The song of the Wyandot warriors, as translated to me by an Indian trader, would read thus: “Now I am going on an errand of pleasure—O! God, take pity on me, and throw good fortune in my way—grant that I may be successful.”
Thus their Almighty Creator is always before their eyes on all important occasions. They feel and acknowledge his supreme power. They also endeavour to propitiate him by outward worship, or sacrifices.
These are religious solemnities, intended to make themselves acceptable to the Great Spirit, to find favor in his sight, and obtain his forgiveness for past errors or offences. It is not, as some white persons would lead us to believe, that knowing the Great Spirit to be good, they are under no apprehensions from his wrath, and that they make sacrifices to the evil spirit, believing him alone to be capable of doing them hurt. This cannot be true of a people, who, as I have already said in another part, hold it as a fixed principle “that good and evil cannot and must not be united,” who declare and acknowledge the great and good Spirit to be “all powerful,” and the evil one to be “weak and limited in power;” who rely alone on the goodness of the author of their existence, and who, before every thing, seek by all the means in their power to obtain his favour and protection. For, they are convinced, that the evil spirit has no power over them, as long as they are in favour with the good one, and to him alone, acknowledging his continued goodness to them and their forefathers, they look for protection against the Devil, and his inferior spirits.
It is a part of their religious belief, that there are inferior Mannittos, to whom the great and good Being has given the rule and command over the elements; that being so great, he, like their chiefs, must have his attendants to execute his supreme behests; these subordinate spirits (something in their nature between God and man) see and report to him what is doing upon earth; they look down particularly upon the Indians, to see whether they are in need of assistance, and are ready at their call to assist and protect them against danger.
Thus I have frequently witnessed Indians, on the approach of a storm or thunder-gust, address the Mannitto of the air, to avert all danger from them; I have also seen the Chippeways, on the Lakes of Canada, pray to the Mannitto of the waters, that he might prevent the swells from rising too high, while they were passing over them. In both these instances, they expressed their acknowledgment, or shewed their willingness to be grateful, by throwing tobacco in the air, or strewing it on the waters.
There are even some animals, which though they are not considered as invested with power over them, yet are believed to be placed as guardians over their lives; and of course entitled to some notice and to some tokens of gratitude. Thus, when in the night, an owl is heard sounding its note, or calling to its mate, some person in the camp will rise, and taking some Glicanican, or Indian tobacco, will strew it on the fire, thinking that the ascending smoke will reach the bird, and that he will see that they are not unmindful of his services, and of his kindness to them and their ancestors. This custom originated from the following incident, which tradition has handed down to them.
It happened at one time, when they were engaged in a war with a distant and powerful nation, that a body of their warriors was in the camp, fast asleep, no kind of danger at that moment being apprehended. Suddenly, the great “Sentinel” over mankind, the owl, sounded the alarm; all the birds of the species were alert at their posts, all at once calling out, as if saying: “Up! up! Danger! Danger!” Obedient to their call, every man jumped up in an instant; when, to their surprise, they found that their enemy was in the very act of surrounding them, and they would all have been killed in their sleep, if the owl had not given them this timely warning.
But, amidst all these superstitious notions, the supreme Mannitto, the creator and preserver of heaven and earth, is the great object of their adoration. On him they rest their hopes, to him they address their prayers and make their solemn sacrifices. These religious ceremonies are not always performed in the same manner. I had intended to have given some details upon this subject, but I find that it has been almost exhausted by other writers,189 although I will not pretend to say that they are correct on every point. But I do not wish to repeat things which have already been told to the world over and over. Therefore, if on some subjects, relating to the manners and customs of the Indians, I should be thought to have passed over too quickly, and not to have sufficiently entered into particulars, let it be understood that I have done so to avoid the repetition of what others have said, although I am afraid I have been inadvertently guilty of it in more than one instance. I would not presume to communicate my little stock of knowledge, if I did not think that it will add something to what is already known.
I do not recollect that it has already been mentioned, that previous to entering upon the solemnity of their sacrifices, the Indians prepare themselves by vomiting, fasting, and drinking decoctions from certain prescribed plants. This they do to expel the evil which is within them, and that they may with a pure conscience attend to the sacred performance, for such they consider it. Nor is the object of those sacrifices always the same; there are sacrifices of prayer and sacrifices of thanksgiving, some for all the favours received by them and their ancestors from the great Being, others for special or particular benefits. After a successful war, they never fail to offer up a sacrifice to the great Being, to return him thanks for having given them courage and strength to destroy or conquer their enemies.
Scalping is a practice which the Indians say has obtained with their nations for ages. I need not describe the manner in which the operation is performed, it has been sufficiently done by others.190 Indian warriors think it necessary to bring home the scalps of those they have killed or disabled, as visible proofs of their valour; otherwise they are afraid that their relations of the combat and the account they give of their individual prowess might be doubted or disbelieved. Those scalps are dried up, painted and preserved as trophies, and a warrior is esteemed in proportion to the number of them that he can shew.
It is a well known fact that the Indians pluck out all their hair except one tuft on the crown of their heads, but the reason of this exception is not, perhaps, so well understood, which is no other than to enable themselves to take off each other’s scalps in war with greater facility. “When we go to fight an enemy,” say they, “we meet on equal ground; and we take off each other’s scalps, if we can. The conqueror, whoever he may be, is entitled to have something to shew to prove his bravery and his triumph, and it would be ungenerous in a warrior to deprive an enemy of the means of acquiring that glory of which he himself is in pursuit. A warrior’s conduct ought to be manly, else he is no man.” As this custom prevails among all the Indian nations, it would seem, as far as I have known, to be the result of a tacit agreement among them, to leave the usual trophies of victory accessible to the contending warriors on all sides; fearing, perhaps, that if a different custom should be adopted by one nation from motives of personal safety, or to destroy the warlike reputation of their rivals or enemies, it might be easily imitated on the other side, and there would be an end to Indian valour and heroism. Indeed, it is certain, that all the weapons which the Indians make use of in war are intended for offence, they have no breast-plates, helmets, nor any arms or accoutrements of the defensive kind, and it is not the least remarkable trait in their warlike character, that they make it even a point of honour to offer a hold of their persons to their enemy, by which if he should be possessed of greater skill or courage than themselves, he may not only the more easily destroy them, but is enabled to carry home their bloody spoils as trophies of his victory.
I once remarked to an Indian that if such was their reason for letting a tuft of hair grow on the top of their heads, they might as well suffer the whole to remain, and I could not perceive why they were so careful in plucking it out. To this observation he answered: “My friend! a human being has but one head, and one scalp from that head is sufficient to shew that it has been in my power. Were we to preserve a whole head of hair as the white people do, several scalps might be made out of it, which would be unfair. Besides, the coward might thus without danger share in the trophies of the brave warrior, and dispute with him the honour of victory.”
When the Indians relate their victories, they do not say that they have taken so many “scalps,” but so many “heads,” in which they include as well those whom they have scalped, but left alive (which is very often191 the case), and their prisoners, as those whom they have killed. Nor does it follow, when they reckon or number the heads of their prisoners, that they have been or are to be put to death.
It is an awful spectacle to see the Indian warriors return home from a successful expedition with their prisoners and the scalps taken in battle. It is not unlike the return of a victorious army from the field, with the prisoners and colours, taken from the enemy, but the appearance is far more frightful and terrific. The scalps are carried in front, fixed on the end of a thin pole, about five or six inches192 in length; the prisoners follow, and the warriors advance shouting the dreadful scalp-yell, which has been called by some the death-halloo, but improperly, for the reasons which I have already mentioned. For every head taken, dead or alive, a separate shout is given. In this yell or whoop, there is a mixture of triumph and terror; its elements, if I may so speak, seem to be glory and fear, so as to express at once the feelings of the shouting warriors, and those with which they have inspired their enemies.
Different from this yell is the alarm-whoop, which is never sounded but when danger is at hand. It is performed in quick succession, much as with us the repeated cry of Fire! Fire! when the alarm is very great and lives are known or believed to be in danger. Both this and the scalp-yell consist of the sounds aw and oh, successively uttered, the last more accented, and sounded higher than the first; but in the scalp-yell, this last sound is drawn out at great length, as long indeed as the breath will hold, and is raised about an octave higher than the former; while in the alarm-whoop, it is rapidly struck on as it were, and only a few notes above the other. These yells or whoops are dreadful indeed, and well calculated to strike with terror, those whom long habit has not accustomed to them. It is difficult to describe the impression which the scalp-yell, particularly, makes on a person who hears it for the first time.
I am now come to a painful part of my subject; the manner in which the Indians treat the prisoners whom they take in war. It must not be expected that I shall describe here the long protracted tortures which are inflicted on those who are doomed to the fatal pile, nor the constancy and firmness which the sufferers display, singing their death songs and scoffing all the while at their tormentors. Enough of other writers have painted these scenes, with all their disgusting horrors; nor shall I, a Christian, endeavour to excuse or palliate them. But I may be permitted to say, that those dreadful executions are by no means so frequent as is commonly imagined. The prisoners are generally adopted by the families of their conquerors in the place of lost or deceased relations or friends, where they soon become domesticated, and are so kindly treated that they never wish themselves away again. I have seen even white men, who, after such adoption, were given up by the Indians in compliance with the stipulations of treaties, take the first opportunity to escape from their own country and return with all possible speed to their Indian homes; I have seen the Indians, while about delivering them up, put them at night in the stocks, to prevent their escaping and running back to them.
It is but seldom that prisoners are put to death by burning and torturing. It hardly ever takes place except when a nation has suffered great losses in war, and it is thought necessary to revenge the death of their warriors slain in battle, or when wilful and deliberate murders have been committed by an enemy of193 their innocent women and children, in which case the first prisoners taken are almost sure of being sacrificed by way of retaliation. But when a war has been successful, or unattended with remarkable acts of treachery, or cruelty on the part of the enemy, the prisoners receive a milder treatment, and are incorporated with the nation of their conquerors.
Much has been said on the subject of the preliminary cruelties inflicted on prisoners when they enter an Indian village with the conquering warriors. It is certain that this treatment is very severe when a particular revenge is to be exercised, but otherwise, I can say with truth, that in many instances, it is rather a scene of amusement, than a punishment. Much depends on the courage and presence of mind of the prisoner. On entering the village, he is shewn a painted post at the distance of from twenty to forty yards, and told to run to it and catch hold of it as quickly as he can. On each side of him stand men, women and children, with axes, sticks, and other offensive weapons, ready to strike him as he runs, in the same manner as is done in the European armies when soldiers, as it is called, run the gauntlet. If he should be so unlucky as to fall in the way, he will probably be immediately despatched by some person, longing to avenge the death of some relation or friend slain in battle; but the moment he reaches the goal, he is safe and protected from further insult until his fate is determined.
If a prisoner in such a situation shews a determined courage, and when bid to run for the painted post, starts at once with all his might and exerts all his strength and agility until he reaches it, he will most commonly escape without much harm, and sometimes without any injury whatever, and on reaching the desired point, he will have the satisfaction to hear his courage and bravery applauded. But woe to the coward who hesitates, or shews any symptoms of fear! He is treated without much mercy, and is happy, at last, if he escapes with his life.
In the month of April 1782, when I was myself a prisoner at Lower Sandusky, waiting for an opportunity to proceed with a trader to Detroit, I witnessed a scene of this description which fully exemplified what I have above stated. Three American prisoners were one day brought in by fourteen warriors from the garrison of Fort M’Intosh. As soon as they had crossed the Sandusky river, to which the village lay adjacent, they were told by the Captain of the party to run as hard as they could to a painted post which was shewn to them. The youngest of the three, without a moment’s hesitation, immediately started for it, and reached it fortunately without receiving a single blow; the second hesitated for a moment, but recollecting himself, he also ran as fast as he could and likewise reached the post unhurt; but the third, frightened at seeing so many men, women and children with weapons in their hands, ready to strike him, kept begging the Captain to spare his life, saying he was a mason, and he would build him a fine large stone house, or do any work for him that he should please. “Run for your life,” cried the chief to him, “and don’t talk now of building houses!” But the poor fellow still insisted, begging and praying to the Captain, who, at last finding his exhortations vain, and fearing the consequences, turned his back upon him, and would not hear him any longer. Our mason now began to run, but received many a hard blow, one of which nearly brought him to the ground, which, if he had fallen, would at once have decided his fate. He, however, reached the goal, not without being sadly bruised, and he was besides bitterly reproached and scoffed at all round as a vile coward, while the others were hailed as brave men, and received tokens of universal approbation.
The Indians are in general a strong race of men. It is very common to see a hunter come in with a whole deer on his back, fastened with a Happis, a kind of band with which they carry loads; it rests against the breast, that which the women use rests against the forehead. In this manner they will carry a load which many a white man would not have strength enough to raise from the ground. An Indian, named Samuel, once took the flour which was ground out of a bushel of wheat upon his back at sun-rise within two miles from Nazareth, and arrived with it in the evening of the same day at his camp at Wyoming. When the Indians build houses, they carry large logs on their shoulders from the place where the tree is cut down to where they are building.
Nevertheless, when put to agricultural or other manual labour, the Indians do not appear so strong as the whites; at least, they cannot endure it so long. Many reasons may be given for this, besides their not being accustomed to that kind of work. It is probably in part to be ascribed to their want of substantial food, and their intemperate manner of living; eating, when they have it, to excess, and at other times being days and weeks in a state of want. Those who have been brought up to regular labour, like ourselves, become robust and strong and enjoy good health. Such was the case with the Christian Indians in the Moravian settlements.
So late as about the middle of the last century, the Indians were yet a hardy and healthy people, and many very aged men and women were seen among them, some of whom thought they had lived about one hundred years. They frequently told me and others that when they were young men, their people did not marry so early as they did since, that even at twenty they were called boys and durst not wear a breech-cloth, as the men did at that time, but had only a small bit of a skin hanging before them. Neither, did they say, were they subject to so many disorders as in later times, and many of them calculated on dying of old age. But since that time a great change has taken place in the constitution of those Indians who live nearest to the whites. By the introduction of ardent spirits among them, they have been led into vices which have brought on disorders which they say were unknown before; their blood became corrupted by a shameful complaint, which the Europeans pretend to have received from the original inhabitants of America, while these say they had never known or heard of it until the Europeans came among them. Now the Indians are infected with it to a great degree; children frequently inherit it from their parents, and after lingering for a few years at last die victims to this poison.
Those Indians who have not adopted the vices of the white people live to a good age, from 70 to 90. Few arrive at the age of one hundred years. The women, in general, live longer than the men.
The Indians do not appear to be more or less exempt than the whites from the common infirmities of old age. I have known old men among them who had lost their memory, their sight, and their teeth. I have also seen them at eighty in their second childhood and not able to help themselves.
The Indian women are not in general so prolific as those of the white race. I imagine this defect is owing to the vicious and dissolute life they lead since the introduction of spirituous liquors. Among our Christian Indians, we have had a couple who had been converted for thirty years and had always led a regular life, and who had thirteen children. Others had from six to nine. In general, however, the Indians seldom have more than four or five children.
The Indian children, generally, continue two years at the breast, and there are instances of their sucking during four years. Mothers are very apt to indulge their last child; children in this respect enjoy the same privilege alike.
I have never heard of any nation or tribe of Indians who destroyed their children, when distorted or deformed, whether they were so born or came to be so afterwards. I have on the contrary seen very particular care taken of such children. Nor have I ever been acquainted with any Indians that made use of artificial means to compress or alter the natural shape of the heads of their children, as some travellers have, I believe, pretended.
The disorders to which the Indians are most commonly subjected are pulmonary consumptions, fluxes, fevers and severe rheumatisms, all proceeding probably from the kind of life they lead, the hardships they undergo, and the nature of the food that they take. Intermitting and bilious fevers set in among them regularly in the autumn, when their towns are situated near marshy grounds or ponds of stagnant water, and many die in consequence of them. I have observed that these fevers generally make their first appearance in the season of the wild plum, a fruit that the Indians are particularly fond of. Sometimes also after a famine or long suffering for want of food, when they generally make too free an use of green maize, squashes and other watery vegetables. They are also subject to a disease which they call the yellow vomit, which, at times, carries off many of them. They generally die of this disease on the second or third day after the first attack.
Their old men are very subject to rheumatisms in the back and knees; I have known them at the age of 50 or 60 to be laid up for weeks and months at a time on this account, and I have seen boys 10 and 12 years of age, who through colds or fits of sickness had become so contracted that they never afterwards recovered the use of their limbs.
Worms are a very common disorder among Indian children, and great numbers of them die from that cause. They eat a great deal of green corn when in the milk, with beans, squashes, melons, and the like; their bellies become remarkably large, and it is probably in that manner that the worms are generated. I rather think that Indian children suffer less in teething than the whites.
The gout, gravel, and scrofula or king’s evil, are not known among the Indians. Nor have I ever known any one that had the disorder called the Rickets. Consumptions are very frequent among them since they have become fond of spirituous liquors, and their young men in great numbers fall victims to that complaint. A person who resides among them may easily observe the frightful decrease of their numbers from one period of ten years to another. Our vices have destroyed them more than our swords.
The Materia Medica of the Indians consists of various roots and plants known to themselves, the properties of which they are not fond of disclosing to strangers. They make considerable use of the barks of trees, such as the white and black oak, the white walnut, of which they make pills, the cherry, dogwood, maple, birch, and several others. They prepare and compound these medicines in different ways, which they keep a profound secret. Those preparations are frequently mixed with superstitious practices, calculated to guard against the powers of witchcraft, in which, unfortunately, they have a strong fixed belief. Indeed, they are too apt to attribute the most natural deaths to the arts and incantations of sorcerers, and their medicine is, in most cases, as much directed against those as against the disease itself. There are, however, practitioners among them who are free from these prejudices, or at least do not introduce them into their practice of the medical art. Still there is a superstitious notion, in which all their physicians participate, which is, that when an emetic is to be administered, the water in which the potion is mixed must be drawn up a stream, and if for a cathartic downwards. This is, at least, innocent, and not more whimsical perhaps, nor more calculated to excite a smile, than some theories of grave and learned men in civilised countries.
In fevers the Indians usually administer emetics which are made up and compounded in various ways. I saw an emetic once given to a man who had poisoned himself with the root of the May Apple.194 It consisted of a piece of raccoon skin burned with the hair on and finely powdered, pounded dry beans and gunpowder. These three ingredients were mixed with water and poured down the patient’s throat. This brought on a severe vomiting, the poisonous root was entirely discharged and the man cured.
In other complaints, particularly in those which proceed from rheumatic affections, bleeding and sweating are always the first remedies applied. The sweat oven is the first thing that an Indian has recourse to when he feels the least indisposed; it is the place to which the wearied traveller, hunter, or warrior looks for relief from the fatigues he has endured, the cold he has caught, or the restoration of his lost appetite.
This oven is made of different sizes, so as to accommodate from two to six persons at a time, or according to the number of men in the village, so that they may be all successively served. It is generally built on a bank or slope, one half of it within and the other above ground. It is well covered on the top with split plank and earth, and has a door in front, where the ground is level to go or rather to creep in. Here, on the outside, stones, generally of about the size of a large turnip, are heated by one or more men appointed each day for that purpose. While the oven is heating, decoctions from roots or plants are prepared either by the person himself who intends to sweat, or by one of the men of the village, who boils a large kettleful for the general use, so that when the public cryer going his rounds, calls out Pimook! “go to sweat!” every one brings his small kettle, which is filled for him with the potion, which at the same time serves him as a medicine, promotes a profuse perspiration, and quenches his thirst. As soon as a sufficient number have come to the oven, a number of the hot stones are rolled into the middle of it, and the sweaters go in, seating themselves or rather squatting round those stones, and there they remain until the sweat ceases to flow; then they come out, throwing a blanket or two about them that they may not catch cold; in the mean while, fresh heated stones are thrown in for those who follow them. While they are in the oven, water is now and then poured on the hot stones to produce a steam, which they say, increases the heat, and gives suppleness to their limbs and joints. In rheumatic complaints, the steam is produced by a decoction of boiled roots, and the patient during the operation is well wrapped up in blankets, to keep the cold air from him, and promote perspiration at the same time.
Those sweat ovens are generally at some distance from an Indian village, where wood and water are always at hand. The best order is preserved at those places. The women have their separate oven in a different direction from that of the men, and subjected to the same rules. The men generally sweat themselves once and sometimes twice a week; the women have no fixed day for this exercise, nor do they use it as often as the men.
In the year 1784,195 a gentleman whom I had been acquainted with at Detroit, and who had been for a long time in an infirm state of health, came from thence to the village of the Christian Indians on the Huron river, in order to have the benefit of the sweat oven. It being in the middle of winter, when there was a deep snow on the ground, and the weather was excessively cold, I advised him to postpone his sweating to a warmer season; but he persisting in his resolution, I advised him by no means to remain in the oven longer than fifteen or at most twenty minutes. But when he once was in it, feeling himself comfortable, he remained a full hour, at the end of which he fainted, and was brought by two strong Indians to my house, in very great pain and not able to walk. He remained with me until the next day, when we took him down in his sleigh to his family at Detroit. His situation was truly deplorable; his physicians at that place gave up all hopes of his recovery, and he frequently expressed his regret that he had not followed my advice. Suddenly, however, a change took place for the better, and he not only recovered his perfect health, but became a stout corpulent man, so that he would often say, that his going into the sweat oven was the best thing he had ever done in his life for the benefit of his health. He said so to me fifteen years afterwards when I saw him in the year 1798. He had not had the least indisposition since that time. He died about the year 1814, at an advanced age.
By these names I mean to distinguish the good and honest practitioners who are in the habit of curing and healing diseases and wounds, by the simple application of natural remedies, without any mixture of superstition in the manner of preparing or administering them. They are very different from the doctors or jugglers, of whom I shall speak in the next chapter. In one point, only, they seem to participate in their ridiculous notions, that is, in the different manner, which I have already noticed, of drawing water up or down the current of a stream, as it is to be respectively employed as a vehicle for an emetic or a cathartic. This singular idea prevails generally among the Indians of all classes. They think that as the one remedy is to work upwards and the other downwards, care should be taken in the preparation to follow the course of nature, so that no confusion should take place in the stomach or bowels of the patient.
With this only exception the Indian physicians are perhaps more free from fanciful theories than those of any other nation upon earth. Their science is entirely founded on observation, experience and the well tried efficacy of remedies. There are physicians of both sexes, who take considerable pains to acquire a correct knowledge of the properties and medical virtues of plants, roots and barks, for the benefit of their fellow-men. They are very careful to have at all times a full assortment of their medicines on hand, which they gather and collect at the proper seasons, sometimes fetching them from the distance of several days’ journey from their homes, then they cure or dry them properly, tie them up in small bundles, and preserve them for use. It were to be wished that they were better skilled in the quantity of the medicines which they administer. But they are too apt, in general, to give excessive doses, on the mistaken principle that “much of a good thing must necessarily do much good.”
Nevertheless, I must say, that their practice in general succeeds pretty well. I have myself been benefited and cured by taking their emetics and their medicines in fevers, and by being sweated after their manner while labouring under a stubborn rheumatism. I have also known many, both whites and Indians, who have with the same success resorted to Indian physicians while labouring under diseases. The wives of Missionaries, in every instance in which they had to apply to the female physicians, for the cure of complaints peculiar to their sex, experienced good results from their abilities. They are also well skilled in curing wounds and bruises. I once for two days and two nights, suffered the most excruciating pain from a felon or whitlow on one of my fingers, which deprived me entirely of sleep. I had recourse to an Indian woman, who in less than half an hour relieved me entirely by the simple application of a poultice made of the root of the common blue violet.
Indeed, it is in the cure of external wounds that they particularly excel. Not only their professional men and women, but every warrior is more or less acquainted with the healing properties of roots and plants, which is, in a manner, indispensable to them, as they are so often in danger of being wounded in their engagements with the enemy. Hence this branch of knowledge is carried to a great degree of perfection among them. I firmly believe that there is no wound, unless it should be absolutely mortal, or beyond the skill of our own good practitioners, which an Indian surgeon (I mean the best of them) will not succeed in healing. I once knew a noted Shawano, who having, out of friendship, conducted several white traders in safety to Pittsburgh, while they were sought for by other Indians who wanted to revenge on them the murders committed by white men of some of their people, was on his return fired at by some white villains, who had waylaid him for that purpose, and shot in the breast. This man, when I saw him, had already travelled eighty miles, with a wound from which blood and a kind of watery froth issued every time he breathed. Yet he told me he was sure of being cured, if he could only reach Waketemeki, a place fifty miles distant, where there were several eminent Indian surgeons. To me and others who examined the wound, it appeared incurable; nevertheless, he reached the place and was perfectly cured. I saw him at Detroit ten years afterwards; he was in sound health and grown to be a corpulent man. Nine years after this I dined with him at the same place.
I call these men Doctors, because it is the name given them by their countrymen who have borrowed it from our language,196 and they are themselves very fond of this pompous title. They are a set of professional impostors, who, availing themselves of the superstitious prejudices of the people, acquire the name and reputation of men of superior knowledge, and possessed of supernatural powers. As the Indians in general believe in witchcraft, and ascribe, as I have already said, to the arts of sorcerers many of the disorders with which they are afflicted in the regular course of nature, this class of men has risen among them, who pretend to be skilled in a certain occult science, by means of which they are able not only to cure natural diseases, but to counteract or destroy the enchantments of wizards or witches, and expel evil spirits.
These men are physicians, like the others of whom I have spoken, and like them are acquainted with the properties and virtues of plants, barks, roots, and other remedies. They differ from them only by their pretensions to a superior knowledge, and by the impudence with which they impose upon the credulous. I am sorry that truth obliges me to confess, that in their profession they rank above the honest practitioners. They pretend that there are disorders which cannot be cured by the ordinary remedies, and to the treatment of which the talents of common physicians are inadequate. They say that when a complaint has been brought on by witchcraft, more powerful remedies must be applied, and measures must be taken to defeat the designs of the person who bewitched the unfortunate patient. This can only be done by removing or destroying the deleterious or deadening substance which has been conveyed into them, or, if it is an evil spirit, to confine or expel him, or banish him to a distant region from whence he may never return.
When the juggler has succeeded in persuading his patient that his disorder is such that no common physician has it in his power to relieve, he will next endeavour to convince him of the necessity of making him very strong, which means, giving him a large fee, which he will say, is justly due to a man who, like himself, is able to perform such difficult things. If the patient who applies, is rich, the Doctor will never fail, whatever the complaint may be, to ascribe it to the powers of witchcraft, and recommend himself as the only person capable of giving relief in such a hard and complicated case. The poor patient, therefore, if he will have the benefit of the great man’s advice and assistance, must immediately give him his honorarium, which is commonly either a fine horse, or a good rifle-gun, a considerable quantity of wampum, or goods to a handsome amount. When this fee is well secured, and not before, the Doctor prepares for the hard task that he has undertaken, with as much apparent labour as if he was about to remove a mountain. He casts his eyes all round him to attract notice, puts on grave and important looks, appears wrapt in thought and meditation and enjoys for a while the admiration of the spectators. At last he begins his operation. Attired in a frightful dress, he approaches his patient, with a variety of contortions and gestures, and performs by his side and over him all the antic tricks that his imagination can suggest. He breathes on him, blows in his mouth, and squirts some medicines which he has prepared in his face, mouth and nose; he rattles his gourd filled with dry beans or pebbles, pulls out and handles about a variety of sticks and bundles in which he appears to be seeking for the proper remedy, all which is accompanied with the most horrid gesticulations, by which he endeavours, as he says, to frighten the spirit or the disorder away, and continues in this manner until he is quite exhausted and out of breath, when he retires to wait the issue.
The visits of the juggler are, if the patient requires it, repeated from time to time; not, however, without his giving a fresh fee previous to each visit. This continues until the property of the patient is entirely exhausted, or until he resolves upon calling in another doctor, with whom feeing must begin anew in the same manner that it did with his predecessor.
When at length the art of the juggling tribe has after repeated trials proved ineffectual, the patient is declared incurable. The doctors will say, that he applied to them too late, that he did not exactly follow their prescriptions, or sometimes, that he was bewitched by one of the greatest masters of the science, and that unless a professor can be found possessed of superior knowledge, he is doomed to die or linger in pain beyond the power of relief.
Thus these jugglers carry on their deceit, and enrich themselves at the expense of the credulous and foolish. I have known instances in which they declared a patient perfectly cured and out of all danger, who nevertheless died of his disorder a very few days afterwards, although his doctors affirmed that the evil spirit or the effects of witchcraft were entirely removed from him; on the other hand, I have seen cases in which the patient recovered after being pronounced incurable and condemned to die. In those cases, however, he had had the good sense to apply to some of the honest physicians of one or the other sex, who had relieved him by a successful application of their medicines.
The jugglers’ dress, when in the exercise of their functions, exhibits a most frightful sight. I had no idea of the importance of these men, until by accident I met with one, habited in his full costume. As I was once walking through the street of a large Indian village on the Muskingum, with the chief Gelelemend,197 whom we call Kill-buck, one of those monsters suddenly came out of the house next to me, at whose sight I was so frightened, that I flew immediately to the other side of the chief, who observing my agitation and the quick strides I made, asked me what was the matter, and what I thought it was that I saw before me. “By its outward appearance,” answered I, “I would think it a bear, or some such ferocious animal, what is inside I do not know, but rather judge it to be the Evil Spirit.” My friend Kill-buck smiled, and replied, “O! no, no; don’t believe that! it is a man you well know, it is our Doctor.” “A Doctor!” said I, “what! a human being to transform himself so as to be taken for a bear walking on his hind legs, and with horns on his head? You will not, surely, deceive me; if it is not a bear, it must be some other ferocious animal that I have never seen before.” The juggler within the dress hearing what passed between us, began to act over some of his curious pranks, probably intending to divert me, as he saw I was looking at him with great amazement, not unmixed with fear; but the more he went on with his performance, the more I was at a loss to decide, whether he was a human being or a bear; for he imitated that animal in the greatest perfection, walking upright on his hind legs as I had often seen it do. At last I renewed my questions to the chief, and begged him seriously to tell me what that figure was, and he assured me that although outside it had the appearance of a bear, yet inside there was a man, and that it was our doctor going to visit one of his patients who was bewitched. A dialogue then ensued between us, which I shall relate, as well as I can recollect it, in its very words:
Heckew. But why does he go dressed in that manner? Won’t his patient be frightened to death on seeing him enter the house?
Killb. No! indeed, no; it is the disorder, the evil spirit, that will be frightened away; as to the sick man, he well knows that unless the doctor has recourse to the most powerful means, he cannot be relieved, but must fall a sacrifice to the wicked will of some evil person. And, pray, don’t your doctors in obstinate and dubious cases, also recur to powerful means in order to relieve their patients?
Heckew. To my knowledge, there are no cases where witchcraft is assigned as the cause of a disorder, of course our doctors have nothing to do with that; and though they may sometimes have occasion to apply powerful remedies in obstinate diseases, yet it is not done by dressing themselves like wild beasts, to frighten, as you say, the disorder away. Were our doctors to adopt this mode, they would soon be left without patients and without bread; they would starve.
Killb. Our doctors are the richest people among us, they have everything they want; fine horses to ride, fine clothes to wear, plenty of strings and belts of wampum, and silver arm and breast plates in abundance.
Heckew. And our doctors have very fine horses and carriages, fine houses, fine clothes, plenty of good provisions and wines, and plenty of money besides! They are looked upon as gentlemen, and would not suffer your doctor, dressed as he is, to come into their company.
Killb. You must, my friend! consider that the cases are very different. Had the white people sorcerers among them as the Indians have, they would find it necessary to adopt our practice and apply our remedies in the same manner that our doctors do. They would find it necessary to take strong measures to counteract and destroy the dreadful effects of witchcraft.
Heckew. The sorcerers that you speak of exist only in your imagination; rid yourselves of this, and you will hear no more of them.
The dress this juggler had on, consisted of an entire garment or outside covering, made of one or more bear skins, as black as jet, so well fitted and sewed together, that the man was not in any place to be perceived. The whole head of the bear, including the mouth, nose, teeth, ears, &c., appeared the same as when the animal was living; so did the legs with long claws; to this were added a huge pair of horns on the head, and behind a large bushy tail, moving as he walked, as though it were on springs; but for these accompaniments, the man, walking on all fours, might have been taken for a bear of an extraordinary size. Underneath, where his hands were, holes had been cut, though not visible to the eye, being covered with the long hair, through which he held and managed his implements, and he saw through two holes set with glass. The whole was a great curiosity, but not to be looked at by everybody.
There are jugglers of another kind, in general old men and women, who although not classed among doctors or physicians, yet get their living by pretending to supernatural knowledge. Some pretend that they can bring down rain in dry weather when wanted, others prepare ingredients, which they sell to bad hunters, that they may have good luck, and others make philters or love potions for such married persons as either do not, or think they cannot love each other.
When one of these jugglers is applied to to bring down rain in a dry season, he must in the first instance receive a fee. This fee is made up by the women, who, as cultivators of the land are supposed to be most interested, but the men will slily slip something in their hands in aid of their collection, which consists of wampum beads, tobacco, silver broaches, and a dressed deer skin to make shoes of. If the juggler does not succeed in his experiment, he never is in want of an excuse; either the winds are in opposition to one another, the dry wind or air is too powerful for the moist or south wind, or he has not been made strong enough, (that is sufficiently paid,) to compel the north to give way to the south from whence the rain is to come, or lastly, he wants time to invoke the great Spirit to aid him on the important occasion.
In the summer of the year 1799, a most uncommon drouth happened in the Muskingum country, so that every thing growing, even the grass and the leaves of the trees, appeared perishing; an old man named Chenos, who was born on the river Delaware, was applied to by the women to bring down rain, and was well feed for the purpose. Having failed in his first attempt, he was feed a second time, and it happened that one morning, when my business obliged me to pass by the place where he was at work, as I knew him very well, I asked him at once what he was doing? “I am hired,” said he, “to do a very hard day’s work.”
Q. And, pray, what work?
A. Why, to bring down rain from the sky.
Q. Who hired you to do that?
A. The women of the village; don’t you see how much rain is wanted, and that the corn and every thing else is perishing?
Q. But can you make it rain?
A. I can, and you shall be convinced of it this very day.
He had, by this time, encompassed a square of about five feet each way, with stakes and barks so that it might resemble a pig pen of about three feet in height, and now, with his face uplifted and turned towards the north, he muttered something, then closely shutting up with bark the opening which had been left on the north side, he turned in the same manner, still muttering some words, towards the south, as if invoking some superior being, and having cut through the bark on the southwest corner, so as to make an opening of two feet, he said: “now we shall have rain enough!” Hearing down the river the sound of setting poles striking against a canoe, he enquired of me what it was? I told him it was our Indians going up the river to make a bush net for fishing. “Send them home again!” said he, “tell them that this will not be a fit day for fishing!” I told him to let them come on and speak to them himself, if he pleased. He did so, and as soon as they came near him, he told them that they must by no means think of fishing that day, for there should come a heavy rain which would wet them all through. “No matter, Father!” answered they in a jocular manner, “give us only rain and we will cheerfully bear the soaking.” They then passed on, and I proceeded to Goschachking, the village to which I was going.198 I mentioned the circumstance to the chief of the place, and told him that I thought it impossible that we should have rain while the sky was so clear as it then was and had been for near five weeks together, without its being previously announced by some signs or change in the atmosphere. But the chief answered: “Chenos knows very well what he is about; he can at any time predict what the weather will be; he takes his observations morning and evening from the river or something in it.” On my return from this place after three o’clock in the afternoon, the sky still continued the same until about four o’clock, when all at once the horizon became overcast, and without any thunder or wind it began to rain, and continued so for several hours together, until the ground became thoroughly soaked.
I am of the opinion that this man, like others whom I have known, was a strict observer of the weather, and that his prediction that day was made in consequence of his having observed some signs in the sky or in the water, which his experience had taught him to be the forerunners of rain; yet the credulous multitude did not fail to ascribe it to his supernatural power.
The ingredients for a bad hunter, to make him have good luck, are tied up in a bit of cloth, and must be worn near his skin while he is hunting. The preparations intended to create love between man and wife, are to be slily conveyed to the frigid party by means of his victuals or drink.