The City of the Saints/Chapter 2
CHAPTER II.
The Sioux or Dakotahs.
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[1] 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[2] 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.
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 Isanti, 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.[3]
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 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[4]), which tribe inhabited the land between Sault[5] 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.
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.[6] 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 smallpox, followed up with paper and pen work, to be interpreted under the gentle auspices of fire and steel?
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 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 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 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.[7] The medicine-man is his mganga, angekok, sorcerer, prophet, physician, exerciser, 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[8] 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.
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.:
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
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."
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.[9] On the other hand, the Indian had no stimulants. He never invented the beer of Osiris, though maize grew abundantly around him;[10] the koumiss of the Tartar was beyond his mental reach; and though "Jimsen weed"[11] 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?)[12] and the cuticle of a cornus, the lobelia,[13] the larb, a vaccinium, a Daphne-like plant, and many others. The Indian smokes incessantly, and the "calumet"[14] 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.
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.
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.[15] 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,[16] 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.
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[17] is not unknown to them, and many think little of that prægustatio 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.
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.
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.
Among the Prairie tribes are now to be found individuals provided not only with the old muskets formerly supplied to them, but with yägers,[18] 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.
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 Dakotah 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.[19] 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.
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.
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 surdmutes 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[20]—extended together, upright, on the left side of the head.
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 fingertips 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.
- ↑ The first is the correct, the second is the old and incorrect form of writing the name.
- ↑ 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. - ↑ 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 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"
- ↑ Pronounced "Soo:" the word is old French, still commonly used in Canada and the North, and means rapids.
- ↑ 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 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.
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ 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."
- ↑ The wild rose is every where met with growing in bouquets on the prairies.
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ 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 Ojibwa and other races have the ceremony of a burnt-offering when the name is given.
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ 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."
- ↑ An antiquated sort of German rifle, formerly used by the federal troops.
- ↑ 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 left, as a rule, denotes inversion or contradiction.