CHAPTER II.

The Sioux or Dakotahs.

[THE SIOUX.]

The Sioux belong essentially to the savage, in opposition to

the Aztecan peoples of the New World. In the days of Major Pike

(1805-1807), they were the dread of all the neighboring tribes, from

the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri to the Raven River

on the latter. According to Lieutenant Warren, they are still scattered

over an immense territory extending from the Mississippi on the east

to the Black Hills on the west, and from the forks of the Platte on

the south to Minsi Wakan, or the Devil’s Lake, on the north. Early in

the winter of 1837 they ceded to the United States all their lands

lying east of the Mississippi, which became the Territory of Minnesota.

They are to the North American tribes what the great Anizeh race is

among the Bedouins of Arabia. Their vernacular name, Dakotah, which

some pronounce Lakotah, and others Nakotah, is translated “leagued” or

“allied,” and they sometimes speak of themselves as Osheti Shakowin, or

the “Seven Council Fires.” The French call them “les Coupes-gorges,”

from their sign or symbol, and the whites generally know them as the

Sues or Sioux, from the plural form of Nadonaisi, which in Ojibwa

means an enemy. The race is divided into seven principal bands, viz.:

1. Mdewakantonwan (Minowa Kantongs[60] or Gens du Lac), meaning

“Village of the Mdewakan”--Mille Lacs or Spirit Lake. They formerly

extended from Prairie du Chien to Prairie des Français, thirty-five

miles up the St. Peter’s River. They have now moved farther west.

This tribe, which includes seven bands, is considered the bravest

of the Sioux, and has even waged an internecine war with the Folles

Avoines[61] or Menomenes, who are reputed the most gallant of the

Ojibwas (Chippewas), and who, inhabiting a country intersected by

lakes, swamps, water-courses, and impenetrable morasses, long bade

defiance to all their neighbors. They have received annuities since

1838, and their number enrolled in 1850 was 2000 souls.

[60] The first is the correct, the second is the old and incorrect

form of writing the name.

[61] The Folles Avoines are a small tribe esteemed by the whites

and respected by their own race; their hunting-grounds are the

same as those of the Winnebagoes. They speak a peculiar dialect.

But all understand the copious and sonorous, but difficult and

complicated Algonquin or Ojibwa--the language of some of the old New

England races, Pequots, Delawares, Mohicans, Abenaki, Narragansets,

Penobscots, and the tribes about the Lake regions and the head-waters

of the Mississippi, viz., Ottawa, Potawotomies, Menomene, Knisteneaux

or Cree, Sac, Kickapoo, Maskigo, Shawnee, Miami, Kaskaskia, etc.

The other great northeastern language is that of the Mohawk, spoken

by the Oneida, Onondaga, Seneca, Cayuga, Tuscarora, Wyandotte, and

Cherokee.

“Folles Avoines” is the Canadian French for the wild rice (_Zizania

aquatica_), a tall, tubular, reedy water-plant, plentiful on the

marshy margins of the northern lakes and in the plashy waters of

the Upper Mississippi. Its leaves and spikes, though much larger,

resemble those of oats. Millions of migrating water-fowl fatten on

it before their autumnal flights to the south, while in autumn it

furnishes the Northern savages and the Canadian traders and hunters

with their annual supply of grain. It is used for bread by most of

the tribes to the northwest.

2. Wahpekute (Washpeconte, translated Gens de Feuillestirées, and by

others the “Leaf Shooters”). Their habitation lies westward of the Des

Moines, Cannon, and Blue-Earth Rivers. According to Major Pike, they

were like the Bedouin Ghuzw, a band of vagabonds formed of refugees,

who for some bad deed had been expelled their tribes. The meaning of

their name is unknown; in 1850 they numbered 500 or 600 souls.

3. Sisitonwan (Sussitongs, or the Village of the Marsh). This band

used to hunt over the vast prairies lying eastward of the Mississippi,

and up that stream as high as Raven River. They now plant their corn

about Lake Traverse (Lac Travers) and on the Côteau des Prairies, and

numbered in 1850 about 2500 souls.

4. Wahpetonwans (Washpetongs, Gens des Feuilles, because they lived in

woods), the “Village in the Leaves.” They have moved from their old

home about the Little Rapids of the Minnesota River to Lac qui Parle

and Big Stone Lake. In 1850 they numbered 1000 to 1200 souls. They

plant corn, have substituted the plow for the hoe, and, according to

the missionaries, have made some progress in reading and writing their

own language.

The above four constitute the Mississippi and Minnesota Sioux, and are

called by those on the Missouri “Isánti,” from Isanati or Isanyati,

because they once lived near Isantamde, one of the Mille Lacs. They

number, according to Major Pike, 5775 souls; according to Lieutenant

Warren, about 6200; and many of those on the Mississippi have long

since become semi-civilized by contact with the white settlements, and

have learned to cultivate the soil. Others, again, follow the buffalo

in their primitive wildness, and have of late years given much trouble

to the settlers of Northern Iowa.

5. Ihanktonwans (Yanctongs, meaning “Village at the End”), also

sometimes called Wichiyela, or First Nation. They are found at the

mouth of the Big Sioux, between it and the Missouri River, as high

up as Fort Look-out, and on the opposite bank of the Missouri. In

1851 they were set down at 240 lodges = 2400 souls; they have since

increased to 360 lodges and 2880 souls, of whom 576 are warriors.

Distance from the buffalo country has rendered them poor; the proximity

of the pale face has degenerated them, and the United States have

purchased most of their lands.

6. Ihanktonwannas (Yanctannas), one of the “End Village” bands. They

range between the James and the Missouri Rivers, as far north as

Devil’s Lake. The Dakotah Mission numbered them at 400 lodges = 4000

souls; subsequent observers at 800 lodges = 6400 souls, and 1280

warriors; and, being spirited and warlike, they give much trouble to

settlers in the Dakotah Territory. A small portion live in dirt lodges

during the summer. This band suffered severely from small-pox in the

winter of 1856-7. They are divided into the Hunkpatidans (of unknown

signification), Pabakse or Cut-heads, and Kiyuksa, deriders or breakers

of law. From their sub-tribe the Wazikute, or Pine Shooters, sprang, it

is said, the Assiniboin tribe of the Dakotahs. Major Pike divides the

“Yanctongs” into two grand divisions, the Yanctongs of the North and

the Yanctongs of the South.

7. Titonwan (Teton, “Village of the Prairies”), inhabiting the

trans-Missourian prairies, and extending westward to the dividing ridge

between the Little Missouri and Powder River, and thence south on a

line near the 106° meridian. They constitute more than one half of

the whole Dakotah nation. In 1850 they were numbered at 1250 lodges =

12,500 souls, but that number was supposed to be overestimated. They

are allied by marriage with the Cheyennes and Arickarees, but are

enemies of the Pawnees and Crows. The Titonwan, according to Major

Pike, are, like the Yanctongs, the most erratic and independent not

only of the Sioux, but “of all the Indians in the world.” They follow

the buffalo as chance directs, clothing themselves with the robes, and

making their lodges, saddles, and bridles of the same material, the

flesh of the animal furnishing their food. None but the few families

connected with the whites have planted corn. Possessing an innumerable

stock of horses, they are here this day and five hundreds of miles

off in a week, moving with a rapidity scarcely to be imagined by the

inhabitants of the civilized world: they find themselves equally at

home in all places. The Titonwan are divided into seven principal

bands, viz.:

The Hunkpapa, “they who camp by themselves” (?). They roam from the

Big Cheyenne up to the Yellow Stone, and west to the Black Hills, and

number 365 lodges, 2920 souls, and 584 warriors.

The Sisahapa or Blackfeet live with the Hunkpapa, and, like them, have

little reverence for the whites: they number 165 lodges, 1321 souls,

and 264 warriors.

The Itazipko, Sans Arc, or “No Bows;” a curious name--like the Sans

Arc Pawnees, they are good archers--perhaps given to them in olden

times, when, like certain tribes of negroes, they used the spear to

the exclusion of other weapons: others, however, translate the word

“Bow-pith.” They roam over nearly the same lands as the Hunkpapa,

number about 170 lodges, 1360 souls, and 272 warriors.

The Minnikanye-wozhipu, “those who plant by the water,” dwell between

the Black Hills and the Platte. They number about 200 lodges, 1600

inmates, and 320 warriors: they are favorably disposed toward the

whites.

The Ogalala or Okandanda are generally to be found on or about the

Platte, near Fort Laramie, and are the most friendly of all the

Titonwan toward the whites. They number about 460 lodges, 3680 souls,

and 736 warriors.

The Sichangu, Brûlés or Burnt-Thighs, living on the Niobrara and

White-Earth Rivers, and ranging from the Platte to the Cheyenne, number

about 380 lodges, containing 3680 inmates.

The Oohenonpa, “Two Boilings” or “Two Kettle-band,” are much scattered

among other tribes, but are generally to be found in the vicinity

of Fort Pierre. They number about 100 lodges, 800 inmates, and 160

warriors.

The author of the above estimate, allotting eight to ten inmates to

a lodge, of whom between one fifth and one sixth are warriors, makes

an ample allowance. It is usual to reckon in a population between one

fourth, one fifth, and one sixth--according to the work--as capable

of bearing arms, but the civilized rule will not apply to the North

American Indian. The grand total of the number of the Sioux nations,

including the Isánti, would amount to 30,200 souls. Half a century

ago it was estimated by Major Pike at 21,675, and in 1850 the Dakotah

Mission set them down at 25,000. It is the opinion of many that,

notwithstanding the ravages of cholera and small-pox, the Dakotah

nation, except when mingled with the frontier settlements, rather

increases than diminishes. It has been observed by missionaries that

whenever an account of births and deaths has been kept in a village the

former usually exceed the latter. The original numbers of the Prairie

Indians have been greatly overestimated both by themselves and by

strangers; the only practicable form of census is the rude proceeding

of counting their “tipi,” or skin tents. It is still a moot question

how far the Prairie Indians have diminished in numbers, which can not

be decided for some years.[62]

[62] At the time of the first settlement of the country by the

English no certain estimate was made; at the birth of the thirteen

original states, the Indians, according to Dr. Trumbull, did not

exceed 150,000. In 1860, the number of Indians within the limits of

the United States was estimated by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs

at 350,000.

The Dakotahs are mostly a purely hunting tribe in the lowest condition

of human society: they have yet to take the first step, and to become a

pastoral people. The most civilized are the Mdewakantonwans, who, even

at the beginning of the present century, built log huts and “stocked”

land with corn, beans, and pumpkins. The majority of the bands hunt

the buffalo within their own limits throughout the summer, and in

the winter pitch their lodges in the clumps or fringes of tree and

underwood along the banks of the lakes and streams. The bark of the

cotton-wood furnishes fodder for their horses during the snowy season,

and to obtain it the creeks and branches have been thinned or entirely

denuded of their beautiful groves. They buy many animals from the

Southern Indians, who have stolen them from New Mexico, or trapped them

on the plains below the Rocky Mountains. Considerable numbers are also

bred by themselves. The Dakotah nation is one of the most warlike and

numerous in the United States territory. In single combat on horseback

they are described as having no superiors; a skill acquired by constant

practice enables them to spear their game at full speed, and the

rapidity with which they discharge their arrows, and the accuracy

of their aim, rival the shooting which may be made with a revolver.

They are not, however, formidable warriors; want of discipline and

of confidence in one another render them below their mark. Like the

Moroccans in their last war with Spain, they never attack when they

should, and they never fail to attack when they should not.

[THE OJIBWA.]

The Dakotahs, when first visited by the whites, lived around the

head-waters of the Mississippi and the Red River of the north. They

have gradually migrated toward the west and southwest, guarded by

their allies the Cheyennes, who have given names successively to the

Cheyenne of Red River, to the Big Cheyenne of the Missouri, and to the

section of the country between the Platte and the Arkansas which they

now occupy. The Dakotah first moved to the land now occupied by the

Ojibwa (anciently known as Chippewas, Orechipewa, or Sauteurs[63]),

which tribe inhabited the land between Sault[64] St. Marie and Lake

Winnipeg, while their allies the Crees occupied the country from Lake

Winnipeg to the Kisiskadjiwan and Assiniboin Rivers. The plains lying

southward of the latter river were the fields of many a fierce and

bloody fight between the Dakotahs and the other allied two tribes,

until a feud caused by jealousy of the women arose among the former,

and made a division which ended in their becoming irreconcilable

enemies, as they are indeed to the present day. The defeated party fled

to the craggy precipices of the Lake of the Woods, and received from

the Ojibwa the name of Assiniboin or Dakotah of the Rocks, by which

they are now universally known to the whites. They retain, however,

among themselves the term Dakotah, although their kinsmen universally,

when speaking of them, called them “hohe” or enemies, and they still

speak the Sioux language. After this feud the Assiniboins strengthened

themselves by alliance with the Ojibwa and Cree tribes, and drove the

Dakotah from all the country north of the Cheyenne River, which is now

regarded as the boundary-line. The three races are still friendly, and

so hostile to the Dakotah that no lasting peace can be made between

them; in case of troubles with either party, the government of the

United States might economically and effectually employ one against the

other. The common war-ground is the region about Lake Minsiwakan, where

they all meet when hunting buffalo. The Assiniboin tribe now extends

from the Red River westward along the Missouri as far as the mouth of

Milk River: a large portion of their lands, like those of the Cree, is

British territory. They suffered severely from small-pox in 1856-7,

losing about 1500 of their tribe, and now number about 450 lodges, or

3600 souls. Having comparatively few horses, they rely mainly upon the

dog for transportation, and they use its flesh as food.

[63] The Rev. Peter Jones (Kahkewagquody), in his history of the

Ojibwa Indians, makes “Chippewa” a corrupted word, signifying

the “Puckered-Moccasin People;” the Abbé Domenech (“Seven Years’

Residence in the Great Deserts of North America”--a mere compilation)

draws an unauthorized distinction between Chippewas and Ojibwas, but

can not say what it is. He explains Ojibwa, the form of Ojidwa, to

mean “a singularity in the voice or pronunciation.”

[64] Pronounced “Soo:” the word is old French, still commonly used in

Canada and the North, and means rapids.

[THE INDIAN’S FUTURE.]

The Dakotah, according to Lieutenant Warren, are still numerous,

independent, warlike, and powerful, and have the means of prolonging

an able resistance to the advance of the Western settlers. Under

the present policy of the United States government--this is written

by an American--which there is no reason to believe likely to be

changed, encroachments will continue, and battle and murder will be

the result. There are many inevitable causes at work to produce war

with the Dakotah before many years.[65] The conflict will end in the

discomfiture of the natives, who will then fast fall away. Those

dispossessed of their lands can not, as many suppose, retire farther

west; the regions lying beyond one tribe are generally occupied by

another, with whom deadly animosity exists. Even when the white

settlers advance their frontier, the natives linger about till their

own poverty and vice consign them to oblivion, and the present policy

adopted by the government is the best that could be devised for their

extermination. It is needless to say that many of the Sioux look

forward to the destruction of their race with all the feelings of

despair with which the civilized man would contemplate the extinction

of his nationality. How indeed, poor devils, are they to live when the

pale face comes with his pestilent fire-water and small-pox, followed

up with paper and pen work, to be interpreted under the gentle auspices

of fire and steel?

[65] Lieutenant Warren considered the greatest point of his

explorations to be the knowledge of the proper routes by which to

invade their country and to conquer them. The project may be found

in the Report of the Secretary of War. I quote Mr. Warren’s opinion

concerning the future of the Dakotahs as a contrast to that of the

Dakotah Mission. My own view will conclude the case in p. 102.

The advance of the settlements is universally acknowledged by the

people of the United States to be a political necessity in the

national development, and on that ground only is the displacement

of the rightful owners of the soil justifiable. But the government,

instead of preparing the way for settlements by wise and just purchases

from those in possession, and proper support and protection for the

indigent and improvident race thus dispossessed, is sometimes behind

its obligations. There are instances of Congress refusing or delaying

to ratify the treaties made by its duly authorized agents. The settler

and pioneer are thus precipitated into the Indian country, without the

savage having received the promised consideration, and he often, in a

manner that enlists the sympathies of mankind, takes up the tomahawk

and perishes in the attempt. It frequently happens that the Western

settlers are charged with bringing about these wars; they are now,

however, fighting the battles of civilization exactly as they were

fought three centuries ago upon the Atlantic shore, under circumstances

that command equal admiration and approval. While, therefore, we

sympathize with the savage, we can not but feel for the unhappy

squatter, whose life is sacrificed to the Indian’s vengeance by the

errors or dilatoriness of those whose duty it is to protect him.

The people of the United States, of course, know themselves to be

invincible by the hands of these half-naked savages. But the Indians,

who on their own ground still outnumber the whites, are by no means

so convinced of the fact. Until the army of Utah moved westward, many

of them had never seen a soldier. At a grand council of the Dakotah,

in the summer of 1857, on the North Fork of the Platte River, they

solemnly pledged themselves to resist the encroachments of the whites,

and, if necessary, to “whip” them out of the country. The appearance of

the troops has undoubtedly produced a highly beneficial effect; still,

something more is wanted. Similarly in Hindostan, though the natives

knew that the British army numbered hundreds of thousands, every petty

independent prince thought himself fit to take the field against the

intruder, till the failure of the attempt suggested to him some respect

for _les gros bataillons_.

The Sioux differ greatly in their habits from the Atlantic tribes of

times gone by. The latter lived in wigwams or villages of more stable

construction than the lodge; they cultivated the soil, never wandered

far from home, made their expeditions on foot, having no horses, and

rarely came into action unless they could “tree” themselves. They

inflicted horrid tortures on their prisoners, as every English child

has read; but, Arab-like, they respected the honor of their female

captives. The Prairie tribes are untamed and untamable savages,

superior only to the “Arab” hordes of great cities, who appear

destined to play in the history of future ages the part of Goth and

Vandal, Scythian, Bedouin, and Turk. Hitherto the _rôle_ which these

hunters have sustained in the economy of nature has been to prepare,

by thinning off its wild animals, a noble portion of the world for

the higher race about to succeed them. Captain Mayne Reid somewhere

derides the idea of the Indian’s progress toward extinction. A cloud

of authorities bear witness against him. East of the Mississippi the

savage has virtually died out, and few men allow him two prospective

centuries of existence in the West, unless he be left, which he will

not be, to himself.

“Wolves of women born,” the Prairie Indians despise agriculture as the

Bedouin does. Merciless freebooters, they delight in roaming; like

all equestrian and uncivilized people, they are perfect horsemen, but

poor fighters when dismounted, and they are nothing without their

weapons. As a rule they rarely torture their prisoners, except when

an old man or woman is handed over to the squaws and pappooses “pour

les amuser,” as a Canadian expressed it. Near and west of the Rocky

Mountains, however, the Shoshonees and the Yutas (Utahs) are as cruel

as their limited intellects allow them to be. Moreover, all the Prairie

tribes never fail to subject women to an ordeal worse than death. The

best character given of late years to the Sioux was by a traveler in

1845, who writes that “their freedom and power have imparted to their

warriors some gentlemanly qualities; they are cleanly, dignified and

graceful in manners, brave, proud, and independent in bearing and deed.”

[THE SIOUX CHARACTER.]

The qualities of the Sioux, and of the Prairie tribes generally, are

little prized by those who have seen much of them. They ignore the

very existence of gratitude; the benefits of years can not win their

affections. After boarding and lodging with a white for any length of

time, they will steal his clothes; and, after receiving any number of

gifts, they will haggle for the value of the merest trifle. They are

inveterate thieves and beggars; the Western settlers often pretend

not to understand their tongue for fear of exposing themselves to

perpetual pilfering and persecution; and even the squaws, who live with

the pale faces, annoy their husbands by daily applications for beads

and other coveted objects; they are cruel to one another as children.

The obstinate revengefulness of their vendetta is proverbial; they

hate with the “hate of Hell;” and, like the Highlanders of old, if

the author of an injury escape them, they vent their rage upon the

innocent, because he is of the same clan or color. If struck by a white

man, they must either kill him or receive damages in the shape of a

horse; and after the most trivial injury they can never be trusted.

Their punishments are Draconic; for all things death, either by

shooting or burning. Their religion is a low form of fetichism. They

place their women in the most degraded position. The squaw is a mere

slave, living a life of utter drudgery; and when the poor creature

wishes, according to the fashion of her sex, to relieve her feelings

by a domestic “scene,” followed by a “good cry,” or to use her knife

upon a sister squaw, as the Trasteverina mother uses her bodkin, the

husband, after squatting muffled up, in hope that the breeze will

blow over, enforces silence with a cudgel. The warrior, considering

the chase an ample share of the labor-curse, is so lazy that he will

not rise to saddle or unsaddle his pony; he will sit down and ask

a white man to fetch him water, and only laugh if reproved. Like a

wild beast, he can not be broken to work; he would rather die than

employ himself in honest industry--a mighty contrast to the negro,

whose only happiness is in serving. He invariably attributes an act

of kindness, charity, or forbearance to fear. Ungenerous, he extols,

like the Bedouin, generosity to the skies. He never makes a present

except for the purpose of receiving more than its equivalent; and an

“Indian gift” has come to be a proverb, meaning any thing reclaimed

after being given away. Impulsive as the African, his mind is blown

about by storms of unaccountable contradictions. Many a white has

suddenly seen the scalping-knife restored to its sheath instead of

being buried in his flesh, while others have been as unexpectedly

assaulted and slain by those from whom they expected kindness and

hospitality. The women are mostly cold and chaste. The men have vices

which can not be named: their redeeming points are fortitude and

endurance of hardship; moreover, though they care little for their

wives, they are inordinately fond of their children. Of their bravery

Indian fighters do not speak highly: they are notoriously deficient

in the civilized quality called moral courage, and, though a brave

will fight single-handed stoutly enough, they rarely stand up long in

action. They are great at surprises, ambuscades, and night attacks: as

with the Arabs and Africans, their favorite hour for onslaught is that

before dawn, when the enemy is most easily terrified--they know that

there is nothing which tries man’s nerve so much, as an unexpected

night attack--and when the cattle can be driven off to advantage. In

some points their characters have been, it is now granted, greatly

misunderstood. Their forced gravity and calmness--purely “company

manners”--were not suspected to cloak merriment, sociability, and a

general fondness of feasts and fun. Their apathy and sternness, which

were meant for reserve and dignity among strangers, gave them an air of

ungeniality which does not belong to their mental constitutions. Their

fortitude and endurance of pain is the result, as in the prize-fighter,

of undeveloped brain.

The Sioux are tall men, straight, and well made: they are never

deformed, and are rarely crippled, simply because none but the

able-bodied can live. The shoulders are high and somewhat straight; the

figure is the reverse of the sailor’s, that is to say, while the arms

are smooth, feeble, and etiolated, the legs are tolerably muscular; the

bones are often crooked or bowed in the equestrian tribes; they walk

as if they wanted the ligamentum teres; there is a general looseness

of limb, which promises, however, lightness, endurance, and agility,

and which, contrasted with the Caucasian race, suggests the gait of a

wild compared with that of a tame animal. Like all savages, they are

deficient in corporeal strength: a civilized man finds no difficulty in

handling them: on this road there is only one Indian (a Shoshonee) who

can whip a white in a “rough and tumble.” The temperament is usually

bilious-nervous; the sanguine is rare, the lymphatic rarer, and I never

knew or heard of an albino. The hands, especially in the higher tribes,

are decidedly delicate, but this is more observable in the male than in

the female; the type is rather that of the Hindoo than of the African

or the European. The feet, being more used than the other extremities,

and unconfined by boot or shoe, are somewhat splay, spreading out

immediately behind the toes, while the heel is remarkably narrow.

In consequence of being carried straight to the fore--the only easy

position for walking through grass--they tread, like the ant-eater,

more heavily on the outer than on the inner edge. The sign of the

Indian is readily recognized by the least experienced tracker.

It is erroneously said that he who has seen a single Indian has seen

them all. Of course there is a great similarity among savages and

barbarians of the same race and climate. The same pursuits, habits,

and customs naturally produce an identity of expression which, as in

the case of husband and wife, parent and child, moulds the features

into more or less of likeness. On the other hand, a practiced eye

will distinguish the Indian individually or by bands as easily as the

shepherd, by marks invisible to others, can swear to his sheep. I have

little doubt that to the savages all white men look alike.

[THE INDIAN CONSTITUTION.]

The Prairie Indian’s hair and complexion have already been described.

According to some savages the build of the former differs materially

from that of the European and the Asiatic. The animal development

varies in the several races: the Pawnee’s and Yuta’s scalp-lock

rarely exceeds eighteen inches in length, while that of the Crow,

like the East Indian Jatawala’s, often sweeps the ground. There are

salient characteristics in the cranium which bear testimony to many

phrenological theories. The transverse diameter of the rounded skull

between the parietal bones, where destructiveness and secretiveness

are placed, is enormous, sometimes exceeding the longitudinal line

from sinciput to occiput, the direct opposite of the African negro’s

organization. The region of the cerebellum is deficient and shrunken,

as with the European in his second childhood: it sensibly denotes that

the subject wants “vim.” The coronal region, where the sentiments are

supposed to lie, is rather flat than arched; in extreme cases the

face seems to occupy two thirds instead of half the space between

poll and chin. The low conical forehead recedes, as in Robespierre’s

head, from the region of benevolence, and rises high at the apex,

where firmness and self-esteem reside: a common formation among

wild tribes, as every traveler in Asia and Africa has remarked. The

facial angle of Camper varies, according to phrenologists, between

70° and 80°. The projecting lower brow is strong, broad, and massive,

showing that development of the perceptions which is produced by the

constant and minute observation of a limited number of objects. The

well-known Indian art of following the trail is one result of this

property. The nose is at once salient and dilated--in fact, partaking

of the Caucasian and African types. The nostrils are broad and deeply

whorled; the nasal orifice is wide, and, according to osteologists,

the bones that protect it are arched and expanded; the eyebrows are

removed, like the beard and mustache, by vellication, giving a dull

and bald look to the face; the lashes, however, grow so thickly that

they often show a sooty black line, suggesting the presence of the

Oriental kohl or surma. The orbits are large and square: largeness and

squareness are, in fact, the general character of the features: it

doubtless produces that peculiar besotted look which belongs to the

Indian as to the Mongolian family. The conjunctival membrane has the

whiteness and clearness of the European and the Asiatic; it is not, as

in the African, brown, yellow, or red. The pupil, like the hair, is of

different shades between black and brown: when the organ is blue--an

accident which leads to a suspicion of mixed blood--the owner generally

receives a name from the peculiarity. Travelers, for the most part,

describe the organ as “black and piercing, snaky and venomous;” others

as “dull and sleepy;” while some detect in its color a mingling of

black and gray. The only peculiarity which I observed in the pupil

was its similarity to that of the gipsy. The Indian first fixes upon

you a piercing glance, which seems to look below the surface. After a

few seconds, however, the eye glazes as though a film passed over it,

and gazes, as it were, on vacancy. The look would at once convict

him of Jattatura and Molocchio in Italy, and of El Ayn, or the Evil

Eye, in the East. The mouth is at once full and compressed; it opens

widely; the lips are generally _bordés_ or everted--decidedly the most

unpleasant fault which that feature can have--the corners are drawn

down as if by ill temper, and the two seams which spring from the alæ

of the nostrils are deeply traced. This formation of the oral, combined

with the fullness of the circumoral regions, and the length and

fleshiness of the naked upper lip, communicates a peculiar animality

to the countenance. The cheek-bones are high and bony; they are not,

however, expanded or spread backward, nor do they, as in the Chinese,

alter the appearance of the eyes by making them oblique. The cheeks

are rather lank and falling in than full or oval. The whole maxillary

organ is projecting and ponderous. The wide condyles of the lower jaw

give a remarkable massiveness to the jowl, while the chin--perhaps the

most characteristic feature--is long, bony, large, and often parted in

the centre. The teeth are faultless, full-sized and white, even and

regular, strong and lasting; and they are vertical, not sloping forward

like the African’s. To sum up, the evanishing of the forehead, the

compression of the lips, the breadth and squareness of the jaw, and

the massiveness of the chin, combine to produce a normal expression of

harshness and cruelty, which, heightened by red and black war-paint,

locks like horsehair, plumes, and other savage decorations, form a

“rouge dragon” whose _tout ensemble_ is truly revolting.

The women when in their teens have often that _beauté du diable_, which

may be found even among the African negresses; nothing, however, can be

more evanescent. When full grown the figure becomes dumpy and _trapu_;

and the face, though sometimes not without a certain comeliness,

has a Turanian breadth and flatness. The best portrait of a sightly

Indian woman is that of Pocahontas, the Princess, published by Mr.

Schoolcraft. The drudgery of the tent and field renders the squaw cold

and unimpassioned; and, like the coarsest-minded women in civilized

races, her eye and her heart mean one and the same thing. She will

administer “squaw medicine,” a love philter, to her husband, but rather

for the purpose of retaining his protection than his love. She has all

the modesty of a savage, and is not deficient in sense of honor. She

has no objection to a white man, but, Affghan-like, she usually changes

her name to “John” or some other alias. Her demerits are a habit of

dunning for presents, and a dislike to the virtue that ranks next to

godliness, which nothing but the fear of the rod will subdue. She has

literally no belief, not even in the rude fetichism of her husband, and

consequently she has no religious exercises. As she advances in years

she rapidly descends in _physique_ and _morale_: there is nothing on

earth more fiendlike than the vengeance of a cretin-like old squaw.

The ancient Persians taught their progeny archery, riding, and

truth-telling; the Prairie Indian’s curriculum is much the same, only

the last of the trio is carefully omitted. The Indian, like other

savages, never tells the truth; verity is indeed rather an intellectual

than an instinctive virtue, which, as children prove, must be taught

and made intelligible; except when “counting his coups,” in other

words, recounting his triumphs, his life is therefore one system of

deceit, the strength of the weak. Another essential part of education

is to close the mouth during sleep: the Indian has a superstition

that all disease is produced by inhalation. The children, “born like

the wild ass’s colts,” are systematically spoiled with the view of

fostering their audacity; the celebrated apophthegm of the Wise

King--to judge from his notable failure at home, he probably did not

practice what he preached--which has caused such an expenditure of

birch and cane in higher races, would be treated with contempt by the

Indians. The fond mother, when chastening her child, never goes beyond

dashing a little cold water in its face--for which reason to besprinkle

a man is a mortal insult--a system which, perhaps, might be naturalized

with advantage in some parts of Europe. The son is taught to make his

mother toil for him, and openly to disobey his sire; at seven years

of age he has thrown off all parental restraint; nothing keeps him in

order but the fear of the young warriors. At ten or twelve he openly

rebels against all domestic rule, and does not hesitate to strike his

father; the parent then goes off rubbing his hurt, and boasting to his

neighbors of the brave boy whom he has begotten.

[THE INDIAN’S RELIGION.]

The religion of the North American Indians has long been a subject of

debate. Some see in it traces of Judaism, others of Sabæanism; Mr.

Schoolcraft detects a degradation of Guebrism. His faith has, it is

true, a suspicion of duality; Hormuzd and Ahriman are recognizable

in Gitche Manitou and Mujhe Manitou, and the latter, the Bad god, is

naturally more worshiped, because more feared, than the Good god.

Moreover, some tribes show respect for and swear by the sun, and

others for fire: there is a north god and a south god, a wood god, a

prairie god, an air god, and a water god; but--they have not risen

to monotheism--there is not one God. None, however, appear to have

that reverence for the elements which is the first article of the

Zoroastrian creed; the points of difference are many, while those

of resemblance are few and feeble, and it is hard to doubt that the

instincts of mankind have been pressed by controversialists into the

service of argument as traditional tenets.

To judge from books and the conversation of those who best know the

Indians, he is distinctly a Fetichist like the African negro, and,

indeed, like all the child-like races of mankind.[66] The medicine-man

is his mganga, angekok, sorcerer, prophet, physician, exorciser,

priest, and rain-doctor; only, as he is rarely a cultivator of the

soil, instead of heavy showers and copious crops, he is promised

scalps, salmon trout, and buffalo beef in plenty. He has the true

Fetichist’s belief--invariably found in tribes who live dependent

upon the powers of Nature--in the younger brothers of the human

family, the bestial creation: he holds to a metamorphosis like that

of Abyssinia, and to speaking animals. Every warrior chooses a totem,

some quadruped, bird, or fish, to which he prays, and which he will

on no account kill or eat. Dr. Livingstone shows (chap. i.) that the

same custom prevails in its entirety among the Kaffir Bakwaina, and

opines that it shows traces of addiction to animal worship, like the

ancient Egyptians; in the prophecies of Israel the tribes are compared

with animals, a true totemic practice. The word totem also signifies a

sub-clan or sub-tribe; and some nations, like the African Somal, will

not allow marriage in the same totem. The medicine-men give away young

children as an atonement when calamities impend: they go clothed, not

in sackcloth and ashes, but in coats of mire, and their macerations

and self-inflicted tortures rival those of the Hindoos: a fanatic has

been known to drag about a buffalo skull with a string cut from his own

skin till it is torn away. In spring-time, the braves, and even the

boys, repairing to lonely places and hill-tops, their faces and bodies

being masked, as if in mourning, with mud, fast and pray, and sing rude

chants to propitiate the ghosts for days consecutively. The Fetichist

is ever grossly superstitious; and the Indians, as might be expected,

abound in local rites. Some tribes, as the Cheyennes, will not go

to war without a medicine-man, others without sacred war-gourds[67]

containing the tooth of the drum-head fish. Children born with teeth

are looked upon as portents, and when gray at birth the phenomenon is

attributed to evil ghosts.

[66] The reader who cares to consult my studies upon the subject

of Fetichism in Africa, where it is and ever has been the national

creed, is referred to “The Lake Regions of Central Africa,” chap.

xix. The modes of belief, and the manners and customs of savage and

barbarous races are so similar, that a knowledge of the African is an

excellent introduction to that of the American.

[67] This gourd or calabash is the produce of the _Cucurbita

lagenaria_, or calabash vine. In Spanish, Central, and Southern

America, Cuba and the West Indies, they use the large round fruit of

the _Crescentia cujete_.

I can not but think that the two main articles of belief which have

been set down to the credit of the Indian, namely, the Great Spirit

or Creator, and the Happy Hunting-grounds in a future world, are

the results of missionary teaching, the work of Fathers Hennepin,

Marquette, and their noble army of martyred Jesuit followers. In later

days they served chiefly to inspire the Anglo-American muse, _e. g._:

“By midnight moons o’er moistening dews,

In vestments for the chase arrayed,

The hunter still the deer pursues--

The hunter and the deer, a shade!

And long shall timorous fancy see

The painted chief and pointed spear,

And Reason’s self shall bow the knee

To shadows and delusions here.”

My conviction is, that the English and American’s popular ideas upon

the subject are unreliable, and that their embodiment, beautiful

poetry, “Lo the poor Indian,” down to “his faithful dog shall bear

him company,” are but a splendid myth. The North American aborigine

believed, it is true, in an unseen power, the Manitou, or, as we are

obliged to translate it, “Spirit,” residing in every heavenly body,

animal, plant, or other natural object. This is the very essence of

that form of Fetichism which leads to Pantheism and Polytheism. There

was a Manitou, as he conceived, which gave the spark from the flint,

lived in every blade of grass, flowed in the streams, shone in the

stars, and thundered in the waterfall; but in each example--a notable

instance of the want of abstractive and generalizing power--the idea

of the Deity was particular and concrete. When the Jesuit fathers

suggested the unity of the Great Spirit pervading all beings, it was

very readily recognized; but the generalization was not worked out by

the Indian mind. He was, therefore, like all savages, atheistic in

the literal sense of the word. He had not arrived at the first step,

Pantheism, which is so far an improvement that it opens out a grand

idea, the omnipresence, and consequently the omnipotence, of the

Deity. In most North American languages the Theos is known, not as the

“Great Spirit,” but as the “Great Father,” a title also applied to the

President of the United States, who is, I believe, though sometimes a

step-father, rather the more reverenced of the twain. With respect to

the happy hunting-grounds, it is a mere corollary of the monotheistic

theorem above proved. It is doubtful whether these savages ever grasped

the idea of a human soul. The Chicury of New England, indeed, and other

native words so anglicized, appear distinctly to mean the African

Pepo--ghost or larva.

Certain missionaries have left us grotesque accounts of the simple

good sense with which the Indians of old received the Glad Tidings.

The strangers were courteously received, the calumet was passed round,

and they were invited to make known their wants in a “big talk.” They

did so by producing a synopsis of their faith, beginning at Adam’s

apple and ending at the Savior’s cross. The patience of the Indian in

enduring long speeches, sermons, and harangues has ever been exemplary

and peculiar, as his fortitude in suffering lingering physical

tortures. The audience listened with a solemn demeanor, not once

interrupting what must have appeared to them a very wild and curious

story. Called upon to make some remark, these antipomologists simply

ejaculated,

“Apples are not wholesome, and those who crucified Christ were bad

men!”

In their turn, some display of oratory was required. They avoided the

tedious, long-drawn style of argument, and spoke, as was their wont,

briefly to the point. “It is good of you,” said they, “to cross the

big water, and to follow the Indian’s trail, that ye may relate to us

what ye have related. Now listen to what our mothers told us. Our first

father, after killing a beast, was roasting a rib before the fire, when

a spirit, descending from the skies, sat upon a neighboring bluff. She

was asked to eat. She ate fat meat. Then she arose and silently went

her way. From the place where she rested her two hands grew corn and

pumpkin; and from the place where she sat sprang tobacco!”

The missionaries listened to the savage tradition with an excusable

disrespect, and, not unnaturally, often interrupted it. This want of

patience and dignity, however, drew upon them severe remarks. “Pooh!”

observed the Indians. “When you told us what your mothers told you, we

gave ear in silence like men. When we tell you what our mothers told

us, ye give tongue like squaws. Go to! Ye are no medicine-men, but

silly fellows!”

Besides their superstitious belief in ghosts, spirits, or familiars,

and the practice of spells and charms, love-philters, dreams

and visions, war-medicine, hunting-medicine, self-torture, and

incantations, the Indians had, it appears to me, but three religious

observances, viz., dancing, smoking, and scalping.

The war-dances, the corn-dances, the buffalo-dances, the scalp-dances,

and the other multiform and solemn saltations of these savages, have

been minutely depicted and described by many competent observers. The

theme also is beyond the limits of an essay like this.

Smoking is a boon which the Old owes to the New World. It is a heavy

call upon our gratitude, for which we have naturally been very

ungrateful.

“Non epulis tantum, non Bacchi pascimur usu,

Pascimur et fumis, ingeniosa gula est.”

[THE SMOKING RITE.]

We began by calling our new gift the “holy herb;” it is now, like the

Balm of Gilead, entitled, I believe, a weed. Among the North American

Indians even the spirits smoke; the “Indian summer” is supposed to

arise from the puffs that proceed from the pipe of Nanabozhoo, the

Ojibwa Noah. The pipe may have been used in the East before the days

of tobacco, but if so it was probably applied to the inhalation of

cannabis and other intoxicants.[68] On the other hand, the Indian had

no stimulants. He never invented the beer of Osiris, though maize

grew abundantly around him;[69] the koumiss of the Tartar was beyond

his mental reach; and though “Jimsen weed”[70] overruns the land,

he neglected its valuable intoxicating properties. His is almost the

only race that has ever existed wholly without a stimulant; the fact

is a strong proof of its autochthonic origin. It is indeed incredible

that man, having once learned, should ever forget the means of getting

drunk. Instead of the social cup the Indian smoked. As tobacco does

not grow throughout the continent, he invented kinnikinik. This Indian

word has many meanings. By the hunters and settlers it is applied to a

mixture of half and half, or two thirds tobacco and one of red willow

bark; others use it for a mixture of tobacco, sumach leaves, and willow

rind; others, like Ruxton (“Life in the Far West,” p. 116), for the

cortex of the willow only. This tree grows abundantly in copses near

the streams and water-courses. For smoking, the twigs are cut when the

leaves begin to redden. Some tribes, like the Sioux, remove the outer

and use only the highly-colored inner bark; others again, like the

Shoshonees, employ the external as well as the internal cuticle. It is

scraped down the twig in curling ringlets, without, however, stripping

it off; the stick is then planted in the ground before the fire,

and, when sufficiently parched, the material is bruised, comminuted,

and made ready for use. The taste is pleasant and aromatic, but the

effect is that of the puerile ratan rather than the manly tobacco. The

Indian, be it observed, smokes like all savages by inhaling the fumes

into the lungs, and returning them through the nostrils; he finds pure

tobacco, therefore, too strong and pungent. As has been said, he is

catholic in his habits of smoking; he employs indifferently rose-bark

(_Rosa blanda?_)[71] and the cuticle of a cornus, the lobelia,[72] the

larb, a vaccinium, a Daphne-like plant, and many others. The Indian

smokes incessantly, and the “calumet”[73] is an important part of his

household goods. He has many superstitions about the practice. It is

a sacred instrument, and its red color typifies the smoker’s flesh.

The Western travelers mention offerings of tobacco to, and smoking of

pipes in honor of, the Great Spirit. Some men will vow never to use the

pipe in public, others to abstain on particular days. Some will not

smoke with their moccasins on, others with steel about their persons;

some are pledged to abstain inside, others outside the wigwam, and

many scatter buffalo chip over their tobacco. When beginning to smoke

there are certain observances; some, _exempli gratiâ_, direct, after

the fashion of Gitche Manitou, the first puff upward or heavenward,

the second earthward, and the third and fourth over the right and left

shoulders, probably in propitiation of the ghosts, who are being smoked

for in proxy; others, before the process of inhaling, touch the ground

with the heel of the pipe-bowl, and turn the stem upward and averted.

[68] The word tobacco (West Indian, tobago or tobacco, a peculiar

pipe), which has spread through Europe, Asia, and Africa, seems to

prove the origin of the nicotiana, and the non-mention of smoking

in the “Arabian Nights” disproves the habit of inhaling any other

succedaneum.

[69] It has long been disputed whether maize was indigenous to

America or to Asia; learned names are found on both sides of the

question. In Central Africa the cereal is now called as in English,

“Indian corn,” proving that in that continent it first was introduced

from Hindostan. The Italians have named it Gran’ Turco, showing

whence it was imported by them. The word maiz, mays, maize, or

mahiz, is a Carib word introduced by the Spaniards into Europe;

in the United States, where “corn” is universally used, maize is

intelligible only to the educated.

[70] Properly Jamestown weed, the _Datura stramonium_, the English

thorn-apple, unprettily called in the Northern States of America

“stinkweed.” It found its way into the higher latitudes from

Jamestown (Virginia), where it was first observed springing on heaps

of ballast and other rubbish discharged from vessels. According to

Beverly (“History of Virginia,” book ii., quoted by Mr. Bartlett),

it is “one of the greatest coolers in the world;” and in some young

soldiers who ate plentifully of it as a salad, to pacify the troubles

of bacon, the effect was “a very pleasant remedy, for they turned

natural fools upon it for several days.”

[71] The wild rose is every where met with growing in bouquets on the

prairies.

[72] The _Lobelia inflata_, or Indian tobacco, is corrupted by the

ignorant Western man to low belia in contradistinction to high belia,

better varieties of the plant.

[73] The calumet, a word introduced by the old French, is the red

sandstone pipe, described in a previous page, with a long tube,

generally a reed, adorned with feathers. It is the Indian symbol of

hatred or amity; there is a calumet of war as well as a calumet of

peace. To accept the calumet is to come to terms; to refuse it is

to reject them. The same is expressed by burying and digging up the

tomahawk or hatchet. The tomahawk and calumet are sometimes made of

one piece of stone; specimens, however, have become very rare since

the introduction of the iron axe. The “Song of Hiawatha” (Canto

I., The Peace Pipe) and the interesting “Letters and Notes on the

Manners, Customs, and Conditions of the North American Indians” (vol.

ii., p. 160), have made the Red Pipe-stone Quarry familiar to the

Englishman.

[THE SCALPING RITE.]

According to those who, like Pennant, derive the North American from

the Scythians, scalping is a practice that originated in High and

Northeastern Asia. The words of the Father of History are as follows:

“Of the first enemy a Scythian sends down, he quaffs the blood; he

carries the heads of all that he has slain in battle to the king;

for when he has brought a head, he is entitled to a share of the

booty that may be taken--not otherwise; to skin the head, he makes

a circular incision from ear to ear, and then, laying hold of the

crown, shakes out the skull; after scraping off the flesh with an

ox’s rib, he rumples it between his hands, and having thus softened

the skin, makes use of it as a napkin; he appends it to the bridle

of the horse he rides, and prides himself on this, for the Scythian

that has most of these skin napkins is adjudged the best man, etc.,

etc. They also use the entire skins as horse-cloths, also the skulls

for drinking-cups.”--(“Melpomene,” iv., 64, Laurent’s trans.) The

underlying idea is doubtless the natural wish to preserve a memorial of

a foeman done to death, and at the same time to dishonor his hateful

corpse by mutilation. Fashion and tradition regulate the portions of

the human frame preferred.

Scalping is generally, but falsely, supposed to be a peculiarly

American practice. The Abbé Em. Domenech (“Seven Years’ Residence

in the Great Deserts of North America,” chap. xxxix.) quotes the

_decalvare_ of the ancient Germans, the _capillos et cutem detrahere_

of the code of the Visigoths, and the annals of Flude, which prove that

the “Anglo-Saxons” and the Franks still scalped about A.D. 879. And as

the modern American practice is traceable to Europe and Asia, so it

may be found in Africa, where aught of ferocity is rarely wanting. “In

a short time after our return,” says Mr. Duncan (“Travels in Western

Africa in 1845 and 1846”), “the Apadomey regiment passed, on their

return, in single file, each leading in a string a young male or female

slave, carrying also the dried scalp of one man supposed to have been

killed in the attack. On all such occasions, when a person is killed in

battle, the skin is taken from the head and kept as a trophy of valor.

It must not be supposed that these female warriors kill according to

the number of scalps presented; the scalps are the accumulation of

many years. If six or seven men are killed during one year’s war it is

deemed a great thing; one party always run away in these slave-hunts;

but where armies meet the slaughter is great. I counted 700 scalps

pass in this manner.” But mutilation, like cannibalism, tattooing, and

burying in barrows, is so natural under certain circumstances to man’s

mind that we distinctly require no traditional derivation.

Scalp-taking is a solemn rite. In the good old times braves

scrupulously awaited the wounded man’s death before they “raised his

hair;” in the laxity of modern days, however, this humane custom is too

often disregarded. Properly speaking, the trophy should be taken after

fair fight with a hostile warrior; this also is now neglected. When

the Indian sees his enemy fall he draws his scalp-knife--the modern is

of iron, formerly it was of flint, obsidian, or other hard stone--and

twisting the scalp-lock, which is left long for that purpose, and

boastfully braided or decorated with some gaudy ribbon or with the

war-eagle’s plume, round his left hand, makes with the right two

semicircular incisions, with and against the sun, about the part to be

removed. The skin is next loosened with the knife-point, if there be

time to spare and if there be much scalp to be taken. The operator then

sits on the ground, places his feet against the subject’s shoulders

by way of leverage, and, holding the scalp-lock with both hands, he

applies a strain which soon brings off the spoils with a sound which,

I am told, is not unlike “flop.” Without the long lock it would be

difficult to remove the scalp; prudent white travelers, therefore, are

careful, before setting out through an Indian country, to “shingle

off” their hair as closely as possible; the Indian, moreover, hardly

cares for a half-fledged scalp. To judge from the long love-locks

affected by the hunter and mountaineer, he seems to think lightly of

this precaution; to hold it, in fact, a point of honor that the savage

should have a fair chance. A few cunning men have surprised their

adversaries with wigs. The operation of scalping must be exceedingly

painful; the sufferer turns, wriggles, and “squirms” upon the ground

like a scotched snake. It is supposed to induce brain fever; many

instances, however, are known of men and even women recovering from

it, as the former do from a more dreadful infliction in Abyssinia and

Galla-land; cases are of course rare, as a disabling wound is generally

inflicted before the bloodier work is done.

After taking the scalp, the Indian warrior--proud as if he had won

a _médaille de sauvetage_--prepares for return to his village. He

lingers outside for a few days, and then, after painting his hands and

face with lampblack, appears slowly and silently before his lodge.

There he squats for a while; his relatives and friends, accompanied by

the elders of the tribe, sit with him dumb as himself. Presently the

question is put; it is answered with truth, although these warriors at

other times will lie like Cretans. The “coup” is recounted, however,

with abundant glorification; the Indians, like the Greek and Arab of

their classical ages, are allowed to vent their self-esteem on such

occasions without blame, and to enjoy a treat for which the civilized

modern hero longs ardently, but in vain. Finally the “green scalp,”

after being dried and mounted, is consecrated by the solemn dance, and

becomes then fit for public exhibition. Some tribes attach it to a long

pole used as a standard, and others to their horses’ bridles, others

to their targes, while others ornament with its fringes the outer

seams of their leggins; in fact, its uses are many. The more scalps

the more honor; the young man who can not boast of a single murder or

show the coveted trophy is held in such scant esteem as the English

gentleman who contents himself with being passing rich on a hundred

pounds a year. Some great war-chiefs have collected a heap of these

honorable spoils. It must be remembered by “curio” hunters that only

one scalp can come off one head; namely, the centre lock or long tuft

growing upon the coronal apex, with about three inches in diameter of

skin. This knowledge is the more needful, as the Western men are in the

habit of manufacturing half a dozen cut from different parts of the

same head; they sell readily for $50 each, but the transaction is not

considered reputable. The connoisseur, however, readily distinguishes

the real article from “false scalping” by the unusual thickness of

the cutis, which is more like that of a donkey than of a man. Set in

a plain gold circlet it makes a very pretty brooch. Moreover, each

tribe has its own fashion of scalping derived from its forefathers. The

Sioux, for instance, when they have leisure to perform the operation,

remove the whole headskin, including a portion of the ears; they then

sit down and dispose the ears upon the horns of a buffalo skull, and

a bit of the flesh upon little heaps of earth or clay, disposed in

quincunx, apparently as an offering to the manes of their ancestors,

and they smoke ceremoniously, begging the manitou to send them plenty

more. The trophy is then stretched upon a willow twig bent into an

oval shape, and lined with two semi-ovals of black or blue and scarlet

cloth. The Yutas and the Prairie tribes generally, when pressed for

time, merely take off the poll skin that grows the long tuft of hair,

while the Chyuagara or Nez Percés prefer a long strip about two inches

wide, extending from the nape to the commissure of the hair and

forehead. The fingers of the slain are often reserved for sévignés

and necklaces. Indians are aware of the aversion with which the pale

faces regard this barbarity. Near Alkali Lake, where there was a large

Dakotah “tipi” or encampment of Sioux, I tried to induce a tribesman to

go through the imitative process before me; he refused with a gesture

indignantly repudiating the practice. A glass of whisky would doubtless

have changed his mind, but I was unwilling to break through the

wholesome law that prohibits it.

It is not wonderful that the modern missionary should be unable to

influence such a brain as the Prairie Indian’s. The old propagandists,

Jesuits and Franciscans, became medicine-men: like the great fraternity

in India, they succeeded by the points of resemblance which the savages

remarked in their observances, such as their images and rosaries, which

would be regarded as totems, and their fastings and prayers, which

were of course supposed to be spells and charms. Their successors

have succeeded about as well with the Indian as with the African; the

settled tribes have given ear to them, the Prairie wanderers have not;

and the Europeanization of the Indian generally is hopeless as the

Christianization of the Hindoo. The missionaries usually live under the

shadow of the different agencies, and even they own that nothing can be

done with the children unless removed from the parental influence. I do

not believe that an Indian of the plains ever became a Christian. He

must first be humanized, then civilized, and lastly Christianized; and,

as has been said before, I doubt his surviving the operation.

[INDIAN NAMES.]

As might be expected of the Indian’s creed, it has few rites and

ceremonies; circumcision is unknown, and it ignores the complicated

observances which, in the case of the Hindoo Pantheist, and in many

African tribes, wait upon gestation, parturition, and allactation. The

child is seldom named.[74] There are but five words given in regular

order to distinguish one from another. There are no family names. The

men, after notable exploits, are entitled by their tribes to assume

the titles of the distinguished dead, and each fresh deed brings a

new distinction. Some of the names are poetical enough: the “Black

Night,” for instance, the “Breaker of Arrows,” or the “War Eagle’s

Wing;” others are coarse and ridiculous, such as “Squash-head,”

“Bull’s-tail,” “Dirty Saddle,” and “Steam from a Cow’s Belly;” not a

few bear a whimsical likeness to those of the African negroes, as “His

Great Fire,” “The Water goes in the Path,” and “Buffalo Chips”--the

“Mavi yá Gnombe” of Unyamwezi. The son of a chief succeeding his

father usually assumes his name, so that the little dynasty, like that

of the Pharaohs, the Romuli, or the Numas, is perpetuated. The women

are not unfrequently called after the parts and properties of some

admired or valued animal, as the White Martin, the Young Mink,[75] or

the Muskrat’s Paw. In the north there have been men with as many as

seven wives, all “Martins.” The Prairie Indians form the names of the

women like those of men, adding the feminine suffix, as Cloud-woman,

Red-earth-woman, Black-day-woman. The white stranger is ever offending

Indian etiquette by asking the savage “What’s your name?” The person

asked looks aside for a friend to assist him; he has learned in boyhood

that some misfortune will happen to him if he discloses his name. Even

husbands and wives never mention each other’s names. The same practice

prevails in many parts of Asia.

[74] The Ojibwa and other races have the ceremony of a burnt-offering

when the name is given.

[75] Putorius vison, a pretty dark-chestnut-colored animal of the

weasel kind, which burrows in the banks of streams near mills and

farm-houses, where it preys upon the poultry like the rest of the

family. It swims well, and can dive for a long time. Its food is

small fish, mussels, and insects, but it will also devour rats and

mice.

[FEMALE CONDUCT.]

Marriage is a simple affair with them. In some tribes the bride, as

among the Australians, is carried off by force. In others the man

who wants a wife courts her with a little present, and pickets near

the father’s lodge the number of horses which he supposes to be her

equivalent. As among all savage tribes, the daughter is a chattel, an

item of her father’s goods, and he will not part with her except for a

consideration. The men are of course polygamists; they prefer to marry

sisters, because the tent is more quiet, and much upon the principle

with which marriage with a deceased wife’s sister is advocated in

England. The women, like the Africans, are not a little addicted to

suicide. Before espousal the conduct of the weaker sex in many tribes

is far from irreproachable. The “bundling” of Wales and of New England

in a former day[76] is not unknown to them, and many think little of

that _prœgustatio matrimonii_ which, in the eastern parts of the New

World, goes by the name of Fanny Wrightism and Free-loveism. Several

tribes make trial, like the Highlanders before the reign of James the

Fifth, of their wives for a certain time--a kind of “hand-fasting,”

which is to morality what fetichism is to faith. There are few nations

in the world among whom this practice, originating in a natural desire

not to “make a leap in the dark,” can not be traced. Yet after marriage

they will live, like the Spartan matrons, a life of austerity in

relation to the other sex. In cases of divorce, the children, being

property, are divided, and in most tribes the wife claims the odd one.

If the mother takes any care to preserve her daughter’s virtue, it is

only out of regard to its market value. In some tribes the injured

husband displays all the philosophy of Cato and Socrates. In others

the wife is punished, like the native of Hindostan, by cutting, or,

more generally, by biting off the nose-tip. Some slay the wife’s lover;

others accept a pecuniary compensation for their dishonor, and take

as damages skins or horses. Elopement, as among the Arabs, prevails

in places. The difference of conduct on the part of the women of

course depends upon the bearing of the men. “There is no adulteress

without an adulterer”--meaning that the husband is ever the first to

be unfaithful--is a saying as old as the days of Mohammed. Among the

Arapahoes, for instance, there is great looseness; the Cheyennes,

on the contrary, are notably correct. Truth demands one unpleasant

confession, viz., on the whole, chastity is little esteemed among those

Indians who have been corrupted by intercourse with whites.

[76] Traces of this ancient practice may be found in the four

quarters of the globe. Mr.Bartlett, in his instructive volume, quotes

the Rev. Samuel Pike (“General History of Connecticut,” London,

1781), who quaintly remarks: “Notwithstanding the great modesty of

the females is such that it would be accounted the greatest rudeness

for a gentleman to speak before a lady of a garter or a leg, yet

it is thought but a piece of civility to ask her to _bundle_.” The

learned and pious historian endeavored to prove that bundling was

not only a Christian, but a very polite and prudent practice. So the

Rev. Andrew Barnaby, who traveled in New England in 1759-60, thinks

that though bundling may “at first appear the effect of grossness of

character, it will, upon deeper research, be found to proceed from

simplicity and innocence.”

[CHIEFS.]

The dignity of chief denotes in the Indian language a royal title.

It is hereditary as a rule, but men of low birth sometimes attain

it by winning a name as warriors or medicine-men. When there are

many sons it often happens that each takes command of a small clan.

Personal prowess is a necessity in sagamore and sachem: an old man,

therefore, often abdicates in favor of his more vigorous son, to whom

he acts as guide and counselor. There is one chief to every band,

with several sub-chiefs. The power possessed by the ruler depends

upon his individual character, and the greater or lesser capacity for

discipline in his subjects. Some are obeyed grudgingly, as the Sheikh

of a Bedouin tribe. Others are absolute monarchs, who dispose of the

lives and properties of their followers without exciting a murmur. The

counteracting element to despotism resides in the sub-chief and in the

council of warriors, who obstinately insist upon having a voice in

making laws, raising subsidies, declaring wars, and ratifying peace.

[MODE OF LIFE.]

Their life is of course simple; they have no regular hours for meals

or sleep. Before eating they sometimes make a heave-offering of a

bit of food toward the heavens, where their forefathers are, and a

second toward the earth, the mother of all things: the pieces are then

burned. They are not cannibals, except when a warrior, after slaying

a foe, eats, porcupine-like, the heart or liver, with the idea of

increasing his own courage. The women rarely sit at meals with the

men. In savage and semi-barbarous societies the separation of the

sexes is the general rule, because, as they have no ideas in common,

each prefers the society of its own. They are fond of adoption and

of making brotherhoods, like the Africans; and so strong is the tie,

that marriage with the sister of an adopted brother is within the

prohibited degrees. Gambling is a passion with them: they play at

cards, an art probably learned from the Canadians, and the game is

that called in the States “matching,” on the principle of dominoes or

beggar-my-neighbor. When excited they ejaculate Will! Will!--sharp and

staccato--it is possibly a conception of the English well. But it often

comes out in the place of bad, as the Sepoy orderly in India reports

to his captain, “Ramnak Jamnak dead, Joti Prasad very sick--all vell!”

The savages win and lose with the stoicism habitual to them, rarely

drawing the “navajon,” like the Mexican “lepero,” over a disputed

point; and when a man has lost his last rag, he rises in nude dignity

and goes home. Their language ignores the violent and offensive abuse

of parents and female relatives, which distinguishes the Asiatic and

the African from the European Billingsgate: the worst epithets that

can be applied to a man are miser, coward, dog, woman. With them good

temper is good breeding--a mark of gentle blood. A brave will stand

up and harangue his enemies, exulting how he scalped their sires, and

squaws, and sons, without calling forth a grunt of irritation. Ceremony

and manners, in our sense of the word, they have none, and they lack

the profusion of salutations which usually distinguishes barbarians.

An Indian appearing at your door rarely has the civility to wait till

beckoned in; he enters the house, with his quiet catlike gait and his

imperturbable countenance, saying, if a Sioux, “How!” or “How! How!”

meaning Well? shakes hands, to which he expects the same reply, if he

has learned “paddling with the palms” from the whites--this, however,

is only expected by the chiefs and braves--and squats upon his hams in

the Eastern way, I had almost said the natural way, but to man, unlike

all other animals, every way is equally natural, the chair or the seat

upon the ground. He accepts a pipe if offered to him, devours what you

set before him--those best acquainted with the savage, however, avoid

all unnecessary civility or generosity: Milesian-like, he considers a

benefit his due, and if withheld, he looks upon his benefactor as a

“mean man”--talks or smokes as long as he pleases, and then rising,

stalks off without a word. His ideas of time are primitive. The hour is

denoted by pointing out the position of the sun; the days, or rather

the nights, are reckoned by sleeps; there are no weeks; the moons,

which are literally new, the old being nibbled away by mice, form the

months, and suns do duty for years. He has, like the Bedouin and the

Esquimaux, sufficient knowledge of the heavenly bodies to steer his

course over the pathless sage-sea. Night-work, however, is no favorite

with him except in cases of absolute necessity. Counting is done upon

man’s first abacus, the fingers, and it rarely extends beyond ten. The

value of an article was formerly determined by beads and buffaloes;

dollars, however, are now beginning to be generally known.

The only arts of the Indians are medicine and the use of arms. They are

great in the knowledge of simples and tisanes. The leaves of the white

willow are the favorite emetic; wounds are dressed with astringent

herbs, and inflammations are reduced by scarification and the actual

cautery. Among some tribes, the hammam, or Turkish bath, is invariably

the appendage to a village. It is an oven sunk in the earth, with

room for about a score of persons, and a domed roof of tamped and

timber-propped earth--often mistaken for a bulge in the ground--pierced

with a little square window for ventilation when not in use. A fire is

kindled in the centre, and the patient, after excluding the air, sits

quietly in this rude calidarium till half roasted and stifled by the

heat and smoke. Finally, like the Russian peasant, he plunges into the

burn that runs hard by, and feels his ailments dropping off him with

the dead cuticle. The Indians associating with the horse have learned a

rude farriery which often succeeds where politer practice would fail.

I heard of one who cured the bites of rattlesnakes and copperheads by

scarifying the wounded beast’s face, plastering the place with damped

gunpowder paste and setting it on fire.

[FIRE-ARMS.--BOWS AND ARROWS.]

Among the Prairie tribes are now to be found individuals provided

not only with the old muskets formerly supplied to them, but with

yägers,[77] Sharp’s breech-loaders, alias “Beecher’s Bibles,” Colt’s

revolvers, and other really good fire-arms. Their shooting has improved

with their tools: many of them are now able to “draw a bead” with

coolness and certainty. Those who can not afford shooting-irons content

themselves with their ancient weapons, the lance and bow. The former

is a poor affair, a mere iron spike from two to three inches long,

inserted into the end of a staff about as thick as a Hindostanee’s

bamboo lance; it is whipped round with sinew for strength, decorated

with a few bunches of gaudy feathers, and defended with the usual

medicine-bag. The bow varies in dimensions with the different tribes.

On the prairies, for convenient use on horseback, it seldom exceeds

three feet in length; among the Southern Indians its size doubles, and

in parts of South America it is like that of the Andamans, a gigantic

weapon with an arrow six feet long, and drawn by bringing the aid of

the feet to the hands. The best bows among the Sioux and Yutas are of

horn, hickory being unprocurable; an inferior sort is made of a reddish

wood, in hue and grain not unlike that called “mountain mahogany.” A

strip of raw-hide is fitted to the back for increase of elasticity,

and the string is a line of twisted sinew. When not wanted for use

the weapon is carried in a skin case slung over the shoulder. It is

drawn with the two forefingers--not with the forefinger and thumb,

as in the East--and generally the third or ring-finger is extended

along the string to give additional purchase. Savage tribes do little

in the way of handicraft, but that little they do patiently, slowly,

and therefore well. The bow and arrow are admirably adapted to their

purpose. The latter is either a reed or a bit of arrow-wood (_Viburnum

dentatum_), whose long, straight, and tough stems are used by the

fletcher from the Mississippi to the Pacific. The piles are triangles

of iron, agate, flint, chalcedony, opal, or other hard stone: for war

purposes they are barbed, and bird-bolts tipped with hard wood are used

for killing small game. Some tribes poison their shafts: the material

is the juice of a buffalo’s or an antelope’s liver when it has become

green and decomposed after the bite of a rattlesnake; at least this

is the account which all the hunters and mountaineers give of it.

They have also, I believe, vegetable poisons. The feathers are three

in number; those preferred are the hawk’s and the raven’s; and some

tribes glue, while others whip them on with tendon-thread. The stele is

invariably indented from the feathers to the tip with a shallow spiral

furrow: this vermiculation is intended, according to the traders, to

hasten death by letting air into or letting blood out of the wound. It

is probably the remnant of some superstition now obsolete, for every

man does it, while no man explains why or wherefore. If the Indian

works well, he does not work quickly; he will expend upon half a dozen

arrows as many months. Each tribe has its own mark; the Pawnees, for

instance, make a bulge below the notch. Individuals also have private

signs which enable them to claim a disputed scalp or buffalo robe. In

battle or chase the arrows are held in the left hand, and are served

out to the right with such rapidity that one long string of them seems

to be cleaving the air. A good Sioux archer will, it is said, discharge

nine arrows upward before the first has fallen to the ground. He will

transfix a bison and find his shaft upon the earth on the other side;

and he shows his dexterity by discharging the arrow up to its middle

in the quarry and by withdrawing it before the animal falls. Tales are

told of a single warrior killing several soldiers; and as a rule, at

short distances, the bow is considered by the whites a more effectual

weapon than the gun. It is related that when the Sioux first felt the

effects of Colt’s revolver, the weapon, after two shots, happened to

slip from the owner’s grasp; when he recovered it and fired a third

time all fled, declaring that a white was shooting them with buffalo

chips. Wonderful tales are told of the Indians’ accuracy with the

bow: they hold it no great feat to put the arrow into a keyhole at

the distance of forty paces. It is true that I never saw any thing

surprising in their performances, but the savage will not take the

trouble to waste his skill without an object.

[77] An antiquated sort of German rifle, formerly used by the federal

troops.

[THE SIOUX LANGUAGE.]

The Sioux tongue, like the Pawnee, is easily learned; government

officials and settlers acquire it as the Anglo-Indian does Hindostanee.

They are assisted by the excellent grammar and dictionary of the

Dakotah language, collated by the members of the Dakotah Mission,

edited by the Rev. S. R. Riggs, M.A., and accepted for publication by

the Smithsonian Institution, December, 1851. The Dakotah-English part

contains about 16,000 words, and the bibliography (spelling-books,

tracts, and translations) numbered ten years ago eighteen small

volumes. The work is compiled in a scholar-like manner. The

orthography, though rather complicated, is intelligible, and is a

great improvement upon the old and unartistic way of writing the

polysynthetic Indian tongues, syllable by syllable, as though they were

monosyllabic Chinese; the superfluous _h_ (as Dakota_h_ for Dakota), by

which the broad sound of the terminal _a_ is denoted, has been justly

cast out. The peculiar letters _ch_, _p_, and _t_, are denoted by a dot

beneath the simple sound; similarly the _k_ (or Arabic _kaf_), the _gh_

(the Semitic _ghain_) and the _kh_ (_khá_), which, as has happened in

Franco-Arabic grammars, was usually expressed by an _R_. An apostrophe

(_s’a_) denotes the hiatus, which is similar to the Arab’s hamzah.

Vater long ago remarked that the only languages which had a character,

if not similar, at any rate analogous to the American, are the

Basque and the Congo, that is, the South African or Kaffir family.

This is the case in many points: in Dakotah, for instance, as in

Kisawahili, almost every word ends in a pure or a nasalized vowel.

But the striking novelty of the African tongues, the inflexion of

words by an initial, not, as with us, by a terminal change and the

complex system of euphony, does not appear in the American, which in

its turn possesses a dual unknown to the African. The Dakotah, like

the Kaffir, has no gender; it uses the personal and impersonal, which

is an older distinction in language. It follows the primitive and

natural arrangement of speech: it says, for instance, “aguyapi maku

ye,” bread to me give; as in Hindostanee, to quote no other, “roti

hamko do.” So in logical argument it begins with the conclusion and

proceeds to the premisses, which renders it difficult for a European

to think in Dakotah. Like other American tongues, it is polysynthetic,

which appears to be the effect of arrested development. Human speech

begins with inorganic sounds, which represent symbolism by means of

arrows pointed in a certain direction, bent trees, crossed rods, and

other similar contrivances. Its first step is monosyllabic, which

corresponds with the pictograph, the earliest attempt at writing among

the uncivilized.[78] The next advance is polysynthesis, which is

apparently built upon monosyllabism, as the idiograph of the Chinese

upon a picture or glyph. The last step is the syllabic and inflected,

corresponding with the Phœnico-Arabian alphabet, which gave rise to

the Greek, the Latin, and their descendants. The complexity of Dakotah

grammar is another illustration of the phenomenon that man in most

things, in language especially, begins with the most difficult and

works on toward the facile. Savages, who have no mental exercise but

the cultivation of speech, and semi-barbarous people, who still retain

the habit, employ complicated and highly elaborate tongues, _e. g._,

Arabic, Sanscrit, Latin, Greek, Kaffir, and Anglo-Saxon. With time

these become more simple; the _modus operandi_ appears to be admixture

of race.

[78] A Kaffir girl wishing to give a hint to a friend of mine drew a

setting sun, a tree, and two figures standing under it; intelligible

enough, yet the Kaffirs ignore a syllabarium.

The Dakotahs have a sacred language, used by medicine-men, and rendered

unintelligible to the vulgar by words borrowed from other Indian

dialects, and by synonyms, _e. g._, biped for man, quadruped for

wolf. A chief, asking for an ox or cow, calls it a dog, and a horse,

moccasins: possibly, like Orientals, he superstitiously avoids direct

mention, and speaks of the object wanted by a humbler name. Poetry is

hardly required in a language so highly figurative: a hi-hi-hi-hi-hi,

occasionally interrupted by a few words, composes their songs. The Rev.

Mr. Pond gives the following specimen of “Blackboy’s” Mourning Song for

his Grandson, addressed to those of Ghostland:

Friend, pause, and look this way;

Friend, pause, and look this way;

Friend, pause, and look this way;

Say ye,

A Grandson of Blackboy is coming.

Their speech is sometimes metaphorical to an extent which conveys an

opposite meaning: “Friend, thou art a fool; thou hast let the Ojibwa

strike thee,” is the highest form of eulogy to a brave who has killed

and scalped a foe; possibly a Malocchio-like fear, the dread of praise,

which, according to Pliny, kills in India, underlies the habit.

The funerals differ in every tribe; the Sioux expose their dead,

wrapped in blankets or buffalo robes, upon tall poles--a custom that

reminds us of the Parsee’s “Tower of Silence.” The Yutas make their

graves high up the kanyons, usually in clefts of rock. Some bury the

dead at full length; others sitting or doubled up; others on horseback,

with a barrow or tumulus of earth heaped up over their remains. The

absence of grave-yards in an Indian country is as remarkable as in the

African interior; thinness of population and the savage’s instinctive

dislike to any _memento mori_ are the causes. After deaths the

“keening” is long, loud, and lasting: the women, and often the men, cut

their hair close, not allowing it to fall below the shoulders, and not

unfrequently gash themselves, and amputate one or more fingers. The

dead man, especiallly a chief, is in almost all tribes provided with a

viaticum, dead or alive, of squaws and boys--generally those taken from

another tribe--horses and dogs; his lodge is burned, his arms, cooking

utensils, saddles, and other accoutrements are buried with him, and a

goodly store of buffalo meat or other provision is placed by his side,

that his ghost may want nothing which it enjoyed in the flesh. Like all

savages, the Indian is unable to separate the idea of man’s immaterial

spirit from man’s material wants: an impalpable and invisible form of

matter--called “spirit” because it is not cognizable to the senses,

which are the only avenues of all knowledge--is as unintelligible

to them as to a Latter-Day Saint, or, indeed, as to the mind of man

generally. Hence the Indian’s smoking and offerings over the graves of

friends. Some tribes mourn on the same day of each moon till grief is

satisfied; others for a week after the death.

[THE INDIAN PANTOMIME.]

A remarkable characteristic of the Prairie Indian is his habit of

speaking, like the deaf and dumb, with his fingers. The pantomime is a

system of signs, some conventional, others instinctive or imitative,

which enables tribes who have no acquaintance with each other’s

customs and tongues to hold limited but sufficient communication.

An interpreter who knows all the signs, which, however, are so

numerous and complicated that to acquire them is the labor of years,

is preferred by the whites even to a good speaker. Some writers, as

Captain H. Stansbury, consider the system purely arbitrary; others,

Captain Marcy, for instance, hold it to be a natural language similar

to the gestures which surd-mutes use spontaneously. Both views are

true, but not wholly true; as the following pages will, I believe,

prove, the pantomimic vocabulary is neither quite conventional nor the

reverse.

The sign-system doubtless arose from the necessity of a communicating

medium between races speaking many different dialects, and debarred

by circumstances from social intercourse. Its area is extensive: it

prevails among many of the Prairie tribes, as the Hapsaroke, or Crows,

the Dakotah, the Cheyenne, and the Shoshonee; the Pawnees, Yutas, and

Shoshoko, or Diggers, being vagrants and outcasts, have lost or never

had the habit. Those natives who, like the Arapahoes, possess a very

scanty vocabulary, pronounced in a quasi-unintelligible way, can hardly

converse with one another in the dark: to make a stranger understand

them they must always repair to the camp fire for “powwow.” A story is

told of a man who, being sent among the Cheyennes to qualify himself

for interpreting, returned in a week, and proved his competence: all

that he did, however, was to go through the usual pantomime with a

running accompaniment of grunts. I have attempted to describe a few

of the simpler signs: the reader, however, will readily perceive that

without diagrams the explanation is very imperfect, and that in half an

hour, with an Indian or an interpreter, he would learn more than by a

hundred pages of print.

The first lesson is to distinguish the signs of the different tribes,

and it will be observed that the French voyageurs and traders have

often named the Indian nations from their totemic or masonic gestures.

The Pawnees (Les Loups) imitate a wolf’s ears with the two

forefingers--the right hand is always understood unless otherwise

specified[79]--extended together, upright, on the left side of the head.

[79] The left, as a rule, denotes inversion or contradiction.

The Arapahoes, or Dirty Noses, rub the right side of that organ with

the forefinger: some call this bad tribe the Smellers, and make their

sign to consist of seizing the nose with the thumb and forefinger.

The Comanches (Les Serpents) imitate, by the waving of the hand or

forefinger, the forward crawling motion of a snake.

The Cheyennes, Paikanavos, or Cut-Wrists, draw the lower edge of the

hand across the left arm as if gashing it with a knife.

The Sioux (Les Coupe-gorges), by drawing the lower edge of the hand

across the throat: it is a gesture not unknown to us, but forms a truly

ominous salutation considering those by whom it is practiced; hence the

Sioux are called by the Yutas Pámpe Chyimina, or Hand-cutters.

The Hapsaroke (Les Corbeaux), by imitating the flapping of the birds’

wings with the two hands--palms downward--brought close to the

shoulders.

The Kiowas, or Prairie-men, make the signs of the prairie and of

drinking water. These will presently be described.

The Yutas, “they who live on mountains,” have a complicated sign which

denotes “living in mountains;” these will be explained under “sit” and

“mountains.”

The Blackfeet, called by the Yutas Paike or Goers, pass the right hand,

bent spoon-fashion, from the heel to the little toe of the right foot.

The following are a few preliminaries indispensable to the prairie

traveler:

_Halt!_--Raise the hand, with the palm in front, and push it backward

and forward several times--a gesture well known in the East.

_I don’t know you!_--Move the raised hand, with the palm in front,

slowly to the right and left.

_I am angry!_--Close the fist, place it against the forehead, and

turn it to and fro in that position.

_Are you friendly?_--Raise both hands, grasped, as if in the act of

shaking hands, or lock the two forefingers together while the hands

are raised.

These signs will be found useful upon the prairie in case of meeting a

suspected band. The Indians, like the Bedouin and N. African Moslem,

do honor to strangers and guests by putting their horses to speed,

couching their lances, and other peculiarities which would readily be

dispensed with by gentlemen of peaceful pursuits and shaky nerves. If

friendly, the band will halt when the hint is given and return the

salute; if surly, they will disregard the command to stop, and probably

will make the sign of anger. Then--ware scalp!

_Come!_--Beckon with the forefinger, as in Europe, not as is done in

the East.

_Come back!_--Beckon in the European way, and draw the forefinger

toward yourself.

_Go!_--Move both hands edgeways (the palms fronting the breast)

toward the left with a rocking-horse motion.

_Sit!_--Make a motion toward the ground, as if to pound it with the

ferient of the closed hand.

_Lie down!_--Point to the ground, and make a motion as if of lying

down.

_Sleep!_--Ditto, closing the eyes.

_Look!_--Touch the right eye with the index and point it outward.

_Hear!_--Tap the right ear with the index tip.

Colors are expressed by a comparison with some object in sight. Many

things, as the blowing of wind, the cries of beasts and birds, and the

roaring of the sea, are imitated by sound.

_See!_--Strike out the two forefingers forward from the eyes.

_Smell!_--Touch the nose-tip. A bad smell is expressed by the same

sign, ejaculating at the same time “Pooh!” and making the sign of bad.

_Taste!_--Touch the tongue-tip.

_Eat!_--Imitate the action of conveying food with the fingers to the

mouth.

_Drink!_--Scoop up with the hand imaginary water into the mouth.

_Smoke!_--With the crooked index describe a pipe in the air,

beginning at the lips; then wave the open hand from the mouth to

imitate curls of smoke.

_Speak!_--Extend the open hand from the chin.

_Fight!_--Make a motion with both fists to and fro, like a pugilist

of the eighteenth century who preferred a high guard.

_Kill!_--Smite the sinister palm earthward with the dexter fist

sharply, in sign of “going down;” or strike out with the dexter fist

toward the ground, meaning to “shut down;” or pass the dexter index

under the left forefinger, meaning to “go under.”

To show that fighting is actually taking place, make the gestures as

above described; tap the lips with the palm like an Oriental woman when

“keening,” screaming the while O-a! O-a! to imitate the war-song.

_Wash!_--Rub the hand as with invisible soap in imperceptible water.

_Think!_--Pass the forefinger sharply across the breast from right to

left.

_Hide!_--Place the hand inside the clothing of the left breast. This

means also to put away or to keep secret. To express “I won’t say,”

make the signs of “I” and “no” (which see), and hide the hand as

above directed.

_Love!_--Fold the hands crosswise over the breast, as if embracing

the object, assuming at the same time a look expressing the desire

to carry out the operation. This gesture will be understood by the

dullest squaw.

_Tell truth!_--Extend the forefinger from the mouth (“one word”).

_Tell lie!_--Extend the two first fingers from the mouth (“double

tongue,” a significant gesture).

_Steal!_--Seize an imaginary object with the right hand from under

the left fist. To express horse-stealing they saw with the right

hand down upon the extended fingers of the left, thereby denoting

rope-cutting.

_Trade or exchange!_--Cross the forefingers of both hands before the

breast--“diamond cut diamond.”

This sign also denotes the Americans, and, indeed, any white men, who

are generically called by the Indians west of the Rocky Mountains

“Shwop,” from our swap or swop, an English Romany word for barter or

exchange.

The pronouns are expressed by pointing to the person designated. For

“I,” touch the nose-tip, or otherwise indicate self with the index. The

second and third persons are similarly made known.

Every animal has its precise sign, and the choice of gesture is

sometimes very ingenious. If the symbol be not known, the form may

be drawn on the ground, and the strong perceptive faculties of the

savage enable him easily to recognize even rough draughts. A cow or a

sheep denotes white men, as if they were their totems. The Indian’s

high development of locality also enables him to map the features of

a country readily and correctly upon the sand. Moreover, almost every

grand feature has a highly significant name, Flintwater, for instance,

and nothing is easier than to combine the signs.

The _bear_ is expressed by passing the hand before the face to mean

ugliness, at the same time grinning and extending the fingers like

claws.

The _buffalo_ is known by raising the forefingers crooked inward, in

the semblance of horns on both sides of the head.

The _elk_ is signified by simultaneously raising both hands with the

fingers extended on both sides of the head to imitate palmated horns.

For the _deer_, extend the thumbs and the two forefingers of each hand

on each side of the head.

For the _antelope_, extend the thumbs and forefingers along the sides

of the head, to simulate ears and horns.

_Mountain sheep_ are denoted by placing the hands on a level with the

ears, the palms facing backward and the fingers slightly reversed, to

imitate the ammonite-shaped horns.

For the _beaver_, describe a parenthesis, _e. g._ ( ), with the thumb

and index of both hands, and then with the dexter index imitate the

wagging of the tail.

The _dog_ is shown by drawing the two forefingers slightly opened

horizontally across the breast from right to left. This is a highly,

appropriate and traditional gesture: before the introduction of horses,

the dog was taught to carry the tent poles, and the motion expressed

the lodge trail.

To denote the _mule_ or _ass_, the long ears are imitated by the

indices on both sides and above the head.

For the _crow_, and, indeed, any bird, the hands are flapped near

the shoulders. If specification be required, the cry is imitated or

some peculiarity is introduced. The following will show the ingenuity

with which the Indian can convey his meaning under difficulties. A

Yuta wishing to explain that the torpedo or gymnotus eel is found in

Cotton-wood Kanyon Lake, took to it thus: he made the body by extending

his sinister index to the fore, touched it with the dexter index at two

points on both sides to show legs, and finally sharply withdrew his

right forefinger to convey the idea of an electric shock.

Some of the symbols of relationship are highly appropriate, and not

ungraceful or unpicturesque. Man is denoted by a sign which will not

admit of description; woman, by passing the hand down both sides of

the head as if smoothing or stroking the long hair. A son or daughter

is expressed by making with the hand a movement denoting issue from

the loins: if the child be small, a bit of the index held between the

antagonized thumb and medius is shown. The same sign of issue expresses

both parents, with additional explanations: To say, for instance,

“_my mother_,” you would first pantomime “_I_,” or, which is the same

thing, “_my_;” then “_woman_;” and, finally, the symbol of parentage.

“_My grandmother_” would be conveyed in the same way, adding to the

end clasped hands, closed eyes, and like an old woman’s bent back. The

sign for brother and sister is perhaps the prettiest: the two first

finger-tips are put into the mouth, denoting that they fed from the

same breast. For the wife--squaw is now becoming a word of reproach

among the Indians--the dexter forefinger is passed between the extended

thumb and index of the left.

Of course there is a sign for every weapon. The _knife_--scalp or

other--is shown by cutting the sinister palm with the dexter ferient

downward and toward one’s self: if the cuts be made upward with the

palm downward, meat is understood. The _tomahawk_, hatchet, or axe is

denoted by chopping the left hand with the right; the _sword_ by the

motion of drawing it; the _bow_ by the movement of bending it; and a

_spear_ or _lance_ by an imitation of darting it. For the _gun_, the

dexter thumb and fingers are flashed or scattered, _i. e._, thrown

outward or upward to denote fire. The same movement made lower down

expresses a _pistol_. The _arrow_ is expressed by nocking it upon

an imaginary bow, and by “snapping” with the index and medius. The

_shield_ is shown by pointing with the index over the left shoulder,

where it is slung ready to be brought over the breast when required.

The following are the most useful words:

_Yes._--Wave the hands straight forward from the face.

_No._--Wave the hand from right to left, as if motioning away. This

sign also means “I’ll have nothing to do with you.” Done slowly and

insinuatingly, it informs a woman that she is _charmante_--“not to be

touched” being the idea.

_Good._--Wave the hand from the mouth, extending the thumb from the

index and closing the other three fingers. This sign means also “I

know.” “I don’t know” is expressed by waving the right hand with the

palm outward before the right breast, or by moving about the two

forefingers before the breast, meaning “two hearts.”

_Bad._--Scatter the dexter fingers outward, as if spirting away water

from them.

_Now_ (_at once_).--Clap both palms together sharply and repeatedly,

or make the sign of “to-day.”

_Day._--Make a circle with the thumb and forefinger of both, in sign

of the sun. The _hour_ is pointed out by showing the luminary’s place

in the heavens. The _moon_ is expressed by a crescent with the thumb

and forefinger: this also denotes a month. For a _year_ give the sign

of rain or snow.

Many Indians ignore the quadripartite division of the seasons,

which seems to be an invention of European latitudes; the Persians,

for instance, know it, but the Hindoos do not. They have, however,

distinct terms for the month, all of which are pretty and descriptive,

appropriate and poetical; _e. g._, the moon of light nights, the moon

of leaves, the moon of strawberries, for April, May, and June. The

Ojibwa have a queer quaternal division, called Of sap, Of abundance, Of

fading, and Of freezing. The Dakotah reckon five moons to winter and

five to summer, leaving one to spring and one to autumn; the year is

lunar, and as the change of season is denoted by the appearance of sore

eyes and of raccoons, any irregularity throws the people out.

_Night._--Make a closing movement as if of the darkness by bringing

together both hands with the dorsa upward and the fingers to the

fore: the motion is from right to left, and at the end the two

indices are alongside and close to each other. This movement must be

accompanied by bending forward with bowed head, otherwise it may be

misunderstood for the freezing over of a lake or river.

_To-day._--Touch the nose with the index tip, and motion with the

fist toward the ground.

_Yesterday._--Make with the left hand the circle which the sun

describes from sunrise to sunset, or invert the direction from sunset

to sunrise with the right hand.

_To-morrow._--Describe the motion of the sun from east to west. Any

number of days may be counted upon the fingers. The latter, I need

hardly say, are the only numerals in the pantomimic vocabulary.

Among the Dakotahs, when they have gone over the fingers and thumbs

of both hands, one is temporarily turned down for one ten; at the end

of another ten a second finger is turned down, and so on, as among

children who are learning to count. “Opawinge,” one hundred, is derived

from “pawinga,” to go round in circles, as the fingers have all been

gone over again for their respective tens; “kektopawinge” is from “ake”

and “opawinge”--“hundred again”--being about to recommence the circle

of their fingers already completed in hundreds. For numerals above a

thousand there is no method of computing. There is a sign and word for

one half of a thing, but none to denote any smaller aliquot part.

_Peace._--Intertwine the fingers of both hands.

_Friendship._--Clasp the left with the right hand.

_Glad_ (_pleased_).--Wave the open hand outward from the breast, to

express “good heart.”

_A Cup._--Imitate its form with both hands, and make the sign of

drinking from it. In this way any utensil can be intelligibly

described--of course, provided that the interlocutor has seen it.

_Paint._--Daub both the cheeks downward with the index.

_Looking-glass._--Place both palms before the face, and admire your

countenance in them.

_Bead._--Point to a bead, or make the sign of a necklace.

_Wire._--Show it, or where it ought to be, in the ear-lobe.

_Whisky._--Make the sign of “bad” and “drink” for “bad water.”

_Blanket or Clothes._--Put them on in pantomime.

_A Lodge._--Place the fingers of both hands ridge-fashion before the

breast.

_Fire._--Blow it, and warm the hands before it. To express the

boiling of a kettle, the sign of fire is made low down, and an

imaginary pot is eaten from.

_It is cold._--Wrap up, shudder, and look disagreeable.

_Rain._--Scatter the fingers downward. The same sign denotes snow.

_Wind._--Stretch the fingers of both hands outward, puffing violently

the while.

_A Storm._--Make the rain sign; then, if thunder and lightning are to

be expressed, move, as if in anger, the body to and fro, to show the

wrath of the elements.

_A Stone._--If light, act as if picking it up; if heavy, as if

dropping it.

_A Hill._--Close the finger-tips over the head: if a mountain is to

be expressed, raise them high. To denote an ascent on rising ground,

pass the right palm over the left hand, half doubling up the latter,

so that it looks like a ridge.

_A Plain._--Wave both the palms outward and low down.

_A River._--Make the sign of drinking, and then wave both the palms

outward. A rivulet, creek, or stream is shown by the drinking sign,

and by holding the index tip between the thumb and medius; an arroyo

(dry water-course), by covering up the tip with the thumb and middle

finger.

_A Lake._--Make the sign of drinking, and form a basin with both

hands. If a large body of water is in question, wave both palms

outward as in denoting a plain. The Prairie savages have never seen

the sea, so it would be vain to attempt explanation.

_A Book._--Place the right palm on the left palm, and then open both

before the face.

_A Letter._--Write with the thumb and dexter index on the sinister

palm.

_A Wagon._--Roll hand over hand, imitating a wheel.

_A Wagon-road._--Make the wagon sign, and then wave the hand along

the ground.

_Grass._--Point to the ground with the index, and then turn the

fingers upward to denote growth. If the grass be long, raise the hand

high; and if yellow, point out that color.

The pantomime, as may be seen, is capable of expressing detailed

narratives. For instance, supposing an Indian would tell the following

tale--“Early this morning I mounted my horse, rode off at a gallop,

traversed a kanyon or ravine, then over a mountain to a plain where

there was no water, sighted bison, followed them, killed three of them,

skinned them, packed the flesh upon my pony, remounted, and returned

home”--he would symbolize it thus:

Touches nose--“_I_.”

Opens out the palms of his hand--“_this morning_.”

Points to east--“_early_.”

Places two dexter forefingers astraddle over sinister

index--“_mounted my horse_.”

Moves both hands upward and rocking-horse fashion toward the

left--“_galloped_.”

Passes the dexter hand right through thumb and forefinger of the

sinister, which are widely extended--“_traversed a kanyon_.”

Closes the finger-tips high over the head, and waves both palms

outward--“_over a mountain to a plain_.”

Scoops up with the hand imaginary water into the mouth, and then

waves the hand from the face to denote “no”--“_where there was no

water_.”

Touches eye--“_sighted_.”

Raises the forefingers crooked inward on both sides of the

head--“_bison_.”

Smites the sinister palm downward with the dexter fist--“_killed_.”

Shows three fingers--“_three of them_.”

Scrapes the left palm with the edge of the right hand--“_skinned

them_.”

Places the dexter on the sinister palm, and then the dexter palm on

the sinister dorsum--“_packed the flesh upon my pony_.”

Straddles the two forefingers on the index of the

left--“_remounted_;” and, finally,

Beckons toward self--“_returned home_.”

To conclude, I can hardly flatter myself that these descriptions have

been made quite intelligible to the reader. They may, however, serve

to prepare his mind for a _vivâ voce_ lesson upon the prairies, should

fate have such thing in store for him.

After this digression I return to my prosaic Diary.