of poverty. To be without a penny is the last degree of misery
in our present social state.” The great philosopher here put European
life in a nut-shell. The Amerind was fortunate perhaps in not knowing
what poverty, as we understand it, is. With him the keen eye, the
woodman’s skill, and a generous and abundant soil gave him his daily
bread. The idea of piling up treasure for the satisfaction of holding
it did not occur to him any more than did killing of game for pleasure.
A tribe may have passed through famine, but the individual never knew
hunger in the midst of riches, as the civilised man so often meets
it. Not long ago a whole family wandering about the streets of New
York, homeless and without food, dropped from exhaustion at the corner
of Thirty-fourth Street and Broadway. In Amerind society, such an
occurrence would have been impossible. No friendly stranger ever left
an Amerind village hungry, if that village had a supply of food. And
“the hungry Indian,” says Powell, “had but to ask to receive, and this
no matter how small the supply or how dark the future prospect. It was
not only his privilege to ask, it was his right to demand.”
The Amerind distribution of food was based on long custom, on tribal
laws; food was regarded like air and water, as a necessity that should
in distress be without money and without price. Hospitality was a
law, and was everywhere observed faithfully till intercourse with the
methods of our race demolished it. Among isolated tribes it is still
observed. Among the Mokis a hungry man of any colour is cheerfully fed.
[Illustration: TLINKIT MAN AND WOMAN, 30 YEARS AGO, OR ABOUT 1870
“The labret, a small cylinder of silver with a broad head, is the
modern style of lip ornament, differing materially from the large
ones worn until a few years ago.”—Niblack
Many tribes wore lip, nose, and ear ornaments
]
We cannot seriously condemn the Amerind for not jumping at the
opportunity to tie himself to the plough, or to the ledger, or the
grindstone. He was, as a rule, close to Nature, and like all men who
live thus he imbibed some of her grandeur. He lived in independence;
and when he died, he died as the sun sets at evening, expiring in
glory, without a tear, without lamentations. In the hands of the enemy
at the stake, his passing away was sublime, like the summer cloud that
sails steadily out into the infinite blue and dissolves. The most
painful tortures failed to bring a moan to his lips, or a tear to his
defiant eye, and his proud spirit departed in silence. An offer of
liberty was frequently refused. Charnay tells of a Tlaxcaltec chief, of
great fame as a warrior, who was captured and who, on being recognised,
was offered his freedom. He refused to accept it and desired to be
devoted to the gods, as was the custom. He was tied to the gladiatorial
stone, where he killed eight warriors and wounded twenty others before
being overpowered and offered up to the war-god.
The habit of mind and body of dense commercial populations tends toward
degeneration because it is a concentration in one line. The Western
mountaineer exhibits the effect of removal from trade considerations
in a repose of manner and a tranquillity of nerves which strongly
suggest the Amerind. “There are incommensurable differences,” says
Balzac, “between the man who mingles with others and him who dwells
with Nature. Once captured, Toussaint Louverture died without uttering
a word, while Napoleon on his rock chattered like a magpie.”
Freedom of limb and strength of mind eliminated much disease from the
native races. Deformity amongst Amerinds was rare. There were seldom
cases of diseased spine, blindness, insanity, squinting eyes, deafness,
or any deficiency or excess of the organs.[312] Sitting Bull was a
fine specimen of the Amerind, and he was a man of great ability. Such
men could not be enslaved, and from the first the European efforts to
reduce the red race to slavery were failures. They held their own in
most localities, and often compelled governments to treat with them
as with a sovereign power. Where the treaties were kept by the other
side the Amerind seldom violated them. Penn never had any difficulty
because he treated the Amerinds fairly and honourably. Oñate, in his
long journey across Arizona, had no conflict with the natives, but
found them without exception friendly, and this was the experience of
other explorers who were just. The native was a child. He expected
absolute fidelity and truthfulness from the whites, though he did
not always give this in return; once let him detect prevarication or
deceit, and his confidence vanished. He never forgave a white man for
talking “crooked,” and those who have been invariably truthful and
honourable toward him have commanded trust and respect. I know two men
who had great influence over the Navajos because they had always been
fair and just to them. “We call them cruel,” says George Bancroft, “yet
they never invented the thumb-screw, or the boot, or the rack, or broke
on the wheel, or exiled bands of their nations for opinion’s sake;
and never protected the monopoly of a medicine man by the gallows, or
the block, or by fire. There is not a quality belonging to the white
man which did not also belong to the American savage; there is not
among the aborigines a rule of language, a custom, or an institution
which when considered in its principle has not a counterpart among
their conquerors.”[313] Throughout the continent there was a general
homogeneity of customs and ceremonies which separates the Amerindian
races from the rest of the world, and argues an immense period of
isolation from all other people.
[Illustration: A PAWNEE IN BATTLE ARRAY
Photographed by J. K. Hillers, U. S. Geological Survey
]
Some tribes have become civilised, like the Iroquois, the Cherokees,
and the Choctaws. Some tribes of Arizona and the contiguous regions are
at the other end of the scale, living a rude life, even for Amerinds,
and subsisting on uncultivated products of the soil, like piñon nuts,
fruits of cactus and yucca, “_yant_,” a kind of agave, and seeds of
grasses, as well as on what game the sterile region affords. The grass
seeds are, some of them, large and fat, and make nutritious food.
Many tribes cultivated a grain that has no superior in the world for
its yield, its ease of cultivation, and its nutritious qualities.
This was maize, or Indian corn, which grows in new ground with little
attention, and can be dried and stored indefinitely. No machinery was
required to separate it from the husk, and it was easily reduced to
meal or flour between two stones or in a mortar. Nor did it even need
to be ground, but, roasted in pits, or prepared in other ways, it
offered a palatable and nutritious food, even before the ripening.
Dried, or parched, it was carried on journeys, and dried venison added
to it made a strengthening diet. There were, besides, other foods,
like beans, squashes, native fruits and berries, and nuts. Nor was the
native without beverages, some of them intoxicating; the _pulque_, or
_octli_ of the Mexicans, extracted from the maguey, being a well-known
example. There are many varieties of this drink, though all are made in
the same way. In the spring the central part of the plant is removed,
leaving a cup-like cavity which fills up with juice, that is taken out
from time to time, and put into a kind of vat made of hide stretched
on four poles. After fermentation, bitter herbs are added. _Mezcal_ is
another drink made from a smaller kind of maguey. It is a colourless,
brandy-like liquid, produced by distillation since the Conquest, but
before that made by boiling, just as the Comanches make it to-day.[314]
The Kaivavits and Uinkarets made a kind of wine out of the fruit of
the cactus. The fruit was put into a cloth and the juice squeezed out.
This was then allowed to ferment, and I was told produced intoxication,
though I never observed this result. The cake resulting from the
process was consumed as food, being sliced down like bread, and eaten
without further preparation. The Pimas and Maricopas, after drying
cactus fruit in the sun, macerate it in water, and after fermentation
get drunk on the compound.
[Illustration: THE KWAKIUTL WOLF DANCE CALLED WĀLASAXA, NORTH-WEST
COAST]
_Tortillas_ were made of maize, “shelled and soaked in an alkali to
remove the hull, then repeatedly washed in cold water.”[315] This
product was then ground on a metate, beaten into flat cakes, and baked
on an earthen griddle called _comalli_. _Tiste_ was parched corn ground
with chocolate and sugar and mixed with water. _Atolli_ was a drink
made of cornmeal cooked in water. _Chocolatl_ was prepared “by grinding
equal parts of cacao beans and seeds of _pochotl_ or _sequoia_, which
were then boiled. This liquid was shaken up to make it frothy, mixed
with dough made of maize and then submitted to a new cooking to thicken
it.”[316]
No tribe learned to use the milk of any animal. The bison was about the
only native animal that offered any. In the whisky of the whites they
found their fate, and this has done more than any other single cause
except smallpox to destroy the race. For it they exchanged tobacco, and
the white man smokes as the Amerind drinks.
[Illustration: UTE WOMAN CARRYING CHILD]
Beckwourth, referring to the trading of the mixture of alcohol and
water called whisky on the frontier in his day, to the natives,
remarks: “This trading whisky for Indian property is one of the most
infernal practices ever entered into by man. Let the reader sit down
and figure up the profits on a forty-gallon cask of alcohol, and he
will be thunderstruck, or, rather, whisky-struck. When disposed of,
four gallons of water are added to each gallon of alcohol. In two
hundred gallons there are sixteen hundred pints, for each one of which
the trader gets a buffalo robe worth five dollars! The Indian women
toil many long weeks to dress these sixteen hundred robes. The white
trader gets them all for worse than nothing, for the poor Indian
mother hides herself and children in the forests until the effect of
the poison passes away from the husbands, fathers, and brothers who
love them when they have no whisky, and abuse and kill them when they
have.... In short, the sixty gallons of fire-water realised to the
company over eleven hundred robes and eighteen horses, worth in St.
Louis six thousand dollars.”[317]
[Illustration: KEOKUK, A SAUK CHIEF
George Catlin
]
These were the honourable methods employed by the fur companies. They
secured from the Amerinds thousands on thousands of dollars’ worth of
valuable property for, as Beckwourth says, “worse than nothing,” and
no man knew better than he the fearful effect of the fire-water on the
native. To-day there are a great many white men engaged in the same
traffic, despite the government’s efforts to crush it out. And still we
cannot understand why the “Indian has degenerated”!
A Cheyenne chief said: “White man, I have given you my robes, which my
warriors have spent months in hunting, and which my women have slaved
a whole year in dressing; and what do you give me in return? I have
nothing. You give me fire-water, which makes me and my people mad; and
it is gone, and we have nothing to hunt more buffalo with, and to fight
our enemies.”[318]
I never saw an Amerind smoke as much tobacco in a week as I have seen
Americans or English smoke in a single day. Tobacco and the pipe were
part of the Amerindian religious paraphernalia. The pipe seems not to
have been much used for ordinary smoking among the Nahuatl or Mexican
tribes, nor among the sedentary tribes of our South-west. They used
the cigarette chiefly, leaving the pipe for ceremonials, while the
West Indian tribes rolled the leaf up for smoking. Many Eastern tribes
cultivated tobacco extensively and were able to sell it to traders. It
was generally mixed with other leaves and bark for smoking, and among
the Eskimo with wood. The exact place of the pipe in the ceremonials of
the Eastern tribes is not yet thoroughly understood, but its function
was always an important one.[319] Among the Iroquois, when the horizon
was filled with “thunderheads,” or “sons of thunder,” in a period of
drought, it was a custom to burn tobacco, as an offering to bring rain.
Each family made an offering on its secret altar to Hinuⁿ, God of
Thunder, and then bore a portion to the council-house, where a general
offering was burned in the council fire. “While the tobacco was burning
the agile and athletic danced the rain dance.”[320]
The Eskimo of Alaska, it is asserted, will eat with relish the oily
refuse from the bottom of a pipe, and they are also fond of the
ashes of tobacco. The smoke is deeply inhaled by them, as by all the
tribes. Among the Arikarees a special pipe was kept in a “bird box.”
Any criminal or enemy who could reach this box and smoke the pipe was
free from molestation. This right of asylum is noticed in other ways.
It is said that the first whites who came among the Apaches, tired
and hungry, were not molested by them. Everywhere, if an enemy were
permitted to smoke the pipe or partake of food with the Amerinds he
was absolutely safe for the time being, both because of the pipe and
because the law of hospitality was never violated. If Macbeth had been
an Amerind no blood would have been shed on that fatal night, and
Duncan would have passed unharmed beyond the castle walls. The pipe was
the invariable accompaniment of all councils and treaties among Eastern
tribes, and it was the emblem of peace. Each village had its calumet,
a pipe of peace made of sacred pipe-stone, and whoever travelled with
it, passed, even among the enemy, with impunity. Envoys coming within
a short distance of the town would utter a cry and seat themselves on
the ground. “The great chief,” says George Bancroft, “bearing the peace
pipe of his tribe, with its mouth pointing to the skies, goes forth to
meet them, accompanied by a long procession of his clansmen, chanting
the hymn of peace. The strangers rise to receive them, singing also
a song, to put away all wars and to bury all revenge. As they meet,
each party smokes the pipe of the other, and peace is ratified. The
strangers are then conducted to the village; the herald goes out into
the street that divides the wigwams, and makes repeated proclamation
that the guests are friends; and the glory of the tribe is advanced by
the profusion of bear’s meat, and flesh of dogs, and hominy, which give
magnificence to the banquets in honour of the embassy.”[321] Thus
would a war terminate. In beginning it among Eastern tribes, various
ceremonies preceded the departure of the warriors, especially the
war dance or scalp dance and accompanying songs, expressing contempt
for death and certainty of victory. Beckwourth remarks: “When war is
declared on any tribe, it is done by the council.[322] If any party
goes out without authority of the council, they are all severely
whipped; and their whipping is no light matter, as I can personally
testify. It makes no difference how high the offender ranks, or how
great his popularity with the nation—there is no favour shown; the man
who disobeys orders is bound to be lashed, and if he resists or resents
the punishment, he suffers death.”[323] Faces were variously decorated
for the warpath; and sometimes when a tribe is full of anger and
resentment, but not engaged in actual war, they will paint themselves
strangely. Once I was among the Shevwits of Arizona (1875) when they
were nursing their wrath against the Mormons, and the faces of the men
were painted in a way that perhaps seemed terrible to them, but which
was laughable to me. Some had the face divided into three or four
sections by different colours, for example: forehead white; left side
of face, black; right side, red; with lines of each colour over the
others. Ordinarily the number of wounds received in battle is recorded
by streaks of vermilion.
[Illustration: SHRINE OF THE WAR-GODS, TWIN MOUNTAIN, PUEBLO OF ZUÑI,
NEW MEXICO]
Before the acquisition of firearms and the horse, and the crowding
back of tribe against tribe by the whites, wars were in some parts
rather infrequent. Night attacks were never made. Captives were
often compelled to run the gauntlet, and if they did it bravely they
were adopted into the tribe. Frequently a captive was given his life
without this ordeal if he would join the tribe of the captors and fill
the place of some slain warrior. Cooper utilises this custom where
Deerslayer is offered his liberty if he will take the wife and family
of one he has killed and become a member of the tribe. Such adoption
always rested, however, on the consent of the kindred of the deceased.
The war-gods were propitiated by acts of cruelty, and by human
sacrifices from among the prisoners. It is related by Bancroft[324]
that on one occasion the Iroquois sacrificed an Algonquin woman,
exclaiming, “Areskoni, to thee we burn this victim; feast on her
flesh and grant us new victories.” Her flesh was afterwards eaten as
a religious rite. Cannibalism of this kind prevailed in many tribes;
_always, ostensibly_, a religious ceremony, not a means of satisfying
hunger. The victims were often richly feasted and generously treated
for some time before being executed. Payne holds that the Aztec custom
of consuming captives at religious feasts was in reality a means of
procuring animal food resulting from the limited meat supply, and
that perpetual war was waged mainly to obtain prisoners for this
purpose.[325] Prescott says: “Indeed the great object of war, with the
Aztecs, was quite as much to gather victims for their sacrifices as to
extend their empire.”[326]
[Illustration: A COSTUME OF A HĀMATSA IN THE KWAKIUTL CANNIBALISTIC
CEREMONY, WHERE SLAVES AND CORPSES WERE FORMERLY DEVOURED
The head and neck rings were from his mother’s tribe, the Tongass
(Tlinkit)
]
[Illustration: MEXICAN OPERATING THE PALM-DRILL FOR FIRE
Fac-simile outline of an original Mexican painting presented to the
University of Oxford by Archbishop Sand
]
One of the great ceremonials of the Aztecs was the obtaining of the
“new-fire,” admirably described by Prescott, according to his custom.
“On the evening of the last day, a procession of the priests, assuming
the dress and ornaments of their gods, moved from the capital towards
a lofty mountain, about two leagues distant. They carried with them
a noble victim, the flower of their captives, and an apparatus for
kindling the new-fire, the success of which was an augury of the
renewal of the cycle. On reaching the summit of the mountain, the
procession paused till midnight; when as the constellation of the
Pleiades approached the zenith, the new-fire was kindled by the
friction of the sticks placed on the wounded breast of the victim. The
flame was soon communicated to a funeral pile, on which the body of
the slaughtered captive was thrown. As the light streamed up towards
heaven, shouts of joy and triumph burst forth from the countless
multitudes who covered the hills, the terraces of the temples, and
the house-tops, with eyes bent anxiously on the mount of sacrifice.
Couriers, with torches lighted at the blazing beacon, rapidly bore
them over every part of the country; and the cheering element was
seen brightening on altar and hearth-stone, for the circuit of many
a league, long before the sun, rising on his accustomed track, gave
assurance that a new cycle had commenced its march and that the laws of
nature were not to be reversed for the Aztecs.”[327]
[Illustration: ZUÑI WOMAN CARRYING WATER
Shows also style of moccasin and leg wrapping worn by Puebloan and
Navajo women
]
New-fire was also obtained by friction, with the Aztecs, once each
year, and once each four years, as well as at the fifty-two year
cycle. In Arkansas it was produced every year. On a certain day, “as
the sun began to decline the fires were extinguished in every hut,
and universal silence reigned.”[328] A priest next produced fire by
friction. “It was then brought out of the temple in an earthen dish and
placed upon an altar that had been previously prepared in the square.
Its appearance brought joy to the hearts of the people as it was
supposed to atone for all past crimes except murder. A general amnesty
was proclaimed except for this one crime, and all malefactors might now
return to their villages in safety.”[329] The Mokis still produce the
new-fire each November.[330]
Sacrifices to the gods were made by the Mayas at the sacred _cenoté_
of Chichen Itza, and similar places.[331] This sacred well was one of
the openings to the subterranean waters of Yucatan, and was about one
hundred and fifty feet in diameter and sixty-five feet deep from the
brink to the surface of the water, with perpendicular sides. Pilgrims
came here to make offerings and Landa states that in time of drought
they would cast live men into it as a tribute to the gods, believing
that though they disappeared they would not die. Valuable property
was also thrown in and still lies with the bones at the bottom.
Charnay tried to work some automatic sounding machines there, but he
failed to obtain satisfactory results. Among the Aztecs a person to
be sacrificed was extended full length over a convex stone, and the
priest with a long obsidian knife made a gash in the breast through
which he extracted the living heart and laid it at the feet of the
idol. Parts of the victim were afterward served at a grand ceremonial
banquet. “Forty days previous to the festival of Quetzalcohuatl,”
says Bandelier, “a slave was selected, who must be in perfect health
and of faultless body. He was dressed in the same manner as the idol,
and, after having been carefully bathed, and kept in ‘honourable
confinement,’ as an object of worship for that length of time, he
was sacrificed at midnight. The heart was tendered to the moon, and
afterwards thrown at the idol, and the body cut up, cooked and publicly
devoured.”[332] In times of drought children from six to ten years old
were offered up; they were not eaten, but buried before the idol. The
priests who officiated were medicine-men, or shamans. Every tribe on
the continent had shamans. These individuals held a peculiar power,
and among tribes known to us now they still exercise it. Even among
the Christian Pueblos of New Mexico, the authority of the shaman has
not altogether waned and ancient rites are said to be still enacted
in secret. For some of these it is believed rattlesnakes have been
carefully guarded for years. “Among Indians,” Mooney states,[333]
“the professions of medicine and religion are inseparable. The doctor
is always a priest and the priest is always a doctor. Hence to the
whites in the Indian country the Indian priest-doctor has come to be
known as the ‘medicine-man’ and anything sacred, mysterious, or of
wonderful power or efficacy in Indian life or belief is designated as
‘medicine,’ this term being the nearest equivalent of the aboriginal
expression in various languages. To make ‘medicine’ is to perform some
sacred ceremony, from the curing of a sick child to the consecration
of the Sun-dance lodge.” An Iroquois student states,[334] that, “among
the Indians, the knowledge of the medicine-man and the more expert
sorceress is little above that of the body of the tribe. Their success
depends entirely on their own belief in being supernaturally gifted and
on the faith and fear of their followers. I do not believe that the
Iroquois lives to-day who is not a believer in sorcery, or who would
not in the night time quail at seeing a bright light the nature of
which he did not understand.”
[Illustration: UTE CRADLE, FRAME OF RODS COVERED WITH BUCKSKIN
Carried on the back. In principle the majority of Amerind cradles
are similar
]
The functions and powers of the shamans or medicine-men have never
been completely understood, but over the sick they carried on various
incantations and administered decoctions of native vegetable and animal
substances. Powell defines a shaman as “a person who has the power to
control ghosts through magic.” They mortified their own flesh and the
priests of Mexico would pierce their tongues and draw through the wound
thus formed a long knotted cord, or twigs fastened together, or a cord
set with some animal’s claws or teeth. Speaking of Mexico, Prescott
says:[335]
“In no country, not even in ancient Egypt, were the dreams of the
astrologer more implicitly deferred to. On the birth of a child he was
instantly summoned. The time of the event was accurately ascertained,
and the family hung in trembling suspense as the minister of Heaven
cast the horoscope of the infant and unrolled the dark volume of
destiny. The influence of the priest was confessed by the Mexican in
the first breath which he inhaled.” Other tribes were not behind.
In some the shamans were hereditary, but it would seem that their
selection and appointment were due to various regulations existing
in the secret orders and also to a reputation for the possession of
occult power. Some writers hold that the shamans are self appointed,
but this does not seem to correspond with the intricacies of the
Amerindian social organisation. Powell adopts the Algonquin name
for them, _jossakeeds_, and describes them as the head men of the
fraternities. Whatever he may do to obtain his supposed magical powers,
it would appear reasonable to believe that so prominent a functionary
as this shaman, or jossakeed, would require in the beginning to be
a man of some distinction, or special initiation. In making such
decoctions as he used the shaman boiled various plants together with
a stone arrow-head, or similar article. Out of twenty plants used by
the Cherokees, only seven are noted in the United States Dispensatory.
“Five plants or 25 per cent.,” says Mooney, “are correctly used; 12
or 60 per cent. are presumably either worthless or incorrectly used,
and three plants or 15 per cent. are so used that it is difficult
to say whether they are of any benefit or not. Granting that two of
these three produce good results as used by the Indians, we should
have 35 per cent., or about one third of the whole, as the proportion
actually possessing medical virtues, while the remaining two thirds
are inert, if not positively injurious.” “For a disease caused by the
rabbit the antidote must be a plant called ‘rabbit’s food,’ ‘rabbit’s
ear,’ or ‘rabbit’s tail’; for snake dreams, the plant used is ‘snake’s
tooth,’” and so on, “an empiric development of the fetich idea.”[336]
No sanitary precautions were taken during the treatment except fasting.
When the patient eats, certain kinds of food are forbidden, but on the
ground of some fancied connection between the disease and the food. If
squirrels are supposed to be at the root of the trouble, the patient
is prohibited from eating squirrel meat.[337]
[Illustration: ESKIMO WOMAN OF POINT BARROW CARRYING CHILD
Photograph by Capt. Healy, U. S. R. M.
]
[Illustration: APACHE WOMAN CARRYING CHILD
Shows also moccasins and leg wrappings similar to the Puebloan and
Navajo
]
The sweat bath was, and is, the great cure-all among the Amerinds,
except the Central and Eastern Eskimo. It was also a means of religious
purification. Sometimes the sweat house was a large structure, but
usually it was only large enough to hold one or two persons in a
squatting posture, and was constructed of poles covered with skins,
blankets, or earth. The patient entered and those outside heated stones
and passed them in to him by means of sticks. Water or some decoction
was then poured over the stones and the opening closed. Profuse
perspiration was the result. At the proper time, if a stream were near,
the patient would run out and plunge in; otherwise cold water was
poured over him. This was the chief remedy for smallpox, which has made
such ravages in all tribes, but of course it was ineffective. The sweat
lodge and the sweat bath connected with it must not be confounded, as
is often the case, with the _estufa_, (or _kiva_). The latter has no
connection with the sweat bath, but is an entirely different thing,
the confusion arising from the Spanish term, which means a hothouse,
derived from the fact that the kivas are kept stiflingly close and hot
in winter.
Most Amerinds believe that all living things, even trees, once had
human shape, and “have been transformed, for punishment or otherwise,
into their present condition.” They had no understanding of a single
“Great Spirit” till the Europeans, often unconsciously, informed them
of their own belief.
The Iroquois in many ways were the finest Amerinds of all. Brinton
says, “unsurpassed by any other on the continent [physically], and I
may even say by any other people in the world.”[338] “In legislation,
in eloquence, in fortitude and in military sagacity they had no
equals,” says Morgan.[339] He also maintains that they represented
“the highest development the Indian ever reached in the hunter state.”
“Crimes and offences were so unfrequent under their social system that
the Iroquois can scarcely be said to have had a criminal code.” Theft
was barely known, and “on all occasions, and at whatever price, the
Iroquois spoke the truth without fear and without hesitation.”[340]
The Iroquois, Algonquins, and other stocks carried on a considerable
commerce with far-distant points. “The red pipe-stone was brought to
the Atlantic coast from the Coteau des Prairies, and even the black
slate highly ornamented pipes of the Haidah on Vancouver Island have
been exhumed from graves of Lenapé Indians.”[341] The wide extent of
Amerindian commercial traffic has hardly been appreciated.
[Illustration: MOKI “SNAKE DANCE” AT WALPI
Snake priests in action
Photograph (reversed)
]
The religion of most of the Amerinds was zoötheism—that is, their gods
were deified men and animals. The heavenly bodies, personified as
men and animals, also formed a part of their galaxy. Their worship
of these various deities, who were believed to control each his
division of human affairs and earthly phenomena, was through numerous
ceremonials, many of them embodying their form of dancing, and called
by the whites “dances,” though this term fails properly to describe
them. Often there is very little dancing, and even that has a minor
part. The ceremonials take place at all times and seasons, many being
as absolutely fixed to a certain date as our own holidays or church
celebrations. The Eastern tribes had ceremonials on tapping the maple
trees, and others for the close of the maple-sugar season. There were
also the Corn-Planting Festival, the Strawberry Festival, the Bean
Festival, and the famous Green Corn Dance of the Iroquois, followed
by the Harvest Dance. Some ceremonials occur in their perfection only
at specified intervals, as the Snake Dance of the Mokis, which, while
performed annually at some one of the towns, is seen in its full glory
only once every two years at the village of Walpi. This now famous
ceremonial, in which a hundred or more rattlesnakes are used alive,
covers altogether a period of nine days, including the search for the
snakes, as well as rites performed in the kiva. It is only on the
last two days that there are public ceremonies. Spectators who are
known or have a proper introduction are sometimes allowed to visit a
kiva when it is reserved by the order owning or controlling it; at
other times a visitor is generally freely admitted. During my stay in
the Moki country I never was barred from any place that I desired to
enter; though it may have happened that I never tried to enter at a
time when outsiders were forbidden. The snakes are brought out of the
kiva by one set of priests, or shamans, and dropped on the ground
to be picked up by another set with much ceremony. At the end all
the snakes are carried to the valley and liberated to return through
their holes to the underworld, there to communicate the desires of
the people to the gods. The towns of the Mokis on the East Mesa are
now frequently visited by whites, but Oraibi and the others are not
so often approached. When I went to Oraibi, in 1885, we were followed
about by a band of curious small boys, and the women peered at us from
the roof hatchways, quickly ducking out of sight if one of us happened
to look their way. The men declined to talk except in monosyllables,
and I am free to confess that it was a relief to finally mount and ride
away. Oraibi has never had a reputation for hospitality. From there we
went to Shimopavi, where our reception was exactly the reverse of what
it had been at Oraibi, and I shall always remember with pleasure the
frank, genial, smiling men who received us in one of the chief kivas,
and the alacrity with which a clean repast of watermelon and piki was
brought and placed before us. This only shows what a difference in
manners may exist in the divisions of one tribe, and how easy it would
be to denounce all the Mokis as being surly and ugly, if one saw only
the Oraibi branch.
[Illustration: AMERINDIAN PICTURE-WRITING
Sixth Ann. Rept., Pl. V.
Drawings by the Central Eskimo. See page 59.
Fourth Ann. Rept., Pl. XXXVIII.
Page of the Dakota Winter-Counts, also called by them “Counts
Back.” See page 60.
Fourth Ann. Rept., Pl. LXIII.
Page from Red Cloud’s Census, Dakota. See page 60.
Fourth Ann. Rept., Pl. IV.
Ojibwa Mnemonic Record of a Midē Song. See page 58.
]
[Illustration: BEGINNING OF THE MOKI “SNAKE DANCE” AT WALPI
Antelope priests lined up
This scene precedes the one on page 376
Photograph (reversed)
]
A simple occurrence means to the superstitious mind of the Amerind
a great deal. In illustration of this I may mention that two men I
knew were one day at one of the Moki towns and carelessly entered a
kiva where the preparing and blessing of certain sacred water were in
progress. When they had departed, a frightened rock-wren fluttered in.
This was accepted as an evil omen. The bird was immediately killed and
some of its blood sprinkled over the floor of the kiva. Then it was
taken to the first house the whites had entered when they arrived at
the town, and more blood sprinkled wherever they had stood. After this
the bird’s body was carefully laid outside, near the door.
Thus the struggles of a dazed bird are considered by these people a
portentous circumstance.
The dancing of the Amerinds is everywhere much alike, and it is
generally performed in a circle. It has been described as a heel
dance, and with some tribes is apparently that because they seem to
strike the ground only with the heel, but it is usually a toe-and-heel
step, the toe first touching and then the heel being brought down
with more or less force. When rapidly done the separate touching of
the toe is hardly noticeable. The movement of the circle is commonly
from left to right, and during this progress various contortions are
gone through with, more or less violently according to the intensity
of the occasion. In the remarkable _Okeepa_ ceremony of the Sioux
fearful tortures were submitted to, and sometimes a bison skull was
dragged around by means of ropes attached to skewers thrust through the
bodies and limbs of the performers. They were also pulled aloft in the
dancing-lodge by these skewers, and the pain was often so intense that
the devotee would faint. (See page 382.) When Catlin first described
this ceremonial and its ordeals it was received with doubt, but it has
since been seen by others and fully authenticated. It is, of course,
not possible to more than touch on the customs and ceremonies of the
Amerinds in this short chapter. A large volume would be required to
exhibit even a quarter part of the details.
The ceremonials[342] of the Pueblos are marked by elaborately costumed
katcinas,[343] but perhaps not more so than those of other tribes.
Those of the North-west coast are full of strange costumes also, and
the plains tribes executed their wild scalp dance, bear dance, buffalo
dance, etc., in costumes that were as singular as the dance itself.
In the ceremony of the Mokis called Soyaita or Somaikoli, I counted
sixteen different katcinas with extraordinary costumes weighing them
down, except one who wore nothing but a round bullet-like mask and a
breech-cloth. The others were so loaded that it was nearly impossible
to recognise in them human beings. The preparations for a ceremonial
occupy a week or two beforehand. One evening, some time before the
public performance of the Somaikoli, as I was walking from one village
to the other on the East Mesa, I was about half way when I suddenly
became aware of a hideous yelling ahead of me, and discovered the
flaring of torches in the darkness. There being no rock, tree, or shrub
near, I was fully illumined by the glare as the torches approached.
Then I saw six stalwart fellows, entirely nude, except for the
breech-cloth, though it was a chilly night in November. I paused to
await results, as I perceived they meant to come tip with me. I could
not understand their object. They were marching in single file. When
they saw that I was not a native, but the solitary white visitor to
the mesa who lived at Hano, they grinned and passed on without a word.
What they would have done with one of their people I do not know, but I
heard afterwards that they captured anyone they found out and kept them
in one of the kivas till the day of the public ceremony. At any rate,
I found that everybody took care to be indoors on this night between
certain hours. The mysteries of the different secret orders are not
known to outsiders, not even if members of the tribe.[344]
[Illustration: HORNED RATTLESNAKE, CROTALUS CERASTES
Commonly called “Sidewinder” because of its sidling motion.
Inhabits desert plains and valleys of Southern Arizona, California,
and Nevada, and south-western Utah. One killed by the author in
1875 was about three ft. long. The rattlesnake was identified with
religious ceremonials of most of the tribes from Ohio to Central
America
]
Photographs and paintings were considered “bad-medicine” by most
tribes, and I had no success whatever in persuading the Mokis to pose
for me when I was there. One who finally consented ran away when it
came to the test. I was permitted to use my snap-camera and to sketch
buildings freely, but when it came to painting persons they rebelled.
They believed that the possessor of a likeness held power over the
person represented.
[Illustration: THE OKEEPA CEREMONY OF THE MANDANS, LASTING FOUR DAYS
“A number of the young men are seen (inside the Mystery Lodge)
reclining and fasting ... others are yet seen in the midst of those
horrid cruelties. One is seen smiling whilst the knife and the
splints are passing through his flesh. One is seen hanging by the
splints run through the flesh on his shoulders and drawn up by men
on the top of the lodge. Another is seen hung up by the pectoral
muscles with four buffalo skulls attached to splints through the
flesh on his arms and legs; and each is turned round by another
with a pole till he faints, etc.”—Catlin’s _Eight Years_, vol. i;
also _Smithsonian Report_, 1895, p. 362
From a painting by George Catlin, 1832
]
[Illustration: THE SACRED POLE OF THE OMAHA
Now in the Peabody Museum
]
Murder in most tribes was settled by property atonement, or by the
assumption by the guilty one of the victim’s duties, and when once
settled the matter could never again be reopened. No controversy was
ever permitted, and to terminate it there were three methods: 1. When
controversy arises in relation to ownership, the property is usually
destroyed by the clan or by the tribal authorities. This is one
reason why property is found buried with Amerinds. By thus disposing
of it all controversy is avoided. Or the property may be completely
abandoned by all concerned, as in the case mentioned by Powell, where
a war party of Sioux surprised and killed a squad of sleeping soldiers
at the first volley. “Their arms, blankets, and other property were
untouched because the attacking party being large, it could not be
decided by whose bullets the soldiers were slain.” 2. If two persons
come to blows, it is, unless serious injury be done, considered a final
settlement. Appeal to authority is thereby forever barred in that
matter. 3. Establishment of a day or festival once a month, usually
once a year, beyond which crimes do not pass. Marriage is by what is
called legal appointment. In this way controversy over the women of
a tribe is largely avoided, for little is left to personal choice.
But kinship groups allowed to intermarry do not remain stationary in
numbers, hence, one set of men may have many wives to choose from,
another few, which, says Powell, leads to modification of the principle
and three additional forms of marriage are the result, by elopement,
by capture, and by duel. That is, if a pair elope and can evade their
pursuers till the day limiting controversy has passed, they are safe
from molestation. We once met an interesting example of this class in
the Uinta Valley, Utah, and with our boats put the runaways across
Green River, thus obliterating their trail, though at the time we did
not so well understand the situation. A group of men who have but a
limited class to choose wives from sometimes combine to capture for one
of their number a wife from some other group within their own tribe.
A fight is often the result, but without weapons. A second battle
for the same woman at that time is not permitted.[345] Or one man, if
he feel strong enough, may deprive some other fellow in his own tribe
of his wife. In southern Utah, Tom came to our camp one night weeping
bitterly, and when I could get at his statement it was to the effect
that someone had deprived him of his wife. Our men were indignant and
wished to proceed forthwith to the Amerind camp and compel the thief to
restore the wife to Tom, but they finally decided to abandon him to the
established customs of his people.
[Illustration: CRUCIFORM STONE TOMB, OAXACA
This tomb, recently discovered and excavated by Saville, is one
of the remarkable monuments of Amerindian antiquity. It lies five
miles east of Mitla and one thousand feet above it on the spur of a
mountain.
About a mile north-west are the quarries from which the great
stones were obtained. The tomb was never finished. It fronted west.
The north, east, and south arms of the cross do not vary in
dimensions by the fraction of an inch. The length of each is 11.7
ft. and the width 5.2 ft., while the depth is 7.5 ft. There are
three courses of huge stones, the largest measuring 12 ft. long by
3.3 ft. high and 3 ft. thick.
Photographed by Saville
]
[Illustration: GROUND PLAN OF CRUCIFORM TOMB, OAXACA]
Sometimes a woman is assigned to a man who already has a wife, while
some other man has none, because the group into which he is permitted
to marry is exhausted. He then challenges the man who is entitled to
more than one and endeavours to win the woman by success in battle.
On one occasion in southern Nevada a white man’s sympathies were so
aroused by one of these affairs, in which the girl was being roughly
pulled about, that he threw off his coat and, taking an active part in
the struggles, rescued her. Then he was amazed at the information that
the girl belonged to him and he must keep her. This he declined to do
and turned her over again to their tender mercies. These three forms of
marriage become roundabout methods of personal choice. When the supply
of wives is normal the young man in some tribes goes out into the woods
by a certain trail, and if the girl of his choice follows him, it is
considered a marriage, and is celebrated with prescribed ceremonies.
Polygamy was practised by most tribes. Among the Navajos, who buy their
wives, it is very common, but there a wife can depart at pleasure, and
as the husband acquires no right to her property, she takes it with her.
Totemism is an important custom in vogue among all the stocks of the
continent, and it was probably a custom the world over when tribes
were in a certain stage. The word totem is derived from the Ojibwa,
and is said to have first been introduced into literature by one Long,
an interpreter. Totems are of three kinds: clan totems, sex totems,
and individual totems. The first are the most important.[346] Totemism
is at the same time a religious and a social system. The totem is
usually an animal, as a frog, bear, bat, etc. The Amerind believes that
between these objects and himself there is a particular bond, and he
has for them the most profound respect. From them he believes himself
descended. Therefore he would not harm an animal that was his totem.
The Bear clan would not kill a bear, the Red Maize clan would not eat
red maize, and so on. Totemism existed among the Israelites, and the
objection to eating pork is supposed by some to rest on the pig having
been one of their totems. The Amerind also generally derived his name
from some animal or object, and he represented this as his individual
totem mark. In the totem poles of the North west coast, these various
representations of totems were combined and set up before the door to
indicate the relationships of the persons who lived there.[347]
Cleanliness varies among the tribes, and is sometimes in proportion
to the ease or difficulty with which water can be procured. The Mokis
who live in an arid country and have to carry water long distances
seldom waste it in bathing or washing, though I did once see an old
Moki fill his mouth with water and blow it out in instalments over his
hands. The Omahas, according to Dorsey, generally bathe twice every day
in warm weather. They used to help women and children to alight from
horses, and sometimes carried them over streams on their backs. Old
men and women were never abandoned by them. Some men were not wanting
in gallantry. Dorsey tells of a young woman who wished to halt at a
spring. Her brother was with her. The ground was muddy and she would
have soiled her clothes had she knelt to drink, but another man rode up
at the moment, and, jumping from his horse, he pulled a lot of grass,
placing it on the wet ground so that she could drink without soiling
her dress.
[Illustration: AMERINDIAN ART
Fifth Ann. Rept., Pl. XV.
A Navajo “Dry” Painting made with sand in the Mountain Chant
Ceremony. See page 61.
Fourth Ann. Rept., Pl. LII.
Page of an Oglala Roster—“Big-Road” and band. See page 59.
Third Ann. Report, Pl. IV.
Copy of Plates 65 and 66, Vatican Codex B. Each figure is a tree
with a person clasping the trunk. See page 72.
See Twelfth Ann. Rept., Pl. XVII.
Drawing restored from fragments of a thin copper plate, in repoussé
work, from a mound of the Etowah group, Georgia.
]
[Illustration: MOKI EARTHEN CANTEEN, ARIZONA.]
When he died the Amerind was disposed of in a number of different ways.
There were burials in pits, graves, mounds, cists, caves, and so on;
there was cremation; there was embalming; there was aërial sepulture
in trees or scaffolds; there was burial beneath water, or in canoes
that were turned adrift. The Navajos leave the dead in the place where
they die, or throw them into a cleft in the rocks and pile stones upon
the corpse. In Tennessee graves are found which were made by lining
a rectangular excavation with slabs of stone. These are ancient and
resemble the graves of the reindeer period in France. Yarrow[348]
speaks of them as being almost identical. I found graves of similar
description in southern Utah near the Arizona line, but in the two or
three that I opened there were no bones, only on the bottom a shallow
layer of what appeared to be fine dark earth with thin slabs upon it;
doubtless the slabs once forming the top.[349] Some tribes wrapped
their dead in fine furs or in grasses and matting;[350] others buried
in urns. In the North-west a living slave was buried with the deceased.
If the slave were not dead in three days, he was strangled by another
slave. In Mexico the custom of burying slaves with the dead was common.
[Illustration: MODERN LACED SANDAL OF LEATHER FROM COLIMA, MEXICO]
[Illustration: ESKIMO PIPE WITH STONE BOWL.]