Three cowries with some pepper may indicate “deceit;” thus: Three cowries strung with their faces all looking one way (as mentioned before) with an alligator pepper tied to the cowries. Eru is the name of the pepper in the native language, which in English means “deceit.” The message may be either a “caution not to betray one another,” or, more frequently, an accusation of having deceived and defrauded the company.
Six cowries may indicate “attachment and affection;” thus: Efa in the native language means “six” (cowries implied); it also means “drawn,” from the verb fa, to draw. Mora is always implied as connected with Efa; this means “stick to you,” from the verb mo, to stick to, and the noun ara, body—i. e. you. Six cowries strung (as before mentioned) and sent to a person or persons, the message is: “I am drawn (i. e. attached) to you, I love you,” which may be the message a young man sends to a young woman with a desire to form an engagement.
Rev. Richard Taylor (b) says:
The Maori used a kind of hieroglyphical or symbolical way of communication; a chief, inviting another to join in a war party, sent a tattooed potato and a fig of tobacco bound up together, which was interpreted to mean that the enemy was a Maori and not European by the tattoo, and by the tobacco that it represented smoke; he therefore roasted the one and eat it, and smoked the other, to show he accepted the invitation, and would join him with his guns and powder. Another sent a waterproof coat with the sleeves made of patchwork, red, blue, yellow, and green, intimating that they must wait until all the tribes were united before their force would be waterproof, i. e., able to encounter the European. Another chief sent a large pipe, which would hold a pound of tobacco, which was lighted in a large assembly, the emissary taking the first whiff, and then passing it around; whoever smoked it showed that he joined in the war.
Stephen Powers (b) states that the Nishinam of California have the following mode of collecting debts:
When an Indian owes another, it is held to be in bad taste, if not positively insulting, for the creditor to dun the debtor, as the brutal Saxon does, so he devises a more subtle method. He prepares a certain number of little sticks, according to the amount of the debt, and paints a ring around the end of each. These he carries and tosses into the delinquent’s wigwam without a word and goes his way; whereupon the other generally takes the hint, pays the debt, and destroys the sticks.
The San Francisco (California) Western Lancet, XI, 1882, p. 443, thus reports:
When a patient has neglected to remunerate the shaman [of the Wikehumni tribe of the Mariposan linguistic stock] for his services, the latter prepares short sticks of wood, with bands of colored porcupine quills wrapped around them at one end only, and every time he passes the delinquent’s lodge a certain number of them are thrown in as a reminder of the indebtedness.
G. W. Bloxam (c) describes Fig. 480 thus:
Among the Jehu of West Africa two cowries facing one another signify two blood relations; two cowries, however, back to back may be sent as a message of reproof for nonpayment of debt, meaning: “You have given me the back altogether; after we have come to an arrangement about the debt you have owed me, I will also turn my back against you.”
The same authority, p. 299, describes Fig. 481:
It consists of two cowries face to face, followed by one above facing upwards, and is a message from a creditor to a bad debtor, meaning: “After you have owed me a debt you kicked against me; I also will throw you off, because I did not know that you could have treated me thus.”
Prof. Anton Schrifner (a) describing Fig. 482, says:
On this plank the cuts marked b signify the number of reindeer required. Opposite these cuts are placed the hand marks, a, of various Samoyeds of whom the reindeer are demanded. At the bottom is found the official mark, c, of the Samoyed chief who forwarded this board to the various Samoyed settlements in place of a written communication.
The employment of pictographs to designate tribes, groups within tribes, and individual persons has been the most frequent of all the uses to which they have been applied. Indeed, the constant need that devices to represent the terms styled by grammarians proper names should be readily understood for identification has, more than any other cause, maintained and advanced pictography as an art, and in some parts of the world has evolved from it syllabaries and afterwards alphabets. From the same origin came heraldry, which in time designated with absolute accuracy persons and families for the benefit of letterless people. Trade-marks have the same history.
From the earliest times men have used emblems to indicate their tribes or clans. Homer makes no clear allusion to their manifestation at the poetic siege of Troy; but even if his Greeks did not bear them, other nations of the period did. The earlier Egyptians carried images of bulls and crocodiles into battle, probably at first with religious sentiments. Each of the twelve tribes of Israel had a special ensign of its own, which is now generally considered to have been totemic. The subjects of Semiramis adopted doves and pigeons as their token in deference to their queen, whose name meant “dove.”
At later dates Athens chose an owl for her sign, as a compliment to Minerva; Corinth, a winged horse, in memory of Pegasus and his fountain; Carthage, a horse’s head, in homage to Neptune; Persia, the sun, because its people worshiped fire; Rome, an eagle, in deference to Jupiter. These objects appear to have been carved in wood or metal. There is no evidence of anything resembling modern flags, except, perhaps, in parts of Asia, until the Romans began to use something like them about the time of Cæsar. But these small signs had no national or public character so as to be comparable with the eagles on the Roman standard; nor was any floating banner associated with ruling power until Constantine gave a religious meaning to the labarum.
Emblems also were often adopted by political and religious parties, e. g., the cornstalks and slings of the Mazarinists and anti-Mazarinists during the Fronde, the caps and hats in the Swedish diet in 1788, the scarf of the Armagnacs, and the cross of the Burgundians. The topic of emblems is further discussed in Chapter XVIII.
As with increased culture clans and tribes have become nations, so there has been an evolution by which the ensigns of bands and orders have been discontinued and replaced by the emblems of nationalities. Frederic Marshall (a) well says: “Images of animals, badges, war cries, cockades, liveries, coats of arms, tokens, tattooing, are all replaced practically by national ensigns.” This change is toward the higher and nobler significance and employment, all members of the community being protected and designated by the simple exhibition of a single emblem.
This chapter is naturally divided into (1) Pictorial tribal designations, (2) Gentile and clan designations, (3) Significance of tattoo, (4) Designations of individuals.
Capt. de Lamothe Cadillac (a) writing in the year 1696 of the Algonquians of the Great Lake region near Mackinac, etc., describes the emblems on their canoes as follows: “On y voit la natte de guerre le corbeau, l’ours on quelque autre animal * * * estant l’esprit qui doit conduire cette enterprise.”
This, however, was a mistake as applicable to the time when it was written. The animals used as emblems may originally have been regarded as supernatural totemic beings, but had probably become tribal designations.
Bacqueville de la Potherie (c) says that a treaty with the French in Canada, about 1700, was “sealed” with the “proper arms,” pictorially drawn, of the Indian tribes which were parties to it. The following is a copy of the original statement in its archaic form:
Monsieur de Callieres, de Champigni, & de Vaudreüil, en signerent le Traité, que chaque Nation scella de ses propres armes. Les Tsonnontouans & les Onnontaguez designerent une araignée, le Goyogouin un calumet, les Onneyouts un morceau de bois en fourche, une pierre au milieu, un Onnontagué mit un Ours pour les Aniez, quoi qu’ils ne vinrent pas. Le Rat mit un Castor, les Abenaguis un Chevreüil, les Outaouaks un Liévre, ainsi des autres.
From this it appears that—
The Seneca and Onondaga tribes were represented by a “spider.” [This was doubtless a branching tree, so badly drawn as to be mistaken for a spider.]
The Cayuga tribe, by a calumet.
The Oneida tribe, by a forked stick with a stone in the fork. [The forked stick was really designed for the fork of a tree.]
The Mohawk tribe, by a bear.
Le Rat, who was a representative Huron of Mackinaw, by a beaver.
The Abnaki, by a deer.
The Ottawa, by a hare.
Several other accounts of the tribal signs of the Iroquois are published, often with illustrations, e. g., in Documents relating to the Colonial History of New York (a), with the following remarks:
When they go to war, and wish to inform those of the party who may pass their path, they make a representation of the animal of their tribe, with a hatchet in his dexter paw; sometimes a saber or a club; and if there be a number of tribes together of the same party, each draws the animal of his tribe, and their number, all on a tree, from which they remove the bark. The animal of the tribe which heads the expedition is always the foremost.
Another account of interest, which does not appear to have been published, was traced and contributed by Mr. William Young, of Philadelphia. It is a deed from the representatives of the Six Nations (the Tuscaroras then being admitted) to the King of Great Britain, dated November 4, 1768, and recorded at the recorder’s office, Philadelphia, in Deed Book I, vol. 5, p. 241. Nearly all of these accounts and illustrations are confused and imperfect. An instructive blunder occurs in the translated signature representing the Mohawk tribe in the above mentioned deed. It is called “The Steel,” which could hardly have been an ancient tribal name, but after study it was remembered that the Mohawks have sometimes been called by a name properly translated the “Flint people.” By some confusion about flint and steel, which were still used in the middle of the last century to produce sparks of fire, perhaps assisted by the pantomime of striking those objects together, the one intended to be indicated, viz, the flint, was understood to be the other, the steel, and so these words were written under the figure, which was so roughly drawn that it might have been taken for a piece of flint or of steel or, indeed, anything else.
The illustrations in Fig. 483 were drawn in 1888 by a Passamaquoddy Indian, in Maine, near the Canada border. The Passamaquoddy, Penobscot, and Amalecite are tribal divisions of the Abnaki, who formerly were also called Tarrateens by the more southern New England tribes and Owenunga by the Iroquois. The Micmacs are congeners of the Abnaki, but not classed in their tribal divisions. All the four tribes belong to the Algonquian linguistic stock.
Fig. 483 a is the tribal emblem of the Passamaquoddy. It shows two Indians in a canoe, both using paddles and not poles, following a fish, the pollock. The variation which will appear in the represented use of poles and paddles in the marks of the Algonquian tribes in Maine, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, etc., is said to have originated in the differing character of the waters, shoal or deep, sluggish or rapid, of the regions of the four bodies of Indians whose totems are indicated as next follows, thus requiring the use of pole and paddle, respectively, in a greater or less degree. The animals figured are in all cases repeated consistently by each one of the several delineators, and in all cases there is some device to show a difference between the four canoes, either in their structure or in their mode of propulsion, but these devices are not always consistent. It is therefore probable that the several animals designated constitute the true and ancient totemic emblems, and that the accompaniment of the canoes is a modern differentiation.
b The Maresquite or Amalecite emblem. Two Indians in a canoe, both with poles, following a muskrat.
c The Micmac emblem. Two Indians, both with paddles, in a canoe built with high middle parts familiarly called “humpback,” following a deer.
d The Penobscot emblem. Two Indians in a canoe, one with a paddle and the other with a pole, following an otter.
In Margry (a) is an account, written about 1722, of the “Principal divisions of the Sioux and their distinctive marks,” thus translated:
There are from twenty to twenty-six villages of Scioux and they comprise the nations of the prairies:
(1) The Ouatabatonha, or Scioux des Rivières, living on the St. Croix river or Lake de la Folle-Avoine which is below, and 15 leagues from the Serpent river. Their distinctive sign is a bear wounded in the neck.
(2) The Menesouhatoba, or Scioux des Lacs, having for their mark a bear wounded in the neck.
(3) The Matatoba, or Scioux des Prairies, having for their mark a fox with an arrow in its mouth.
(4) The Hictoba, or Scioux de la Chasse, having for their symbol the elk.
(5) The Titoba, or Scioux des Prairies, whose emblem is the deer. It bears a bow on its horns.
We have as yet had no commerce save with five nations. The Titoba live 80 leagues west of Sault Saint-Antoine.
The above early, though meager, notice will serve as an introduction to the following series of pictorial tribal signs, all drawn by Sioux Indians, and many of them representing tribal divisions of the Siouan linguistic stock. The history and authority of the several “Winter Counts” mentioned are referred to supra, chapter X, section 2. Red-Cloud’s census and the Oglala roster are also described below. Explanations of some figures are added which have no reference to the present topic, but which seemed necessary and could not be separated and transferred to more appropriate division without undue multiplication of figures and text.
Fig. 484.—Dakota and Crow, Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1819-’20. In an engagement between the Dakotas and the Crows both sides expended all of their arrows, and then threw dirt at each other. A Crow is represented on the right, and is distinguished by the manner in which the hair is worn. Hidatsa and Absaroka are represented with striped or spotted hair, which denotes the red clay they apply to it.
The custom which prevails among these tribes, and is said to have originated with the Crows, is to wear a wig of horse hair attached to the occiput, thus resembling the natural growth, but much increased in length. These wigs are made in strands having the thickness of a finger, varying from eight to fifteen in number, and held apart and in place by means of thin cross strands, thus resembling coarse network. At every intersection of strands of hair and crossties, lumps of pine gum are attached to prevent disarrangement and as in itself ornamental, and to these lumps dry vermilion clay is applied by the richer classes and red ocher or powdered clay by the poorer people.
Pictures drawn by some of the northern tribes of the Dakota show the characteristic and distinctive features for a Crow Indian to be the distribution of the red war paint which covers the forehead.
Fig. 485.—Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1830-’31. The Crows were approaching a village at a time when there was a great deal of snow on the ground and intended to surprise it, but, some herders discovering them, the Dakotas went out, laid in wait for the Crows, surprised them, and killed many. A Crow’s head is represented in the figure.
The Crow is designated not only by the arrangement of back hair, before mentioned, but by a topknot of hair extending upward from the forehead, brushed upward and slightly backward. See also the seated figure in the record of Running Antelope, in Fig. 820, infra.
Fig. 486.—The Dakotas surrounded and killed ten Crows. Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1857-’58.
The hair is somewhat shortened and not intentionally foreshortened, which was beyond the artist’s skill.
Fig. 487.—The Dakotas killed a Crow and his squaw who were found on a trail. Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1839-’40.
This is a front view. The union line signifies husband and wife.
Fig. 488.—Arapaho, in the Dakota language, magpi-yato, blue cloud, is here shown by a circular cloud, drawn in blue in the original, inclosing the head of a man. Red-Cloud’s census.
Fig. 489 is the tribal sign of the Arikara, made by the Dakota, taken from the Winter Count of Battiste Good for the year 1823-’24, which he calls “General-——-first-appeared-and-the-Dakotas-aided-in-an-attack-on-the-Rees winter,” also “Much corn winter.”
The gun and the arrow in contact with the ear of corn show that both whites and Indians fought the Rees. The ear of corn signifies “Ree” or Arikara Indians, who are designated in gesture language as “corn shellers.”
Fig. 490.—A Dakota kills one Ree. The-Flame’s Winter Count, 1874-’75. Here the ear of corn, the conventional sign for Arikara, has become abbreviated.
Fig. 491 is the tribal designation for Assiniboin or Hohe made by the Dakota, as taken from the Winter Count of Battiste Good for the year 1709-’10.
The Hohe means the voice, or, as some say, the voice of the musk ox, and the device is the outline of the vocal organs, according to the Dakota concept, and represents the upper lip and roof of the mouth, the tongue, the lower lip, and chin and neck. The view is lateral, and resembles the sectional aspect of the mouth and tongue.
Fig. 492.—A Brulé, who had left the village the night before, was found dead in the morning outside the village, and the dogs were eating his body. Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1822-’23.
The black spot on the upper part of the thigh shows he was a Brulé.
Fig. 493.—A Brulé was found dead under a tree, which had fallen on him. Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1808-’10.
Again the burnt thigh is suggested by the black spot.
The significance of these two figures is explained by the gesture sign for Brulé as follows: Rub the upper and outer part of the right thigh in a small circle with the open right hand, fingers pointing downward. These Indians were once caught in a prairie fire, many burned to death, and others badly burned about the thighs; hence the name Si-can-gu, burnt thigh, and the sign. According to the Brulé chronology, this fire occurred in 1763, which they call “The-people-were-burned winter.”
Fig. 494.—The Cheyenne who boasted that he was bullet and arrow proof was killed by white soldiers, near Fort Robinson, Nebraska, in the intrenchments behind which the Cheyennes were defending themselves after they had escaped from the fort. Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1878-’79.
The marks on the arm constitute the tribal pictographic emblem. It is explained by the gesture sign as follows: Pass the ulnar side of the extended index finger repeatedly across extended finger and back of the left hand. Fig. 495 illustrates this gesture sign. Frequently, however, the index is drawn across the wrist or forearm, or the extended index, palm upward, is drawn across the forefinger of the left hand (palm inward), several times, left hand stationary, right hand is drawn toward the body until the index is drawn clear off; then repeat. Some Cheyennes believe this to have reference to the former custom of cutting the arms as offerings to spirits, while others think it refers to a more ancient custom of cutting off the enemy’s fingers for necklaces, and sometimes to cutting off the whole hand or forearm as a trophy to be displayed as scalps more generally are.
Fig. 496 is from the Winter Count of Battiste Good for the year 1785-’86. In that record this is the only instance where the short vertical lines below the arrow signify Cheyenne. In all others those marks are numerical and denote the number of persons killed. That these short lines here signify Cheyenne is explained by the foregoing remarks.
Fig. 497.—Picket-Pin went against the Cheyennes. A picket-pin is represented in front of him and is connected with his mouth by the usual line. Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1790-’91.
The black band across his face denotes that he was brave and had killed enemies. The cross is the symbol for Cheyenne. This mark stands for the scars on their arms or stripes on their sleeves, and also to the gesture sign for this tribe. The cross is, therefore, the conventionalized form both for the emblem and the gesture.
Fig. 498.—Standing-Bull, the great grandfather of the present Standing-Bull, discovered the Black Hills. American-Horse’s Winter Count, 1775-’76. He carried home with him a pine tree of a species he had never seen before. In this count the Dakotas are usually distinguished by the braided scalp lock and the feather they wear at the crown of the head, or by the manner in which they brush back and tie the hair with ornamented strips. Many illustrations are given in the present paper in which this arrangement of the hair is shown more distinctly.
With regard to the designation of this tribe by paint it seems that pictures made by the northern Dakotas represent themselves as distinguished from other Indians by being painted red from below the eyes to the end of the chin. But this is probably rather a special war painting than a tribal design.
Fig. 499 shows the tribal designation of the Gros Ventres by the Dakotas, on the authority of Battiste Good, 1789-’90.
Two Gros Ventres were killed on the ice by the Dakotas. The two are designated by two spots of blood on the ice, and killed is expressed by a blood-tipped arrow against the figure of the man above. The long hair, with a red forehead, denotes the Gros Ventre. In other Dakota records the same style of painting the forehead red designates the Arikara and Absaroka Indians. The horizontal band, which is blue in the original, signifies ice.
Fig. 500 shows the tribal designation of the Kaiowa by the Dakota, taken from the Winter Count of Battiste Good, 1814-’15. He calls the winter “Smashed-a-Kaiowa’s-head-in winter.” The tomahawk with which it was done is in contact with the Kaiowa’s head.
The sign for Kaiowa is sometimes made by passing one or both hands, naturally extended, in short horizontal circles on either side of the head, together with a shaking motion, the conception being “rattle-brained” or “crazy heads.” The picture is drawn to represent the man in the attitude of making this gesture, and not the involuntary raising of the hands upon receiving the blow, such attitudes not appearing in Battiste Good’s system.
This gesture is illustrated in Fig. 501.
Fig. 502.—Mandan.
Fig. 502.—Two Mandans killed by Minneconjous. The peculiar arrangement of the hair distinguishes the tribe. The-Flame’s Winter Count, 1789-’90.
Fig. 503.—Mandan and Arikara.
Fig. 503.—The Mandans and Rees made a charge on a Dakota village. An eagle’s tail, which is worn on the head, stands for Mandan and Ree. American-Horse’s Winter Count, 1783-’84.
The mark on the tipi, which represents a village, is not, as it at first sight appears, a hatchet, but a conventional sign for “it hit.” See Fig. 987 and accompanying remarks.
Carver (a), writing in 1776-’78, tells that an Ojibwa drew the designation of his own tribe as a deer. The honest captain of provincial troops may have mistaken a clan mark to be a tribal mark, but the account is mentioned for what it is worth, and the context serves to support the statement.
Fig. 504.—Omaha.
Fig. 504 is the tribal designation of the Omahas by the Dakotas, taken from the Winter Count of Battiste Good, for the year 1744-’45. The pictograph is a human head with cropped hair and red cheeks. It is a front view. This tribe cuts the hair short and uses red paint upon the cheeks very extensively. This character is of frequent occurrence in Battiste Good’s count.
Fig. 505.—Omaha.
Fig. 505.—The Dakotas killed an Omaha in the night. Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1806-’07.
This is a side view of the same. The illustration does not show the color of the cheeks.
Fig. 506.—Omaha.
Fig. 506.—The Dakotas and Omahas made peace. Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1791-’92.
The Omaha is on the right and the Dakota on the left.
Fig. 507.—Pawnee.
Fig. 507 is the tribal designation of the Pawnee by the Dakotas, taken from Battiste Good’s Winter Count for the year 1704-’05.
He says: The lower part of the legs are ornamented with slight projections resembling the husks on the bottom of an ear of corn.
Fig. 508.—Pawnee.
Fig. 508.—Brulés kill a number of Pawnees. The-Flame’s Winter Count, 1873-’74.
This is the abbreviated or conventionalized form of the one preceding.
Fig. 509.—Pawnee.
Fig. 509.—They killed many Pawnees on the Republican river. Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1873-’74.
Here the arrangement of the hair makes the distinction.
In this connection it is useful to quote Dunbar (a):
The tribal mark of the Pawnees in their pictographic or historic painting was the scalp lock dressed to stand nearly erect or curving slightly backwards, somewhat like a horn. This, in order that it should retain its position, was filled with vermillion or other pigment, and sometimes lengthened by means of a tuft of horse hair skillfully appended so as to form a trail back over the shoulders. This usage was undoubtedly the origin of the name Pawnee. * * * It is most probably derived from pá-rĭk-ĭ, a horn, and seems to have been once used by the Pawnees themselves to designate their peculiar scalp lock. From the fact that this was the most noticeable feature in their costume, the name came naturally to be the denominative term of the tribe.
Fig. 510.—Ponka.
Fig. 510.—The Ponkas came and attacked a village, notwithstanding peace had just been made with them. American-Horse’s Winter Count, 1778-’79.
Some elk hair which is used to form a ridge about 8 inches long and 2 in breadth, worn from the forehead to the back of the neck, and a feather, represent Ponka. Horse tracks are used for horses. Attack is indicated by marks which represent bullet marks, and which convey the idea that the bullet struck. The marks are derived from the gesture-sign “it struck.” See Chapter XVIII, section 4.
Fig. 511.—Ponka.
Fig. 511.—An Indian woman, who had been unfaithful to a white man to whom she was married, was killed by an Indian named Ponka. American-Horse’s Winter Count, 1804-’05.
The emblem for Ponka is the straight elk hair ridge.
Fig. 512.—Ponka.
Fig. 512.—A Ponka, who was captured when a boy by the Oglalas, was killed while outside the village by a war party of Ponkas. American-Horse’s Winter Count, 1793-’94.
The artificial headdress, consisting of a ridge of elk hair, is again portrayed.
Dr. George Gibbs (b) describes a pictograph made by one of the Indian tribes of Oregon and Washington, upon which “the figure of a man with a long queue or scalp lock reached to his heels denoted a Shoshoni, that tribe being in the habit of braiding horse or other hair into their own in that manner.”
This may be correct regarding the Shoshoni Indians among the extreme northwestern tribes, but the mark of identification could not be based upon the custom of braiding with their own hair that of animals, to increase the length and appearance of the queue, as this custom also prevails among the Absaroka, Hidatsa, and Arikaa Indians, respectively, as before mentioned in this work.
Tanner’s Narrative (e) gives additional information on this topic regarding the absence of any tribal sign in connection with a human figure.
The men of the same tribe are extensively acquainted with the totems which belong to each, and if on any record of this kind the figure of a man appears without any designatory mark, it is immediately understood that he is a Sioux or at least a stranger. Indeed, in most instances the figures of men are not used at all, merely the totem or surname, being given. * * * It may be observed that the Algonkins believe all other Indians to have totems, though from the necessity they are in general under of remaining ignorant of those hostile bands, the omission of the totem in their picture writing serves to designate an enemy. Thus, those bands of Ojibbeways who border on the country of the Dahcotah or Sioux, always understand the figure of a man without totem to mean one of that people.
Fig. 513.—Tamga of Kirghise tribes.
In Sketches of Northwestern Mongolia, (a) are the tamga or seals of Kirghise tribes, of which Fig. 513 is a copy.
The explanation given is as follows: a. Kipchaktamga: letter alip. b. Arguin tamga: eyes. c. Naiman tamga: posts (of door). d. Kong-rat, Kirei, tamga: vine. e. Nak tamga: prop. f. Tarakti tamga: comb. g. Tyulimgut tamga: pike.
The clan and totemic system formerly called the gentile system undoubtedly prevailed anciently in Europe and Asia, but first became understood by observations of its existence in actual force among the aborigines of America and Australia, and typical representations of it are still found among them. In Australia it is called kobong. An animal or a plant, or sometimes a heavenly body was mythologically at first and at last sociologically connected with all persons of a certain stock, who believe, or once believed, that it was their tutelar god and they bear its name.
Each clan or gens took as a badge or objective totem the representation of the tutelar daimon from which it was named. As most Indian tribes were zootheistic, the object of their devotion was generally an animal—e. g., an eagle, a panther, a buffalo, a bear, a deer, a raccoon, a tortoise, a snake, or a fish, but sometimes was one of the winds, a celestial body, or other impressive object or phenomenon.
American Indians once generally observed a prohibition against killing the animal connected with their totem or eating any part of it. For instance, most of the southern Indians abstained from killing the wolf; the Navajo do not kill bears; the Osage never killed the beaver until the skins became valuable for sale. Afterward some of the animals previously held sacred were killed; but apologies were made to them at the time, and in almost all cases the prohibition or taboo survived with regard to certain parts of those animals which were not to be eaten on the principle of synecdoche, the temptation to use the food being too strong to permit entire abstinence. The Cherokee forbade the use of the tongues of the deer and bear for food. They cut these members out and cast them into the fire sacramentally. A practice still exists among the Ojibwa as follows: There is a formal restriction against members of the bear clan eating the animal, yet by a subdivision within the same clan an arrangement is made so that sub-clans may among them eat the whole animal. When a bear is killed, the head and paws are eaten by those who form one branch of the bear totem, and the remainder is reserved for the others. Other Indian tribes have invented a differentiation in which some clansmen may eat the ham and not the shoulder of certain animals, and others the shoulder and not the ham.
It follows, therefore, that sometimes the whole animal is designated as a clan totem, and also that sometimes only parts of it is selected. Many of the devices given in this paper under the heading of personal names have this origin. The following figures show a selection of parts of animals that may further illustrate the subject. It must, however, be borne in mind that some of the cases may be connected with individual visions or with personal adventures and not directly with the clan system. In the absence of detailed information in each instance discrimination is impossible.
Schoolcraft says that the Ojibwa always placed the totemic or clan pictorial mark upon the adjedatig or grave-post, thereby sinking the personal name which is not generally indicative of the totem. The same practice is found in other tribes. The Pueblos depict the gentile or totemic pictorial sign upon their various styles of ceramic work.
Fig. 514, gives examples taken from Dakota drawings, which appear to be pictured totemic marks of gentes or clans. If not in every instance veritable examples, they illustrate the mode of their representation as distinct from the mere personal designations mentioned below, and yet without positive information in each case, it is not possible to decide on their correct assignment to this section of the present chapter.
a. Bear-Back. Red-Cloud’s Census.
This and the six following figures exhibit respectively the portions of the bear, viz, the back or chine, the ears, the head, the paw, the brains, and the nostrils or muzzle, which are probably the subject of taboo and are the sign of a clan or subclan.
b. Bear’s-Ears, a Brulé, was killed in an Oglala village by the Crows. American-Horse’s Winter Count, 1785-’86.
c. Bear’s-Ears was killed in a fight with the Rees. Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1793-’94.
This is another and more graphic delineation of the animal’s ears.
d. Bear-Head. Red-Cloud’s Census.
e. Bear-Paw. Red-Cloud’s Census. The paws of the bear are considered to be a delicacy.
f. Bear-Brains. Red-Cloud’s Census.
g. Bear-Nostrils. Red-Cloud’s Census.
h. Hump. Red-Cloud’s Census. The hump of the buffalo has been often praised as a delicious dish.
i. Elk-Head. Red-Cloud’s Census.
Fig. 515 represents carved uprights in a house of the Kwakiutl Indians, British Columbia, taken from a work of Dr. Franz Boas (b).