In the next visit of the three brothers to the hunter, he pointed out
to them the great influence that religion had on the character of any
people or country. A false religion brings with it a train of
unnumbered evils; while a knowledge of the true God, and a living
faith in the Saviour who died for sinners, continually promote among
mankind principles of justice and kindness, and communicate to their
hearts the blessings of peace and joy. "True it is," said he, "that
among professedly Christian people there is much of evil; much of
envy, hatred, malice, uncharitableness; of injustice, covetousness and
cruelty. But this proceeds not from Christianity, but from the fallen
state of human nature, which nothing but the grace of God can renew,
and from the great number of those who profess to be Christians, while
they are uninfluenced by the gospel of the Redeemer. Christianity will
neither allow us to dishonour God by bowing down to idols, nor to
injure man by injustice and oppression. The Indians of our country are
not found bowing down to numberless idols, as the inhabitants of many
countries are: they worship what they call 'the Great Spirit,' with a
deep reverence, humbling themselves before him, and undergoing
self-imposed torments, to gain his good will, which the generality of
Christians, in the manifestation of their faith, would find it hard to
endure. They believe also in an Evil Spirit, as well as in a future
state; and that they shall be happy or unhappy, just as they have done
good or evil, according to their estimate of those qualities, but this
belief is mixed up with mysteries and superstitions without number. I
speak of Indians in the forest and the prairie, who know nothing of
God's word, and who have never heard the voice of a missionary."
_Hunter._ The different tribes believe, that if they are expert in the
chase, bold in battle, and slay many of their enemies, they shall live
for ever, after death, in beautiful hunting-grounds, enjoying the
pleasures of the chase continually. You know that we, as Christians,
are enjoined to forgive our enemies; but untutored Indians delight in
revenge: they love to boast, and to shed blood; but we are taught, by
God's holy word, to be humble and merciful. There is one thing that
mingles much with the Indian character; and that is, medicine, or
mystery. I must try to make you understand it.
_Austin._ Yes; I should like to know all about it very well.
_Hunter._ Go where you may, among the Choctaws, the Seminoles, the
Crows, or the Blackfeet, every Indian has his medicine or mystery bag,
which he regards with reverence, and will not part with for any price.
He looks upon it as a kind of charm, or guardian spirit, that is to
keep him from evil. He takes it with him to battle, and when he dies
it is his companion.
_Austin._ But what is it? Is there any thing in the bag? What is it
that makes medicine?
_Hunter._ Every thing that is mysterious or wonderful to an Indian, he
regards as medicine. I do not mean such medicine as we get from an
apothecary; but he regards it as something awful, and connected with
spirits. This is a strong superstition, which has laid hold of the red
man throughout the whole of his race.
_Brian._ But is there any thing in the medicine bag?
_Hunter._ The medicine bag is usually the skin of some animal, such as
the beaver, otter, polecat, or weazel; or of some bird, as the eagle,
the magpie, or hawk; or of some reptile, as the snake or the toad.
This skin is stuffed with any thing the owner chooses to put into it,
such as dry grass, or leaves; and it is carefully sewed up into some
curious form, and ornamented in a curious manner. Some medicine bags
are very large, and form a conspicuous part of an Indian's
appendages; while others are very small, and altogether hidden.
_Basil._ Why, it is very foolish in the red men to carry such things
about with them.
_Hunter._ It certainly is so; but their fathers and their tribes have
done so for many generations, and it would be a disgrace to them, in
their own estimation, if they neglected to do the same. A young
Indian, before he has his medicine bag, goes perhaps alone on the
prairie, or wanders in the forest, or beside some solitary lake. Day
after day, and night after night, he fasts, and calls on the Great
Spirit to help him to medicine. When he sleeps, the first animal, or
bird, or reptile that he dreams of, is his medicine. If it be a
weazel, he catches a weazel, and it becomes his medicine for ever. If
it be a toad or snake, he kills it; and if it be a bird, he shoots it,
and stuffs its skin.
_Austin._ This is one of the most wonderful things you have told us
yet.
_Hunter._ What is called a medicine man, or a mystery man, is one who
ranks high in his tribe for some supposed knowledge. He can either
make buffaloes come, or cure disease, or bring rain, or do some other
wonderful things, or persuade his tribe that he can do them. Indeed,
among Indians, hardly any thing is done without the medicine man. A
chief, in full dress, would as soon think of making his appearance
without his head as without his medicine bag. There is a saying among
the Indians, that "a man lying down, is medicine to the grizzly
bear;" meaning, that in such a position a bear will not hurt him.
_Basil._ Is it true? Will not the grizzly bear hurt a man when he is
lying down?
_Hunter._ So many people say; but I should be very sorry to trust the
grizzly bear. I am afraid that he would be paying his respects to me
in a very rough way.
_Austin._ What was it that you said about the medicine man bringing
rain?
_Hunter._ Some of them are famous for bringing rain in a dry season.
_Austin._ But they cannot really bring rain.
_Hunter._ The matter is managed in this way.--When once they undertake
to bring rain, they keep up their superstitious ceremonies, day after
day, till the rain comes. Oftentimes it is very long before they
succeed. It was in a time of great drought, that I once arrived at the
Mandan village on the Upper Missouri. At the different Indian
villages, peas and beans, wild rice, corn, melons, squashes, pumpkins,
peaches and strawberries were often found in abundance; but, on this
occasion, the Mandans had a very poor prospect of gathering any thing
that required rain to bring it to perfection. The young and the old
were crying out that they should have no green corn.
_Austin._ Why did they not tell the medicine men earlier to make the
rain come?
_Hunter._ They did so: but it was not quite convenient to the medicine
men; for they saw clearly enough that there was not the slightest
appearance of rain. After putting it off, day after day, the sky grew
a little cloudy to the west, when the medicine men assembled together
in great haste to make it rain.
_Brian._ Ay! they were very cunning.
_Hunter._ No sooner was it known that the medicine men were met
together in the mystery lodge, than the village was all in commotion.
They wanted rain, and they were very sure that their medicine men
could bring it when they pleased. The tops of the wigwams were soon
crowded. In the mystery lodge a fire was kindled, round which sat the
rain-makers, burning sweet-smelling herbs, smoking the medicine pipe,
and calling on the Great Spirit to open the door of the skies, and let
out the rain.
_Basil._ That is the way they make it rain, is it?
_Hunter._ At last, one of the rain-makers came out of the mystery
lodge, and stood on the top of it with a spear in his hand, which he
brandished about in a commanding and threatening manner, lifting it up
as though he were about to hurl it up at the heavens. He talked aloud
of the power of his medicine, holding up his medicine bag in one hand,
and his spear in the other; but it was of no use, neither his medicine
nor his spear could make it rain; and, at the setting of the sun, he
came down from his elevated position in disgrace.
_Austin._ Poor fellow! He had had enough of rain-making for one day.
_Hunter._ For several days the same ceremony was carried on, until a
rain-maker, with a head-dress of the skins of birds, ascended the top
of the mystery lodge, with a bow in his hand, and a quiver at his
back. He made a long speech, which had in it much about thunder and
lightning, and black clouds and drenching rain; for the sky was
growing dark, and it required no great knowledge of the weather to
foretell rain. He shot arrows to the east and west, and others to the
north and the south, in honour of the Great Spirit who could send the
rain from all parts of the skies. A fifth arrow he retained, until it
was almost certain that rain was at hand. Then, sending up the shaft
from his bow, with all his might, to make a hole, as he said, in the
dark cloud over his head, he cried aloud for the waters to pour down
at his bidding, and to drench him to the skin. He was brandishing his
bow in one hand, and his medicine in the other, when the rain came
down in a torrent. The whole village was clamorous with applause. He
was regarded as a great mystery man, whose medicine was very powerful,
and he rose to great distinction among his tribe. You see, then, the
power of a mystery man in bringing rain. Does it not astonish you?
_Austin._ No, not a bit. I see that it was all a cheat.
_Brian._ I could make it rain myself as well as he did, for he never
shot his arrow to pierce the cloud till it was over his head.
_Hunter._ To be a mystery man is regarded as a great honour; and some
Indians are said to have suspended themselves from a pole, with
splints through their flesh, and their medicine bags in their hands,
looking towards the sun, for a whole day, to obtain it.
_Austin._ When I go among the Indians, I will not be a mystery man.
* * * * *
_Hunter._ Now I will tell you something about Indian marriages. There
is very little ceremony in an Indian marriage. The father may be seen
sitting among his friends, when the young Indian comes in with
presents, to induce him to give him his daughter for a wife. If the
presents are not liked, they are not accepted; if they are approved,
the father takes the hand of his daughter, and the hand of the young
Indian, and slaps them together; after which a little feasting takes
place.
_Austin._ Why, that is like buying a wife.
_Hunter._ It is; but the young Indian has already gained the good will
of his intended wife: not by his fine clothes and his wealth, for he
has neither the one nor the other, but by showing her the skins of the
bears he has killed, and the scalps and scalp-locks of the foes he has
slaughtered; and by telling her that he will hunt for her, that she
may be kept from want, and fight for her, that she may be protected
from the enemies of her tribe. Indians have strange customs: some
flatten the heads of their young children, by laying them in a cradle,
with a pillow for the back of the head, and then pressing the
forehead, day after day, with a board, that comes down upon it, till
the nose and forehead form a straight line.
_Brian._ I should not like my head to be flattened in that manner.
_Hunter._ Children are carried about in their cradles on the backs of
their mothers, wherever they go; and when children die, they are often
left, in their cradles, floating on the water of a brook or pool,
which their superstition teaches them to regard as sacred. A cluster
of these little arks or cradles, or coffins as they may be called, of
different forms, in a lone pool, is a very picturesque and affecting
sight.
_Basil._ I shall often think of the pool, and the little cradles
swimming on it. It would remind me of Moses in the bulrushes.
_Hunter._ There are other singular customs among the Indians. The
Kowyas, the Pawnees, the Sacs and Foxes, the Osages, and the Iowas,
all shave their heads, leaving a tuft on the crown two or three inches
in length, and a small lock in the middle of it, as long as they can
make it grow. By means of this small lock of hair braided, they
ornament the tuft with a crest of the deer's tail dyed scarlet, and
sometimes add to it a war-eagle's feather.
_Austin._ How different from the Crow Indians! They do not shave off
their hair; but let it grow till it hangs down to the very ground.
_Hunter._ You have not forgotten that, I see. There is a cruel custom
among the Indians, of exposing their aged people, that is, leaving
them alone to die. If a party are obliged to remove from one place to
another in search of food, and there is among them an aged man, who
can no longer fight, nor hunt, nor fish, nor do any thing to support
himself, he is liable, although in his time he may have been a
war-chief, to be left alone to die. I have seen such a one sitting by
a little fire left him by his tribe, with perhaps a buffalo skin
stretched on poles over his head, and a little water and a few bones
within his reach. I have put my pipe to his mouth, given him pemican,
and gathered sticks, that he might be able to recruit his fire; and
when, months after, I have returned to the spot, there has been
nothing left of him but his skeleton, picked clean by the wolves and
bleaching in the winds.
_Austin._ This is one of the worst things we have heard of the
Indians.
_Basil._ Oh, it is very sad indeed!
_Hunter._ You would not forsake your father, in old age, in that
manner, would you?
_Austin._ No! As long as we could get a bit of bread or a drop of
water, he should have part of it, and we would die with him rather
than desert him.
_Brian_ and _Basil._ Yes; that we would!
_Hunter._ I hope so. This is, I say, a cruel custom; but it forms a
part of Indian manners, so that the old men expect it, and, indeed,
would not alter it. Indians have not been taught, as we have, to
honour their parents, at least not in the same way; but I can say
nothing in favour of so cruel and unnatural a custom. Among the Sioux
of the Mississippi, it is considered great medicine to jump on the
Leaping Rock, and back again. This rock is a huge column or block,
between thirty and forty feet high, divided from the side of the Red
Pipe-stone Quarry. It is about seven feet broad, and at a distance
from the main rock of about six or eight feet. Many are bold enough to
take the leap, and to leave their arrows sticking in one of its
crevices; while others, equally courageous, have fallen from the top
in making the attempt, and been dashed to pieces.
_Brian._ When you go to Pipe-stone Quarry, Austin, have nothing to do
with the Leaping Rock. You must get your medicine in some other way.
_Austin._ I shall leave the Leaping Rock to the leaping Indians, for
it will never suit me.
_Hunter._ There is a very small fish caught in the river Thames,
called white bait, which is considered a very great luxury; but, to my
taste, the white fish, of which the Chippewas take great abundance in
the rapids near the Falls of St. Mary's, are preferable. The Chippewas
catch them in the rapids with scoop-nets, in the use of which they are
very expert. The white fish resemble salmon, but are much less in
size.
_Austin._ The white fish of the Chippewas will suit me better than the
Leaping Rock of the Sioux.
_Hunter._ Among the Indians, feasting, fasting, and sacrifices of a
peculiar kind, form a part of their religious or superstitious
observances. Some of the Pawnees, in former times, offered human
sacrifices; but this cruel custom is now no more. The Mandans
frequently offered a finger to the god, or Evil Spirit; and most of
the tribes offer a horse, a dog, a spear, or an arrow, as the case
may be. Over the Mandan mystery lodge used to hang the skin of a white
buffalo, with blue and black cloth of great value. These were intended
as a sacrifice or an offering to the good and evil spirits, to avert
their anger and to gain their favour.
_Brian._ How many things you do remember!
_Hunter._ All the chiefs of the tribes keep runners: men swift of
foot, who carry messages and commands, and spread among the people
news necessary to be communicated. These runners sometimes go great
distances in a very short space of time.
_Brian._ You must have your runners, Austin.
_Austin._ Oh yes, I will have my runners: for I shall want pipe-stone
from Red Pipe-stone Quarry, and white fish from the Chippewas; and
then I shall send messages to the Cherokees and Choctaws, the
Camanchees, the Blackfeet and the Crows.
_Hunter._ The squaws, or wives of the Indians, labour very
contentedly, seeming to look on servitude as their proper calling.
They get in wood and water; they prepare the ground for grain, cook
victuals, make the dresses of their husbands, manufacture pottery,
dress skins, attend to the children, and make themselves useful in a
hundred other ways.
_Brian._ I think the squaws behave themselves very well.
_Hunter._ The smoking of the pipe takes place on all great occasions,
just as though the Indians thought it was particularly grateful to the
Good and Evil Spirits. In going to war, or in celebrating peace, as
well as on all solemn occasions, the pipe is smoked. Oftentimes,
before it is passed round, the stem is pointed upwards, and then
offered to the four points--east, west, north and south. In the hands
of a mystery man, it is great and powerful medicine. If ever you go
among the red men, you must learn to smoke; for to refuse to draw a
whiff through the friendly pipe offered to you, would be regarded as a
sad affront.
_Basil._ What will you do now, Austin? You never smoked a pipe in your
life.
_Austin._ Oh, I should soon learn; besides, I need only take a very
little whiff.
_Hunter._ You must learn to eat dog's flesh, too; for when the Indians
mean to confer a great honour on a chief or a stranger, they give him
a dog feast, in which they set before him their most favourite dogs,
killed and cooked. The more useful the dogs were, and the more highly
valued, the greater is the compliment to him in whose honour the feast
is given; and if he were to refuse to eat of the dog's flesh, thus
prepared out of particular respect to him, no greater offence could be
offered to his hospitable entertainers.
_Brian._ You have something a little harder to do now, I think,
Austin; to learn to eat dog's flesh.
_Austin._ You may depend upon it, that I shall keep out of the way of
a dog feast. I might take a little whiff at their pipe, but I could
not touch their dainty dogs.
_Hunter._ In some of the large lodges, I have seen very impressive
common life-scenes. Fancy to yourselves a large round lodge, holding
ten or a dozen beds of buffalo skins, with a high post between every
bed. On these posts hang the shields, the war-clubs, the spears, the
bows and quivers, the eagle-plumed head-dresses, and the medicine bags
of the different Indians who sleep there; and on the top of each post
the buffalo mask, with its horns and tail, used in the buffalo dance.
Fancy to yourselves a group of Indians in the middle of the lodge,
with their wives and their little ones around them, smoking their
pipes and relating their adventures, as happy as ease and the supply
of all their animal wants can make them. While you gaze on the scene,
so strange, so wild, so picturesque and so happy, an emotion of
friendly feeling for the red man thrills your bosom, a tear of
pleasure starts into your eye; and, before you are aware, an
ejaculation of thankfulness has escaped your lips, to the Father of
mercies, that, in his goodness and bounty to mankind, he has not
forgotten the inhabitants of the forest and the prairie.
The Indians have a method of hardening their shields, by smoking them
over a fire, in a hole in the ground; and, usually, when a warrior
thus smokes his shield, he gives a feast to his friends. Some of the
pipes of the Indians are beautiful. The bowls are all of the red stone
from Pipe-stone Quarry, cut into all manner of fantastic forms; while
the stems, three or four feet long, are ornamented with braids of
porcupine's quills, beaks of birds, feathers and red hair. The
calumet, or, as it is called, "the peace-pipe," is indeed, as I have
before said, great medicine. It is highly adorned with quills of the
war-eagle, and never used on any other occasion than that of making
and solemnizing peace, when it is passed round to the chiefs. It is
regarded as altogether a sacred utensil. An Indian's pipe is his
friend through the pains and pleasures of life; and when his tomahawk
and his medicine bag are placed beside his poor, pallid remains, his
pipe is not forgotten.
_Austin._ When an Indian dies, how do they bury him?
_Hunter._ According to the custom of his tribe. Some Indians are
buried under the sod; some are left in cots, or cradles, on the water;
and others are placed on frames raised to support them. You remember
that I told you of Blackbird's grave.
_Austin._ Ay! he was buried on horseback, on the top of a high bluff,
sitting on his horse. He was covered all over with sods.
_Hunter._ And I told you of the Chinock children floating on the
solitary pool.
_Basil._ Yes, I remember them very well.
_Hunter._ Grown-up Chinocks are left floating in cradles, just in the
same manner; though oftener they are tied up in skins, and laid in
canoes, with paddles, pipes and provisions, and then hoisted up into a
tree, and left there to decay. In the Mandan burial place, the dead
were ranged in rows, on high slender frames, out of the way of the
wolf, dressed in their best robes, and wrapped in a fresh buffalo
skin, with all their arms, pipes, and every necessary provision and
comfort to supply their wants in their journey to the hunting-grounds
of their fathers. In our burial grounds, there are generally some
monuments grander than the rest, to set forth the wealth, the station,
or the talents of those who slumber below; and, as human nature is the
same everywhere, so in the resting place of the Indians. Here and
there are spread out a few yards of red or blue cloth, to signify that
beneath it a chief, or a superior brave, is sleeping. The Mandan dead
occupied a spot on the prairie. Here they mouldered, warrior lying by
the side of warrior, till they fell to the ground from their frames,
when the bones were buried, and the skulls ranged with great care, in
round rings, on the prairie, with two buffalo skulls and a medicine
pole in the centre.
_Austin._ Ay! it would be of no use for the wolf to come then, for
there would be nothing for him. I should very much like to see an
Indian burying-place.
_Hunter._ Were you to visit one, you would see that the heart and
affections are at work under a red skin, as well as under a white one;
for parents and children, husbands and wives, go there to lament for
those who are dear to them, and to humble themselves before the Great
Spirit, under whose care they believe their departed relatives to be.
The skulls, too, are visited, and every one is placed carefully, from
time to time, on a tuft of sweet-smelling herb or plant. Life is but a
short season with both the white and the red man, and ought to be well
spent. It is as a flower that flourishes: "For the wind passeth over
it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more." But
I have now told you enough for the present. Come again, as soon as you
will; I shall have some anecdotes of Indians ready for you.
[Illustration: Indian Cradle.]
[Illustration]