Curiosities of Superstition Part 23

The bowl of the calumet is made of a peculiar stone, found in the Red Pipe-stone Quarry, on the Citeau des Prairies, a place to which the following tradition attaches. We give it as related by Mr. Catlin:

Here, he says, according to the Indian traditions, happened the mysterious birth of the red pipe, which has blown its fumes of peace and war to the remotest corners of the continent, which has visited every warrior, and pa.s.sed through its reddened stem the irrevocable oath of war and desolation. And here, also, the peace-breathing calumet was born, and fringed with the eagle's quills, which has shed its thrilling fumes over the land, and soothed the fury of the relentless savage.

At a remote period the Great Spirit here called the Indian nations together, and, standing on the precipice of the red pipe-stone rock, broke from its wall a piece, and made a huge pipe by turning it in his hand, which he smoked over them, to the north, the south, the east, and the west, and told that this stone was red,--that it was their flesh,--that they must use it for their pipes of peace,--that it belonged to them all,--and that the war-club and scalping-knife must not be raised on its ground. At the last whiff of his pipe his head went into a great cloud, and the whole surface of the rock for several miles was melted and glazed. Two great ovens were opened beneath, and two women (guardian spirits of the place) entered them in a blaze of fire; and they are heard there yet, (Tso-mec-cos-tu and Tso-me-cos-te-won-du,) answering to invocations of the high priests or medicine-men, who consult them when they are visitors to this sacred place.

The reader will remember, perhaps, the allusion to the Peace-pipe in Longfellow's "Hiawatha,"--

"On the mountains of the Prairie, On the great Red Pipe-stone quarry, Gitche Manito, the Mighty, He the Master of Life, descending, On the red crags of the quarry Stood erect, and called the nations, Called the tribes of men together.

From his footprints flowed a river, Leaped into the light of morning, O'er the precipice plunging downward, Gleamed like Ishkoodah, the comet.

And the Spirit, stooping earthward, With his finger on the meadows, Traced a winding pathway for it, Saying to it, 'Run in this way!'

From the red stone of the quarry With his hand he broke a fragment, Moulded it into a pipe-head, Shaped and fashioned it with figures; From the margin of the river Took a long reed for a pipe-stem, With its dark green leaves upon it; Filled the pipe with bark of willow; With the bark of the red willow; Breathed upon the neighbouring forest, Made its great boughs chafe together, Till in flame they burst and kindled; And erect upon the mountains, Gitche Manito, the mighty, Smoked the calumet, the Peace-pipe, As a signal to the nations."

Some of the legends of the Indian tribes are of a very picturesque, and even poetical character, as may be seen in Mr. Schoolcraft's "Algic Researches." Take, as an example, the graceful tradition of the Red Swan.

Three brothers went out to the chase, excited by a wager to see who would carry home the first game. But the binding and limiting condition was, that each was to shoot no other animal than those he was in the habit of killing.

They set out in different directions. Odjebwa, the youngest, had not gone far before he saw a bear, an animal which by the agreement he had no right to kill. He followed him close, however, and drove an arrow through him, which brought him to the ground. Although contrary to the bet, he immediately began to skin him, when suddenly something red tinged all the air around him. He rubbed his eyes, thinking he was perhaps deceived, but without effect, for the red hue continued. At length he heard a strange noise in the distance. It first resembled a human voice; but after following it up for some time, he reached the sh.o.r.es of a lake, and then discovered the object he was in search of. Far out on the shining waters sat a most beautiful Red Swan, whose plumage glittered in the sunshine; and ever and anon he made the noise which had before attracted Odjebwa's attention. He was within longbow range, and pulling the arrow from the bow-string up to his ear, he took deliberate aim, and shot. The arrow took no effect, and he shot again and again until his quiver was empty. Still the swan remained statelily circling round and round, stretching its long neck, and dipping its bill into the water, indifferent to the missiles aimed at it. Odjebwa ran home, secured all his own and his brother's arrows, and these too, ineffectually shot away: then stood and gazed at the beautiful bird.

While thus standing, he remembered a saying of his brother's, that in their deceased father's medicine-bag were three magic arrows. Off he started, his anxiety to kill the swan overcoming every scruple. At any other time he would have deemed it a sacrilege to open his father's medicine-bag, but now he hastily violated it, seized the three magic arrows and ran back. The swan was still floating on the lake. He shot the first arrow with great precision, and came very near his mark. The second flew still nearer; and as he took the third and last arrow, he felt his arm strengthen, and drawing it up with vigour, sent the shaft right through the neck of the swan, a little above the breast. Still even this death-stroke did not prevent the bird from flying off,--which it did very slowly, flapping its wings, and rising gradually into the air, until it pa.s.sed far away into the sunset.

Quoting again from Longfellow, we place before the reader his allusion to this pretty legend:--

"Can it be the sun descending O'er the level plain of water?

Or the Red Swan, floating, flying, Wounded by the magic arrow, Staining all the waves with crimson, With the crimson of its life-blood, Filling all the air with splendour, With the splendour of its plumage?

Yes; it is the sun descending, Sinking down into the water; No; it is the Red Swan floating, Diving down beneath the water; To the sky its wings are lifted, With its blood the waves are reddened!"

The Indians regard the maize, or Indian corn, with almost superst.i.tious veneration,--which is not wonderful, perhaps, when its immense importance to them is taken into consideration. They esteem it, says Schoolcraft, so important and divine a grain, that their story-tellers invented various tales, in which this idea is symbolised under the form of a special gift from the Great Spirit. The Odjebwa-Algonquins, who call it Mon-da-min, or the Spirit's grain or berry, cherish a legend, in which the stalk in full ta.s.sel is represented as descending from the sky, under the guise of a handsome youth; in response to the prayers of a young man offered at his fast of virility, or coming to manhood.

"All around the happy village Stood the maize-fields, green and shining, Waved the green plumes of Mondamin, Waved his soft and sunny tresses, Filling all the land with plenty."

CHAPTER XVI.

_AMONG THE ESKIMOS._

The success which has attended the labours of the Lutheran and Moravian Missionaries among the Eskimos has been well deserved by their self-denying devotedness. Few of the Arctic tribes are now outside the pale of Christianity; and all have been more or less directly influenced by its elements of purification and elevation. But prior to the coming of the pioneers of the Cross, the moral code of the Eskimo was curiously imperfect, and did not recognise murder, infanticide, incest, and the burial of the living among its crimes. Woe to the unfortunate vessel which touched upon the coast! The Eskimos were not less treacherous than the Polynesians of the Eastern Seas. And Krantz relates the story of a Dutch brig that was seized by the natives at the port of Disco in 1740. The whole crew were murdered. Two years later a similar fate befell the crew of another vessel that had accidentally stranded.

The religion or creed of the aborigines seems to have been very vague and imperfect. It is certain, however, that they believed in the immortality of the spirit, and in a heaven and a h.e.l.l. It was natural enough that their conception of the latter should be affected by the conditions under which they lived; that their experience of the miseries of an Arctic climate should lead them to think of h.e.l.l as a region of darkness and of ice, traversed by endless snow-storms, and without any seals.

They placed implicit confidence in their angekoks, or angekos, or "medicine-men," ascribing to them almost unlimited powers over the things of earth and sea, this world and the next. When setting out for the chase, or prostrated by illness, they always sought the a.s.sistance of the angekoks, who, on such occasions, indulged in a variety of strange ceremonies. The nature of these may be inferred from what was witnessed by Captain Lyon, who, during his famous Arctic voyage, bribed an angekok, named Toolemak, to summon a Tomga, or familiar demon, in the cabin of his ship.

All light having been carefully excluded from the scene of operations, the sorcerer began by vehemently chanting to his wife, who, in her turn, responded with the Amna-aya, the favourite song of the Eskimo. This lasted throughout the ceremony. Afterwards, Toolemak began to turn himself round very rapidly, vociferating for Tomga, in a loud powerful voice and with great impatience, at the same time blowing and snorting like a walrus. His noise, agitation, and impatience increased every moment, and at length he seated himself on the deck, varying his tones, and making a rustling with his clothes.

Suddenly the voice seemed smothered, and was so managed as to give the idea that it was retreating beneath the deck, each moment becoming more distant, and ultimately sounding as if it were many feet below the cabin, when it ceased entirely. In answer to Captain Lyon's queries, the sorcerer's wife seriously declared that he had dived and would send up Tomga.

And, in about half a minute, a distant blowing was heard approaching very slowly, and a voice differing from that which had first been audible was mixed with the blowing, until eventually both sounds became distinct, and the old beldame said that Tomga had come to answer the stranger's questions. Captain Lyon thereupon put several queries to the sagacious spirit, receiving what was understood to be an affirmative or a favourable answer by two loud slaps on the deck.

A very hollow yet powerful voice, certainly differing greatly from that of Toolemak, then chanted for some time; and a singular medley of hisses, groans, shouts, and gobblings like a turkey's, followed in swift succession. The old woman sang with increased energy, and as Captain Lyon conjectured that the exhibition was intended to astonish "the Kabloona,"

he said repeatedly that he was greatly terrified. As he expected, this admission added fuel to the flame, until the form immortal, exhausted by its own might, asked leave to retire. The voice gradually died away out of hearing, as at first, and a very indistinct hissing succeeded. In its advance it sounded like the tone produced by the wind upon the ba.s.s cord of an aeolian harp; this was soon changed to a rapid hiss, like that of a rocket, and Toolemak, with a yell, announced the spirit's return. At the first distant sibilation Captain Lyon held his breath, and twice exhausted himself; but the Eskimo conjuror did not once respire, and even his returning and powerful yell was uttered without previous pause or inspiration of air.

When light was admitted, the wizard, as might be expected, was in a state of profuse perspiration, and greatly exhausted by his exertions, which had continued for at least half an hour. Captain Lyon then observed a couple of bunches, each consisting of two strips of white deerskin and a long piece of sinew, attached to the back of his coat. These he had not seen before, and he was gravely told that they had been sewn on by Tomga while he was below.

During his absence, the angekok professes to visit the dwelling-place of the particular spirit he has invoked, and he will sometimes astonish his audience with a description of the nether-world and its inhabitants. For instance, there is a female spirit called Aywilliayoo, who commands, by means of her right hand, all the bears, whales, seals, and walruses.

Therefore, when a lack of provisions is experienced, the angekok pays a visit to Aywilliayoo, and attacks her hand. If he can cut off her nails, the bears are immediately released; the loss of one finger-joint liberates the small seals; the second joint dismisses the larger seals; the knuckles place at liberty the whole herds of walruses, while the entire hand liberates the whale.

Aywilliayoo is tall, with only one eye and one pigtail, but as this pigtail is as large as a man's leg, and descends to her knee, she may well be contented with it. She owns a splendid house, which, however, Toolemak refrained from entering, because it was guarded by a huge dog, with black hindquarters and no tail. Her father, in size, might be mistaken for a boy of ten years old; he has but one arm, which is always encased in a large bear-skin mitten.

Dr. Kane considers it a fact of psychological interest, as it shows that civilised or savage wonder-workers form a single family, that the angekoks have a firm belief in their own powers. "I have known," he says, "several of them personally, and can speak with confidence on this point. I could not detect them in any resort to jugglery or natural magic: their deceptions are simply vocal, a change of voice, and perhaps a limited profession of ventriloquism, made more imposing by the darkness." They have, however, like the members of the learned professions everywhere else, a certain language or jargon of their own, in which they communicate with each other.

While the angekoks are the dispensers of good, the issintok, or evil men, are the workers of injurious spells, enchantments, and metamorphoses. Like the witches of both Englands, the Old and the New, these malignant creatures are rarely submitted to trial until they have suffered punishment--the old "Jeddart justice"--_castigat auditque_. Two of them, in 1818, suffered the penalty of their crime on the same day, one at Kannonak, the other at Upernavik. The latter was laudably killed in accordance with the "old custom" ... custom being everywhere the apology for any act revolting to moral sense. He was first harpooned, then disembowelled; a flap letdown from his forehead "to cover his eyes and prevent his seeing again"--he had, it appears, the repute of an evil eye; and then small portions of his heart were eaten, to ensure that he should not come back to earth unchanged.

When an Eskimo has injured any one of his countrymen,--has cut his seal-lines, or lamed his dogs, or burned his bladder-float--or perpetrated some equally grievous offence--the angekok summons him to meet the countryside before the tribunal of the hunapok. The friends of the parties, and the idlers for miles around, a.s.semble about the justice-seat; it may be at some little cl.u.s.ter of huts, or, if the weather permit, in the open air. The accuser rises, and strikes a few discords with a seal-rib on a tom-tom or drum. "He then pa.s.ses to the charge, and pours out in long paragraphic words all the abuse and ridicule to which his outrageous vernacular can give expression. The accused meanwhile is silent; but, as the orator pauses after a signal hit, or to flourish a cadence on his musical instrument, the whole audience, friends, neutrals, and opponents signalise their approval by outcries as harmonious as those we sometimes hear in our town meetings at home. Stimulated by the applause, and warming with his own fires, the accuser renews the attack, his eloquence becoming more and more licentious and vituperative, until it has exhausted either his strength or his vocabulary of invective. Now comes the accused, with defence, and counter-charge, and retorted abuse; the a.s.sembly still listening and applauding through a lengthened session.

The Homeric debate at a close, the angekoks hold a powwow, and a penalty is denounced against the accused for his guilt, or the accuser for his unsustained prosecution."

CHAPTER XVII.

_A MEDIaeVAL SUPERSt.i.tION: THE FLAGELLANTS._

Among the extraordinary delusions of the human mind, none is more hateful than the conviction cherished among so many sects, that the Supreme Being can be propitiated by the self-imposed torture of His worshippers. And nothing more vividly ill.u.s.trates the difference between the G.o.d of the Christian religion and the stern deity of so many human creeds, than the aspect of the former as man's Heavenly FATHER, Who requires from him no other offering than that of a contrite and humble heart,--Who asks not that the Indian Fakir should cramp his limbs and lacerate his body, or that S. Simeon Stylites should stand night and day, in the scorching sun of summer, and the freezing cold of winter, on his lonely pillar. It is a proof of our wider and deeper knowledge of G.o.d that we are beginning to emanc.i.p.ate ourselves from the thraldom of this evil idea, and to recognise in Him a tender, compa.s.sionate Guide and Friend, Who, unto them that love Him, causeth all things to work for the best. In modern Calvinism the superst.i.tion still lingers, and it is supposed that a gloomy life, unrelieved even by the most innocent pleasures, must needs be acceptable to the Almighty Love; but this shadow in the Christian's faith is rapidly receding before the growing and broadening light. We are sons of G.o.d, and heirs; and what He asks from us, what alone He will receive, is the offering of affection and the sacrifice of fear. And the greatest claim which Christianity puts forward to the hearts and minds of men is that it has delivered, or will deliver them, when rightly understood, from the degrading superst.i.tion of the ascetic solitary and the self-torturer.

"Its true dignity is, that unseen it has ever gone about doing good. Link after link has it struck from the chain of every human thraldom; error after error has it banished; pain after pain has it driven from body or from mind; and so silently has the blessing come, that (like the sick man whom the SAVIOUR made to walk) 'he that was healed wist not who it was.'"

But error is slow to die; and long after the introduction of Christianity men continued to think that G.o.d would not hear them, unless, like the priests of Baal, they approached Him in blood and tears. At the bottom of it lay, no doubt, a truth, that the spirit could be exalted and purified only by contempt of the flesh:--and not perceiving that what was demanded of them was a moral and spiritual victory, they sought, by sore treatment of the body, to conquer its sinful appet.i.tes. They forgot that CHRIST had spoken of the body as "a temple,"--the temple of the HOLY GHOST; that it was as much the creation of G.o.d as the immortal soul, and as His wondrous handiwork should be treated with the reverence due to all that He has made. And they came to look upon the body as a deadly enemy, the slave and accomplice of the devil, which could be subdued only by a regimen of pain and terror. And so, when an evil suggestion tempted them, they scourged themselves until the blood ran from their mangled flesh, or they plunged naked into the deep winter snow, or barefooted they trod the flinty soil, or they fasted until the exhausted brain sank into the stupor of delirium.

Thus we read of S. Hilarion:--

Covering his limbs only with a sackcloth, and having a cloak of skin, he wandered forth into the desert that lies beyond Gaza, and enjoyed the "vast and terrible solitude," feeding on only fifteen figs after the setting of the sun; and because the region was of ill repute from robberies, no man had ever before stayed in that place. The devil, seeing what he was doing, and whither he had gone, was tormented. And he who of old boasted, saying: "I shall ascend into heaven, I shall sit above the stars of heaven, and shall be like unto the Most High," now saw that he had been conquered by a boy, and trampled under foot by him, who, on account of his youth, could commit no sin. He therefore began to tempt his senses; but he, enraged with himself, and beating his breast with his fist, as if he would drive out thoughts by blows, "I will force thee, mine a.s.s," said he, "not to kick; and feed thee with straw, not barley. I will wear thee out with hunger and thirst; I will burden thee with heavy loads; I will hunt thee through heat and cold, till thou thinkest more of food than of play." He therefore sustained his sinking spirit with the juice of herbs and a few figs, after each three or four days, praying frequently, and singing psalms, and digging the ground with a mattock, to increase the labour of fasting by that of work. At the same time, by weaving baskets of rushes, he imitated the discipline of the Egyptian monks, and the Apostle's saying, "He that will not work, neither let him eat," till he was so attenuated, and his body so exhausted, that his flesh scarce clung to his bones.

"From his sixteenth to his twentieth year," says Kingsley, "he was sheltered from the heat and rain in a tiny cabin, which he had woven of rush and sedge. Afterwards he built a little cell, four feet wide and five feet high,--that is lower than his own stature, and somewhat longer than his small body needed,--so that you would believe it a tomb rather than a dwelling. He cut his hair only once a year, on Easter Day, and lay till his death on the bare ground and a layer of rushes, never washing the sack in which he was clothed, and saying that it was superfluous to seek for cleanliness in hair-cloth. Nor did he change his linen until the first was utterly in rags. He knew the Scriptures by heart, and recited them after his prayers and psalms as if G.o.d were present."

Of S. Simeon Stylites we read that, having gone to the well one day to draw water, he took the rope from the bucket, and wound it round his body from his loins to his neck, and going in, he adventured an audacious falsehood, for he said to his brethren, "I went out to draw water, and found no rope on the bucket." And they said, "Hold thy peace, brother, lest the Abbot know it, till the thing has pa.s.sed over." But the tightness and roughness of the rope wore grievous wounds in his body, as the brethren at last discovered. Then with great trouble they took off the rope, and his flesh with it, and attending to his wounds, healed them.

For twenty-eight years of his life he was continually experimenting in long fasts--forty days at a time. Custom gradually made it comparatively easy to him. For on the first days he used to stand and praise G.o.d; after that, when through emptiness he could stand no longer, he would sit and perform the divine office, and on the last day even lie down. For when his strength failed slowly, he was forced to lie half dead. But after he stood on the column he could not bear to lie down, but invented another way by which he could stand. He fastened a beam to the column, and tied himself to it by ropes, and so pa.s.sed the forty days. But afterwards, when endued with greater grace from on high, he did not need even that a.s.sistance, but stood for the whole forty days, dispensing with food, but strengthened by eagerness of soul and the divine help.

At length he caused a pillar to be built, first of six cubits, then of twelve, next of twenty-two, and finally of thirty-six, and upon the top of this he took his station. The sun beat upon his bare head in the summer, and the winter snows fell upon him, and the pitiless rains soaked him to the skin,--but still he endured his self-imposed penance. He bowed himself frequently, offering adoration to G.o.d; so frequently that a spectator counted 1244 adorations, and then missing gave up counting; and each time he bowed himself, he touched his feet with his forehead. And ever in spirit he deprecated the wrath of an offended G.o.d, to Whom, as a meet sacrifice, he offered up his poor, wounded, tortured, emaciated body.

"I will not cease to grasp the hope I hold Of saintdom, and to clamour, mourn and sob, Battering the gates of heaven with storms of prayer.

Have mercy on me, LORD, and take away my sins, Let this avail, just, dreadful, mighty G.o.d, This not be all in vain, that thrice ten years Thrice multiplied by superhuman pangs....

A sign between the meadow and the cloud, Patient on this tall pillar I have borne Rain, wind, frost, heat, hail, damp, and sleet, and snow; And I had hoped that ere this period closed, Thou wouldst have caught me up into Thy rest, Denying not these weather-beaten limbs The meed of saints, the white robe, and the palm.

O take the meaning, LORD: I do not breathe Nor whisper any murmur of complaint."[58]

We turn from these pictures of human error,--error based, it must be owned, on a substratum of truth,--to put together a few particulars of the Sect of the Flagellants, which practised on a curiously elaborate scale the science of self-punishment.