History, Manners, and Customs of the North American Indians Part 11

_Austin._ No! As long as we could get a bit of bread or a drop of water, he should have part of it, and we would die with him rather than desert him.

_Brian_ and _Basil._ Yes; that we would!

_Hunter._ I hope so. This is, I say, a cruel custom; but it forms a part of Indian manners, so that the old men expect it, and, indeed, would not alter it. Indians have not been taught, as we have, to honour their parents, at least not in the same way; but I can say nothing in favour of so cruel and unnatural a custom. Among the Sioux of the Mississippi, it is considered great medicine to jump on the Leaping Rock, and back again. This rock is a huge column or block, between thirty and forty feet high, divided from the side of the Red Pipe-stone Quarry. It is about seven feet broad, and at a distance from the main rock of about six or eight feet. Many are bold enough to take the leap, and to leave their arrows sticking in one of its crevices; while others, equally courageous, have fallen from the top in making the attempt, and been dashed to pieces.

_Brian._ When you go to Pipe-stone Quarry, Austin, have nothing to do with the Leaping Rock. You must get your medicine in some other way.

_Austin._ I shall leave the Leaping Rock to the leaping Indians, for it will never suit me.

_Hunter._ There is a very small fish caught in the river Thames, called white bait, which is considered a very great luxury; but, to my taste, the white fish, of which the Chippewas take great abundance in the rapids near the Falls of St. Mary's, are preferable. The Chippewas catch them in the rapids with scoop-nets, in the use of which they are very expert. The white fish resemble salmon, but are much less in size.

_Austin._ The white fish of the Chippewas will suit me better than the Leaping Rock of the Sioux.

_Hunter._ Among the Indians, feasting, fasting, and sacrifices of a peculiar kind, form a part of their religious or superst.i.tious observances. Some of the p.a.w.nees, in former times, offered human sacrifices; but this cruel custom is now no more. The Mandans frequently offered a finger to the G.o.d, or Evil Spirit; and most of the tribes offer a horse, a dog, a spear, or an arrow, as the case may be. Over the Mandan mystery lodge used to hang the skin of a white buffalo, with blue and black cloth of great value. These were intended as a sacrifice or an offering to the good and evil spirits, to avert their anger and to gain their favour.

_Brian._ How many things you do remember!

_Hunter._ All the chiefs of the tribes keep runners: men swift of foot, who carry messages and commands, and spread among the people news necessary to be communicated. These runners sometimes go great distances in a very short s.p.a.ce of time.

_Brian._ You must have your runners, Austin.

_Austin._ Oh yes, I will have my runners: for I shall want pipe-stone from Red Pipe-stone Quarry, and white fish from the Chippewas; and then I shall send messages to the Cherokees and Choctaws, the Camanchees, the Blackfeet and the Crows.

_Hunter._ The squaws, or wives of the Indians, labour very contentedly, seeming to look on servitude as their proper calling.

They get in wood and water; they prepare the ground for grain, cook victuals, make the dresses of their husbands, manufacture pottery, dress skins, attend to the children, and make themselves useful in a hundred other ways.

_Brian._ I think the squaws behave themselves very well.

_Hunter._ The smoking of the pipe takes place on all great occasions, just as though the Indians thought it was particularly grateful to the Good and Evil Spirits. In going to war, or in celebrating peace, as well as on all solemn occasions, the pipe is smoked. Oftentimes, before it is pa.s.sed round, the stem is pointed upwards, and then offered to the four points--east, west, north and south. In the hands of a mystery man, it is great and powerful medicine. If ever you go among the red men, you must learn to smoke; for to refuse to draw a whiff through the friendly pipe offered to you, would be regarded as a sad affront.

_Basil._ What will you do now, Austin? You never smoked a pipe in your life.

_Austin._ Oh, I should soon learn; besides, I need only take a very little whiff.

_Hunter._ You must learn to eat dog's flesh, too; for when the Indians mean to confer a great honour on a chief or a stranger, they give him a dog feast, in which they set before him their most favourite dogs, killed and cooked. The more useful the dogs were, and the more highly valued, the greater is the compliment to him in whose honour the feast is given; and if he were to refuse to eat of the dog's flesh, thus prepared out of particular respect to him, no greater offence could be offered to his hospitable entertainers.

_Brian._ You have something a little harder to do now, I think, Austin; to learn to eat dog's flesh.

_Austin._ You may depend upon it, that I shall keep out of the way of a dog feast. I might take a little whiff at their pipe, but I could not touch their dainty dogs.

_Hunter._ In some of the large lodges, I have seen very impressive common life-scenes. Fancy to yourselves a large round lodge, holding ten or a dozen beds of buffalo skins, with a high post between every bed. On these posts hang the shields, the war-clubs, the spears, the bows and quivers, the eagle-plumed head-dresses, and the medicine bags of the different Indians who sleep there; and on the top of each post the buffalo mask, with its horns and tail, used in the buffalo dance.

Fancy to yourselves a group of Indians in the middle of the lodge, with their wives and their little ones around them, smoking their pipes and relating their adventures, as happy as ease and the supply of all their animal wants can make them. While you gaze on the scene, so strange, so wild, so picturesque and so happy, an emotion of friendly feeling for the red man thrills your bosom, a tear of pleasure starts into your eye; and, before you are aware, an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n of thankfulness has escaped your lips, to the Father of mercies, that, in his goodness and bounty to mankind, he has not forgotten the inhabitants of the forest and the prairie.

The Indians have a method of hardening their shields, by smoking them over a fire, in a hole in the ground; and, usually, when a warrior thus smokes his shield, he gives a feast to his friends. Some of the pipes of the Indians are beautiful. The bowls are all of the red stone from Pipe-stone Quarry, cut into all manner of fantastic forms; while the stems, three or four feet long, are ornamented with braids of porcupine's quills, beaks of birds, feathers and red hair. The calumet, or, as it is called, "the peace-pipe," is indeed, as I have before said, great medicine. It is highly adorned with quills of the war-eagle, and never used on any other occasion than that of making and solemnizing peace, when it is pa.s.sed round to the chiefs. It is regarded as altogether a sacred utensil. An Indian's pipe is his friend through the pains and pleasures of life; and when his tomahawk and his medicine bag are placed beside his poor, pallid remains, his pipe is not forgotten.

_Austin._ When an Indian dies, how do they bury him?

_Hunter._ According to the custom of his tribe. Some Indians are buried under the sod; some are left in cots, or cradles, on the water; and others are placed on frames raised to support them. You remember that I told you of Blackbird's grave.

_Austin._ Ay! he was buried on horseback, on the top of a high bluff, sitting on his horse. He was covered all over with sods.

_Hunter._ And I told you of the Chinock children floating on the solitary pool.

_Basil._ Yes, I remember them very well.

_Hunter._ Grown-up Chinocks are left floating in cradles, just in the same manner; though oftener they are tied up in skins, and laid in canoes, with paddles, pipes and provisions, and then hoisted up into a tree, and left there to decay. In the Mandan burial place, the dead were ranged in rows, on high slender frames, out of the way of the wolf, dressed in their best robes, and wrapped in a fresh buffalo skin, with all their arms, pipes, and every necessary provision and comfort to supply their wants in their journey to the hunting-grounds of their fathers. In our burial grounds, there are generally some monuments grander than the rest, to set forth the wealth, the station, or the talents of those who slumber below; and, as human nature is the same everywhere, so in the resting place of the Indians. Here and there are spread out a few yards of red or blue cloth, to signify that beneath it a chief, or a superior brave, is sleeping. The Mandan dead occupied a spot on the prairie. Here they mouldered, warrior lying by the side of warrior, till they fell to the ground from their frames, when the bones were buried, and the skulls ranged with great care, in round rings, on the prairie, with two buffalo skulls and a medicine pole in the centre.

_Austin._ Ay! it would be of no use for the wolf to come then, for there would be nothing for him. I should very much like to see an Indian burying-place.

_Hunter._ Were you to visit one, you would see that the heart and affections are at work under a red skin, as well as under a white one; for parents and children, husbands and wives, go there to lament for those who are dear to them, and to humble themselves before the Great Spirit, under whose care they believe their departed relatives to be.

The skulls, too, are visited, and every one is placed carefully, from time to time, on a tuft of sweet-smelling herb or plant. Life is but a short season with both the white and the red man, and ought to be well spent. It is as a flower that flourishes: "For the wind pa.s.seth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more." But I have now told you enough for the present. Come again, as soon as you will; I shall have some anecdotes of Indians ready for you.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Indian Cradle.]

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER IX.

With willing feet, sparkling eyes and happy hearts, Austin and his two brothers again set off for the cottage near the wood. On an ordinary occasion, they might have found time for a little pleasant loitering; but the Indian anecdotes they expected to hear excited their curiosity too much to allow a single minute to be lost. A pin might have been heard falling on the ground, when, seated in the cottage, they listened to the following anecdotes of the hunter.

_Hunter._ It has pleased G.o.d to endue Indians with quick perceptions.

They are amazingly quick in tracing an enemy, both in the woods and the prairie. A broken twig or leaf, or the faintest impression on the gra.s.s, is sufficient to attract their attention. The anecdotes I am about to relate are believed to be true, but I cannot myself vouch for their correctness, having only read them, or heard them related by others.

An Indian, upon his return home to his hut one day, discovered that his venison, which had been hung up to dry, had been stolen. After going some distance, he met some persons, of whom he inquired if they had seen a _little, old, white man_, with a short gun, and accompanied by a small dog with a bob-tail. They replied in the affirmative; and, upon the Indian's a.s.suring them that the man thus described had stolen his venison, they desired to be informed how he was able to give such a minute description of a person whom he had not seen. The Indian answered thus:--

"The thief I know is a _little_ man, by his having made a pile of stones in order to reach the venison, from the height I hung it standing on the ground; that he is an _old_ man, I know by his short steps, which I have traced over the dead leaves in the woods; that he is a _white_ man, I know by his turning out his toes when he walks, which an Indian never does; his gun I know to be short, by the mark which the muzzle made by rubbing the bark of the tree on which it leaned; that the dog is small, I know by his tracks; and that he has a bob-tail, I discovered by the mark of it in the dust where he was sitting at the time his master was taking down the meat."

_Brian._ Well done, Indian! Why, nothing could escape a man like that.

_Austin._ An Englishman would hardly have been able to describe the thief without seeing him.

_Hunter._ You shall have another instance of the quick perceptions of the red men. A most atrocious and shocking murder was once committed, by a party of Indians, on fourteen white settlers, within five miles of Shamokin. The surviving whites, in their rage, determined to take their revenge by murdering a Delaware Indian, who happened to be in those parts, and who was far from thinking himself in any danger. He was a great friend to the whites, was loved and esteemed by them, and, in testimony of their regard, had received from them the name of Duke Holland, by which he was generally known.

This Indian, satisfied that his nation were incapable of committing such a foul murder in a time of profound peace, told the enraged settlers that he was sure the Delawares were not in any manner concerned in it, and that it was the act of some wicked Mingoes or Iroquois, whose custom it was to involve other nations in wars with each other, by secretly committing murders, so that they might appear to be the work of others. But all his representations were vain; he could not convince exasperated men, whose minds were fully bent on revenge.

At last, he offered that, if they would give him a party to accompany him, he would go with them in quest of the murderers, and was sure that he could discover them by the prints of their feet, and other marks well known to him, by which he would convince them that the real perpetrators of the crime belonged to the Six Nations.

His proposal was accepted. He marched at the head of a party of whites and led them into the tracks. They soon found themselves in the most rocky part of a mountain, where not one of those who accompanied him could discover a single track, nor would they believe that men had ever trodden on this ground, as they had to jump from rock to rock, or to crawl over them. They began to believe that the Indian had led them across these rugged mountains in order to give the enemy time to escape. They threatened him with instant death the moment they should be convinced of the fraud.

The Indian, true to his promise, took pains to make them perceive that an enemy had pa.s.sed along the places through which he was leading them. Here, he showed them that the moss on the road had been trodden down by the weight of a human foot; there, that it had been torn and dragged forward from its place. Again, he would point out to them, that pebbles, or small stones on the rocks, had been removed from their beds by the foot hitting against them; that dry sticks, by being trodden upon, were broken; and, in one particular place, that an Indian's blanket had been dragged over the rocks, and had removed or loosened the leaves lying there, so that they did not lie flat, as in other places. All these marks the Indian could perceive as he walked along, without even stopping.

At last, arriving at the foot of the mountain, on soft ground, where the tracks were deep, he found that the enemy were eight in number; and, from the freshness of the foot-prints, he concluded that they must be encamped at no great distance.

This proved to be the exact truth; for, after gaining the eminence on the other side of the valley, the Indians were seen encamped: some having already laid down to sleep, while others were drawing off their leggings, or Indian stockings, for the same purpose, and the scalps they had taken were hanging up to dry.