1. To maintain peace and friendship among each other.

2. To abstain from the law of retaliation for offences.

3. To provide for improvements in agriculture, the arts, and manufactures.

4. To provide against any cession of their territory, in any form.

5. To punish crimes, committed by one tribe, in the bounds of another.

6. To provide for a general citizenship among the contracting parties.

7. To suppress the use or introduction of ardent spirits.

These are very mixed principles, containing no basis of a government; yet, futile as they are, we apprehend they contain no effective power for their enforcement. A law without a penalty is like a rope of sand. Any of these parties might nullify either of these acts, by neglecting to enforce it. It is, we apprehend, the mere expression of the popular will, in a council, without any binding obligation of the whole, or a majority of the tribes, to compel obedience from the delinquent members. It may, however, lead to further deliberations; and we cannot but regard the movement as one which betokens political forethought and purpose.

Our greatest apprehensions, we must confess, before closing this paper, arise from the peculiar geographical position of the Indian territory with relation to our own. And this could not, perhaps, have been anticipated twenty years ago, when the plan was formed. Our population is on the broad move west. Nothing, it is evident, will now repress them this side of the Pacific. The snowy heights of the Rocky Mountains are already scaled; and we but apply the results of the past to the future, in saying that the path which has been trod by a few, will be trod by many. Now, the removed tribes are precisely in the centre of this path. From the mouth of the Platte, or the Konza, the great highway to the Oregon must run west. Whether this new tide of emigration will be successful or unsuccessful, will those who compose it spare to trample on the red man? Will they suddenly become kind to him, to whom they have been unkind? Will they cease to desire the lands which their children want? Will they consent to see the nation separated by an Indian state? Will they award honors, nay, justice, to that state? Twenty years will answer these questions.

Choctaws.—An appropriation of $113,000 has been made by Congress for the removal and subsistence of the Choctaws now in Mississippi. There are upwards of six thousand in our state, comprising about eleven hundred families. These are under Colonels Johnson and Fisher. The half of the money due the Indians, and to be paid after their landing in their new homes in the West, is to be funded. This will effectually prevent all speculation, and enable the Indians to obtain and hold what is due them. Those now in the state are guarded against all coercive measures for their removal, and left free to go West or remain in their homes in Mississippi.—Southern Reformer.

NURSERY AND CRADLE SONGS OF THE FOREST.

The tickenagun, or Indian cradle, is an object of great pride with an Indian mother. She gets the finest kind of broad cloth she possibly can to make an outer swathing band for it, and spares no pains in ornamenting it with beads and ribbons, worked in various figures. In the lodges of those who can afford it, there is no article more showy and pretty than the full bound cradle. The frame of the cradle itself is a curiosity. It consists of three pieces. The vertebral board, which supports the back, the hoop or foot-board, which extends tapering up each side, and the arch or bow, which springs from each side, and protects the face and head. These are tied together with deer’s sinews or pegged. The whole structure is very light, and is carved with a knife by the men, out of the linden or maple tree.

Moss constitutes the bed of the infant, and is also put between the child’s feet to keep them apart and adjust the shape of them, according to custom. A one-point blanket of the trade, is the general and immediate wrapper of the infant, within the hoop, and the ornamented swathing band is wound around the whole, and gives it no little resemblance to the case of a small mummy. As the bow passes directly above the face and eyes, trinkets are often hung upon this, to amuse it, and the child gets its first ideas of ornament from these. The hands are generally bound down with the body, and only let out occasionally, the head and neck being the only part which is actually free. So bound and laced, hooped and bowed, the little fabric, with its inmate, is capable of being swung on its mother’s back, and carried through the thickest forest without injury. Should it even fall no injury can happen. The bow protects the only exposed part of the frame. And when she stops to rest, or enters the lodge, it can be set aside like any other household article, or hung up by the cradle strap on a peg. Nothing, indeed, could be better adapted to the exigencies of the forest life. And in such tiny fabrics, so cramped and bound, and bedecked and trinketed, their famous Pontiacs and King Philips, and other prime warriors, were once carried, notwithstanding the skill they afterwards acquired in wielding the lance and war club.

The Indian child, in truth, takes its first lesson in the art of endurance, in the cradle. When it cries it need not be unbound to nurse it. If the mother be young, she must put it to sleep herself. If she have younger sisters or daughters they share this care with her. If the lodge be roomy and high, as lodges sometimes are, the cradle is suspended to the top poles to be swung. If not, or the weather be fine, it is tied to the limb of a tree, with small cords made from the inner bark of the linden, and a vibratory motion given to it from head to foot by the mother or some attendant. The motion thus communicated, is that of the pendulum or common swing, and may be supposed to be the easiest and most agreeable possible to the child. It is from this motion that the leading idea of the cradle song is taken.

I have often seen the red mother, or perhaps a sister of the child, leisurely swinging a pretty ornamented cradle to and fro in this way, in order to put the child to sleep, or simply to amuse it. The following specimens of these wild-wood chaunts, or wigwam lullabys, are taken from my notes upon this subject, during many years of familiar intercourse with the aboriginals. If they are neither numerous nor attractive, placed side by side with the rich nursery stores of more refined life, it is yet a pleasant fact to have found such things even existing at all amongst a people supposed to possess so few of the amenities of life, and to have so little versatility of character.

Meagre as these specimens seem, they yet involve no small degree of philological diligence, as nothing can be more delicate than the inflexions of these pretty chaunts, and the Indian woman, like her white sister, gives a delicacy of intonation to the roughest words of her language. The term wa-wa often introduced denotes a wave of the air, or the circle described by the motion of an object through it, as we say, swing, swing, a term never applied to a wave of water. The latter is called tegoo, or if it be crowned with foam, beta.

In introducing the subjoined specimens of these simple see saws of the lodge and forest chaunts, the writer felt, that they were almost too frail of structure to be trusted, without a gentle hand, amidst his rougher materials. He is permitted to say, in regard to them, that they have been exhibited to Mrs. Elizabeth Oakes Smith, herself a refined enthusiast of the woods, and that the versions from the original given, are from her chaste and truthful pen.

In the following arch little song, the reader has only to imagine a playful girl trying to put a restless child to sleep, who pokes its little head, with black hair and keen eyes over the side of the cradle, and the girl sings, imitating its own piping tones.

Who is this? who is this? eye-light bringing
To the roof of the lodge?        

And then she assumes the tone of the little screech owl, and answers—

It is I, it is I, hither swinging,    (wa wa)
Dodge, dodge, baby dodge;      

And she springs towards it and down goes the little head. This is repeated with the utmost merriment upon both sides.

Here is another, slower and monotonous, but indicating the utmost maternal content:

This of course is exceedingly simple, but be it remembered these chaunts are always so in the most refined life. The ideas are the same, that of tenderness and protective care only, the ideas being few, the language is in accordance. To my mind it has been a matter of extreme interest to observe how almost identical are the expressions of affection in all states of society, as though these primitive elements admit of no progress, but are perfect in themselves. The e-we-yea of the Indian woman is entirely analogous to the lul la by of our language, and will be seen to be exceedingly pretty in itself.

2. The original words of this, with their literal import, are also added, to preserve the identity.

(a.)

• Wa wa—wa wa—wa we yea, (Swinging, twice, lullaby.)
• Nebaun—nebaun—nebaun, (Sleep thou, thrice.)
• Nedaunis-ais, e we yea, (Little daughter, lullaby.)
• Wa wa—wa wa—wa wa, (Swinging, thrice.)
• Nedaunis-ais, e we yea, (Little daughter lullaby.)

(b.)

• Keguh, ke gun ah wain e ma, (Your mother cares for you.)
• Nebaun—nebaun—nebaun, e we yea, (Sleep, thrice, lullaby.)
• Kago, saigizze-kain, nedaunis-ais, (Do not fear, my little daughter.)
• Nebaun—nebaun—nebaun, (Sleep, thrice.)
• Kago, saigizze-kain, wa wa, e we yea, (third line repeated.)

(c.)

• Wa wa—wa wa—wa we yea, (Swinging, twice, lullaby.)
• Kaween neezheka kediausee, (Not alone art thou.)
• Ke kan nau wai, ne me go, suhween, (Your mother is caring for you.)
• Nebaun—nebaun—nedaunis-ais, (Sleep, sleep, my little daughter.)
• Wa wa—wa wa—wa we yea, (Swinging, &c. lullaby.)
• Nebaun—nebaun—nebaun, (Sleep! sleep! sleep.[51])

THE HARE AND THE LYNX.

3. The story of the Wabose, (Hare,) and the Pighieu, (Lynx,) will at once remind the reader of the so often recited tale of little Red Riding Hood, in which the reciter imitates the tones of the wolf, and the little nursery listener hears with a growing amazement, and starts as if he felt the real wolf’s teeth at the close.

This story is partly spoken and partly sung. The Teller imitating alternately the Hare, and its enemy, the Lynx.

There was once, she says, a little Hare living in the lodge with its grandmother, who was about to send it back to its native land. When it had gone but a little way, a Lynx appeared in the path, and began to sing,

Tshwee! tshwee! tshwee! tshwee! cried the Hare, and ran back to its grandmother. “See, grandmother,” said the timid little creature, “what the Lynx is saying to me,” and she repeated the song. “Ho! Nosis,” that is to say, courage my grandchild, run along, and tell him you are going home to your native land: so the Hare went back and began to sing,

Then the Lynx looked at the trembling Hare, and began to sing,

Tshwee! tshwee! tshwee! tshwee! cried the Hare, and she ran back to her grandmother, and repeated the words. “Go Nosis, and tell him your uncles fixed them so, when they came from the South.” So the Hare ran back and sang,

and then the Hare laid her pink ears upon her shoulders, and was about to go on, but the Lynx began to sing again,—

Tshwee! tshwee! tshwee! tshwee! said the poor little Hare, and she ran back again to the lodge to ask again. “Ho! Nosis!” said the grandmother, who was old and tired, “do not mind him, nor listen to him, nor answer him, but run on.”

The Hare obeyed, and ran as fast as she could. When she came to the spot where the Lynx had been, she looked round, but there was no one there, and she ran on. But the Lynx had found out all about the little Hare, and knew she was going across to the neck of land; and he had nothing to do but reach it first, and waylay her; which he did: and when the innocent creature came to the place, and had got almost home, the Lynx sprang out of the thicket and eat her up.

The original chant, omitting the narrative part as given above, runs in this fashion, word for word.

4. THE KITE AND THE EAGLE.

This is a specimen of Indian satire. The coward is boastful when there is no danger: pretension succeeds in the absence of real merit! A Kite was boasting how high he could fly, and ventured to speak disparagingly of the eagle, not knowing that the latter overheard him. He began to sing in a loud voice,

The Eagle answers disdainfully, looking down from a branch far above the Kite,

The Kite in a shrinking, feeble voice,

The Eagle despises him, and yet cannot forbear to answer,

and he soared off, up, up into the sky till the boaster could not behold him. But no sooner was the Kite left alone to himself than he began to sing again so as to be heard on every side,

Literally thus.

Kite (shrinkingly) replies, “Oh I was only singing of the great Khakake, it is he who is said to fly so high.”

Eagle disdainfully replies, “Tshe mud je wa wa, that is great babbler, or bad-tongue, you are below my notice,” &c., and soars aloft.

Kite, resuming its boasting tone, as soon as the eagle is out of hearing,

5. THE RAVEN AND WOODPECKER.

A still farther view of Indian manners and opinions is hid under this simple chant. Opinion among the forest race, makes the whole animated creation cognizant and intelligent of their customs.

A young married woman is supposed to go out from the lodge, and busy herself in breaking up dry limbs, and preparing wood, as if to lay in a store for a future and approaching emergency.

A raven, perched on a neighbouring tree, espies her, at her work, and begins to sing; assuming the expected infant to be a boy.

My eyes! my eyes! my eyes! Alluding to the boy (and future man) killing animals as well as men, whose eyes will be left, as the singer anticipates, to be picked out by ravenous birds. So early are the first notions of war implanted.

A woodpecker, sitting near, and hearing this song, replies; assuming the sex of the infant to be a female.

My worms! my worms! my worms! Alluding to the custom of the female’s breaking up dry and dozy wood, out of which, it could pick its favourite food, being the mösa or wood-worm.

Want of space induces the writer to defer, to a future number, the remainder of his collection of these cradle and nursery chants. They constitute in his view, rude as they are, and destitute of metrical attractions, a chapter in the history of the human heart, in the savage phasis, which deserves to be carefully recorded. It has fallen to his lot, to observe more perhaps, in this department of Indian life, than ordinary, and he would not acquit himself of his duty to the race, were he to omit these small links out of their domestic and social chain. The tie which binds the mother to the child, in Indian life, is a very strong one, and it is conceived to admit of illustration in this manner. It is not alone in the war-path and the council, that the Red Man is to be studied. To appreciate his whole character, in its true light, he must be followed into his lodge, and viewed in his seasons of social leisure and retirement. If there be any thing warm and abiding in the heart or memory of the man, when thus at ease, surrounded by his family, it must come out here; and hence, indeed, the true value of his lodge lore, of every kind.

It is out of the things mental as well as physiological, that pertain to maternity, that philosophy must, in the end, construct the true ethnological chain, that binds the human race, in one comprehensive system of unity.

LANGUAGES OF THE PACIFIC ISLANDS.

EARLY SKETCHES OF INDIAN WOMEN.

From “New England Prospect.”

CHAPTER XIX.

OF THEIR WOMEN, THEIR DISPOSITIONS, EMPLOYMENTS, USAGE BY THEIR HUSBANDS, THEIR APPARELL, AND MODESTY.

To satisfie the curious eye of women-readers, who otherwise might thinke their sex forgotten, or not worthy a record, let them peruse these few lines, wherein they may see their owne happinesse, if weighed in the womans ballance of these ruder Indians, who scorne the tuterings of their wives, or to admit them as their equals, though their qualities and industrious deservings may justly claime the preheminence, and command better usage and more conjugall esteeme, their persons and features being every way correspondent, their qualifications more excellent, being more loving, pittifull, and modest, milde, provident, and laborious than their lazie husbands. Their employments be many: First their building of houses, whose frames are formed like our garden-arbours, something more round, very strong and handsome, covered with close-wrought mats of their owne weaving, which deny entrance to any drop of raine, though it come both fierce and long, neither can the piercing North winde, finde a crannie, through which he can conveigh his cooling breath, they be warmer than our English houses; at the top is a square hole for the smoakes evacuation, which in rainy weather is covered with a pluver; these bee such smoakie dwellings, that when there is good fires, they are not able to stand upright, but lie all along under the smoake, never using any stooles or chaires, it being as rare to see an Indian sit on a stoole at home, as it is strange to see an English man sit on his heels abroad. Their houses are smaller in the Summer, when their families be dispersed, by reason of heate and occasions. In Winter they make some fiftie or thereescore foote long, fortie or fiftie men being inmates under one roofe; and as is their husbands occasion these poore tectonists are often troubled like snailes, to carrie their houses on their backs sometimes to fishing-places, other times to hunting places, after that to a planting-place, where it abides the longest: an other work is their planting of corne, wherein they exceede our English husband-men, keeping it so cleare with their Clamme shell-hooes, as if it were a garden rather than a corne-field, not suffering a choaking weede to advance his audacious head above their infant corne, or an undermining worme to spoile his spurnes. Their corne being ripe, they gather it, and drying it hard in the Sunne, conveigh it to their barnes, which be great holes digged in the ground in forme of a brasse pot, seeled with rinds of trees, wherein they put their corne, covering it from the inquisitive search of their gurmandizing husbands, who would eate up both their allowed portion, and reserved seede, if they knew where to finde it. But our hogges having found a way to unhindge their barne doores, and robbe their garners, they are glad to implore their husbands helpe to roule the bodies of trees over their holes, to prevent those pioners, whose theeverie they as much hate as their flesh. An other of their employments is their Summer processions to get Lobsters for their husbands, wherewith they baite their hookes when they goe a fishing for Basse or Codfish. This is an every dayes walke, be the weather cold or hot, the waters rough or calme, they must dive sometimes over head and eares for a Lobster, which often shakes them by their hands with a churlish nippe, and bids them adiew. The tide being spent, they trudge home two or three miles, with a hundred weight of Lobsters at their backs, and if none, a hundred scoules meete them at home, and a hungry belly for two days after. Their husbands having caught any fish, they bring it in their boates as farre as they can by water, and there leave it; as it was their care to catch it, so it must be their wives paines to fetch it home, or fast: which done, they must dresse it and cooke it, dish it, and present it, see it eaten over their shoulders; and their loggerships having filled their paunches; their sweete lullabies scramble for their scrappes. In the Summer these Indian women when Lobsters be in their plenty and prime, they drie them to keepe for Winter, erecting scaffolds in the hot sunshine, making fires likewise underneath them, by whose smoake the flies are expelled, till the substance remains hard and drie. In this manner they drie Basse and other fishes without salt, cutting them very thinne to dry suddainely, before the flies spoile them, or the raine moist them, having a speciall care to hang them in their smoakie houses, in the night and dankish weather.

In Summer they gather flagges, of which they make Matts for houses and Hempe and rushes, with dying stuffe of which they make curious baskets with intermixed colours and portractures of antique Imagerie these baskets be of all sizes from a quart to a quarter, in which they carry their luggage. In winter time they are their husbunds Caterers, trudging to the Clamm bankes for their belly timber, and their Porters to lugge home their Venison which their lazinesse exposes to the Woolves till they impose it upon their wives shoulders. They likewise sew their husbands shooes, and weave coates of Turkie feathers, besides all their ordinary household drudgerie which daily lies upon them.

[Of the treatment of babes the writer says]: The young Infant being greased and sooted, wrapt in a beaver skin, bound to his good behaviour with his feete upon a board two foote long and one foote broade, his face exposed to all nipping weather; this little Pappouse travells about with his bare footed mother to paddle in the ice Clammbanks after three or foure dayes of age have sealed his passeboard and his mothers recoverie. For their carriage it is very civill, smiles being the greatest grace of their mirth; their musick is lullabies to quiet their children, who generally are as quiet as if they had neither spleene or lungs. To hear one of these Indians unseene, a good eare might easily mistake their untaught voyce for the warbling of a well tuned instrument. Such command have they of their voices.

Commendable is their milde carriage and obedience to their husbands, notwithstanding all this their customarie churlishnesse and salvage inhumanitie, not seeming to delight in frownes or offering to word it with their lords, not presuming to proclaime their female superiority to the usurping of the least title of their husbands charter, but rest themselves content under their helplesse condition, counting it the womans portion: since the English arrivall comparison hath made them miserable, for seeing the kind usage of the English to their wives, they doe as much condemne their husbands for unkindnesse, and commend the English for their love. As their husbands commending themselves for their wit in keeping their wives industrious, doe condemne the English for their folly in spoyling good working creatures. These women resort often to the English houses, where pares cum paribus congregatæ[52], in Sex I meane, they do somewhat ease their miserie by complaining and seldome part without a releefe: If her husband come to seeke for his Squaw and beginne to bluster, the English woman betakes her to her armes which are the warlike Ladle, and the scalding liquors, threatening blistering to the naked runnaway, who is soon expelled by such liquid comminations. In a word to conclude this womans historie, their love to the English hath deserved no small esteeme, ever presenting them some thing that is either rare or desired, as Strawberries, Hurtleberries, Rasberries, Gooseberries, Cherries, Plummes, Fish, and other such gifts as their poore treasury yeelds them. But now it may be, that this relation of the churlish and inhumane behaviour of these ruder Indians towards their patient wives, may confirme some in the beliefe of an aspersion, which I have often heard men cast upon the English there, as if they should learne of the Indians to use their wives in the like manner, and to bring them to the same subjection, as to sit on the lower hand, and to carrie water and the like drudgerie: but if my own experience may out-ballance an ill-grounded scandalous rumour, I doe assure you, upon my credit and reputation, that there is no such matter, but the women finde there as much love, respect, and ease, as here in old England. I will not deny, but that some poore people may carrie their owne water, and doe not the poorer sort in England doe the same; witnesse your London Tankard-bearers, and your countrie-cottagers? But this may well be knowne to be nothing, but the rancorous venome of some that beare no good will to the plantation. For what neede they carrie water, seeing every one hath a Spring at his doore, or the Sea by his house? Thus much for the satisfaction of women, touching this entrenchment upon their prerogative, as also concerning the relation of these Indians Squawes.

PAWNEE BARBARITY.

That the tribes west of the Missouri, and beyond the pale of the ordinary influence of civilization, should retain some shocking customs, which, if ever prevalent among the more favoured tribes east of the Mississippi and the Alleghenies, have long disappeared, may be readily conceived. Wild, erratic bands, who rove over immense plains on horseback, with bow and lance, who plunge their knives and arrows daily into the carcasses of the buffalo, the elk and the deer, and who are accustomed to sights of blood and carnage, cannot escape the mental influence of these sanguinary habits, and must be, more or less, blunted in their conceptions and feelings. Where brute life is so recklessly taken, there cannot be the same nice feeling and sense of justice, which some of the more favoured tribes possess, with respect to taking away human life. Yet, it could hardly have been anticipated, that such deeds as we are now called upon to notice, would have their place even in the outskirts of the farther “Far West,” and among a people so sunk and degraded in their moral propensities, as the Pawnees. But the facts are well attested.

In the fierce predatory war carried on between the Pawnees and Sioux, acts of blood and retaliation, exercised on their prisoners, are of frequent occurrence. In the month of February, 1838, the Pawnees captured a Sioux girl only fourteen years of age. They carried her to their camp on the west of the Missouri, and deliberated what should be done with her. It is not customary to put female captives to death, but to make slaves of them. She, however, was doomed to a harder fate, but it was carefully concealed from her, for the space of some sixty or seventy days. During all this time she was treated well, and had comfortable lodgings and food, the same as the rest enjoyed. On the 22nd of April, the chiefs held a general council, and when it broke up, it was announced that her doom was fixed, but this was still carefully concealed from her. This doom was an extraordinary one, and so far as the object can be deduced, from the circumstances and ceremonies, the national hatred to their enemies was indulged, by making the innocent non-combatant, a sacrifice to the spirit of corn, or perhaps, of vegetable fecundity.

When the deliberations of the council were terminated, on that day, she was brought out, attended by the whole council, and accompanied on a visit from lodge to lodge, until she had gone round the whole circle. When this round was finished, they placed in her hands a small billet of wood and some paints. The warriors and chiefs then seated themselves in a circle. To the first person of distinction she then handed this billet of wood and paint; he contributed to this offering, or sort of sacrificial charity some wood and paint, then handed it to the next, who did likewise, and he passed it to the next, until it had gone the entire rounds, and each one had contributed some wood and some paint. She was then conducted to the place of execution. For this purpose they had chosen an open grassy glade, near a cornfield, where there were a few trees. The spot selected was between two of these trees, standing about five feet apart, in the centre of which a small fire was kindled, with the wood thus ceremoniously contributed. Three bars had been tied across, from tree to tree, above this fire, at such a graded height, that the points of the blaze, when at its maximum, might just reach to her feet. Upon this scaffold she was compelled to mount, when a warrior at each side of her held fire under her arm pits. When this had been continued as long as they supposed she could endure the torture, without extinguishing life, at a given signal, a band of armed bow-men let fly their darts, and her body, at almost the same instant, was pierced with a thousand arrows. These were immediately withdrawn, and her flesh then cut with knives, from her thighs, arms and body, in pieces not longer than half a dollar, and put into little baskets. All this was done before life was quite extinct.

The field of newly planted corn reached near to this spot. This corn had been dropped in the hill, but not covered with earth. The principal chief then took of the flesh, and going to a hill of corn, squeezed a drop of blood upon the grains. This was done by each one, until all the grains put into the ground, had received this extraordinary kind of sprinkling.

This horrible cruelty took place in the vicinity of Council Bluffs. Offers to redeem the life of the prisoner had been made by the traders, in a full council of eighty chiefs and warriors, but they were rejected. The original narrator was an eye witness. He concludes his description by adding, that his wife’s brother, a Pawnee, had been taken prisoner by the Sioux, in the month of June following, and treated in the same manner. Truly, it may be said that the precincts of the wild roving Red man, are “full of the abodes of cruelty.”

Hunting and war are arts which require to be taught. The Indian youth, if they were not furnished with bows and arrows, would never learn to kill. The same time spent to teach them war and hunting, if devoted to teach them letters, would make them readers and writers. Education is all of a piece.

Example is more persuasive than precept in teaching an Indian. Tell him that he should never touch alcohol, and he may not see clearly why; but show him, by your invariable practice, that you never do, and he may be led to confide in your admonitions.

“THE LOON UPON THE LAKE.”

BY E. F. HOFFMAN.

[From the Chippewa.[53]]