In harmony with custom, three scientific papers accompany this report,
designed to illustrate the nature, methods and spirit of the researches
conducted by the Bureau. The first is on the “Classification of the
North American Languages.” It is by no means a final paper on the
subject, but is intended rather to give an account of the present status
of the subject, and to place before the workers in this field of
scholarship the data now existing and the conclusions already reached,
so as to constitute a point of departure for new work. With this end in
view Mr. Pilling is engaged upon the bibliography of the subject and is
rapidly publishing the same, and Mr. Henshaw is employed on the tribal
synonymy. Altogether it is hoped that this work will inaugurate a new
era in the investigation of the subject by making available the vast
body of material scattered broadcast through the literature relating to
the North American Indians.
In the course of these ethnic researches an interesting field of facts
has been brought to view relating to the superstitions of the Indians.
Already a very large body of mythology has been collected--stories from
a great number of tongues which embody the rude philosophy of tribal
thought. Such philosophy or opinion finds its expression not only in the
mythic tales, but in the organization of the people into society, in
their daily life and in their habits and customs. There is a realm of
anthropology in this lower state of mankind which we call savagery, that
is hard to understand from the standpoint of modern civilization, where
science, theology, religion, medicine and the esthetic arts are
developed as more or less discrete subjects. In savagery these great
subjects are blended in one, as they are interwoven into a vast plexus
of thought and action, for mythology is the basis of philosophy,
religion, medicine, and art. In savagery the observed facts of the
universe, relating alike to physical nature and to the humanities, are
explained mythologically, and these mythic conceptions give rise to a
great variety of practices. The acts of life are born of the opinions
held as explanations of the environing world. Thus it is that philosophy
finds expression in a complex system of superstitions, ceremonies and
practices, which together constitute the religion of the people. The
purpose of these practices is to avert calamity and to secure prosperity
in the present life. It is astonishing to find how little the condition
of a life to come is involved. The future beyond the grave is scarcely
heeded, or when recognized it seems not to affect the daily life of the
people to any appreciable degree. That which occupies the attention of
the savage mind relates to the pleasures and pains, the joys and sorrows
of present existence.
Perhaps the chief motive is derived from the consideration of health and
disease, as the pleasures and pains arising therefrom are forever
present to the experience or observation. Good and evil are also
involved in those gifts of nature to man by which his biotic life is
sustained, his food, drink, clothing and shelter. These bounties come
not in a never-changing stream, but are apparently fitful and
capricious. Seasons of plenty are accented by seasons of scarcity, and
thus prosperity and adversity are strangely commingled in the history of
the people. To secure this prosperity and avert this adversity seems to
be the second great motive in the development of the superstitious
practices of the people. A third occasion for the development of this
primitive religion inheres in the social organization of mankind,
primarily expressed in the love of man and woman for each other, but
finally expressed in all the relations of kin and kith and in the
relations of tribe with tribe. This gives rise to a very important
development of primitive religion, for the savage man seeks to discover
by occult agencies the power of controlling the love and good will of
his kind and the power of averting the effect of enmity. To attain these
ends he invents a vast system of devices, from love philters to war
dances. A fourth region of exploitation in the realm of the esoteric
relates to the origin of life itself, as many of their practices are
designed to secure perpetuity of life by frequent births and less
painful throes.
It will thus be seen that life, health, prosperity, and peace are the
ends sought in all this region of human activity as they are presented
in the study of savage life. The opinions held by the people on these
subjects are primarily expressed in speech and organized into tales,
which constitute mythology, and they are expressed in acts, as
ceremonies and observances, which constitute their religion, their
medicine, and their esthetic arts. These arts consist of sculpture and
painting, by which their mythic beings are represented, and they also
consist of dancing, by which religious fervor is produced, and they give
rise to music, romance, poetry, and drama. Thus it is that the esthetic
arts have their origin in mythology. The epic poem and the symphony are
lineal descendants of the dance, and the dance arises as the first form
of worship, born of the mythic conception of the powers of nature.
THE MIDĒ´WIWIN, OR GRAND MEDICINE SOCIETY OF THE OJIBWA, BY W. J.
HOFFMAN, AND THE SACRED FORMULAS OF THE CHEROKEES, BY JAMES MOONEY.
Mr. Hoffman presents a paper on the “Midē´wiwin, or Grand Medicine
Society of the Ojibwa,” and sets forth the vestiges of a once powerful
organization existing among these people. Mr. Mooney has made a study of
the Cherokee with the same end in view. In the opinion of the Director
they are important contributions to this subject. The same lines of
investigation have been carried on by other members of the Bureau with
other tribes where societies and practices have been but little modified
by the contact of the white man, and where the subject is therefore much
more plainly arrayed. In due time these additional researches will be
published.
In Mr. Hoffman’s paper it is seen that two and a half centuries of
association with the white man has not only served to break down this
organization to some extent, but has also inculcated in the minds of the
Ojibwa a clearer conception of a Great Spirit and a future life than is
normal to the savage mind. Mr. Mooney, whose paper largely deals with
the use of plants by the Indians for the healing of disease, naïvely
compares the pharmacopoeia of savagery with that of civilization,
assuming that the latter is a standard of scientific truth. Perchance
scientific men will make one step in advance of this position, and will
be interested in discovering the extent to which savage philosophy is
still represented in civilized materia medica as expressed in officinal
formulas.
A word in relation to the dramatis personæ of Indian mythology. In all
those mythologies which have been studied with any degree of care up to
the present time zoic deities greatly prevail, the progenitors and
prototypes of the animals of the land, air, and water; yet there are
other deities. Chief among these are the sun, moon, stars, fire, and the
spirits of mountains and other geographical and natural phenomena. Yet
these beings are largely zoomorphic, being considered rather as mythic
animals than as mythic men; but it must be understood that the line of
demarcation between man and the lower animals is not so clearly
presented to the savage mind as to the civilized mind. In speaking of
the theology of the North American Indians as being zoomorphic it must
therefore be understood to mean that such is its chief characteristic,
but not its exclusive characteristic; and further, it must be understood
that it contains by survival many elements from an earlier condition in
which hecastotheism prevailed, that is, that the form of philosophy
known as animism was generally accepted, and that psychic life, with
feeling, thought, and will, was attributed to inanimate things. But more
than this, zootheism is not a permanent state of philosophy, but only a
stepping-stone to something higher. That something higher may be
denominated physitheism, or the worship of the powers and more obtrusive
phenomena of nature. In this higher state the sun, the planets, the
stars, the winds, the storms, the rainbow, and fire take the leading
part. The beginnings of this higher state are to be observed in many of
the mythologies of North America. It is worthy of remark that a
mythology with its religion subject to the influences of an overwhelming
civilization yields first in its zoomorphic elements. Zoic mythology
soon degenerates into folk tales of beasts, to be recited by crones to
children or told by garrulous old men as amusing stories inherited from
past generations; while physitheism is more often incorporated into the
compound of paganism and Christianity now held by the more advanced
tribes. Notwithstanding this general tendency, zootheism is often,
though not to so great an extent, compounded in the same way. The study
of this stage of mythology, and of the arts and customs arising
therefrom, as they are exhibited among the North American Indians, will
ultimately throw a flood of light upon that later stage known as
physitheism, or nature worship, now the subject of investigation by an
army of Aryan scholars.