MARRIAGE — AN ENTERPRISING BRIDEGROOM, AND HIS SUDDEN ELEVATION TO RANK — TREATMENT OF WOMEN — TREATMENT OF CHILDREN — PORTRAIT OF PSHAN-SHAW — OF INDIAN BOY — THE CRADLE — THE FLAT-HEADED TRIBES — AFFECTION OF THE MOTHERS — THE COUCH OF MOURNING — ABANDONING THE SICK AND OLD — DANCES OF THE TRIBES — GAMES — THE SPEAR AND RING GAME — PAGESSAN, OR THE BOWL GAME — THE BALL PLAY — THE BALL DANCE — STARTING THE GAME, AND EXCITING SCENES — THE WOMEN’S BALL PLAY — HORSE-RACING — CANOE-MAKING — THE CANOE RACE — PRIMITIVE SAILS — SWIMMING — THE LEAPING ROCK — QUILL ORNAMENTS — BARK-BITING — WIGWAMS — MUSIC — PLEDGE OF FIDELITY — DISPOSAL OF THE DEAD — BURIAL OF BLACKBIRD — REFLECTIONS UPON CHARACTER AND DESTINY OF THE INDIANS.

The ordinary social life of these interesting tribes now comes before us. As to marriage, there is little to distinguish it from the same ceremony among other uncivilized tribes, the girl being in fact purchased from her father, and her affections not necessarily, though generally, considered. A man may have as many wives as he can afford to keep, and when he can purchase four or five, their labor in the field is worth even more to the household than his exertions in the hunting field.

Mr. Catlin relates one rather amusing wedding.

There was a young lad, the son of a chief, whom his father started in life with a handsome wigwam, or tent, nine horses, and many other valuable presents. On receiving these presents, the young man immediately conceived a plan by which he could perform an act which would be unique. He went to one of the chiefs, and asked for the hand of his daughter, promising in return two horses, a gun, and several pounds of tobacco. The marriage was fixed for a certain day, but the transaction was to be kept a profound secret until the proper time. Having settled the business, he went to three other chiefs, and made exactly the same bargain with each of them, and imposed silence equally upon all.

On the appointed day, he announced to the tribe that he was to be married at a certain hour. The people assembled, but no one knew who was to be the bride, while each of the four fathers stood proudly by his daughter, inwardly exulting that he alone was in the secret. Presently the young bridegroom advanced to the chief to whom he had made the first offer, and gave him, according to his promise, the two horses, the gun, and the tobacco. The other three fathers immediately sprang forward, each denouncing the whole affair, and saying that the offer was made to his daughter, and to his alone. In the midst of great confusion, which was partially quelled by the chiefs and doctors, the young bridegroom addressed the assembly, saying that he had promised each of the claimants two horses, a gun, and a certain amount of tobacco in exchange for his daughter, and that he expected them to fulfil their part of the contract. There was no gainsaying the argument, and in the sight of the admiring spectators, he delivered the stipulated price into the hands of the parents, and led off his four brides, two in each hand, to his wigwam.

The action was so bold, and so perfectly unique, that the doctors immediately determined that a lad of nineteen who could act in this manner must have a very strong medicine, and was worthy to be ranked among themselves. So they at once installed him a member of their mystery, thereby placing him on a level with the greatest of the tribe, and by that bold coup the lad raised himself from a mere untried warrior to the height of native ambition, namely, a seat in the Council, and a voice in the policy of the tribe.

The Indian women are the slaves of their husbands. They have to perform all the domestic duties and drudgeries of the tribe, and are never allowed to unite in their religious ceremonies or amusements.

That the reader may form a better idea of the appearance and dress of the women, I have given on the preceding page the portrait of a beautiful girl of the Riccarees (a part of the Pawnee tribe), whose name is Pshan-shaw (the Sweet-scented Grass). “The inner garment, which is like a frock, is entire in one piece, and tastefully ornamented with embroidery and beads. A row of elk’s teeth passes across the breast, and a robe of young buffalo’s skin, elaborately embroidered, is gracefully thrown over her shoulders, and hangs down to the ground behind her.”

On the same page the reader may find, as illustrative of Indian childhood, a portrait of the grandson of a chief of the Blackfeet, a boy of six years of age. He is represented at full length, with bow and quiver slung, and his robe of raccoon skin thrown over his shoulder. This young chief, his father dying, was twice stolen by the Crows, and twice recaptured by the Blackfeet, and then placed in the care of a Mr. M’Kenzie until he should be old enough to assume the chieftainship of his tribe, or be able to defend himself against his foes.

The Indian mothers do not have many children, possibly owing to the early age at which they marry. For example, the ages of the four brides just mentioned ranged from twelve to fifteen. Two or three is the average, and a family of five is considered quite a large one.

The children are carried about much in the same way as those of the Araucanians. A sort of cradle is made by bandaging the infant to a flat board, the feet resting on a broad hoop that passes over the end of the cradle. Another hoop passes over the face of the child, and to it are hung sundry little toys and charms; the one for the amusement of the infant, and the other for its preservation through the many perils of infantile life. When the mother carries the child, she hangs the cradle on her back by means of a broad strap that passes over her forehead. Both the cradle and band are ornamented with the most brilliant colors which native art can furnish, and are embroidered in various patterns with dyed porcupine quills.

Among the tribes which inhabit the banks of the Columbia River, and a considerable tract that lies contiguous to it, the cradle is put to a singular use, which has earned for the tribes the general title of Flat-heads. To the upper part of the cradle is fastened a piece of board, which lies on the child’s forehead. To the other end of the board are fastened two strings, which pass round the foot or sides of the cradle. As soon as the infant is laid on its back, the upper board is brought over its forehead, and fastened down by the strings. Every day the pressure is increased, until at last the head is so flattened that a straight line can be drawn from the crown of the head to the nose. One of these cradles with a child undergoing this process of head flattening, is illustrated below. The mother’s head is a type of its permanent effect.

This is perhaps the most extraordinary of all the fashionable distortions of the human body, and the wasp waist of an European belle, the distorted leg of the female Carib, and even the cramped foot of the Chinese beauty, appear insignificant when compared with the flattened head of a Chinnook or Klick-a-tack Indian. Mr. Catlin states that this custom was one far more extended than is the case at present, and that even the Choctaw and Chickasaw tribes of Mississippi and Alabama were accustomed to flatten their heads, their burial-places affording incontrovertible evidence that such must have been the case, and at no very distant date.

The reader, especially if he dabble in phrenology, might well imagine that such a practice must act injuriously upon the mental capacities of those who are subjected to it. Let us, for example, fancy a skull which has been so ruthlessly compressed that it only measures an inch and a half, or at the most two inches, in depth, at the back; that it is in consequence much elongated, and forced outward at the sides, so that it is nearly half as wide again as it would have been if it had been permitted to assume its normal form. The hair, combed down in one place, and expanding in others, would seem to have its natural capabilities much altered, even if not in many cases destroyed. Yet those who have mixed with the Flat-headed tribes say that the intellect is in no way disturbed, much less injured, and that those members of the tribe who have escaped the flattening process are in no way intellectually superior to those who have undergone it. Indeed, as Mr. P. Kane observes, in his “Wanderings of an Artist,” the Chinnooks despise those who retain the original shape of their heads. They always select their slaves from the round-headed tribes, the flattened head being the sign of freedom.

There is another point about the head flattening which deserves attention. Seeing that it is begun almost in the same hour that the infant is born, and is continued for eight months to a year or more, it might naturally be imagined that it would cause considerable pain to the child, and in many cases be dangerous to life. This, however, is not the case; and that it should not be so is one of the many proofs of the extent to which the human frame may be distorted without permanent injury. Mr. Kane’s remarks are as follows:—

“It might be supposed, from the extent to which this is carried, that the operation would be attended with great suffering to the infant, but I have never heard the infants crying or moaning, although I have seen the eyes seemingly starting out of the sockets from the great pressure. But on the contrary, when the lashings were removed, I have noticed them cry until they were replaced. From the apparent dulness of the children while under pressure, I should imagine that a state of torpor or insensibility is induced, and that the return to consciousness occasioned by its removal must be naturally followed by the sense of pain.”

Should a child die before it is old enough to be released from the cradle, the mother is not released from her maternal duties, but, on the contrary, continues to perform them as assiduously as if the little creature were living.

After the child is buried, she makes a “mourning-cradle,” i. e. in the place which the child had formerly occupied she places a large bundle of black feathers, by way of representative of the deceased infant, and treats it in all respects as if the little one still occupied the cradle. She carries it on her back wherever she goes, and when she rests, stands it upright against a tree or the side of the hut, and talks to it as if to a living child. This custom is continued for at least a year, and in many cases is extended even beyond that period. And, though a bereaved mother may be so poor as scarcely to have sufficient clothing for herself, she will contrive to decorate the cradle of her lost child with the appropriate ornaments.

As a rule, the North American Indians are affectionate parents. Mr. Catlin mentions an instance where he had painted a portrait of a married woman, the daughter of a chief. Some time afterward she died, and the father, happening to see and recognize the portrait of his lost daughter, offered ten horses—an enormous price for an American Indian to pay. Of course the portrait was presented to him at once.

Parental affection is fully reciprocated by the children, and the greatest respect paid by the younger to the elder men. Yet we find even among them, as among so many tribes which lead a semi-nomad existence, the custom of abandoning the sick and aged when they are obliged to make a forced march of any distance.

This is generally done at the instance of the victims themselves, who say that they are old and useless, and can be only an encumbrance to the rest of the tribe. Accordingly, a rude shelter is formed of a bison hide stretched over four upright rods, under which the sick man is laid; a basin of water and some food are placed by his side; and he is left to perish, if not by privation or disease, by the ranging flocks of wolves that roam the prairies.

We will now pass to a more agreeable phase in the life of these tribes, and take a glance at their dances and games.

It has been the prevalent impression that the Indian is taciturn, unsocial, and morose. Mr. Catlin, whose testimony cannot be impeached, takes considerable pains to correct this opinion; and states as the result of his travels among the Indian tribes, that “they are a far more talkative and conversational race than can easily be seen in the civilized world. No one can look into the wigwams of these people, or into any little momentary group of them, without being at once struck with the conviction that small talk, garrulity, story-telling and amusements, are leading passions with them.” To watch their games, and hear their shouts of exultation, in any of their villages, to sit down in their lodges and listen to their jokes, repartee, anecdote and laughter, would effectually banish this erroneous opinion so generally held in regard to the Red Men. With no anxieties for the future—no necessities goading them, it is natural that they should be a merry people, and most of their life be spent in sports and games.

The Indian fondness for amusement is shown in the great variety of their dances, most of which are very fanciful and picturesque, though some of them have a religious significance. There are the ball-play dance, pipe dance, buffalo and scalp dances (already described), beggar’s, bear, and dog dances. But the most pleasing of all are the eagle dance, dance of the braves which is peculiarly attractive, and the green corn and snow-shoe dances. The latter is exceedingly picturesque, and the artist has represented it on the preceding page.

Before the first snow shoe hunt, the Indians always perform a dance by way of thanksgiving to the Great Spirit for sending the snow which will enable them to live in plenty so long as it lasts. Several spears are stuck upright in the snow covered ground, on one of which are tied a pair of snow shoes, and on the others sundry sacred feathers and similar objects. The dancers, clad in hunting dress, and wearing snow shoes, go round and round the spears, imitating the while all the movements of the chase, and singing a song of thanksgiving.

Nearly all the tribes, however remote from each other, have a season of festivity annually, when the ears of corn are large enough for eating. Green corn is regarded a great luxury, and is dealt out with most improvident profusion—the festivities lasting eight or ten days. The whole tribe feast and surfeit upon it so long as it lasts, making sacrifices, singing songs of thanksgiving to the Great Spirit, and celebrating the green corn dance. Every occupation is suspended during these festivities, and all unite in the carnival of gluttony and merriment. Mr. Catlin thus describes this dance:—“At the time when the corn is thought to be nearly ready for use, several of the old women, who have fields or patches of corn (the men disdain such degrading occupations as cultivating the field or garden), are appointed by the medicine men to examine the cornfields at sunrise every day, and bring to the council house several ears of corn, which they must on no account break open or look into. When the doctors, from their examination, decide that the corn is suitable, they send criers to proclaim to every part of the village or tribe that the Great Spirit has been kind, and they must meet next day to return thanks to Him. In the midst of the assembled tribe, a kettle filled with corn is hung over a fire. While this corn is being boiled, four medicine men, each with a stalk of corn in one hand and a rattle in the other, their bodies painted with white clay, dance around it chanting a thanksgiving to the Great Spirit, to whom the corn is to be offered. In a more extended circle around them, a number of warriors dance, joining in the same song. During this scene, wooden bowls are laid upon the ground, in which the feast is to be dealt out.”

When the doctors decide that the corn is sufficiently boiled, the dance assumes a different form, and a new song is sung, the doctors in the meantime placing the corn on a scaffold of sticks built over the fire, where it is consumed. This fire is then removed, the ashes are all buried, and a new fire is originated on the same spot, and in the same way as by the Hottentots, described on page 100. Then corn is boiled for the feast, at which the doctors and warriors are seated. An unlimited license is given to the whole tribe, who mingle excess and amusement until the fields of corn are stripped, or it has become too hard for eating.

The dance of the braves is beautiful and exciting in the highest degree:—“At intervals the dancers stop, and one of them steps into the ring and vociferates as loudly as possible the feats of bravery which he has performed during his life.... He boasts of the scalps he has taken, and reproduces the motions and actions of the scenes in which his exploits were performed. When his boasting is concluded, all assent to the truth of his story, and express their approval by the guttural ‘waugh!’ Then the dance commences again. At the next interval another makes his boast, and so another and another, till all have given a narrative of their heroic deeds, and proved their right to be associated with the braves of the nation.”

The dog dance, though a favorite with the Sioux, is not an attractive one.

The hearts and livers of two or more slain dogs are placed entire and uncooked upon two crotches, about as high as a man’s head, and are cut into strips so as to hang down. The dance then commences, which consists in each one proclaiming his exploits in loud, almost deafening gutturals and yells. At the same time the dancers, two at a time, move up to the stake, and bite off a piece of the heart and swallow it. All this is done without losing step or interrupting the harmony of their voices. The significance of the dance is that none can share in it but the braves who can boast that they have killed their foe in battle and swallowed a piece of his heart.

Among the Sacs and Foxes there are several singular dances, besides some already mentioned, viz: the slave dance (a very curious one), dance to the Berdashe, which is an amusing scene, and dance to the medicine of the brave. There is a tender and beautiful lesson conveyed in this latter dance. In the illustration of it on page 1322, a party of Sac warriors are represented as returned victorious from battle, with the scalps they have taken as trophies. Having lost one of their party, they appear and dance in front of his wigwam fifteen days in succession, about an hour each day, the widow having hung his medicine bag on a green bush, which she erects before her door, and under which she sits and cries whilst the warriors dance and brandish the scalps they have taken. At the same time they recount the heroic exploits of their fallen comrade, to solace the grief of his widow, and they throw her presents as they dance before her, that she may be kept from poverty and suffering.

There is little in these dances that resembles the “light fantastic toe” and giddy maze of the dance among the civilized. The former consist very much of jumps and starts—oftentimes the most grotesque, and even violent exertions—united with songs and yells, sometimes deafening by their sound or fearful by the wildness and intense excitement that are manifested.

To a looker on not familiar with the peculiar significance of these displays, they seem only a series of uncouth and meaningless motions and distortions, accompanied with harsh sounds, all forming a strange, almost frightful medley. Yet Mr. Catlin says “every dance has its peculiar step and every step has its meaning. Every dance has also its peculiar song, which is so intricate and mysterious oftentimes, that not one in ten of the young men who are singing know the meaning of the songs. None but medicine men are allowed to understand them.” There are dances and songs, however, not so intricate, which are understood and participated in by all the tribe.

The beating of drums, the yells, stamping, and bellowing, the noisy demonstrations forming so great a part of Indian amusements, will remind the reader of similar manifestations among some of the African tribes, recorded in the first part of this work.

The game which is perhaps the most popular and widely spread is almost unintelligible to an uninstructed bystander. Its title is Tchung-chee, that being the name of the spear which will be presently described. It is played with a ring about three inches in diameter, made of bone or wood wrapped with cord, and a slight spear, on which are several little projections of leather. The players roll the ring along the ground, and as it is about to fall, project the spear so that, as the ring falls, it may receive within it one of the pieces of leather. If it does so, the player scores one or more points, according to the particular projection which is caught in the ring, and the mode in which it flies.

Another variation of this game, called Al-kol-lock, has the spear without the leathern projections, but in their stead six colored beads are fixed inside the ring. At each end of the smooth clay course, which is about fifty feet in length, a slight barrier is erected. The players bowl the ring from one end of the course, run after it, and as it falls after striking the barrier, throw their spears as described above, the points being reckoned according to the color of the bead which lies on them.

The absorption of the players in this game is beyond description. They will play at it all day, gamble away their horses, their tents, their clothes, and, when they have lost all their property, will stake themselves, the loser becoming the slave of the winner.

Another game, called Pagessan, or the bowl game, is very popular, though it is a sedentary one, and lacks the graceful action that gives so great a charm to the preceding game. It is played with a wooden bowl, containing a number of pieces of wood carved into various forms; some, which we may call the pieces, having round pedestals on which to stand, and others, which we will term the pawns, being round, and painted on one side and plain on the other. The players take the bowl alternately, give it a shake, and set it in a hole in the ground. The contents are then examined, and the points are scored according to the number of pieces which stand on their pedestals. If the pawn has its colored side upward, the player scores one point; if it has the plain side uppermost, he deducts a point from his score. The position of the pawns is entirely a question of chance, but considerable skill is exerted in getting the pieces to stand on their pedestals.

The game which is most characteristic of the American Indians is the celebrated ball game, a modification of which has been introduced into England under the name of La Crosse. The principle on which it is played is exactly that of foot-ball and hockey, namely, the driving of a ball through a goal defended by the opposite party. We will first take the game as it is played by the Choctaws. The reader will find it illustrated on page 1311.

A ball is carefully made of white willow wood, and ornamented with curious designs drawn upon it with a hot iron. The ball-sticks, or racquets, are much like our own racquets, but with larger and more slender handles, and with a very much smaller hoop. Each player carries two of these sticks, one in each hand. The dress of the players is very simple, being reduced to the waist-cloth, a tail made of white horsehair or quills, and a mane of dyed horsehair round the neck. The belt by which the tail is sustained may be as highly ornamented as possible, and the player may paint himself as brilliantly as he likes, but no other article of clothing is allowed, not even moccasins on the feet.

On the evening of the appointed day, the two parties repair to the ground where the goals have been already set up, some two hundred yards apart, and there perform the ball-play dance by torchlight. Exactly in the middle between the goals, where the ball is to be started, sit four old medicine men, singing and beating their drums, while the players are clustered round their respective goals, singing at the top of their voices, and rattling their ball-sticks together. This dance goes on during the whole of the night, so that the players are totally deprived of rest—a very bad preparation, as one would think, for the severe exertion of the ensuing day. All the bets are made on this night, the article staked, such as knives, blankets, guns, cooking utensils, tobacco, and even horses and dogs, being placed in the custody of the stakeholders, who sit by them and watch them all night.

About nine o’clock on the next morning the play begins. The four medicine men, with the ball in their custody, seat themselves as before, midway between the goals, while the players arrange themselves for the attack and defence. At a given signal, the ball is flung high in the air, and as it falls, the two opposing sets of players converge upon it. As there are often several hundred players on each side, it may be imagined that the scene is a most animated one.

“In these desperate struggles for the ball,” writes Mr. Catlin “where hundreds are running together, and leaping actually over each other’s heads, and darting between their adversaries’ legs, tripping, and throwing, and foiling each other in every possible manner, and every voice raised to its highest key, in shrill yelps and barks, there are rapid successions of feats and incidents that astonish and amuse far beyond the conception of any one who has not had the singular good luck to witness them.

“In these struggles, every mode is used that can be devised to oppose the progress of the foremost, who is likely to get the ball; and these obstructions often meet desperate individual resistance, which terminates in a violent scuffle, and sometimes in fisticuffs. Then their sticks are dropped, and the parties are unmolested, whilst they are settling it between themselves, except by a general stampedo, to which those are subject who are down, if the ball happen to pass in their direction. Every weapon, by a rule of all ball players, is laid by in the respective encampments, and no man is allowed to go for one; so that the sudden broils that take place on the ground are presumed to be as suddenly settled without any probability of much personal injury, and no one is allowed to interfere in any way with the contentious individuals.

“There are times when the ball gets to the ground, and such a confused mass is rushing together around it, and knocking their sticks together, without a possibility of any one getting or seeing it for the dust that they raise, that the spectator loses his strength, and everything but his senses; when the condensed mass of ball sticks and shins and bloody noses is carried around the different parts of the ground, for a quarter of an hour at a time, without any one of the masses being able to see the ball, which they are often scuffling for several minutes after it has been thrown off and played over another part of the ground.

“For each time that the ball was passed between the goals of either party, one was counted for their game, and they halted for about one minute; when the ball was again started by the judges of the play, and a similar struggle ensued; and so on until the successful party arrived at 100, which was the limit of the play, and accomplished at an hour’s sun, when they took the stakes.”

In this game the players are not allowed to strike the ball with their sticks, or catch it in their hands; though to do so between the netted ends of the sticks, and then to run away with it, is a feat which each player tries his best to accomplish. Ball-play among the Sioux is exactly the same in principle as that of the Choctaws, but the players only carry one stick, which is wielded with both hands.

Sometimes the men are kind enough to indulge the women with a ball-play, and to present a quantity of goods as prizes, hanging them across a horizontal pole, in order to stimulate the players by the sight. Such inferior beings as women are not, however, allowed to use the ball and racquet of their superiors, the men, but play with a couple of small bags filled with sand, and attached to each other by means of a string about eighteen inches in length. Each of the players is furnished with two slight sticks, about two feet in length, and with these sticks they dexterously catch the sand bags, and fling them toward the goals. The women play with quite as much enthusiasm as the men, and the game often assumes the appearance of a general battle rather than of a pastime.

Since the introduction of horses, the American Indians have become very fond of horse racing, and bet so recklessly on the speed of their animals that they often lose everything which they possess. In these races neither the horse nor the rider are allowed to be costumed in any way, not even a saddle or a girth being allowed. They also have boat races, in which the spectators take as much interest as those who witness the Oxford and Cambridge races. The canoes are mostly propelled by one man only.

The canoes are of various forms and materials, according to the tribe to which they belong. For example, the Mandans have an odd, circular vessel, made from a bison hide, stretched over a wooden framework. This is called a “bull boat,” and is propelled in a very singular manner. A woman is the usual paddler, and she stands or kneels with her face toward the direction in which she intends to proceed, and, thrusting the paddle into the water as far forward as she can reach, draws it smartly toward her, and thus propels the boat with considerable speed.

On one occasion, Mr. Catlin and two companions were desirous of crossing the river, and were packed into one of these bull boats by the wife of a chief. She then went into the water, and swam across the river, towing the boat after her. As, however, she neared the opposite bank, a number of young girls surrounded the canoe, took it into their own management, and kept it in mid-stream, until the passengers, utterly powerless in such a craft, ransomed themselves with bead necklaces and other decorations. Then there is another kind of canoe, which is simply a hollowed tree-trunk, and which is graphically called a “dug-out.” No very particular care is taken about the shaping of this simple boat, which is more like a punt than a canoe.

The best and most characteristic form of native canoe is that which is made of the bark of the birch tree. The mode of making these canoes is briefly as follows. Canoe building is a work in which both sexes take a part. The men first select the largest and finest birch trees, with the smoothest skins, and strip off large pieces of the bark. The women then take charge of the bark, and, while it is still fresh and moist, clean and scrape it as if it were leather, and then sew the pieces together, so as to make the “cloak” of the future canoe.

While the women are at this work, the men are busily preparing the skeleton of the canoe. This is made of the white cedar, the ribs being cut and scraped until they are quite thin and light, and held in their places by smaller cross-pieces, and a long thin piece of wood, which runs round the entire edge of the boat, and is, in fact, the chief support of the canoe. This is technically called the “maître.” No nails are used, the whole of the junctions being effected by means of thongs of bass, obtained from the inner bark of the white cedar.

The skeleton being completed, it is laid upon the cloak, which is brought over the ribs, firmly lashed to the “maître,” and then by degrees brought into its proper shape. A strengthening piece, called the “faux maître,” is next tied along the whole of the gunwale in order to protect it from injury, and the interior is lined with cedar boards, scarcely thicker than pasteboard. When the canoe is finished and dry, the holes through which the lashings have passed, as well as all the junctions of the bark, are carefully stopped with pitch obtained from the pine or fir-tree, and the weaker parts of the bark are also strengthened with a coat of pitch.

The bark canoe of the Chippeways is, unquestionably, the most beautiful model of all the water crafts ever invented. It is usually made complete, from the rind of one birch tree, and so ingeniously formed and put together, that it is water-tight, and will ride upon the water with singular grace and swiftness.

These canoes are wonderfully light, as indeed is necessary for the navigation of the rivers. The many rapids would effectually prevent a boat from passing up the river, were it not for the plan called “portage.” When the canoe arrives at the foot of a rapid, it is taken ashore, the crew land, take all the goods out of the canoe, and carry them to the opposite side of the rapid. They then go back for the canoe itself, launch it in the smooth water above the rapid, and load it, and proceed on their journey. The figure at the head of page 1322 will give the reader a good idea of the form of the birch bark canoe.

These vessels can be propelled with wonderful speed, as they sit on the surface like ducks, and, when empty, scarcely draw two inches of water. The number of paddlers varies according to the size of the boat, but the course is regulated by the two who sit respectively in the bow and stern, whom we may for convenience call the “bow” and “stroke.” It is the duty of the “bow” to look carefully ahead for any rocks or any other obstacles, and, by movements well understood, to indicate their presence to the “stroke,” who, with a sweep of the paddle, brings the canoe round in the direction indicated by the “bow.”

The canoes which are used in races are made of birch bark, and are almost always of small size—so small, indeed, that a man can easily carry his canoe on his head from his house to the water’s edge, and then launch it without assistance. Mr. Catlin gives a very animated description of a canoe race, the competitors being accompanied by large canoes, full of their respective friends, who yell encouragements to the antagonists, fire guns in the air, and render the scene a singularly exciting one, even to a stranger.

Toward the right hand of the illustration which depicts the canoe race, on the following page, the reader may see a curious mode of propelling canoes, which is often adopted when there is no necessity for speed and the wind is favorable. The man who acts as “bow” stands up in the front of the canoe, extends a robe or a blanket in his two hands, and then he presses the two other corners at the bottom of the boat with his feet. The robe thus becomes an extemporized sail, of which the man is the mast. In this manner a canoe is often carried for a considerable distance, to the great relief of the paddlers.

An European would instantly upset the fragile canoe if he tried to stand erect in it; but the natives are absolutely perfect masters of their little vessels, and seem to move about in them as easily and firmly as if on dry land. They will load a canoe within an inch and a half of the water’s edge, and paddle it for a whole day, without dreaming of danger. And an accomplished canoe man will take a fish spear in his hand, place a foot on each gunwale of the boat, and, propelled by a friend in the stern of the boat, dart down rapids, spearing fish as he shoots along, hauling the struggling fish out of the water, and shaking them into the boat behind him.

Among most Indian tribes, when mourning for the death of relatives, the women are required to cut their hair entirely off, and the period of mourning is until it has grown to its former length. As long tresses are so highly valued by most of the tribes this is no small sacrifice. But long hair being of much more importance to the men they cut off only a lock or two, to indicate grief or affliction for their departed kindred.

There is a game which has in it somewhat of a religious aspect. On the border of the Great Pipe-stone Quarry a solitary rock rises from the plain. It resembles a large pillar, being only a few feet in diameter, though more than thirty feet in height. It is situated within a short distance from the edge of the precipice, and the Indians who come to procure red stone for their pipes often try to leap upon it and back again. The mere leap to the rock is comparatively easy, but there are two terrible dangers which threaten the leaper. In the first place, the small, flat surface of the rock is so polished and smooth, that if the leaper should exert too much power, he must slip off, and be killed on the sharp rocks below. Should he retain his foot-hold he has still a difficult task in regaining the spot whence he sprang, as he can take no run, and the slippery surface of the rock affords but a slight fulcrum from which he can take his spring.

Before an Indian essays this terrible leap, he offers up many prayers to the Great Spirit for help and protection, and he has at all events the satisfaction of knowing that, if he should fail, his body will be buried in the sacred ground of the nation. Those who succeed leave an arrow sticking in the rock, and have a right to boast of it at every public meeting when they are called upon to speak. No man would dare to boast of this feat without having performed it, as he would at once be challenged to visit the Leaping Rock and to point out his arrow.

If the reader will refer to the figure of the canoe on page 1322, he will see that its sides are decorated with a pattern. This is made by fastening dyed porcupine quills to the sides of the little vessel. Porcupine quills are used very largely for ornaments, and, even though they have been partly superseded by beads, are still in use for decorating the dresses and utensils of the natives.

These quills are never so long or thick as those of the porcupine of the Old World, and are naturally white or gray, so that they can easily take any desired dye. They are first sorted very carefully into their different sizes, the largest rarely exceeding three inches in length, while the smaller are quite thread-like, and can be passed through the eye of an ordinary needle. Both ends are sharp. When the native artist desires to produce a pattern, the design is first drawn on the right side of the bark or leather; the two ends of the quill are then pushed through the fabric, and fastened on the wrong side, the quill acting both as needle and thread.

Perhaps the most ingenious mode of making ornaments is that which is practised by the Ojibbeway women, and called Bark-biting. The following description of this curious art is given by Mr. Kohl in his “Kitchi-Gami:”—

“This is an art which the squaws chiefly practise in spring, in their sugar plantations. Still, they do not all understand it, and only a few are really talented. I heard that a very celebrated bark-biter resided at the other side of St. Mary’s River, in Canada, and that another, of the name of Angélique Marte, lived in our cataract village. Naturally, I set out at once to visit the latter.

“Extraordinary geniuses must usually be sought here, as in Paris, on the fifth floor, or in some remote faubourg. Our road to Angélique Marte led us past the little cluster of houses representing our village far into the desert. We came to morasses, and had to leap from stone to stone. Between large masses of scattered granite block, the remains of the missiles which the Indians say Menaboju and his father hurled at each other in the battle they fought here, we at length found the half-decayed birch-hut of our pagan artiste, who herself was living in it like a hermit.

“The surrounding landscape seemed better adapted for a renversi than for an atélier. When we preferred our request for some specimen of her tooth carving, she told us that all her hopes as regarded her art were concentrated in one tooth. At least she had only one in her upper jaw properly useful for this operation. She began, however, immediately selecting proper pieces of bark, peeling off the thin skin, and doubling up the pieces, which she thrust between her teeth.

“As she took up one piece after the other, and went through the operation very rapidly, one artistic production after the other fell from her lips. We unfolded the bark, and found on one the figure of a young girl, on another a bouquet of flowers, on a third a tomahawk, with all its accessories, very correctly designed, as well as several other objects. The bark is not bitten into holes, but only pressed with the teeth, so that, when the designs are held up, they resemble, to some extent, those pretty porcelain transparencies made as light-screens.”

The mode of constructing the wigwam is very much the same among the various tribes. Generally it is made of dressed buffalo skins sewed together and arranged in the form of a tent, with a score or more of poles about twenty-five feet in height, as a support, and with an opening at the apex for the escape of smoke or the admission of light. The Crows, however, excel all others in the style of their lodge. They dress the skins almost as white as linen, embellish them with porcupine quills, and paint them in various ways so as to make their tents exceedingly beautiful and picturesque.

The Indian lodges may be removed in a few minutes. The taking down and the transportation is the work of the squaws. A tribe will generally remove six or eight times in a summer in order to find good hunting grounds among the herds of buffaloes.

The Indian tribes judging from their musical instruments, have little taste or skill in music. These are very rude, and consist of rattles, drums, the mystery whistle, war whistle and deer skin flute. The war whistle is from six to nine inches in length, made of the bone of the deer’s or turkey’s leg, with porcupine quills wound around it. The chief wears this to battle under his dress. It has only two notes—one, produced by blowing into one end of it, is shrill, and is the summons to battle; and the other sounds a retreat. Even in the noise of battle and amid the cries and yells of their fierce conflicts, this little instrument can be distinctly heard.

The chief pledge of friendship among these tribes, is a dog feast. If we consider that the dog is an object of special affection with the Indians; that he is more valued by them than anywhere else on the globe;—we can understand the significance of this feast. This sacrifice of what is dearest to them is therefore the very strongest evidence of friendship. On their coats of arms, on the rocks, they carve the image of the dog, and everywhere and always, he is the emblem of fidelity. Accordingly, to ratify friendship, to give the most unquestionable proof of honor and devotion, the Indian will take his beloved companion of the chase and wigwam, and offer it as the sacrifice to hospitality and affection.

These feasts are conducted in the most solemn and impressive manner, as if with the conviction that the pledge of friendship is a sacred thing. Those were tender words which Catlin gives at the conclusion of an Indian chief’s address to him and other white guests, to whom such a feast had been given: “we offer you to-day not the best we have got, for we have plenty of good buffalo hump and marrow—but we give you our hearts in this feast—we have killed our faithful dogs to feed you, and the Great Spirit will seal our friendship. I have no more to say.”

We come now to consider the customs of the Indians in regard to death and the disposal of the dead.

The Mandans take the body of the deceased, clothe it in his best robes and ornaments, furnish it with food, pipes, tobacco, and arrows, and wrap it up in skins previously soaked in water, so as to render them pliant, and cause them to exclude the air as much as possible. The body is then placed upon a slight scaffold, some seven feet in height, and left to decay. In process of time, the scaffold gives way and falls, when the relations of the deceased bury the whole of the remains, with the exception of the skull, which they place on the ground, forming circles of a hundred or more, all with the faces looking inward, and all resting on fresh bunches of herbs. In the centre of each circle is a little mound, on which are placed the skulls of a male and female bison, and on the mound is planted a long pole, on which hang sundry “medicine” articles, which are supposed to aid in guarding the remains of the dead.

No people are more fond of swimming than the Indians, the youth of both sexes learning the art at a very early age. Such knowledge is indispensable to them, especially liable as they are to accidents with their light canoes, and in their marches compelled to cross the widest rivers. The squaws will fasten their children to their backs, and easily cross any river that lies in their way.

The Indian mode of swimming, however, is quite different from ours. They do not make a horizontal stroke outward from the chin, but throw the body alternately from one side to the other, and raising one arm out of the water, reach as far forward as possible, while the other arm having made the same motion, goes down and becomes a propelling power. And this, though an apparently awkward, is yet a most effective mode of swimming, and less likely to be attended with injury to the chest, or with fatigue.

The relatives constantly visit the skull circles, and the women may often be seen sitting by the skulls of their dead children for hours together, going on with their work, and talking to the dead skull as if it were a living child. And, when tired, they will lie down with their arms encircling the skull, and sleep there as if in company with the child itself. The Sioux and many other tribes lodge their dead in the branches or crotches of trees, enveloped in skins, and always with a wooden dish hanging near the head of the corpse, for the purpose, doubtless, to enable it to quench its thirst on the long journey they suppose awaits it after death. The Chinnooks place them in canoes, which, together with the warrior’s utensils accompanying the dead, are so shattered as to be useless.

The most singular funeral of which a record has been preserved was that of Blackbird, an Omaha chief. The artist has reproduced the strange scene on page 1341.

Upon the bank of the Missouri, and in the district over which he ruled, there is a lofty bluff, the top of which can be seen for a vast distance on every side. When the chief found that he was dying, he ordered that he should be placed on the back of his favorite war horse, and buried on the top of the bluff.

The request was carried out to the letter. On the appointed day, the whole tribe, together with a vast concourse of spectators, repaired to the bluff, leaving an open space in the middle, where the chief was to be buried.

Presently, the body of the dead chief was borne up the sides of the bluff, and after him was led his war horse, a noble milk-white steed which he had valued exceedingly. When the funeral procession reached the top of the bluff, the dead chief was clothed in full panoply of war, the feather plumes on his head, the strung bow, quiver, arrows, shield, and medicine bag slung on his back, his scalps, which no other man might take, hung to his horse’s bridle and to his weapons, and his favorite spear in his hand. He was also furnished with food and drink, to sustain him in his passage to the spirit land, and with his pipe and filled tobacco pouch, flint, and steel, so that he might solace himself with the luxury of smoking.

This done, he was mounted on the back of his horse, and all the chiefs advanced in their turn to make their farewell speeches to their dead leader. Each, after delivering his address, rubbed his right hand with vermilion, pressed it against the white coat of the horse, and left there the scarlet imprint of his hand. Then began the burial. The warriors brought in their hands pieces of turf, and with them began to raise a huge mound, in the middle of which the chief and his horse were to be enclosed. One by one they placed their turves around the feet of the devoted horse, and so, by degrees, they built the mound over the animal while yet alive.

The mound, when completed, rose high above the head of the chief thus strangely buried in its centre, and there he and his horse were left to decay together. On the top of the mound a cedar post was erected; and this mound has been, ever since it was built, a familiar landmark to all the surrounding country. This green, flower spotted mound is visited by great numbers of travellers, both white and red. The former ascend the bluff partly out of curiosity to see so strange a tomb, and partly for the sake of the magnificent view from its summit, while the latter visit it for the sake of paying their respects at the burial-place of one of their most renowned chiefs and greatest medicine men.

The custom of burying wives and other victims with the deceased husband seems now to be extinct among the North American tribes, but such an event has happened within comparatively late years. There was a Nachez chief, called the Stung Serpent, who died; and as he was the head chief of the tribe, a considerable number of victims were devoted for sacrifice. The French, however, remonstrated, and induced the friends of the dead chief to limit the number to eight or ten. Among them was a beautiful girl, who, though not his wife, had loved him greatly, and desired to share his grave.

On the day appointed a procession was formed, in which the victims were led in great state, accompanied by eight relatives of the deceased, who were to act as executioners, and who bore the fatal cord, the deer-skin which was thrown over the head of the victim, the tobacco pills which were to be taken before the ceremony, and the other implements required. When they were all placed at the grave, the chief wife made a speech, in which she took leave of her children; and the victims, after being strangled, were deposited in the grave.

As the object of this work is to present the manners and customs of tribes and races in their primitive state, and not those semi-civilized, it will be enough to merely introduce the names of the Cherokees, Choctaws, Creeks, Chickasaws, Senecas, Delawares, etc. Nor is it necessary to consider those, now extinct, that occupied the country when first settled by white men. For the same general characteristics, now presented, pertain to all the North American races. The Indian tribes are rapidly retreating or vanishing before the steady, irresistible march of civilization, and the growing grandeur of the great Republic in North America. The line, where the echoes of the Indian’s yell blends with the shout of advancing pioneers and the sound of the wood-chopper’s axe, is continually moving westward. In a few years we have seen it pass from the Mississippi River, to the base of the Rocky Mountains. The settler’s cabin is unceasingly encroaching upon the wigwams of the Red Men. With sadness, having smoothed the graves of their fathers, and taken a last look of their hunting grounds, they retreat before a power which they vainly strive to resist. Pressed backward in two centuries and a half, across three-quarters of the continent, from Massachusetts Bay almost to the Pacific, except a few decaying remnants of tribes, their history and doom cannot but awaken sympathy for an unfortunate and overpowered race.

Even though we do not form our estimate of the Indian from the romantic creations of Cooper, every right-thinking person will accord them the tribute of many qualities that constitute a real grandeur of character. Their marvellous bravery, their ardent rage, their steadfast, fiery enthusiasm in the fight or in the chase, their manly sports, their grave, philosophic demeanor in the council, their stern, stoical endurance in misfortune, their disdain of death, are traits that have given to the Indian a character unique and noble, a character and history that the annalist, poet, and novelist, have transferred to their immortal pages, and over which multitudes of old and young alike have bent with eager, breathless interest. As Mr. Mangin in his “Desert World” says:—“There was poetry in their faith, in their customs, in their language, at once laconic and picturesque—and even in the names they bestowed on each tribe, each chief and warrior, on mountain and river. One can hardly suppress a feeling of regret that so much of wild romance and valor should have been swept from the face of the earth, unless we call to mind the shadow of the picture—the Indian’s cruelty, perfidiousness and savage lust. Even then, our humanity revolts from the treatment to which he has been subjected by the white man.” Tracked and hunted like wild beasts, driven from their hunting grounds and the territory of their ancestors, imbruted by drink, decimated and dying by epidemics and vices contracted from white men, the poor Indians vainly struggling to avert their doom of extermination have elicited the sympathy and commiseration of the civilized world. The theory advocated in the preceding part of this work, (see page 790), in regard to the decay and extinction of savage races, does not forbid regrets that such a people should have suffered so grievously at the hands of the United States Government, by the greed of its agents, the frauds of traders and the fatal contagion of the vices of a civilized people. What with American rifles and American whiskey, their extinction has been rapid, and their doom certain.

These tribes, contending in a most unequal strife with the forces of modern civilization, more readily falling victims to the vices of white men than accepting their virtues, are entitled to the just consideration and protection of the government, as its wards, from whom, or their ancestors, have been taken their soil and their homes.

It is gratifying to know that a more humane policy is about being inaugurated, and though the wrongs of the past may not be redressed, that their rights in future may be recognized and maintained. Major-General Thomas, of the U. S. army, whose name and history are the guarantee of candid and wise judgment, says, in respect to an instance of cold-blooded, unprovoked, unpunished outrage upon an Indian boy (it is given only as a representative fact of many more and bitter wrongs):—“I see no better way than to extend civil authority over the Indians and enable them to appear as witnesses in all cases affecting their own status and that of the whites toward them. This is a fair instance of the cause of the Indian troubles; and until white murderers and robbers of the Indians are punished, a large force of troops will be necessary to protect peaceful white settlers from Indian avengers.” And Gen. Sherman, in whose opinion the utmost confidence can be reposed, makes the following indorsement to General Thomas’ view:—“This case illustrates the origin of most of the Indian wars on the frontier. A citizen may murder an Indian with impunity, but if the Indian retaliate, war results, and the United States must bear the expense.”

Here we have the secret of many of the barbarities of the Indian tribes. Inflamed and imbruted by the whiskey sold them, their ignorance imposed upon by the greed of traders and even government agents, having little or no chance for securing justice in their real or imagined injuries, there is certainly some extenuation if this wild son of the forest go forth with tomahawk and scalping knife, as the self-appointed avenger of his own and his people’s wrongs. This is not the place, if there were room, for a thorough discussion of the wrongs of the Red Men, but I cannot forego the duty, in treating of the manners, customs and character of tribes so interesting, so noble and superior, by many traits, to most savage races, of recording at the same time, this tribute and testimony. It will unquestionably be the verdict of the future, as coming generations shall study the memorials and character of the North American Indians.[1]