Spirit—Their Caution in War—Method of
Fighting—Barbarity to their Captives—Instances of
their Fortitude and Magnanimity in the View of
Death—Their Reward of Public Services—The Manner
of Crowning their Warriors After Victory—Their
Games—Method of Fishing, and of Building—Their
Utensils and Manufactures—Conduct of Domestic
Life—Their Laws, Form of Government, etc., etc.
APPENDIX
CONTAINING A DESCRIPTION OF THE FLORIDAS, THE MISSISSIPPI 481
LANDS, WITH THEIR PRODUCTIONS—THE BENEFITS OF COLONIZING
GEORGIANA, AND CIVILIZING THE INDIANS—AND THE WAY TO MAKE
ALL THE COLONIES MORE VALUABLE TO THE MOTHER COUNTRY
A
HISTORY
OF THE
NORTH-AMERICAN INDIANS,
THEIR CUSTOMS, &c.
_Observations on the colour, shape, temper, and dress of the Indians of
America._
The Indians are of a copper or red-clay colour—and they delight in every
thing, which they imagine may promote and increase it: accordingly, they
paint their faces with vermilion, as the best and most beautiful
ingredient. If we consider the common laws of nature and providence, we
shall not be surprized at this custom; for every thing loves best its
own likeness and place in the creation, and is disposed to ridicule its
opposite. If a deformed son of burning Africa, was to paint the devil,
he would not do it in black colours, nor delineate him with a shagged
coarse woolly head, nor with thick lips, a short flat nose, or clumsy
feet, like those of a bear: his devil would represent one of a different
nation or people. But was he to draw an agreeable picture,—according to
the African taste, he would daub it all over with sooty black. All the
Indians are so strongly attached to, and prejudiced in favour of, their
own colour, that they think as meanly of the whites, as we possibly can
do of them. The English traders among them, experience much of it, and
are often very glad to be allowed to pass muster with the Indian
chieftains, as fellow-brethren {1} of the human species. One instance
will sufficiently shew in what flattering glasses they view themselves.
Some time past, a large body of the English Indian traders, on their way
to the _Choktah_ country, were escorted by a body of Creek and Choktah
warriors. The Creeks having a particular friendship for some of the
traders, who had treated them pretty liberally, took this opportunity to
chide the Choktahs, before the traders, in a smart though friendly way,
for not allowing to the English the name of human creatures:—for the
general name they give us in their most favourable _war-speeches_,
resembles that of a contemptible, heterogeneous animal.
The hotter, or colder the climate is, where the Indians have long
resided, the greater proportion have they either of the red, or white,
colour. I took particular notice of the Shawano Indians,[1] as they were
passing from the northward, within fifty miles of the Chikkasah country,
to that of the Creeks; and, by comparing them with the Indians which I
accompanied to their camp, I observed the Shawano to be much fairer than
the Chikkasah[II]; though I am satisfied, their endeavours to cultivate
the copper colour, were alike. Many incidents and observations lead me
to believe, that the Indian colour is not natural; but that the external
difference between them and the whites, proceeds entirely from their
customs and method of living, and not from any inherent spring of
nature; which will entirely overturn Lord Kames’s whole system of
colour, and separate races of men.
Footnote II:
S is not a note of plurality with the Indians; when I mention
therefore either their national, or proper names, that common error is
avoided, which writers ignorant of their language constantly commit.
That the Indian colour is merely accidental, or artificial, appears
pretty evident. Their own traditions record them to have come to their
present lands by the way of the west, from a far distant country, and
where there was no variegation of colour in human beings; and they are
entirely ignorant which was the first or primitive colour. Besides,
their rites, customs, &c. as we shall presently see, prove them to be
orientalists: and, as the difference of colour among the human species,
is one of the principal causes of separation, strife, and bloodshed,
would it not greatly reflect on the goodness and justice of the Divine
Being, ignominiously to brand numerous tribes and their posterity, with
a colour odious and hateful in the sight and opinion of those of a
different colour. Some writers have contended, from {2} the diversity of
colour, that America was not peopled from any part of Asia, or of the
old world, but that the natives were a separate creation. Of this
opinion, is Lord Kames, and which he labours to establish in his late
publication, entitled, _Sketches of the History of Man_. But his
reasoning on this point, for a local creation, is contrary both to
revelation, and facts. His chief argument, that “there is not a single
hair on the body of any American, nor the least appearance of a beard,”
is utterly destitute of foundation, as can be attested by all who have
had any communication with them—of this more presently.[2]—Moreover, to
form one creation of _whites_, a second creation for the _yellows_, and
a third for the _blacks_, is a weakness, of which infinite wisdom is
incapable. Its operations are plain, easy, constant, and perfect. The
variegation therefore of colours among the human race, depends upon a
second cause. Lord Kames himself acknowledges, that “the Spanish
inhabitants of Carthagena in South-America lose their vigour and colour
in a few months.”
We are informed by the anatomical observations of our American
physicians, concerning the Indians, that they have discerned a certain
fine cowl, or web, of a red gluey substance, close under the outer skin,
to which it reflects the colour; as the epidermis, or outer skin, is
alike clear in every different creature. And experience, which is the
best medium to discover truth, gives the true cause why this corpus
mucosum, or gluish web, is red in the Indians, and white in us; the
parching winds, and hot sun-beams, beating upon their naked bodies, in
their various gradations of life, necessarily tarnish their skins with
the tawny red colour. Add to this, their constant anointing themselves
with bear’s oil, or grease, mixt with a certain red root, which, by a
peculiar property, is able alone, in a few years time, to produce the
Indian colour in those who are white born, and who have even advanced to
maturity. These metamorphoses I have often seen.
At the Shawano main camp[III], I saw a Pensylvanian, a white man by
birth, and in profession a christian, who, by the inclemency of the sun,
{3} and his endeavours of improving the red colour, was tarnished with
as deep an Indian hue, as any of the camp, though they had been in the
woods only the space of four years.
Footnote III:
In the year 1747, I headed a company of the cheerful, brave Chikkasah,
with the eagles tails, to the camp of the Shawano Indians, to
apprehend one Peter Shartee, (a Frenchman) who, by his artful
paintings, and the supine conduct of the Pensylvanian government, had
decoyed a large body of the Shawano from the English, to the French,
interest. But fearing the consequences, he went around an hundred
miles, toward the Cheerake nation, with his family, and the head
warriors, and thereby evaded the danger.
We may easily conclude then, what a fixt change of colour, such a
constant method of life would produce: for the colour being once
thoroughly established, nature would, as it were, forget herself, not to
beget her own likeness.[3] Besides, may we not suppose, that the
imagination can impress the animalculæ, in the time of copulation, by
its strong subtile power, with at least such an external similitude, as
we speak of?—The sacred oracles, and christian registers, as well as
Indian traditions, support the sentiment;—the colour of Jacob’s cattle
resembled that of the peeled rods he placed before them, in the time of
conception. We have good authority of a Spanish lady, who conceived, and
was delivered of a negro child, by means of a black picture that hung on
the wall, opposite to the bed where she lay. There is a record among the
Chikkasah Indians, that tells us of a white child with flaxen hair, born
in their country, long before any white people appeared in that part of
the world; which they ascribed to the immediate power of the Deity
impressing her imagination in a dream. And the Philosophical
Transactions assure us of two white children having been born of black
parents. But waving all other arguments, the different method of living,
connected with the difference of climates, and extraordinary anointings
and paintings, will effect both outward and inward changes in the human
race, all round the globe: or, a different colour may be conveyed to the
fœtus by the parents, through the channel of the fluids, without the
least variation of the original stamina. For, though the laws of nature
cannot be traced far, where there are various circumstances, and
combinations of things, yet her works are exquisitely constant and
regular, being thereto impelled by unerring divine Wisdom.
As the American Indians are of a reddish or copper colour,—so in general
they are strong, well proportioned in body and limbs, surprisingly
active and nimble, and hardy in their own way of living.
They are ingenious, witty, cunning, and deceitful; very faithful indeed
to their own tribes, but privately dishonest, and mischievous to the
Europeans and christians. Their being honest and harmless to each other,
may be through fear of resentment and reprisal—which is unavoidable in
case of any injury. {4} They are very close, and retentive of their
secrets; never forget injuries; revengeful of blood, to a degree of
distraction. They are timorous, and, consequently, cautious; very
jealous of encroachments from their christian neighbours; and, likewise,
content with freedom, in every turn of fortune. They are possessed of a
strong comprehensive judgment,—can form surprisingly crafty schemes, and
conduct them with equal caution, silence, and address; they admit none
but distinguished warriors, and old beloved men, into their councils.
They are slow, but very persevering in their undertakings—commonly
temperate in eating, but excessively immoderate in drinking.—They often
transform themselves by liquor into the likeness of mad foaming bears.
The women, in general, are of a mild, amiable, soft disposition:
exceedingly modest in their behaviour, and very seldom noisy, either in
the single, or married state.
The men are expert in the use of fire-arms,—in shooting the bow,—and
throwing the feathered dart, and tomohawk, into the flying enemy. They
resemble the lynx, with their sharp penetrating black eyes, and are
exceedingly swift of foot; especially in a long chase: they will stretch
away, through the rough woods, by the bare track, for two or three
hundred miles, in pursuit of a flying enemy, with the continued speed,
and eagerness, of a stanch pack of blood hounds, till they shed
blood.[4] When they have allayed this their burning thirst, they return
home, at their leisure, unless they chance to be pursued, as is
sometimes the case; whence the traders say, “that an Indian is never in
a hurry, but when the devil is at his heels.”
It is remarkable, that there are no deformed Indians—however, they are
generally weaker, and smaller bodied, between the tropics, than in the
higher latitudes; but not in an equal proportion: for, though the
Chikkasah and Choktah countries have not been long divided from each
other, as appears by the similarity of their language, as well as other
things, yet the Chikkasah are exceedingly taller, and stronger bodied
than the latter, though their country is only two degrees farther north.
Such a small difference of latitude, in so healthy a region, could not
make so wide a difference in the constitution of their bodies. The
former are a comely, pleasant looking people; their faces are tolerably
round, contrary to the visage of the others, which inclines much to
flatness, as is the case of most of the other Indian Americans. The lips
of the Indians, in general, are thin. {5}
Their eyes are small, sharp, and black; and their hair is lank, coarse,
and darkish.[5] I never saw any with curled hair, but one in the Choktah
country, where was also another with red hair; probably, they were a
mixture of the French and Indians. Romancing travellers, and their
credulous copyists, report them to be _imbarbes_, and as persons
_impuberes_, and they appear so to strangers. But both sexes pluck all
the hair off their bodies, with a kind of tweezers, made formerly of
clam-shells, now of middle-sized wire, in the shape of a gun-worm;
which, being twisted round a small stick, and the ends fastened therein,
after being properly tempered, keeps its form: holding this Indian razor
between their fore-finger and thumb, they deplume themselves,[6] after
the manner of the Jewish novitiate priests, and proselytes.—As the
former could not otherwise be purified for the function of his
sacerdotal office; or the latter, be admitted to the benefit of
religious communion.
Their chief _dress_ is very simple, like that of the patriarchal age; of
choice, many of their old head-men wear a long wide frock, made of the
skins of wild beasts, in honour of that antient custom: It must be
necessity that forces them to the pinching sandals for their feet. They
seem quite easy, and indifferent, in every various scene of life, as if
they were utterly divested of passions, and the sense of feeling.
Martial virtue, and not riches, is their invariable standard for
preferment; for they neither esteem, nor despise any of their people one
jot more or less, on account of riches or dress. They compare both
these, to paint on a warrior’s face; because it incites others to a
spirit of martial benevolence for their country, and pleases his own
fancy, and the eyes of spectators, for a little time, but is sweated
off, while he is performing his war-dances; or is defaced, by the change
of weather.
They formerly wore shirts, made of drest deer-skins, for their summer
visiting dress: but their winter-hunting clothes were long and shaggy,
made of the skins of panthers, bucks, bears, beavers, and otters; the
fleshy sides outward, sometimes doubled, and always softened like
velvet-cloth, though they retained their fur and hair. The needles and
thread they used formerly, (and now at times) were fish-bones, or the
horns and bones of deer, rubbed sharp, and deer’s sinews, and a sort of
hemp, that grows among them spontaneously, in rich open lands. The
women’s dress consists only in a {6} broad softened skin, or several
small skins sewed together, which they wrap and tye round their waist,
reaching a little below their knees: in cold weather, they wrap
themselves in the softened skins of buffalo calves, with the wintery
shagged wool inward, never forgetting to anoint, and tie up their hair,
except in their time of mourning. The men wear, for ornament, and the
conveniencies of hunting, thin deer-skin boots, well smoked, that reach
so high up their thighs, as with their jackets to secure them from the
brambles and braky thickets. They sew them about five inches from the
edges, which are formed into tossels, to which they fasten fawns
trotters, and small pieces of tinkling metal, or wild turkey-cockspurs.
The beaus used to fasten the like to their war-pipes, with the addition
of a piece of an enemy’s scalp with a tuft of long hair hanging down
from the middle of the stem, each of them painted red: and they still
observe that old custom, only they choose bell-buttons, to give a
greater sound.
The young Indian men and women,[7] through a fondness of their ancient
dress, wrap a piece of cloth round them, that has a near resemblance to
the old Roman toga, or prætexta. ’Tis about a fathom square, bordered
seven or eight quarters deep, to make a shining cavalier of the _beau
monde_, and to keep out both the heat and cold. With this frantic
apparel, the red heroes swaddle themselves, when they are waddling,
whooping, and prancing it away, in their sweltery town-houses, or
supposed synhedria, around the reputed holy fire. In a sweating
condition, they will thus incommode themselves, frequently, for a whole
night, on the same principle of pride, that the grave Spaniard’s winter
cloak must sweat him in summer.
They have a great aversion to the wearing of breeches; for to that
custom, they affix the idea of helplessness, and effeminacy. I know a
German of thirty years standing, chiefly among the Chikkasah Indians,
who because he kept up his breeches with a narrow piece of cloth that
reached across his shoulders, is distinguished by them, as are all his
countrymen, by the despicable appellative, Kish-Kish Tarākshe, or _Tied
Arse_.—They esteem the English much more than the Germans, because our
limbs, they say, are less restrained by our apparel from manly exercise,
than theirs. The Indian women also discreetly observe, that, as all
their men sit down to make {7} water, the ugly breeches would
exceedingly incommode them; and that, if they were allowed to wear
breeches, it would portend no good to their country: however, they add,
should they ever be so unlucky, as to have that pinching custom
introduced among them, the English breeches would best suit their own
female posture on that occasion; but that it would be exceedingly
troublesome either way. The men wear a slip of cloth, about a quarter of
an ell wide, and an ell and an half long, in the lieu of breeches; which
they put between their legs, and tye round their haunches, with a
convenient broad bandage. The women, since the time we first traded with
them, wrap a fathom of the half breadth of Stroud cloth[8] round their
waist, and tie it with a leathern belt, which is commonly covered with
brass runners or buckles: but this sort of loose petticoat, reaches only
to their hams, in order to shew their exquisitely fine proportioned
limbs.
They make their shoes for common use, out of the skins of the bear and
elk, well dressed and smoked, to prevent hardening; and those for
ornament, out of deer-skins, done in the like manner: but they chiefly
go bare-footed, and always bare-headed. The men fasten several different
sorts of beautiful feathers, frequently in tufts; or the wing of a red
bird, or the skin of a small hawk, to a lock of hair on the crown of
their heads. And every different Indian nation when at war, trim their
hair, after a different manner, through contempt of each other; thus we
can distinguish an enemy in the woods, so far off as we can see him.
The Indians flatten their heads, in divers forms: but it is chiefly the
crown of the head they depress, in order to beautify themselves, as
their wild fancy terms it; for they call us _long heads_, by way of
contempt. The Choktah Indians flatten their fore-heads, from the top of
the head to the eye-brows with a small bag of sand; which gives them a
hideous appearance; as the forehead naturally shoots upward, according
as it is flattened: thus, the rising of the nose, instead of being
equidistant from the beginning of the chin, to that of the hair, is, by
their wild mechanism, placed a great deal nearer to the one, and farther
from the other.[9] The Indian nations, round South-Carolina, and all the
way to New Mexico, (properly called Mechiko) to effect this, fix the
tender infant on a kind of cradle, where his feet are tilted, above a
foot higher than a horizontal position, {8} —his head bends back into a
hole, made on purpose to receive it, where he bears the chief part of
his weight on the crown of the head, upon a small bag of sand, without
being in the least able to move himself. The skull resembling a fine
cartilaginous substance, in its infant state, is capable of taking any
impression. By this pressure, and their thus flattening the crown of the
head, they consequently make their heads thick, and their faces broad:
for, when the smooth channel of nature is stopped in one place, if a
destruction of the whole system doth not thereby ensue, it breaks out in
a proportional redundancy, in another. May we not to this custom, and as
a necessary effect of this cause, attribute their fickle, wild, and
cruel tempers? especially, when we connect therewith, both a false
education, and great exercise to agitate their animal spirits. When the
brain, in cooler people, is disturbed, it neither reasons, nor
determines, with proper judgment? The Indians thus look on every thing
around them, through their own false medium; and vilify our heads,
because they have given a wrong turn to their own. {9}
-----
Footnote 1:
The earliest home of the Shawnee Indians in historic times was on the
Cumberland River, in Tennessee, which for a long period was called by
the French, and so named on their maps, Chaouanon (Shawnee) Riviere. A
branch of the tribe moved from there southward across the Tennessee
where the Savannah River took their name. Shortly before 1715 the
Chickasaw and Cherokee Indians combined and drove the Shawnees from
their long-established settlements on the Cumberland. Haywood says
that a part of the tribe returned to the region (about 1745) to be
again expelled, going to the Creeks.
The true date seems to be 1749. In a letter of May 4th of that year,
Comte de Jony wrote that the “Chaouanons, because of the antipathy of
most of the other nations to them, had decided to separate into two
bands.... The latter band, after ascending a part of the river of the
Cherokis [Tennessee] decided to go and join the Creeks.” _Wis. His.
Col._ XVIII. It is to this band that Adair refers, probably.
The Shawnees, after a stay in Pennsylvania, had settlements on Scioto
River in the Ohio Country. They were known as “gypsies of the forest,”
and a wandering band is referred to by Adair. Prior to 1700 the
Chickasaws and the Shawnees had as allies fought the Illinois Indians.
Shea, _Early Mississippi Voyages_, 60, 66, 120. Lawson (1709)
describes them as formerly living on the waters of the Mississippi,
“and removed thence to the head of one of the rivers of South
Carolina” (the Savannah). _History of North Carolina_, 100.
For generations, from their stronghold on the Scioto, they made war on
the Overhill Cherokees, with only brief intervals of peace. On the
Shawnees, see: Haywood, _History of Tennessee_, 426; Hanna, _The
Wilderness Trail_, II, 240; Thwaites, _Jesuit Relations_, XL, 145;
Margry, _Decouvertes_, III, 589; Schoolcraft, _Historical Information
... Indian Tribes_, IV, 256; Swanton, _Early History of the Creeks_,
317, 415; Loskiel, _History of the Mission of the United Brethren
Among the Indians_, pt. ch. 10, and Mooney’s _Myths of the Cherokees_,
494.
Footnote 2:
p. 7 _post_.
Footnote 3:
Since a newborn infant of Indian parentage is of varying degrees of
dusky red, Adair’s argument is that the color was produced by exposure
and the use of cosmetics by previous generations; not that each
individual is born white and later takes on a copper color.
Footnote 4:
Speaking of the Indians of the Mississippi River region, John Lawson
in his _History of North Carolina_ (1710) says, p. 133: “They are the
hardiest of all Indians, and run so fast that they are never taken;
neither do any Indians outrun them if they are pursued.” See also,
Williams, _Memoirs of Lieut. Henry Timberlake_, 79.
Footnote 5:
Schoolcraft says the hair of Indians is invariably cylindrical in
structure; that of Caucasians oval.
Footnote 6:
Confirmation: Schoolcraft, _Historical Information_, II 322; Cushman,
_History of the Choctaw, Chickasaw and Natchez Indians_ (1899), 204.
Cushman says, however, that the Choctaws and Chickasaws of unmixed
blood have no hair on any part of the body except the head and, on the
chins of males, a bare patch of beard.
Footnote 7:
Compare the account of Wm. Bartram in _Travels_ (1793), p. 499; of Du
Pratz in _History of Louisiana_, (1763) II, 231, and of Lawson,
_History of Carolina_ (1712) p. 190.
Footnote 8: