the manner in which such a ghastly relic of savagery came into my
possession. On the morning of the 25th of November, 1876, the cavalry
and Indian scouts (Sioux, Shoshoni, Arapaho, Pawnee, and a few of the
Cheyenne themselves), of Gen. Crook's command, under the leadership of
the late Brig. Gen. Ranald S. Mackenzie, then colonel of the Fourth
Cavalry, surprised and destroyed the main village of the Cheyenne, on
the headwaters of the Powder River, in the Big Horn Mountains,
Wyoming. The onslaught was irresistible, the destruction complete, and
the discomfited savages were forced to flee from their beds, half
naked and with nothing save their arms and ammunition. More than half
of the great herd of ponies belonging to the savages were killed,
captured, or so badly wounded as to be of no use to the owners. The
cold became so intense that on the night after the fight eleven
papooses froze to death in their mothers' arms, and the succeeding
night, three others. This blow, the most grievous ever inflicted upon
the plains tribes, resulted in the surrender, first of the Cheyenne,
and later on of the principal chief of the Sioux, the renowned Crazy
Horse; after which the Sioux troubles were minimized into the hunt for
scattered bands. Undoubtedly, among the bitterest losses of valuable
property suffered by the Cheyenne on this occasion were the two
necklaces of human fingers which came into my possession, together
with the small buckskin bag filled with the right hands of papooses
belonging to the tribe of their deadly enemies, the Shoshoni. These
were found in the village by one of our scouts--Baptiste Pourrier,
who, with Mr. Frank Gruard, was holding an important and responsible
position in connection with the care of the great body of Indian
scouts already spoken of. From these two gentlemen I afterwards
obtained all the information that is here to be found regarding the
Cheyenne necklace.
The second necklace, consisting of four fingers, was buried, as Gen.
Crook did not wish to have kept more than one specimen, and that only
for scientific purposes. Accordingly, the necklace here depicted was
sent first to the U. S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, and
later to the National Museum in Washington, where it was believed it
could better fulfill its mission of educating students in a knowledge
of the manners and customs of our aborigines.
The buckskin bag, with the papooses' hands, was claimed by the
Shoshoni scouts, who danced and wailed all night, and then burned the
fearful evidence of the loss sustained by their people.
The necklace is made of a round collar of buckskin, incrusted with the
small blue and white beads purchased from the traders, these being
arranged in alternate spaces of an inch or more in length. There are
also attached numbers of the perforated wampum shell beads of native
manufacture. Pendant from this collar are five medicine arrows, the
exact nature of which, it was, of course, impossible to determine from
the owner himself. Both Frank and Baptiste agreed that an arrow might
become "medicine" either from having been shot into the person of the
owner himself or into the body of an enemy, or even from having been
picked up under peculiar circumstances. The owner, High Wolf or Tall
Wolf, admitted as much after he had surrendered at the Red Cloud
Agency and had made every effort to obtain the return of his medicine,
which was this necklace.
The four medicine bags to be seen in the picture are worthy of
attention. They were carefully examined under a powerful glass by Dr.
H. C. Yarrow, U. S. Army, in the city of Washington, and pronounced to
be human scrota. The first of these contained a vegetable powder,
somewhat decomposed, having a resemblance to hoddentin; the second was
filled with killikinnick; the third with small garnet-colored seeds
like the chia in use among the Apache, and the fourth with a yellow,
clayey-white vegetable matter not identified. The fifth, also,
remained unidentified.
Besides the above, there are artificial teeth, resembling those of the
fossil animals abundant in the Bad Lands of South Dakota, but cut out
of soft stone.
The fingers--eight altogether--are the left-hand middle fingers of
Indians of hostile tribes, killed by High Wolf. I obtained the list
and could insert it here were it worthwhile to do so. The fingers have
not been left in the natural state, but have been subjected to very
careful and elaborate antiseptic treatment in order thoroughly to
desiccate them. They were split longitudinally on the inner side and
after the bone had been extracted the surface of the skin, both inside
and out, received a treatment with a wash or paint of ocherous earth,
the same as is used for the face. I was told that the bones were not
replaced but that sticks were inserted to maintain the fingers in
proper shape.
Of the reason for making use of such a trophy or relic, there is not
much to be said; even the savages know little and say less. From the
best information that I have been able to gather, it would seem to be
based partly upon a vainglorious desire to display the proofs of
personal prowess, and partly upon the vague and ill defined, but
deeply rooted, belief in the talismanic or "medicinal" potency
possessed by all parts of the human body, especially after death. It
was such a belief which impelled the Mandan, Aztecs, and others of the
American tribes to preserve the skulls of their dead as well as (among
the Aztecs) those of the victims sacrificed in honor of their gods. As
has been shown in another place, the Zuñi and others take care to
offer food at stated periods to the scalps of their enemies.
The use of necklaces of human fingers or of human teeth is to be found
in many parts of the world, and besides the fingers themselves, we
find the whole arm, or in other cases only the nails. The Cheyenne did
not always restrict themselves to fingers; they generally made use of
the whole hand, or the arm of the slaughtered enemy. In a colored
picture drawn and painted by one of themselves I have a representation
of a scalp dance, in which the squaws may be seen dressed in their
best, carrying the arms of enemies elevated on high poles and lances.
There is no doubt in my mind that this custom of the Cheyenne of
cutting off the arm or hand gave rise to their name in the sign
language of the "Slashers," or "Wrist Cutters," much as the
corresponding tribal peculiarity of the Dakota occasioned their name
of the "Coupe Gorge" or "Throat Cutters."
The necklace of human fingers is found among other tribes. A necklace
of four human fingers was seen by the members of the Lewis and Clarke
expedition among the Shoshoni at the headwaters of the Columbia, in
the early years of the present century. Early in the spring of 1858
Henry Youle Hind refers to the allies of the Ojibwa on Red River as
having "two fingers severed from the hands of the unfortunate
Sioux."[131] In Eastman's "Legends of the Sioux," we read of
"Harpsthinah, one of the Sioux women, who wore as long as she could
endure it, a necklace made of the hands and feet of Chippewah
children."[132] We read that in New Zealand, "Several rows of human
teeth, drawn on a thread, hung on their breasts."[133] Capt. Cook
speaks of seeing fifteen human jaw bones attached to a semicircular
board at the end of a long house on the island of Tahiti. "They
appeared to be fresh, and there was not one of them that wanted a
single tooth;"[134] and also, "the model of a canoe, about three feet
long, to which were tied eight human jaw bones; we had already learnt
that these were trophies of war."[135] Capt. Byron, R. N., saw in the
Society Islands, in 1765, a chief who "had a string of human teeth
about his waist, which was probably a trophy of his military
prowess."[136]
"The wild Andamanese, who live only on the fruits of their forests and
on fish, so far revere their progenitors that they adorn their women
and children with necklaces and such like, formed out of the finger
and toe-nails of their ancestors."[137]
Bancroft says[138] that the Californians did not generally scalp, but
they did cut off and keep the arms and legs of a slain enemy or,
rather, the hands and feet and head. They also had the habit of
plucking out and preserving the eyes.
Kohl assures us that he has been informed that the Ojibwa will
frequently cut fingers, arms, and limbs from their enemies and
preserve these ghastly relics for use in their dances. Sometimes the
warriors will become so excited that they will break off and swallow a
finger.[139]
Tanner says of the Ojibwa: "Sometimes they use sacks of human skin to
contain their medicines, and they fancy that something is thus added
to their efficacy."[140]
Of the savages of Virginia we read: "Mais d'autres portent pour plus
glorieuse parure une main seiche de quelqu'un de leurs ennemis."[141]
Of the Algonkin we read: "Il y en a qui ont une partie du bras et la
main de quelque Hiroquois qu'ils ont tué; cela est si bien vuidée que
les ongles restent toutes entieres."[142]
The Mohawk "place their foe against a tree or stake and first tear all
the nails from his fingers and run them on a string, which they wear
the same as we do gold chains. It is considered to the honor of any
chief who has vanquished or overcome his enemies if he bite off or cut
off some of their members, as whole fingers."[143]
The Cenis (Asinai) of Texas, were seen by La Salle's expedition in
1687-1690, torturing a captive squaw. "They then tore out her hair,
and cut off her fingers."[144]
In volume 2 of Kingsborough's Mexican Antiquities, in the plates of
the Vatican manuscript, is to be seen a representation of an Aztec
priest or other dignitary holding out in his hands two human arms. In
plate 76 of the same is a priest offering up a human sacrifice, the
virile member of the victim cut off.
Teoyamaqui, the wife of Huitzlipochtli, the Aztec god of war, was
depicted with a necklace of human hands.[145] Squier also says that
Darga or Kali, the Hindu goddess, who corresponds very closely to her,
was represented with "a necklace of skulls" and "a girdle of
dissevered human hands."
The Hindu goddess Kali was decorated with a necklace of human
skulls.[146] In the Propaganda collection, given in Kingsborough,[147]
are to be seen human arms and legs.
"On the death of any of the great officers of state, the finger bones
and hair are also preserved; or if they have died shaven, as sometimes
occurs, a bit of their mbŭgŭ dress will be preserved in place of the
hair."[148] "Their families guard their tombs."[149]
The principal war fetiches of Uganda "consist of dead lizards, bits
of wood, hide, nails of dead people, claws of animals, and beaks of
birds." Stanley saw them displayed before King Mtesa.[150]
"Some of the women in Gippsland wear round the neck human hands,
which, Mr. Hull says, were beautifully prepared. He moreover informs
me that they sometimes wear the parts of which the 'Lingam' and
'Priapus' were the emblems."[151] "The Gippsland people keep the
relics of the departed. They will cut off the hands to keep as a
remembrance, and these they will attach to the string that is tied
round the neck."[152]
Smyth also relates that the women of some of the Australian tribes
preserve "the hands of some defunct member of the tribe--that of some
friend of the woman's, or perhaps one belonging to a former husband.
This she keeps as the only remembrance of one she once loved; and,
though years may have passed, even now, when she has nothing else to
do, she will sit and moan over this relic of humanity. Sometimes a
mother will carry about with her the remains of a beloved child, whose
death she mourns."[153] The Australians also use the skulls of their
"nearest and dearest relatives" for drinking vessels; thus, a daughter
would use her mother's skull, etc.[154]
"One of the most extraordinary of their laws is that a widow, for
every husband she marries after the first, is obliged to cut off a
joint of a finger, which she presents to her husband on the wedding
day, beginning at one of the little fingers."[155]
In the Army and Navy Journal, New York, June 23, 1888, is mentioned a
battle between the Crow of Montana and the Piegan, in which the former
obtained some of the hands and feet of dead warriors of the
first-named tribe and used them in their dances.
Catlin shows that the young Sioux warriors, after going through the
ordeal of the sun dance, placed the little finger of the left hand on
the skull of a sacred buffalo and had it chopped off.[156]
"The sacrifices [of American Indians] at the fasts at puberty
sometimes consist of finger joints."[157]
In Dodge's Wild Indians is represented (Pl. vi, 13) a Cheyenne
necklace of the bones of the first joint of the human fingers,
stripped of skin and flesh. I have never seen or heard of anything of
the kind, although I have served with the Cheyenne a great deal and
have spoken about their customs. My necklace is of human fingers
mummified, not of bones.
Fanny Kelly says of a Sioux chief: "He showed me a puzzle or game he
had made from the finger bones of some of the victims that had fallen
beneath his own tomahawk. The bones had been freed from the flesh by
boiling, and, being placed upon a string, were used for playing some
kind of Indian game."[158]
Strabo recounts in his third book that the Lusitanians sacrificed
prisoners and cut off their right hands to consecrate them to their
gods.
Dulaure says that the Germans attached the heads and the right hands
of their human victims to sacred trees.[159]
Adoni-bezek cut off the thumbs and great toes of seventy kings of
Syria.[160]
The necklace of human fingers is not a particle more horrible than the
ornaments of human bones to be seen in the cemetery of the Capuchins
in Rome at the present day. I have personally known of two or three
cases where American Indians cut their enemies limb from limb. The
idea upon which the practice is based seems to be the analogue of the
old English custom of sentencing a criminal to be "hanged, drawn, and
quartered."
Brand gives a detailed description of the "hand of glory," the
possession of which was believed by the peasantry of Great Britain and
France to enable a man to enter a house invisible to the occupants. It
was made of the hand of an executed (hanged) murderer, carefully
desiccated and prepared with a great amount of superstitious mummery.
With this holding a candle of "the fat of a hanged man" burglars felt
perfectly secure while engaged in their predatory work.[161] The
belief was that a candle placed in a dead man's hand will not be seen
by any but those by whom it is used. Such a candle introduced into a
house kept those who were asleep from awakening.
The superstition in regard to the "hand of glory" was widely diffused
throughout France, Germany, Spain, and Great Britain. As late as the
year 1831 it was used by Irish burglars in the county Meath.
Dr. Frank Baker delivered before the Anthropological Society of
Washington, D. C., a lecture upon these superstitions as related to
the "hand of glory," to which the student is respectfully
referred.[162]
An Aztec warrior always tried to procure the middle finger of the left
hand of a woman who had died in childbirth. This he fastened to his
shield as a talisman.[163] The great weapon of the Aztec witches was
the left arm of a woman who had died in her first childbirth.[164]
Pliny mentions "still-born infants cut up limb by limb for the most
abominable practices, not only by midwives, but by harlots even as
well!"[165]
The opinions entertained in Pliny's time descended to that of the
Reformation--
Finger of birth-strangled babe,
Ditch-deliver'd by a drab.[166]
"Scrofula, imposthumes of the parotid glands, and throat diseases,
they say, may be cured by the contact of the hand of a person who has
been carried off by an early death;" but, he goes on to say, any dead
hand will do, "provided it is of the same sex as the patient and that
the part affected is touched with the back of the left hand."[167] A
footnote adds that this superstition still prevails in England in
regard to the hand of a man who has been hanged.
The use of dead men's toes, fingers, spinal vertebræ, etc., in magical
ceremonies, especially the fabrication of magical lamps and candles,
is referred to by Frommann.[168]
Grimm is authority for the statement that in both France and Germany
the belief was prevalent that the fingers of an unborn babe were
"available for magic."[169]
In England witches were believed to "open graves for the purpose of
taking out the joints of the fingers and toes of dead bodies ... in
order to prepare a powder for their magical purposes."[170]
"Saint Athanase dit même, que ces parties du corps humain [i.e.,
hands, feet, toes, fingers, etc.] étoient adorées comme des dieux
particuliers."[171]
According to the sacred lore of the Brahmans "the Tirtha sacred to the
Gods lies at the root of the little finger, that sacred to the Rishis
in the middle of the fingers, that sacred to Men at the tips of the
fingers, that sacred to Agni (fire) in the middle of the hand."[172]
In the Island of Ceylon "debauchees and desperate people often play
away the ends of their fingers."[173]
Hone shows that "every joint of each finger was appropriated to some
saint."[174]
NECKLACES OF HUMAN TEETH.
A number of examples are to be found of the employment of necklaces of
human teeth. In my own experience I have never come across any
specimens, and my belief is that among the Indians south of the
Isthmus such things are to be found almost exclusively. I have found
no reference to such ornamentation or "medicine" among the tribes of
North America, but there are many to show the very general
dissemination of the custom in Africa and in the islands of the South
Sea. Gomara says that the Indians of Santa Marta wore at their necks,
like dentists, the teeth of the enemies they had killed in
battle.[175] Many of the Carib, we are told by a Spanish writer,
ostentatiously wear necklaces made of strings of the teeth of the
enemies whom they have slain.[176] Padre Fray Alonzo Fernandez says of
the Carib: "Traen los dientes con los cabellos de los que mataron por
collares, como hazian antiguamente los Scitas."[177] The people of New
Granada "traen al cuello dientes de los que matavan."[178] Picart says
that the natives of New Granada and Cumana "portent au col les dents
des ennemis qu'ils ont massacrez."[179] The Spaniards found in the
temple of the Itzaes, on the island of Peten, an idol made of "yesso,"
which is plaster, and in the head, which was shaped like the sun, were
imbedded the teeth of the Castilians whom they had captured and
killed.[180]
"They strung together the teeth of such of their enemies as they had
slain in battle and wore them on their legs and arms as trophies of
successful cruelty."[181]
Stanley says, referring to the natives of the Lower Congo country:
"Their necklaces consisted of human, gorilla, and crocodile teeth, in
such quantity, in many cases, that little or nothing could be seen of
the neck."[182]
"The necklaces of human teeth which they [Urangi and Rubunga, of the
Lower Congo] wore."[183] Again, "human teeth were popular ornaments
for the neck."[184] When a king dies they [the Wahŭma, of the head of
the Nile] cut out his lower jaw and preserve it covered with
beads.[185]
Schweinfurth[186] speaks of having seen piles of "lower jawbones from
which the teeth had been extracted to serve as ornaments for the neck"
by the Monbuttoo of Africa. "A slaughtered foe was devoured from
actual bloodthirstiness and hatred by the Niam-Niams of Central
Africa.... They make no secret of their savage craving, but
ostentatiously string the teeth of their victims round their necks,
adorning the stakes erected beside their dwellings for the habitation
of the trophies with the skulls of the men they have devoured. Human
fat is universally sold."[187]
The four front teeth were extracted by the men and women of the
Latooka and other tribes of the White Nile, but no explanation is
given of the custom.[188]
In Dahomey, strings of human teeth are worn.[189]
Freycinet saw in Timor, Straits of Malacca, "a score of human
jawbones, which we wished to purchase; but all our offers were met by
the word 'pamali,' meaning sacred."[190]
In one of the "morais" or temples entered by Kotzebue in 1818, on the
Sandwich Islands, there were two great and ugly idols, one
representing a man, the other a woman. "The priests made me notice
that both statues, which had their mouths wide open, were furnished
with a row of human teeth."[191]
The Sandwich Islanders kept the jaw bones of their enemies as
trophies.[192] King Tamaahmaah had a "spitbox which was set round with
human teeth, and had belonged to several of his predecessors."[193]
Among some of the Australian tribes the women wear about their necks
the teeth which have been knocked out of the mouths of the boys at a
certain age.[194] This custom of the Australians does not obtain among
the North American tribes, by whom the teeth, as they fall out, are
carefully hidden or buried under some tree or rock. At least, I have
been so informed by several persons, among others by Chato, one of the
principal men of the Chiricahua Apache.
Molina speaks of the customs of the Araucanians, who, after torturing
their captives to death, made war flutes out of their bones and used
the skulls for drinking vessels.[195] The Abipones of Paraguay make
the bones of their enemies into musical instruments.[196]
The preceding practice is strictly in line with the "medicinal" and
"magical" values attached in Europe to human teeth, human skin, etc.
The curious reader may find much on this subject in the works of
Frommann, Beckherius, Etmüller, Samuel Augustus Flemming, and others
of the seventeenth century, where it will be shown that the ideas of
the people of Europe of that period were only in name superior to
those of the savages of America, the islands of the South Seas, and of
Central Africa. In my work upon "The Scatalogic Rites of all Nations"
I have treated this matter more in extenso, but what is here adduced
will be sufficient for the present article.
The skin of Ziska, the Bohemian reformer, was made into a "medicine
drum" by his followers.
THE SCRATCH STICK.
When Gen. Crook's expedition against the Chiricahua Apache reached the
heart of the Sierra Madre, Mexico, in 1883, it was my good fortune to
find on the ground in Geronimo's rancheria two insignificant looking
articles of personal equipment, to which I learned the Apache attached
the greatest importance. One of these was a very small piece of hard
wood, cedar, or pine, about two and a half to three inches long and
half a finger in thickness, and the other a small section of the cane
indigenous to the Southwest and of about the same dimensions. The
first was the scratch stick and the second the drinking reed.
The rule enjoined among the Apache is that for the first four times
one of their young men goes out on the warpath he must refrain from
scratching his head with his fingers or letting water touch his lips.
How to keep this vow and at the same time avoid unnecessary personal
discomfort and suffering is the story told by these petty fragments
from the Apache's ritual. He does not scratch his head with his
fingers; he makes use of this scratch stick. He will not let water
touch his lips, but sucks it into his throat through this tiny tube. A
long leather cord attached both stick and reed to the warrior's belt
and to each other. This was all the information I was able to obtain
of a definite character. Whether these things had to be prepared by
the medicine-men or by the young warrior himself; with what
ceremonial, if any, they had to be manufactured, and under what
circumstances of time and place, I was unable to ascertain to my own
satisfaction, and therefore will not extend my remarks or burden the
student's patience with incoherent statements from sources not
absolutely reliable. That the use of the scratch stick and the
drinking reed was once very general in America and elsewhere, and that
it was not altogether dissociated from ritualistic or ceremonial
ideas, may be gathered from the citations appended.
In her chapter entitled "Preparatory ceremony of the young warrior"
Mrs. Emerson says: "He does not touch his ears or head with his hand,"
explaining in a footnote, "the head was sometimes made a sacrificial
offering to the sun."[197] Tanner relates that the young Ojibwa
warrior for the "three first times" that he accompanies a war party
"must never scratch his head or any other part of his body with his
fingers, but if he is compelled to scratch he must use a small
stick."[198] Kohl states that the Ojibwa, while on the warpath, "will
never sit down in the shade of a tree or scratch their heads; at
least, not with their fingers. The warriors, however, are permitted to
scratch themselves with a piece of wood or a comb."[199] Mackenzie
states regarding the Indians whom he met on the Columbia, in 52°
38′, N. lat., "instead of a comb they [the men] have a small stick
hanging by a string from one of the locks [of hair], which they employ
to alleviate any itching or irritation in the head."[200]
The Tlinkit of British North America use these scratchers made of
basalt or other stone.
"The pipe-stem carrier (i.e., the carrier of the sacred or 'medicine'
pipe) of the Crees, of British North America, dares not scratch his
own head, without compromising his own dignity, without the
intervention of a stick, which he always carries for that
purpose."[201]
Bancroft[202] quotes Walker as saying that "a Pima never touches his
skin with his nails, but always with a small stick for that purpose,
which he renews every fourth day and wears in his hair."
As part of the ceremony of "initiating youth into manhood" among the
Creeks, the young neophyte "during the twelve moons ... is also
forbidden to pick his ears or scratch his head with his fingers, but
must use a small splinter to perform these operations."[203] The
Apache-Yuma men carry in their hair "a slender stick or bone about 8
inches long, which serves them as a comb."[204]
The idea that these scratch sticks replace combs is an erroneous one;
Indians make combs in a peculiar way of separate pieces of wood, and
they are also very fond of brushing their long locks with the coarse
brushes, which they make of sacaton or other grass.
"One other regulation, mentioned by Schomburgk, is certainly quaint;
the interesting father may not scratch himself with his finger nails,
but may use for this purpose a splinter, especially provided, from the
mid-rib of a cokerite palm."[205]
When a Greenlander is about to enter into conversation with the
spirits "no one must stir, not so much as to scratch his head."[206]
In the New Hebrides most of the natives "wear a thin stick or reed,
about 9 inches long, in their hair, with which they occasionally
disturb the vermin that abound in their heads."[207]
Alarcon, describing the tribes met on the Rio Colorado, in 1541, says:
"They weare certaine pieces of Deeres bones fastened to their armes,
wherewith they strike off the sweate."[208]
In German folk-lore there are many references to the practice in which
the giants indulged frequently in scratching themselves, sometimes as
a signal to each other. Just what significance to attach to these
stories I can not presume to say, as Grimm merely relates the fact
without comment.[209]
Of the Abyssinians, Bruce says: "Their hair is short and curled like
that of a negro's in the west part of Africa, but this is done by art
not by nature, each man having a wooden stick with which he lays hold
of the lock and twists it round like a screw till it curls in the form
he desires."[210] In a footnote, he adds: "I apprehend this is the
same instrument used by the ancients, and censured by the prophets,
which in our translation is rendered crisping-pins."
Possibly the constant use of the scratch stick in countries without
wood suggested that it should be carried in the hair, and hence it
would originate the fashion of wearing the hair crimped round it, and
after a while it would itself be used as a crimping-pin.
Thus far, the suggestion of a religious or ceremonial idea attaching
to the custom of scratching has not been apparent, unless we bear in
mind that the warrior setting out on the warpath never neglects to
surround himself with all the safeguards which the most potent
incantations and "medicine" of every kind can supply. But Herbert
Spencer tells us in two places that the Creeks attach the idea of a
ceremonial observance to the custom. He says that "the warriors have a
ceremony of scratching each other as a sign of friendship;"[211] and
again, "scratching is practiced among young warriors as a ceremony or
token of friendship. When they have exchanged promises of inviolable
attachment, they proceed to scratch each other before they part."[212]
Dr. J. Hampden Porter remarks that this ceremonial scratching may be a
"survival" of the blood covenant, and that in earlier times the young
warriors, instead of merely scratching each other's arms, may have cut
the flesh and exchanged the blood. The idea seems to be a very
sensible one.
Father Alegre describes a ceremonial scratching which may have been
superseded by the scratch stick, to which the medicine-men of certain
tribes subjected the young men before they set out on the warpath.
Among the Pima and Opata the medicine-men drew from their quivers the
claws of eagles, and with these gashed the young man along the arms
from the shoulders to the wrists.[213]
This last paragraph suggests so strongly certain of the practices at
the sun dance of the tribes farther to the north that it may be well
to compare it with the other allusions in this paper to that dance.
It will be noticed that the use of the scratch-stick, at least among
the tribes of America, seems to be confined to the male sex; but the
information is supplied by Mr. Henshaw, of the Bureau of Ethnology,
that the Indians of Santa Barbara, Cal., made their maidens at the
time of attaining womanhood wear pendant from the neck a scratcher of
abalone shell, which they had to use for an indefinite period when the
scalp became irritable.
Prof. Otis T. Mason, of the National Museum, informs me that there is
a superstition in Virginia to the effect that a young woman enciente
for the first time must, under no circumstances, scratch her head with
her fingers, at least while uncovered; she must either put on gloves
or use a small stick.
The Parsi have a festival at which they serve a peculiar cake or bread
called "draona," which is marked by scratches from the finger nails of
the woman who has baked it.[214]
No stress has been laid upon the appearance in all parts of the world
of "back scratchers" or "scratch my backs," made of ivory, bone, or
wood, and which were used for toilet purposes to remove irritation
from between the shoulder blades or along the spine where the hand
itself could not reach. They are to the present day in use among the
Chinese and Japanese, were once to be found among the Romans and other
nations of Europe, and instances of their occasional employment until
a very recent date might be supplied.
THE DRINKING REED.
Exactly what origin to ascribe to the drinking reed is now an
impossibility, neither is it probable that the explanations which the
medicine-men might choose to make would have the slightest value in
dispelling the gloom which surrounds the subject. That the earliest
conditions of the Apache tribe found them without many of the comforts
which have for generations been necessaries, and obliged to resort to
all sorts of expedients in cooking, carrying, or serving their food is
the most plausible presumption, but it is submitted merely as a
presumption and in no sense as a fact. It can readily be shown that in
a not very remote past the Apache and other tribes were compelled to
use bladders and reeds for carrying water, or for conveying water,
broth, and other liquid food to the lips. The conservative nature of
man in all that involves his religion would supply whatever might be
needed to make the use of such reeds obligatory in ceremonial
observances wherein there might be the slightest suggestion of
religious impulse. We can readily imagine that among a people not well
provided with forks and spoons, which are known to have been of a much
later introduction than knives, there would be a very decided danger
of burning the lips with broth, or of taking into the mouth much
earthy and vegetable matter or ice from springs and streams at which
men or women might wish to drink, so the use of the drinking reed
would obviate no small amount of danger and discomfort.
Water was carried in reeds by the Dyaks of Borneo, according to
Bock.[215] The manner in which the natives of the New Hebrides and
other islands of the South Pacific Ocean carry water in bamboo joints
recalls the Zuñi method of preserving the sacred water of the ocean in
hollow reeds.[216]
[Illustration: FIG. 432.--The scratch stick and drinking reed.]
Mr. F. H. Cushing shows that "so far as language indicates the
character of the earliest water vessels which to any extent met the
requirements of the Zuñi ancestry, they were tubes of wood or sections
of canes."[217] Long after these reeds had disappeared from common
use, the priests still persisted in their use for carrying the water
for the sacred ceremonies. The mother of the king of Uganda gave to
Speke "a beautifully-worked pombé sucking-pipe."[218] For ordinary
purposes these people have "drinking gourds." In Ujiji, Cameron saw an
old chief sucking pombé, the native beer, through a reed;[219] and,
later on in his narrative, we learn that the reed is generally used
for the purposes of drinking. "The Malabars reckoned it insolent to
touch the vessel with their lips when drinking."[220] They made use of
vessels with a spout, which were no more and no less than the small
hollow-handled soup ladles of the Zuñi and Tusayan, through which they
sipped their hot broth.
In an ancient grave excavated not far from Salem, Massachusetts, in
1873, were found five skeletons, one of which was supposed to be that
of the chief Nanephasemet, who was killed in 1605 or 1606. He was the
king of Namkeak. On the breast of this skeleton were discovered
"several small copper tubes ... from 4 to 8 inches in length, and from
one-eighth to one-fourth of an inch in diameter, made of copper rolled
up, with the edges lapped."[221]
Alarcon relates that the tribes seen on the Rio Colorado by him in
1541, wore on one arm "certain small pipes of cane." But the object or
purpose of wearing these is not indicated.[222]
The natives of the Friendly Islands carried in their ears little
cylinders of reed, although we learn that these were "filled with a
red solid substance."[223] Among the Narrinyeri of Australia, when
young men are to be initiated into the rank of warriors, during the
ceremonies "they are allowed to drink water, but only by sucking it up
through a reed."[224] Admiral von Wrangel says of the Tchuktchi of
Siberia: "They suck their broth through a small tube of reindeer
bone," which "each individual carries about with him."[225] Padre
Sahagun says that the human victim whom the Aztecs offered up in
sacrifice was not allowed to touch water with his lips, but had to
"suck it through a reed."[226]
"The Mexicans had a forty-days' fast in memory of one of their sacred
persons who was tempted _forty_ days on a mountain. He drinks through
a reed. He is called the Morning Star."[227] The Mexicans, according
to Fray Diego Duran, placed before the statues of their dead bowls of
"vino," with "rosas," tobacco (this seems to be the proper translation
of the word "humazos," smokes), and a reed called the "drinker of the
sun," through which the spirit could imbibe.[228]
"The suction pipes of steatite," mentioned by Schoolcraft, as found in
the mounds, may have been the equivalents of our drinking reeds, and
made of steatite to be the more readily preserved in the ritual of
which they formed part.
Copper cylinders 1¼ inches long and ⅜ of an inch in diameter were
found in the mounds of the Mississippi Valley by Squier and Davis. The
conjecture that they had been used "for ornaments" does not seem
warranted.[229]
We should not forget that there was a semideification of the reed
itself by the Aztec in their assignment of it to a place in their
calendar under the name of "acatl."[230]
Mrs. Ellen Russell Emerson speaks of the custom the warriors of the
northern tribes had which suggests that she had heard of the drinking
reed without exactly understanding what it meant. She says that
warriors carry bowls of birch bark "from one side of which the warrior
drinks in going to battle--from the other, on his return. These bowls
are not carried home, but left on the prairie, or suspended from trees
within a day's journey of his village."[231]
Among the Brahmans practices based upon somewhat similar ideas are to
be found: every morning, upon rising, "ils prennent trois fois de
l'eau dans la main, & en jettent trois fois dans leur bouche, évitant
d'y toucher avec la main."[232]
The fundamental reason upon which the use of the drinking reed is based
is that the warrior or devotee shall not let water touch his lips. It
is strange to find among the regulations with regard to taking water by
the warrior caste: "He shall not sip water while walking, standing,
lying down, or bending forward."[233]
The Dharma-sûtra, traditionally connected with the Rishi-Vasishtha, of
the Seventh Mandala of the Rig-Veda, is a relic of a Vedic school of
the highest antiquity. Its seat was in the present northwestern
provinces of India, and, like the Dharmasâstra of Gautama, it is the
sole surviving record from this source.[234]
There was another service performed by reeds or tubes in the domestic
economy of nations around the north pole. As the Apache are derived
from an Arctic ancestry it does not seem amiss to allude to it. Lord
Lonsdale, in describing the capture of a whale which he witnessed,
says that the Eskimo women "first of all gathered up the harpoons and
then pulled out all the spears. As each spear was withdrawn a
blow-pipe was pushed into the wound and the men blew into it, after
which the opening was tied up. When every wound had been treated in
this manner the whale resembled a great windbag and floated high in
the water."
In the National Museum at Washington, D. C., there are many pipes made
of the bones of birds, which were used by the Inuit as drinking tubes
when water had to be taken into the mouth from holes cut in the ice.
These drinking tubes seem to be directly related to our subject,
although they may also have been used as Lonsdale describes the pipes
for blowing the dead whale full of air. Another point to be mentioned
is that the eagle pipe kept in the mouth of the young warrior
undergoing the torture of the sun dance among the Sioux and other
tribes on the plains is apparently connected with the "bebedero del
Sol" of the peoples to the south.[235]
The use of this drinking reed, shown to have been once so intimately
associated with human sacrifice, may have disappeared upon the
introduction of labrets, which seem, in certain cases at least, to be
associated with the memory of enemies killed in battle, which would be
only another form of human sacrifice. This suggestion is advanced with
some misgivings, and only as a hypothesis to assist in determining for
what purpose labrets and drinking tubes have been employed. The Apache
have discontinued the use of the labret, which still is to be found
among their congeners along the Lower Yukon, but not among those
living along the lower river.[236] According to Dall the custom was
probably adopted from the Inuit; he also shows that whenever labrets
are worn in a tribe they are worn by both sexes, and that the women
assume them at the first appearance of the catamenia.
"This is to be noted, that how many men these Savages [Brazilians]
doe kill, so many holes they will have in their visage, beginning
first in their nether lippe, then in their cheekes, thirdly, in both
their eye-browes, and lastly in their eares."[237]
Cabeza de Vaca speaks of the Indians near Malhado Island, "They
likewise have the nether lippe bored, and within the same they carrie
a piece of thin Cane about halfe a finger thicke."[238] Herrera
relates very nearly the same of the men of "Florida": "Traìan una
tetilla oradada, metido por el agujero un pedaço de Caña, i el labio
baxero tambien agujereado, con otra caña en èl."[239] But Herrera
probably obtained his data from the narrative of Vaca.
In looking into this matter of labrets as connected or suspected as
being in some way connected with the drinking reed, we should not
expect to find the labret adhering very closely to the primitive form,
because the labret, coming to be regarded more and more as an
ornament, would allow greater and greater play to the fancy of the
wearer or manufacturer, much the same as the crosses now worn by
ladies, purely as matter of decoration, have become so thoroughly
examples of dexterity in filagree work as to have lost the original
form and significance as a declaration of faith. But it is a subject
of surprise to find that the earlier writers persistently allude to
the labrets in the lips of the Mexican deities, which probably were
most tenacious of primitive forms, as being shaped like little
reeds--"cañutillos."
Herrera says of Tescatlipoca: "Que era el Dios de la Penitencia, i de
los Jubileos ... Tenia Çarcillo de Oro, i Plata en el labio baxo, con
un cañutillo cristalino, de un geme de largo."[240] The high priest,
he says, was called topilçin, and in sacrificing human victims he wore
"debaxo del labio, junto al medio de la barba, una pieça como
cañutillo, de una piedra açul."[241]
Father Acosta also speaks of the tube (canon) of crystal worn by
Tezcatlipoca in the lower lip: "En la leure d'embas un petit canon de
crystal, de la longueur d'un xeme ou demy pied."[242]
Speaking of Quetzalcoatl Clavigero says: "From the under lip hung a
crystal tube."[243] From Diego Duran's account of this "bezote" or
labret it must have been hollow, as he says it contained a feather:
"En el labio bajo tenia un bezote de un veril cristalino y en el
estaba metida una pluma verde y otras veces azul."[244]
In the Popul Vuh is to be found a myth which gives an account of the
origin of labrets. It relates that two night watchers over the flowers
in the garden of Xibalba had in some manner proved derelict in duty,
and had their lips split as a punishment.[245]
In Paraguay a tribe called the Chiriguanes, "se percent la levre
inférieure & ils y attachent un petit Cilindre d'étain ou d'argent, ou
de Resine transparente. Ce prétendu ornement s'appelle _Tembeta_."[246]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Narrative of Captivity, Cincinnati, 1871, p. 141.
[2] Padre Boscana, Chinigchinich, in Robinson's California, p. 261.
[3] Origine de tous les Cultes, vol. 2, pt. 2, pp. 87, 88.
[4] Diego Duran, vol. 3, pp. 237, 238.
[5] Higgins, Anacalypsia, lib. 2, p. 77.
[6] Balboa, Hist. du Pérou, in Ternaux-Compans, Voy., vol. 15.
[7] Ross, Fur Hunters, quoted by Spencer, Desc. Soc.
[8] Max Müller, Science of Religion, p. 88.
[9] Davis, Spanish Conq. of N. M., p. 98.
[10] I Samuel, XII, 17, 18.
[11] Cérémonies et Coûtumes, vol. 6, p. 75.
[12] Everard im Thurn, Indians of Guiana, London, 1883, p. 334.
[13] Tanner's Narrative, p. 390.
[14] Diego Duran, lib. 3, cap. 3, p. 201.
[15] Dorman, Primitive Superstitions, p. 384.
[16] Spencer, Desc. Sociology.
[17] Picart, Cérémonies et Coûtumes Religieuses, Amsterdam, 1735, vol.
6, p. 122.
[18] Myths of the New World, p. 281.
[19] Domenech, Deserts, vol. 2, p. 392.
[20] Bancroft, Nat. Races, vol. 1, p. 777.
[21] Hakluyt, Voyages, vol. 5, p. 462.
[22] Brinton, Myths of the New World, p. 281.
[23] Spencer, Ecclesiastical Institutions, cap. V.
[24] Salverte, Philosophy of Magic, vol. 2, pp. 6-7.
[25] Tylor, Primitive Culture, London, 1871, vol. 2, p. 377.
[26] "St. Patrick, we are told, floated to Ireland on an altar stone.
Among other wonderful things, he converted a marauder into a wolf and
lighted a fire with icicles."--James A. Froude, Reminiscences of the
High Church Revival. (Letter V.)
[27] Demonology and Witchcraft, p. 184.
[28] Jesuits in North America, pp. 34, 35.
[29] Herrera, dec. 4, lib. 8, cap. 5, 159.
[30] Ibid., dec. 3, lib. 4, p. 121.
[31] Hist. de las Indias, p. 283.
[32] American Antiquarian, November, 1886, p. 334.
[33] Dorman, Primitive Superstitions, p. 380, quoting Herrera, dec. 3,
p. 262.
[34] Descriptive Sociology.
[35] Admiral Smyth's translation in Hakluyt Society, London, 1857,
vol. 21, p. 9.
[36] American Indians, p. 26.
[37] Gomara, Hist. de las Indias, p. 173.
[38] "Estos mascan cierta yerba, y con el zumo rocian las soldados
estando para dar batalla." Gomara, ibid., p. 179.
[39] Herrera, dec. 2, lib. 10, p. 260.
[40] Father Dobrizhoffer, quoted by Spencer, Eccles. Institutions,
cap. 10, sec. 630.
[41] Catlin, N. A. Indians, London, 1845, vol. 2, p. 232.
[42] Gomara, op. cit., p. 173.
[43] Spencer, Eccles. Institutions, cap. 10, pp. 780, 781, quoting
Stubb's Constitutional History of England.
[44] Ibid., sec. 630, p. 781, quoting Turner (Geo.), Nineteen Years in
Polynesia.
[45] Vol. 3, p. 176.
"In every part of the globe fragments of primitive languages are
preserved in religious rites." Humboldt, Researches, London, 1814,
vol. 1, p. 97.
"Et même Jean P. C., Prince de la Mirande, escrit que les mots
barbares & non entendus ont plus de puissance en la Magie que ceux qui
sont entendus." Picart, vol. 10, p. 45.
The medicine-men of Cumana (now the United States of Colombia, South
America) cured their patients "con palabras muy revesadas y que aun el
mismo médico no las entiende." Gomara, Hist. de las Indias, p. 208.
The Tlascaltecs had "oradores" who employed gibberish--"hablaban
Gerigonça." Herrera, dec. 2, lib. 6, p. 163.
In Peru, if the fields were afflicted with drought, the priests, among
other things, "chantaient un cantique dont le sens était inconnu du
vulgaire." Balboa, Hist. du Pérou, p. 128, in Ternaux-Compans, vol.
15.
[46] Assiniboine and Saskatchewan Exped., London, 1860, vol. 2, p.
155.
[47] Cockayne, Leechdoms, vol. 1, p. xxx.
[48] "The belief in the magic power of sacred words, whether religious
formulas or the name of gods, was also acknowledged [i.e., in Egypt]
and was the source of a frightful amount of superstition.... The
superstitious repetition of names (many of which perhaps never had any
meaning at all) is particularly conspicuous in numerous documents much
more recent than the Book of the Dead."--Hibbert, Lectures, 1879, pp.
192, 193.
[49] Salverte, Philosophy of Magic, vol. 1, p. 134.
[50] Kingsborough, lib. 2, vol. 7, p. 102.
[51] Popular Antiquities, vol. 2, p. 70.
[52] Ibid., p. 160.
[53] Ibid., p. 217.
[54] Ibid., p. 218.
[55] Ibid., p. 219.
[56] Ibid., pp. 214, 215.
[57] Ibid., p. 216.
[58] "When the Carriers are severely sick, they often think that they
shall not recover, unless they divulge to a priest or magician, every
crime which they may have committed, which has hitherto been kept
secret."--Harmon's Journal, p. 300. The Carriers or Ta-kully are
Tinneh.
[59] For identical notions among the Arawaks of Guiana, Tupis of
Brazil, Creeks, Patagonians, Kaffirs, Chiqnitos, and others, see the
works of Schoolcraft, Herbert Spencer, Schultze, and others.
[60] Extract from the Jesuit Falkner's account of Patagonia, in
Voyages of the _Adventure_ and _Beagle_, London, 1839, vol. 2, p. 163.
[61] "Nul de ces médecins ne peut mourir si'ls ne lui enlevent les
testicules." Brasseur de Bourbourg, Trans. of Fra Roman Pane, Des
Antiquités des Indiens, Paris, 1864, p. 451.
[62] Hist. Gen., dec. 1, lib. 3, p. 69.
[63] Madden, Shrines and Sepulchres, vol. 1, p. 14.
[64] Gayarre, Louisiana; its Colonial History, p. 355.
[65] Spencer, Desc. Sociology.
[66] Balboa, Hist. du Pérou, Ternaux-Compans, vol. 15.
[67] Davis, Conq. of New Mexico, p. 86.
[68] Crónica Seráfica y Apostolica, Espinosa, Mexico, 1746, p. 421.
[69] Desc. Sociology.
[70] Mendieta, Hist. Eclesiástica Indiana, p. 136.
[71] Ibid., p. 136.
[72] Hist. de las Indias, p. 179.
[73] Herrera, dec. 2, lib. 10, p. 260.
[74] Ibid., dec. 3, lib. 4, p. 121.
[75] Ibid., dec. 4, lib. 9, cap. 7, p. 188.
[76] Keating's translation, p. 352, quoted by Samuel Farmar Jarvis,
Religion of the Indian Tribes, in Coll. New York Historical Soc., vol.
3, 1819, p. 262.
[77] Smith, Araucanians, pp. 238, 239.
[78] Richardson, Arctic Searching Expedition, vol. 1, p. 366.
[79] Schultze, Fetichism, New York, 1885, p. 49.
[80] Spencer, Desc. Sociology.
[81] Ternaux-Compans, vol. 7, p. 110.
[82] Schultze, Fetichism, New York, 1885, p. 49.
[83] Smithsonian Report for 1867.
[84] Long's Expedition, Philadelphia, 1823, p. 238.
[85] Hist. of the American Indians, p. 238.
[86] Schultze, Fetichism, New York, 1885, p. 52.
[87] Hist. de las Indias, p. 232.
[88] Ternaux-Compans, vol. 7, pp. 114, 115.
[89] Notes from Gomara, Hist. de las Indias, pp. 172-173.
[90] History of California, vol. 1, p. 97.
[91] Ternaux-Compans, vol. 10, p. 85.
[92] Herrera, dec. 4, lib. 9, cap. 8, p. 188.
[93] Smith, Araucanians, p. 234.
[94] Bancroft, Native Races, vol. 1, p. 779.
[95] Alegre, Historia de la Compañía de Jesus en Nueva-España, vol. 1,
p. 401.
[96] Desc. Sociology.
[97] Kraskenninikoff, History of Kamtchatka and the Kurilski Islands,
Grieve's translation, p. 219.
[98] Ibid., p. 220.
[99] Contributions to North American Ethnology, vol. 5.
[100] Smith, Araucanians, p. 233.
[101] Dr. Edwin G. Meek, Toner Collection, Library of Congress.
[102] Lieut. Pettit in Jour. U. S. Mil. Serv. Instit., 1886, pp.
336-337.
[103] Smyth, Aborigines of Victoria, vol. 1, p. 155.
[104] Dennys, Folk Lore of China, p. 57.
[105] "Chinigchinich" in Robinson's California, pp. 271, 272.
[106] The reader interested in this matter may find something bearing
upon it in Diego Duran, lib. 1, cap. 36, p. 387; Torquemada, Mon.
Indiana, lib. 9, cap. 3; Venegas, History of California, vol. 1, p.
105; Gomara, Conq. de Mexico, p. 443; Herrera, dec. 4, lib. 8, p. 158;
Maximilian of Wied, p. 431, and others; The "pelucas" mentioned of the
Orinoco tribes by Padre Gumilla would seem to be nothing more than
feather head-dresses; p. 66.
[107] Tribes and Languages of Costa Rica, Proc. Am. Philos. Soc.,
Philadelphia, 1875, p. 503.
[108] Corbusier, in American Antiquarian, Sept., 1886, p. 279.
[109] Source of the Nile, p. 567.
[110] Vol. 2, p. 193.
[111] Ensayo Cronologico, p. 139.
[112] For the Shamans of Kodiak, see Lisiansky, Voyage, London, 1814,
p. 208; for the Mexicans, Padre José Acosta, Paris, 1600, cap. 26, p.
256; Society Islands, Malte-Brun, Univ. Geography, vol. 3, lib. 58, p.
634, Boston, 1825. Sir Samuel Baker, The Albert N'yanza, vol. 1, p.
211.
[113] Ternaux-Compans, vol. 9, p. 294.
[114] Catlin, North American Indians, London. 1845, vol. 1, p. 55.
[115] Ibid., p. 95.
[116] Parkman, Jesuits in North America, p. lxxxiv.
[117] Wanderings of an Artist in North America, p. 40.
[118] Dec. 2, lib. 6, p. 161.
[119] Smithsonian Report for 1871.
[120] Purchas, lib. 9, cap. 12, sec. 4, p. 1555, edition of 1622.
[121] Chinigchinich, p. 253.
[122] Theal, Kaffir Folk-lore, pp. 209-210.
[123] Clements R. Markham, Note on Garcilasso de la Vega, in Hakluyt
Soc., vol. 41, p. 183, quoting Acosta, lib. 5, cap. 4.
[124] Andrew Lang, Custom and Myth, New York, 1885, chapter entitled
"The bull roarer," pp. 29-44.
[125] John Fraser, The Aborigines of Australia; their Ethnic Position
and Relations, pp. 161-162.
[126] "When the rain-maker of the Lenni Lennape would exert his power,
he retired to some secluded spot and drew upon the earth the figure of
a cross (its arms toward the cardinal points?), placed upon it a piece
of tobacco, a gourd, a bit of some red stuff, and commenced to cry
aloud to the spirits of the rains."--Brinton, Myths of the New World,
New York, 1868, p. 96 (after Loskiel).
[127] Père Chrestien Le Clercq, Gaspesie, Paris, 1691, p. 170.
[128] Ibid., cap. x, pp. 172-199.
[129] Dec. 2, lib. 2, p. 48.
[130] Ibid., p. 59.
[131] Assinniboine and Saskatchewan Expedition, vol. 2, p. 123.
[132] New York, 1819, pp. x, xxix, 47.
[133] Forster, Voyage Round the World, vol. 1, pp. 219, 519.
[134] Hawkesworth, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 161.
[135] Ibid., p. 257.
[136] Ibid., vol. 1, p. 113.
[137] Forlong, Rivers of Life, vol. 1, pp. 541, 542.
[138] Nat. Races, vol. 1, p. 380.
[139] Kohl, Kitchi-gami, pp. 345, 346.
[140] Tanner's Narrative, p. 372.
[141] John de Laet, lib. 3, cap. 18, p. 90, quoting Capt. John Smith.
[142] Le Jeune in Jesuit Relations, 1633, vol. 1, Quebec, 1858.
[143] Third Voyage of David Peter De Vries to New Amsterdam, in Trans.
N. Y. Hist. Soc., vol. 3, p. 91.
[144] Charlevoix, New France, New York, 1866, vol. 4, p. 105.
[145] Squier, Serpent Symbol, p. 197.
[146] Coleman, Mythology of the Hindus, London, 1832, p. 63.
[147] Vol. 3.
[148] Speke, Source of the Nile, London, 1863, p. 500.
[149] Ibid.
[150] Stanley, Through the Dark Continent, vol. 1, p. 327.
[151] Miles, Demigods and Dæmonia, in Jour. Ethnol. Soc., London, vol.
3, p. 28, 1854.
[152] Smyth, Aborigines of Victoria, vol. 1, p. 30.
[153] Ibid., p. 131.
[154] Ibid., p. 348.
[155] Peter Kolben, speaking of the Hottentots, in Knox, vol. 2, p.
394.
[156] O-kee-pa, pp. 28-29.
[157] Frazer, Totemism, Edinburgh, 1887, pp. 54, 55; after Maximilian.
[158] Kelly, Narrative of Captivity, Cincinnati, 1871, p. 143.
[159] Différens Cultes, vol. 1, p. 57.
[160] Judges, I, 7.
[161] Brand, Pop. Ant., London, 1882, vol. 3, p. 278.
[162] American Anthropologist, Washington, D. C., January, 1888.
[163] Kingsborough, vol. 8, p. 70. The Aztec believed that the woman
who died in childbirth was equal to the warrior who died in battle and
she went to the same heaven. The middle finger of the left hand is the
finger used in the necklace of human fingers.
[164] Sahagun, in Kingsborough, vol. 7, p. 147.
[165] Pliny, Nat. Hist., lib. 28, cap. 20. Holland's translation.
[166] Shakespeare, Macbeth, act 4, scene 1.
[167] Pliny, Nat. Hist., lib. 28, cap. 11.
[168] Tractatus de Fascinatione, Nuremberg, 1675, p. 681.
[169] Teutonic Mythology, vol. 3, p. 1073.
[170] Brand, Pop. Ant., vol. 3, p. 10.
[171] Montfaucon, l'Antiquité expliquée, vol. 2, liv. 4, cap. 6, p.
249.
[172] Vâsish_th_a, cap. 3, pars. 64-68, p. 25 (Sacred Books of the
East, Oxford, 1882, Max Müller's edition).
[173] Travels of Two Mohammedans through India and China, in
Pinkerton's Voyages, vol. 7, p. 218.
[174] Every-Day Book, vol. 2, col. 95.
[175] "Traen los dientes al cuello (como sacamuelas) por
bravosidad."--Gomara, Historia de las Indias, p. 201.
[176] "Los Caberres y muchos Caribes, usan por gala muchas sartas de
dientes y muelas de gente para dar á entender que son muy valientes
por los despojos que alli ostentan ser de sus enemigos que
mataron."--Gumilla, Orinoco, Madrid, 1741, p. 65.
[177] Padre Fray Alonzo Fernandez, Historia Eclesiastica, Toledo,
1611, p. 17.
[178] Ibid., p. 161.
[179] Cérémonies et Coûtumes, Amsterdam, 1735, vol. 6, p. 114.
[180] "Formada la cara como de Sol, con rayos de Nacar al rededor, y
perfilada de lo mismo; y en la boca embutidos los dientes, que
quitaron à los Españoles, que avian muerto."--Villaguitierre, Hist. de
la Conquista de la Provincia de el Itza, Madrid, 1701, p. 500. (Itza
seems to have been the country of the Lacandones.)
[181] Edwards, speaking of the Carib, quoted by Spencer, Desc.
Sociology. The same custom is ascribed to the Tupinambi of Brazil.
Ibid, quoting from Southey.
[182] Through the Dark Continent, vol. 2, p. 286.
[183] Ibid., p. 288.
[184] Ibid., p. 290.
[185] Speke, Source of the Nile, London, 1863, p. 500.
[186] Heart of Africa, vol. 2, p. 54.
[187] Ibid., vol. 1, p. 285.
[188] Sir Samuel Baker, The Albert N'yanza, Philadelphia, 1869, p. 154
et seq.
[189] Burton, Mission to Gelele, vol. 1, p. 135 et seq.
[190] Voyage Round the World, London, 1823, pp. 209, 210.
[191] Kotzebue, Voyage, London, 1821, vol. 2, p. 202. See also
Villaguitierre, cited above.
[192] Capt. Cook's First Voyage, in Pinkerton's Voyages, London, 1812,
vol. 11, pp. 513, 515.
[193] Campbell, Voyage Round the World, N. Y., 1819, p. 153.
[194] Frazer, Totemism, Edinburgh, 1887, p. 28.
[195] Historia de Chile, Madrid, 1795, vol. 2, p. 80.
[196] Spencer, Desc. Sociology.
[197] Indian Myths, Boston, 1884, p. 256.
[198] Tanner's Narrative, p. 122.
[199] Kitchi-gami, p. 344.
[200] Voyages, p. 323.
[201] Kane, Wanderings of an Artist in North America, p. 399.
[202] Native Races, vol. 1, p. 553.
[203] Hawkins, quoted by Gatschet, Migration Legend of the Creeks,
Philadelphia, 1884, vol. 1, p. 185.
[204] Corbusier, in American Antiquarian, September, 1886, p. 279.
[205] Everard F. im Thurn, Indians of Guiana, p. 218.
[206] Crantz, History of Greenland, London, 1767, vol. 1, pp. 210-211.
[207] Forster, Voyage Round the World, vol. 2, pp. 275, 288.
[208] Hakluyt, Voyages, vol. 3, p. 508.
[209] Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, vol. 2, p. 544.
[210] Travels to discover the source of the Nile in the years 1768,
etc., Dublin, 1791, vol. 3, p. 410.
[211] Desc. Sociology.
[212] Ibid., quoting Schoolcraft.
[213] "Saca de su carcax algunos pies y unas de águila secos y
endurecidos, con los cuales, comienza á sajarle desde los hombros
hasta las muñecas."--Historia de la Compañía de Jesus en Nueva España,
Mexico, 1842, vol. 2, pp. 218, 219.
[214] Shâyast lâ-shâyast, cap. 3, par. 32, p. 284 (Max Müller edition,
Oxford, 1880). When the "drôn" has been marked with three rows of
finger-nail scratches it is called a "frasast."
[215] Head-Hunters of Borneo, London, 1881, p. 139.
[216] See, for the New Hebrides, Forster, Voyage Round the World, vol.
2, p. 255.
[217] Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1882-'83, p. 482.
[218] Speke, Source of the Nile, London, 1863, pp. 306, 310.
[219] Cameron, Across Africa, London, 1877, vol. 1, p. 276.
[220] De Gama's Discovery of the East Indies, in Knox, Voyages,
London, 1767, vol. 2, p. 324.
[221] Andrew K. Ober, in the Salem Gazette, Salem, Mass.
[222] Hakluyt, Voyages, vol. 3, p. 508; also, Ternaux-Compans, Voy.,
vol. 9, pp. 307, 308.
[223] Forster, Voyage Round the World, vol. 1, p. 435
[224] Smyth, Aborigines of Victoria, vol. 1, p. 66.
[225] English edition, New York, 1842, p. 271.
[226] Kingsborough, vol. 6, p. 100.
[227] Godfrey Higgins, Anacalypsis, vol. 2, book 1, cap. 4, sec. 9, p.
81.
[228] Y ponía delante un canuto grande y queso [grueso?] para con que
bebiese: este canuto llamaban "bebedero del Sol."--Diego Duran, vol.
1, cap. 38, p. 386.
[229] Smithsonian Contributions, vol. 1, p. 151.
[230] The reed, which is the proper meaning of the word "acatl," is
the hieroglyphic of the element water. Veytia, quoted by Thomas, in
3rd Ann. Rep., Bu. Eth., 1881-1882, p. 42 et seq.
[231] Indian Myths, Boston, 1884, p. 260.
[232] Picart, Cérémonies et Coûtumes Religieuses de tous les Peuples
du Monde, Amsterdam, 1735, vol. 6, part 2, p. 103.
[233] Vâsish_th_a, cap. 3, pars. 26-30, pp. 20-21. Sacred Books of the
East, Oxford, 1882, vol. 14, edition of Max Müller.
[234] Ibid.
[235] Diego Duran, loc. cit.
[236] See Dall, Masks and Labrets, p. 151.
[237] Peter Carder, an Englishman captive among the Brazilians,
1578-1586, in Purchas, vol. 4, lib. 6, cap. 5, p. 1189.
[238] Purchas, vol. 4, lib. 8, cap. 1, sec. 2, p. 1508.
[239] Dec. 4, lib. 4, p. 69.
[240] Dec. 3, lib. 2, p. 67.
[241] Ibid., p. 70.
[242] Histoire Naturelle des Indes, Paris, 1600, lib. 5, cap. 9, p.
224.
[243] History of Mexico, Philadelphia, 1817, vol. 2, p. 6.
[244] Duran, op. cit., vol. 3, cap. 4, p. 211.
[245] Brasseur de Bourbourg's translation, cap. 12, p. 175.
[246] Picart, Cérémonies et Coûtumes Religieuses de tous les Peuples
du Monde, Amsterdam, 1743, vol. 8, p. 287.