arrows from the body, except the one which was first shot through the
side of the sacrifice, and placed them together in a pile on the
ground, where they were left. After pulling out the arrows, this man
took his knife and cut open the breast of the captive, and putting his
hand in the opening, took out a handful of blood, and smeared it over
his face, and then jumped to the ground, and ran away as fast as he
could. Each of the four men, after he had done his part, ran away very
fast, and went down to the river and washed himself. When this had
been done the women came with their sticks and spears and struck the
body and counted _coup_ on it. Even the little children struck it.
After they had done this, they put their sticks together on the
ground in a pile, and left them there. By this time the fire was
burning up high and scorching the body, and it was kept up until the
whole body was consumed. And while the smoke of the blood and the
buffalo meat, and of the burning body, ascended to the sky, all the
people prayed to _Ti-ra´-wa_, and walked by the fire and grasped
handfuls of the smoke, and passed it over their bodies and over those
of their children, and prayed _Ti-ra´-wa_ to take pity on them, and to
give them health, and success in war, and plenteous crops. The man who
had killed the captive fasted and mourned for four days, and asked
_Ti-ra´-wa_ to take pity on him, for he knew that he had taken the
life of a human being.
"This sacrifice always seemed acceptable to _Ti-ra´-wa_, and when the
Skidi made it they always seemed to have good fortune in war, and good
crops, and they were always well.
"After the sacrifice was over, then came the old women to rejoice over
what had been done. They would act as the warriors used to do, when
coming back from a war party. They carried the mother corn. They went
to the body and counted _coup_ on it, and then went back to the
village. Some of them would take the large hollow stalks of the
sunflower, and put dust in them, and then blow it out, pretending to
shoot, the puff of dust standing for the smoke of a shot. They would
go up to the secret lodge, and standing outside of it, would tell the
story of how they came to go on their pretended war party, and what
they did while they were gone, and what enemies they struck--the whole
long story. The people meanwhile would stand about and laugh at them
as they did these things. Imitating the warriors, the old women
changed their names also. One of the leading old women once took the
name 'Mud on the Meat,' another, 'Skunk Skin Tobacco Pouch,' another
'Sitting Fish Old Man,' another 'Old Man Stepping on the Heart.' The
old men standing about would joke with the old women, and these would
joke and make fun of each other."
The different acts of this sacrifice appear to have been typical of
the deeds and necessities of warfare. Thus the feathers of the eagle
used on the arrows shot into the captive represented success in war.
Their use was a prayer to _Ti-ra´-wa_ that, as these birds were fierce
and successful when making an attack, so those who shot might be
fierce in war and always conquerors. The burning of the body of the
captive with the blazing stick, perhaps, typified the lighting of the
sacred pipe, which could only be done by one who had sacrificed a
scalp. The shooting arrows into the body by the males and the striking
it by the women typified the killing of and counting _coup_ on the
enemy. The cutting open the belly was the first act in the sacrifice
of the animal, the burnt offering.
It will be noted that this account differs in many particulars from
that given by Mr. Dunbar in his papers on this people, but I think it
worth recording, as being an independent relation by a very old man,
who, I have no doubt, has been an eye-witness of more than one of
these remarkable sacrifices.
I know of no satisfactory and detailed account of any of the sacred
dances of the Pawnees. There were many of these, among them the corn
dance, the buffalo dance, the wild horse dance, the deer, bear, dog
dances and so on. I give below an account of the corn dance, as
detailed to me by Curly Chief, who said:
"The windy month [March] was the one in which _Ti-ra´-wa_ gave us the
seed to cultivate. The first moon of April is the one during which
they had a special worship about the corn. Until these ceremonies had
been performed no one would clear out the patch where they intended
to plant the crop. Everybody waited for this time.
"The Kit-ke-hahk´-i was the only tribe in which this special ceremony
was handed down. The Chau-i and Pita-hau-erat worshiped with them. The
preparations for this dance are always made by a woman. She has to
think about it a long time before she can make up her mind to
undertake it. In making ready for the dance, she must furnish the
dried meat made from the whole of a buffalo, fat and lean, every part
of it. The sack which holds the heart she dries, and fills it with all
the kinds of corn--the five colors, the blue corn, which represents
the blue sky, the red corn, which stands for the evening sunset, the
yellow corn, which typifies the morning sunrise, the white corn, which
stands for a white cloud, and the spotted corn, which represents the
sky dotted with clouds. All these she puts in the bag, placing in the
sack three grains of each at a time. On the special day which has been
fixed for the dance, she must offer these things to _Ti-ra´-wa_. The
people are all gathered together, the women standing on the outside of
the circle behind, and the men on the inner side of the circle in
front. This is a woman's dance, and yet the men are there in front of
the women. These men are the leading warriors of the tribe. They have
been off on the warpath, and in time of corn have gone to the enemy.
They have been successful in war, and therefore they are with the
women. They stand about the circle holding their pipes in their left
hands, showing that they are leaders of war parties, and each with the
skin of a particular bird[13] tied on top of the head, showing that
they are warriors.
[13] A Martin, _Progne_.
"The floor of the lodge must be hard, and swept as clean as it can be.
On the left hand side as you look toward the door is a buffalo skull.
"When the day has come all the people are gathered together and are
standing about the lodge. The high priest stands at the back of the
lodge with the sacred bundles of the three bands before him. Then this
leading woman comes forward, and presents to the high priest the dried
meat and the sack of corn, and two ancient, sacred hoes, made from the
shoulder-blade of a buffalo, bound to a handle by the neck ligament.
She places them on the ground before the sacred bundles, the corn in
the middle, and the two hoes on either side. With these things she
also presents a sacred pipe, filled and ready for lighting, taken
from a sacred bundle. Then she steps back.
"The old high priest must well know the ceremonies to be performed. He
prays to _Ti-ra´-wa_ and lights the sacred pipe, blowing smoke to
heaven, to the earth, and to the four points of the compass. While the
ceremonies are going on, the buffalo skull is taken to the sacred
place in this lodge, and put in a particular position. Then the
leading woman steps forward again, followed by two others. She takes
the bag of corn, and the other two women take the hoes, and they stand
in front of the high priest. He sings and prays. The leading woman
stands in a particular position, as directed by the high priest,
holding the bag of corn up to the sky in both her hands; and as he
sings, she raises and lowers it in time to the music of the song.
"After these ceremonies the women come forward, holding their hoes in
their hands, and dance about the lodge one after another in single
file, following the leading woman. Four times they dance about the
lodge. She cannot pass the priest the fifth time. These ceremonies and
the songs and prayers were to ask for a blessing on the hunt and on
the corn, and to learn whether they would be blessed in both. After
the women had danced and gone back to their places, everybody looked
on the floor of the lodge to see whether there were any buffalo hairs
there. If they saw them, they all said, 'Now we are going to be
successful in our hunt and in our corn.' Everybody said, 'We are
blessed.'
"Then when they would go out on the hunt they would find plenty of
buffalo, and the messenger sent back to the village from the hunt
would return to the camp and say, 'We have plenty of corn.' If they
saw a great many buffalo hairs they would get many buffalo; if but few
they would get some buffalo.
"The next day after these ceremonies every one would begin to clear up
their patches and get ready to plant corn. The leading woman who
prepared the dance is respected and highly thought of. After that she
is like a chief.
"This ceremony is the next principal thing we have after the burnt
offering of the animal and of the scalp. We did not invent this. It
came to us from the Ruler, and we worship him through it. He gave us
the corn and blessed us through it. By it we are made strong.
"We are like seed and we worship through the corn."
III. MEDICINE AND MYSTERY.
It has been said that the "medicine men" or doctors among the Pawnees
occupied a position by themselves. Their guild was entirely distinct
from that of the priests. A priest might be a doctor as well, but not
because he was a priest.
The doctors were primarily healers. Their function was to fight
disease. Like many other savage nations, the Pawnees believed that
sickness was caused by evil spirits, which had entered into the
patient and must be driven out if he was to recover. In their
treatment of injuries the doctors were often singularly successful.
Major North has cited for me a number of instances, in which men,
whose hurts had refused to yield to the treatment of the United States
Army surgeons, had been cured by Pawnee doctors. Some of these have
been detailed elsewhere. As might be imagined, however, the Pawnee
treatment of disease was less efficacious. Simple ailments were often
treated with success by means of the familiar sudatory, or "sweat
house;" but in the case of more serious complaints, the dancing and
rattling, which constitute so large a part of the doctor's treatment,
tend to aggravate rather than to check the disease. I have not space
to discuss the very interesting subject of the system of therapeutics
practiced by the Pawnee doctors. Mr. Dunbar has gone into this matter
quite fully, and the reader is referred to his papers for an account
of their practice.
As the doctors had to fight evil spirits, it is not surprising that
they should have summoned magic to their aid; but this magic probably
served its more important purpose in impressing the other Indians with
a belief in the doctors' powers. Some of the performances which took
place at the doctors' dances were very marvellous, and most of them
were quite inexplicable to those who saw what was done. That they
should have imposed on the Indian spectator is perhaps not surprising;
but it is further to be noted that clear-headed, intelligent white
men, whose powers of observation have been highly trained, have
confessed themselves wholly unable to explain these startling
performances, or to hazard a guess as to the means by which they were
accomplished. That these things happened as detailed is well
authenticated by the testimony of many perfectly credible witnesses.
Other masters of mystery are provided with mechanical aids of one kind
or another--some apparatus which assists them in imposing on their
audiences, by concealing certain objects, or certain acts, by means of
which they cause things to appear different from what they really are.
The Pawnee doctors had nothing of this. Their dances were conducted by
naked men in a ring surrounded by spectators. The floor of bare earth,
packed hard and worn smooth by the tread of many feet, afforded no
apparent opportunity for concealment or trickery. Under such
conditions were performed their mysteries, a few of which I will
mention as they appeared to watchful spectators, distant not more than
twenty-five or thirty feet, and often much nearer.
The simplest performances were the swallowing of spears and arrows.
These feats were merely mechanical, and were no doubt really as they
appeared, the arrows and the spears being driven down the gullet to
the distance of a foot or eighteen inches. Instances occurred where
men who had swallowed arrows died from the injuries received in the
operation. Bear Chief, himself a doctor, and tattooed with a bear on
the right side, told me that it was much harder and more painful to
swallow an arrow than a spear.
Among the more remarkable performances witnessed and vouched for by
my friend, Captain L. H. North, are the following:
Several men, representing elk, came into the ring, and trotted about,
so as to be seen by every one, imitating the movements of those
animals. To their heads were tied branches to represent horns, and
each wore an elk skin thrown over his back. A doctor came into the
ring, and handed to the spectators his arrows, which they examined,
and found to be ordinary arrows with the usual sheet-iron points. On
receiving back the arrows from those who had examined them, the doctor
pretended to hunt the elk, and at length shot at them, striking them
in the sides or on the legs. The arrows, instead of penetrating the
flesh, bounded back, some of them flying fifteen or twenty feet in the
air. They appeared to be shot with the full force of the bow, and when
picked up and handed to the onlookers, the sheet-iron points were
found to be doubled back as if they had been shot against a plate of
iron, and the shafts of some of them were split. The elk trotted away
and out of the ring without injury.
A man, representing an enemy, came into the ring on foot. A doctor
followed, armed with a hatchet, which he passed to the spectators for
examination. It was an ordinary hatchet of the tomahawk form. On
receiving back the hatchet, the doctor started in pursuit of the
enemy, who fled. The doctor overtook him, and with a vigorous blow,
sunk the hatchet up to the handle in the enemy's skull, leaving it
there. The wounded man staggered on, passing within five or six feet
of the ring of spectators, who plainly saw the blood from the wound
running down the man's face, and dripping from his hair behind. They
saw also the gray brain-matter oozing from the wound. The wounded man
was taken from the ring into the doctor's lodge. A few days later he
was seen about, and in his usual health.
A small boy, six or eight years of age, was led into the ring quite
naked. He was placed upon the ground, and two men sat upon him, one on
his chest, the other on his legs. With a knife an incision was made in
his belly; one of the doctors inserted his fingers; and, after feeling
about, pulled out of the cut what looked like a portion of the child's
liver. This he cut off and gave to the other man, who ate it. The
remainder of the liver was crowded back into the hole, and the boy was
carried off. Subsequently he was seen about, apparently in good
health.
A man representing a bear came into the ring and was pursued by a
number of Indians, who shot arrows at him for some time, without
appearing to injure him. At length, however, an arrow pierced him
through the bowels, and the wound was plainly seen on each side. The
man fell, and appeared to be dying. He was removed to the lodge, and
in a short time was entirely recovered.
Major North saw one of these bear performances, in which, the
pretended bear having attacked one of his pursuers, the latter slashed
him across the abdomen with a large knife, inflicting a cut from which
the bowels hung down so that they dragged on the ground. The bear was
carried off, and in a short time was healed, and went about as usual.
Major North told me that he saw with his own eyes the doctors make the
corn grow. This was in the medicine lodge. In the middle of the lodge,
the doctor dug up a piece of the hard trodden floor of the lodge,
about as large as a dinner plate, and broke up between his fingers the
hard pieces of soil, until the dirt was soft and friable. The ground
having thus been prepared, and having been moistened with water, a few
kernels of corn were buried in the loose earth. Then the doctor
retired a little from the spot and sang, and as the place where the
corn was buried was watched, the soil was seen to move, and a tiny
green blade came slowly into view. This continued to increase in
height and size, until in the course of twenty minutes or half an hour
from the time of planting, the stalk of corn was a foot or fifteen
inches in height. At this point Major North was obliged to leave the
lodge, to take out a white woman who was fainting from the heat, and
so did not see the maturing of the corn. All the Indians and white men
who remained assured him that the stalks continued to grow until they
were of full height, and that they then tasseled out and put forth one
or more ears of corn, which grew to full size, and that then the
doctor approached the plant, plucked an ear, and passed it to the
spectators.
Similar to this was a feat performed with a cedar berry. The berry was
passed around among the spectators for examination, and was then
planted as the corn had been. Then after a few moments the doctor
approached the spot, put his thumb and forefinger down into the soft
dirt, and seemed to lay hold of something. Very slowly he raised his
hand and was seen to hold on the tips of his fingers the end of a
cedar twig. Slowly his hand was moved from the ground, the twig
growing longer and longer. When nine or ten inches high it began to
have side branches. The doctor still holding the topmost twig of what
was by this time a cedar bush, continued to lift his hand very slowly,
until it was about three feet from the ground, and then let go of the
bush. Then presently he took hold of the stem close to the ground,
and, seeming to exert a good deal of force, pulled up the bush by the
roots; and all the people saw the bush and its bunch of fresh and
growing roots.
Enough has been said of these mystery ceremonies to indicate that they
were very remarkable. The circumstances under which they were
performed would seem to remove them from the more commonplace tricks
of professional jugglers. And I have never found any one who could
even suggest an explanation of them.
As might be inferred, these mysterious doings greatly impressed the
Pawnees; and the older men among them have a vast store of
reminiscences of past dances, which they delight in repeating. In the
course of a long talk with Bear Chief one evening, he recounted a
number of instances which he had seen. He said:
"A man in our tribe was blind; he could not see. He could travel in
the night as well as we can in the day, but when daylight came he
could see nothing. At one time he called together his relations, and
told them that, though blind, he wished to lead out a war party. He
said, 'I know that I, with my party, will kill an enemy.' They started
out, a young man leading him by the hand all day long. After they had
been out several days, he told the young men to be ready, that the
next morning he was going to kill an enemy. The next morning, while
they were traveling along, they saw an enemy, and surrounded and
killed him. They took the scalp and brought it home, and he had great
credit, because, being blind, he had killed an enemy. They were all
surprised that a blind man should have killed an enemy. He sacrificed
the scalp to _Ti-ra´-wa_, and was made a warrior, and went to the
sacred lodge and told the story of his campaign, and was made a
warrior--a blind warrior.
"It was a wonderful thing for a blind person to be able to travel in
the night. This must have come from _Ti-ra´-wa_.
"One of the wonderful things done by this man was at a medicine dance.
Everybody was there. He stood up with his bearskin over him, and was
led out before the people. A cedar branch was given him, and he
sharpened the end where it had been cut off, and stuck it in the
ground. Everybody was now asked to pull up this branch, and many tried
to do so, but the strongest men in the tribe could not move it. He
could pull it up, as if it were stuck in the mud. He thrust the
pointed end in the ground again, and asked the doctors to pull up the
cedar branch. They tried to do so, but could not stir it. The chiefs
also were asked to try to do this. They tried, but could not move it.
Something seemed to hold it in the ground. After everybody had tried
to pull it up, and failed, this blind man went to it, and taking hold
of it, pulled with all his strength, and pulled up with it about six
feet of roots. There lay the tree with all it roots fresh and growing.
"There was, in my young days, a certain brave man in the tribe. His
name was Elk Left Behind. He was so brave that, when the Sioux
surrounded him, he would kill so many that he would scare the rest
away. In one of the doctors' dances he had the skin of a fawn in his
hands. He called out to the people, 'Now, you people, watch me; look
close and see what I shall do, and you will find out what my bravery
is, and that it all comes from this that you see.' In our presence he
shook this fawn skin, and the fawn slipped out of his hands and then
stood before him, a living fawn looking at him. 'That is what I mean,'
said he. 'If the enemies surround me, that is the way I come out of
it. The fawn can run so fast that it can never be caught, nor can it
ever be shot.'
"This man was wonderful. He used to imitate the deer and the elk. He
could never be driven into timber or brush, or where there were
thickets. He said, 'If I am ever wounded, it will be when I go into
timber or brush.' He always wanted to be in the open plain where he
could be surrounded. He never ran to the timber for shelter.
"If they suspected that the Sioux were coming to attack the village,
he would load a gun and shoot it off. If the ball came back to him,
there were no Sioux coming. If it did not, then they would be coming.
When I was present it always came back to him. There were no Sioux
coming.
"At one time in the doctors' dance I saw him driving ten young men,
who pretended that they were deer. He had a gun and loaded it, and
shot the ten men, one after another, through the side. They fell down
wounded, and then got up and limped off half dying. He drove them
around the ring so that the people might see their wounds. After they
had looked at them, he went up to the first and slapped him on the
back, and the ball dropped out of him on to the ground, and the man
straightened up, healed. So he did to all, up to the tenth man, and
they were all healed. This was wonderful.
[Illustration: SUN CHIEF--KIT-KE-HAHK´-I.]
"At one time he wanted to show the people that he could stand
anything. He and two others were attacked by Sioux. He said, 'I want
to be wounded; let us go to the thickets.' They did so, and a Sioux
shot him through the back, and the other two were wounded, but he
healed them all after they had got away from the Sioux.
"Another man in the doctors' dance had four young men pretend that
they were horses. All had manes and tails, and were painted to imitate
horses. He had a gun, to which was tied a scalp. He loaded the gun,
and while he was doing this the horses ran off, and stood looking back
at the man. He cocked the gun and laid it on the ground pointing
toward the horses, and placed the scalp near the trigger, and walked
some steps away. Then he motioned to the scalp and the gun went off,
and one of the horses went down wounded. It seems that the ghost of
the scalp obeyed his motion, and shot off the gun. He loaded the gun
again, and placed it on the ground as before. The second time he went
way off, and as soon as he waved his hand and said, '_wooh_,' the gun
went off and another horse went down. This was repeated until all the
horses were down. The people examined them and saw that they were
really wounded in the breast. The man went up to them and they seemed
to be dying and vomited blood, and the young man slapped them, and the
balls came out of their mouths, and as soon as the balls came away
from them they were healed.
"There were two people, a brother and sister, children of a man who
had been helped by a bear. One time when we were having a doctors'
dance, the sister and brother came forward, each carrying five cedar
branches about three feet long. They rolled a big rock into the middle
of the lodge, so that all might see what they were going to do. Then
they called ten private men who were not doctors, and told them to
thrust the ends of the branches into the stone as if they had grown
there, and they sang:
"'See the trees growing in the rock;
The cedar tree grows in the rock.'
"These cedar branches were cut square off at the butt, and were set on
the stone. They were not big enough to be even and balance, but still
they stood upright, as if grown from the rock. The doctors tried to
blow them down with their fans made of eagle feathers, but they could
not do it. You could not blow them off nor pull them off. At length
the men who put them there were told to take them off. They had hard
work to do it, but at last they succeeded.