SUPERSTITION THEIR RELIGION
Superstition was born with the first man, and is about the only thing in
the world that remains unchanged today. The more ignorant the people the
deeper we find them plunged into the dark maze of the mythical. People of
highly civilized nations are not free from this clinging shadow of the
forgotten or unknown past, and, although they laugh at the idea as being
rank foolishness, they will feel a little shiver if they are the first
to cross the track of a funeral, or they will stop and pick up a pin
which points toward them on the sidewalk, not because they need it, but
because—well, just because they want to. Civilized people call this trait
an eccentricity in themselves and superstition in the savage.
Savages the world over are steeped in superstitious myths, traditions
and in folk-lore which is peculiar each to its own tribe, or clan, but
through it all there are threads which connect one tribe or people with
another, though miles of distance may intervene.
The stories vary in detail and in the telling, but the main points are
identical, showing conclusively that at some pre-historic time men had a
means of inter-communication without telegraph, ships or railroads, and
that a myth originated by the medicine men or prophets of one tribe or
nation would spread far beyond the boundaries of the tribe which first
practiced it.
There are today two remarkable instances of this fact, both
semi-religious a and both originating with the medicine men.
The first is the ghost dance, made vaguely familiar by the battle of
Wounded Knee some years ago in the Dakota Bad Land. The other is the
myth of the Thunderbird, the Skam-son of the Haidas, and known from Cape
Flattery to Wisconsin by various tribal names.
The object of this chapter is to show the remarkable hold which a
mythical tale can get on the savage mind, and how the Ta-mahn-a-wis sway
the people of their tribe by their dark practices; hence the myth of the
Thunderbird as believed in by them from the coast to the great lakes.
The tale involving the origin of this strange creature has already been
given as it is told among the Twanas, but it is more than probable that
each tribe has its own version of the first appearance of it in their
horizon, as all Indians believe in a multitude of spirits, both good and
bad.
The idea of a Great Spirit as is generally taken by whites to cover the
Indian religion is erroneous, as every mountain, river, lake or other
natural object, as well as natural phenomenon, is accredited with being
the home of some particular spirit; in fact, the old Greek mythology is a
good comparison, and illustrates the idea exactly.
Hence we find the thunder personified by an immense bird with some
tribes, and with others as half bird, half man, or a man who wears
a bird’s skin, but, all agree that the personage is of colossal
proportions, and give it the name of Thunderbird.
[Illustration: DAKOTA DESIGNS OF SMALLER THUNDERERS.]
Surroundings modify the form and features of this mythical being to a
great extent, and account for the different descriptions of it given by
different tribes.
The Twanas believe it to be an immense bird which lives on the top of a
high mountain, and feeds on whales which it kills by lightning. It is
here in the form of an eagle, with quill feathers sixty fathoms long in
each wing.
With them it is a good spirit, harming no one unless an individual has
displeased it; then the person is killed by a glance from its eye, which
is the lightning. They believe that it is the god of rain, and also
that the image of it carved on their implements of war or the chase
gives the owner strength in fighting and good luck in hunting. Thus it
is a hunter-warrior-rain god. Rev. Eells reports a carving of the Twana
version cut in a basaltic boulder near Eniti, Wash., which the Indians
say is the face of the Thunderbird, and they believe that if the rock is
shaken or removed in any way it will cause rain.
Among the Haidas of Queen Charlotte island it is believed to be an
immense creature, half man, half bird, whose body is the mountains to the
sea, shielded from view by heavy clouds, the main difference in the story
being in the lightning, which is here personified by the fish instead of
described as a glance of the eye of the bird covered with feathers, and
who is accompanied by the lightning fish, which he darts at the whales
and kills them for food. This lightning fish is pictured as the Killer
whale, which is feared by the Indians, as it attacks them sometimes while
voyaging about in their canoes; hence they credit it as a companion of
the Thunderbird, or Skam-son, as they call it. As with the Twanas, the
thunder is caused by the flapping of the wings as the creature flies from
Skam-son. This is easily accounted for by the fact that the Haidas are a
sea-going nation, a nation of fishermen, who gain their living from the
ocean; hence they would naturally associate a fish of some kind with any
tradition or myth where it could be used.
They tattoo the image of the bird on their bodies as a clan or family
mark in t he same manner as they do the otter, halibut, skate and other
designs, to signify the family the individual belongs to; or, as one
remarked to Judge Swan of Port Townsend: “If you had the image of a swan
tattooed on your body the Indians would know your family name.”
The figure is carved on their totem posts and canoe stems and painted
on the house fronts, and various implements with the belief, as among
the Twanas, that it gives them power, courage and luck in hunting,
fishing or war. A mask representing the head of the bird is worn in the
Ta-mahn-a-wis dances and ceremonies, which have something to do with the
Thunderbird, though just what this is has never been clearly ascertained,
as the Indians will not allow whites to witness these Ta-mahn-a-wis
practices, which are of the nature of a secret society among civilized
people.
The Twanas and the Clallams also use a mask of a different design for the
same purposes. No tribes tattoo the figure on their person, so far as
known, outside of the Haidas.
[Illustration: OJIBWA FLYING THUNDERBIRD]
Leaving the coast and going eastward we find the Thunderbird among the
Sioux of Dakota and Eastern Montana again, this time being personified
in an immense eagle, with four joints to the wing and which dwells in
a lodge on the top of a high knoll or butte. The lodge has four doors,
one for each cardinal point of the compass, and at each door there is a
guardian spirit. These spirits are a beaver, a butterfly, an otter and
one other animal not clearly defined, whose duty it is to guard and act
as messengers for the Thunderbird.
As with the Twanas, the lightning is a glance from the eye, and a
person who has a presentment that the Thunderbird is displeased with
him and intends to kill him, retires to a high hill to await his doom,
after having bid his friends farewell. Sometimes, owing to the isolated
position of the individual, he is actually struck by lightning during
some of the heavy thunder storms of the region, and that settles the myth
all the firmer in the Indian mind, for the Thunderbird it was who killed
him, just as he said it would. Here the myth assumes three or four, or
rather a family of thunderers, some good, some evil, some who guard the
destiny of the warrior and strike terror into the heart of the enemy,
others who see that the hunter does not come home empty handed.
Some are headless and have wings, some are wingless but provided with
heads, but the Thunderbird, with a big “T,” who is the rain god and
thunder creater and good spirit-in-chief, is described as a very large
bird which flies fast. This bird has a whole brood of little ones, who
follow behind the big thunderer and make the long rumble noticeable in
the prairie thunder peals. The old bird is wise and good, harming no
one, and causing rain, which makes the plants grow, but the young ones
are like young men, very mischievous, and will not listen to counsel and
are continually doing a great deal of damage, and killing an occasional
person purely in a playful way, for when they grow old, they settle down
and become good spirits, too. Nothing can kill or destroy the Thunderbird
but an immense giant, who can stride over rivers and mountains and can
kill anything by a look. This giant still exists, but nobody knows where,
and is always hunting for the thunderer, who has to fly from place to
place to keep away from the evil giant, thus causing storms by flying
about. The old bird starts with the loud crash of noise, and then the
little ones rise in a swarm and make a lot more noise, but not so loud as
the old one, which flies very fast.
[Illustration: HAIDA TATOOING—THUNDERBIRD HEAD.]
The giant killed one of the old ones a long, long time ago, back of
Little Crow’s village, near the head of the Mississippi river, and the
medicine men still have totems made of the feathers and bones, and they
are very strong medicine against evil.
This bird had “a face like a man, nose like an eagle bill, body long and
slender and four joints to each wing, which were painted zigzag like the
lightning, and the back of the head was rough and red,” according to the
Dakota tradition. This is the Sioux story of the Thunderbird. Going a
little further east we find the Ojibwa, who live in Minnesota and around
the shores of Lake Superior with a myth of the thunderer which makes it
entirely a good spirit, a sort of servant of the medicine man, shaman or
priest, and who helps them to work cures, find good medicine plants, and
many other things which have a good influence.
With the Ojibwa it is also an immense eagle-like bird but without any
superfluity of wing joints. The thunder is the noise of its flying and it
causes rain which makes medicine plants grow and also it can apparently
find a medicine plant to fit the particular disease by looking on the
earth, in the sky or in the inside of the earth, either of which places
it can visit at will under the instructions of the medicine man or
shaman, who holds a controlling power over it.
There is no record of any masks being used to represent the thunderer,
directly east of the coast tribes, the only representations being from
Indian drawings, which interpret their idea and which are represented in
this book.
There are no carvings or images except those worked in beads, from near
Fort Snelling, Minnesota, which represent the bird with the red breast
and tail, and having somewhat of an eagle form.
[Illustration: OJIBWA THUNDERER]
The Ojibwa figures are from drawings on the “music board” used by the
Ojibwa at the initiation of candidates into the society of the Mide-wiwin
or great medicine, and are really notes in the medicine song of this
society, for they are only one of numerous characters painted in rows on
a board which are translated into a chant by the Mide men to mean some
particular achievement of the Thunderbird under the guidance of that
society.
This Thunderbird lives somewhere up in the sky and can only be brought to
the earth by the Mide or shaman priests, who are the medicine men of the
tribe, and members of the Mide-wiwin society, and then only to serve some
good end in the making of medicine.
Thus the Thunderbird of the Pacific Coast degenerates into a servant of
the Ojibwa medicine man, or else the servant grows to the proportion of
a God as he travels West according to which version is taken as to the
origin, but it is likely that the servant grew to be the God, as all
tales grow in the telling, especially among an ignorant people like the
Indians.
Most of these myths and folk-lore tales have their origin in a “dream” or
trance of some medicine man whose word is taken without question by his
people because he is really a religious magician or prophet-doctor who
is credited with many supernatural powers, has “visions” and foretells
events. They are clever in the means they employ to bring about a desired
end and thus “speak a single, straight tongue” to their people who would
as soon cut off a hand as to doubt the statements of the Ta-mahn-a-wis
men. With this kind of a power wielded over them it is no wonder that
the simple-minded Indian peoples the earth, the sea and the air with all
kinds of demons of which the Thunderbird is but one example, and has a
noise for every Skal-lal-a-toot, and a Skal-lal-a-toot for every noise,
with spirits inhabiting everything, totems, fetiches and charms for
and against a thousand and one things which he does not understand and
credits to the supernatural.