Indian Stories Retold From St. Nicholas Part 6

NOT long since I wandered along a pretty brook that rippled through a narrow valley. I was on the lookout for whatever birds might be wandering that way, but saw nothing of special interest. So, to while away the time, I commenced geologizing; and, as I plodded along my lonely way, I saw everywhere traces of an older time, when the sparkling rivulet that now only harbors pretty salamanders was a deep creek, tenanted by many of our larger fishes.

How fast the earth from the valley's slopes may have been loosened by frost and washed by freshet, and carried down to fill up the old bed of the stream, we will not stop to inquire; for other traces of this older time were also met with here. As I turned over the loose earth by the brook-side, and gathered here and there a pretty pebble, I chanced upon a little arrow-point.

Whoever has made a collection, be it of postage stamps or birds' eggs, knows full well how securing one coveted specimen but increases eagerness for others; and so was it with me that pleasant afternoon.

Just one pretty arrow-point cured me of my laziness, banished every trace of fatigue, and filled me with the interest of eager search; and I dug and sifted and washed the sandy soil for yards along the brook-side, until I had gathered at least a score of curious relics of the long-departed red men, or rather of the games and sports and pastimes of the red men's hardy and active children.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE HATCHET]

For centuries before Columbus discovered San Salvador, the red men (or Indians, as they are usually called) roamed over all the great continent of North America, and having no knowledge of iron as a metal, they were forced to make of stone or bone all their weapons, hunting and household implements. From this fact they are called, when referring to those early times, a stone-age people, and so, of course, the boys and girls of that time were stone-age children.

But it is not to be supposed that, because the children of savages, they were altogether unlike the youngsters of to-day. In one respect, at least, they were quite the same--they were very fond of play.

Their play, however, was not like the games of to-day, as you may see by the pictures of their toys. We might, perhaps, call the princ.i.p.al game of the boys "Playing Man," for the little stone implements, here pictured, are only miniatures of the great stone axes and long spear-points of their fathers.

In one particular these old-time children were really in advance of the youngsters of to-day; they not only did, in play, what their parents did in earnest, but they realized, in part, the results of their playful labor. A good old Moravian missionary says: "Little boys are frequently seen wading in shallow brooks, shooting small fishes with their bows and arrows." Going a-fishing, then, as now, was good fun; but to shoot fishes with a bow and arrow is not an easy thing to do, and this is one way these stone-age children played, and played to better advantage than most of my young readers can.

Among the stone-age children's toys that I gathered that afternoon, were those of which we have pictures. The first is a very pretty stone hatchet, very carefully shaped, and still quite sharp. It has been worked out from a porphyry pebble, and in every way, except size, it is the same as hundreds that still are to be found lying about the fields.

No red man would ever deign to use such an insignificant-looking ax, and so we must suppose it to have been a toy hatchet for some little fellow that chopped away at saplings, or, perhaps, knocked over some poor squirrel or rabbit; for our good old Moravian friend, the missionary, also tells us that "the boys learn to climb trees when very young, both to catch birds and to exercise their sight, which, by this method, is rendered so quick that in hunting they see objects at an amazing distance." Their play, then, became an excellent schooling for them; and if they did nothing but play it was not a loss of time.

The five little arrow-points figured in the second picture are among those I found in the valley. The ax was not far away, and both it and they may have belonged to the same bold and active young hunter. All of these arrow-points are very neatly made.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ARROW-HEADS]

The same missionary tells us that these young red men of the forest "exercise themselves very early with bows and arrows, and in shooting at a mark. As they grow up, they acquire a remarkable dexterity in shooting birds, squirrels, and small game."

Every boy remembers his first penknife, and, whether it had one or three blades, was proud enough of it; but how different the fortune of the stone-age children, in this matter of a pocket-knife! In the third picture is shown a piece of flint that was doubtless chipped into this shape that it might be used as a knife.

I have found scores of such knives in the fields that extend along the little valley, and a few came to light in my search that afternoon in the brook-side sands and gravel. So, if this chipped flint is a knife, then, as in modern times, the children were whittlers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FLINT KNIFE]

Of course, our boys nowadays would be puzzled to cut a willow whistle or mend the baby's go-cart with such a knife as this; but still, it will not do to despise stone cutlery. The big canoe at the Centennial, that took up so much room in the Government Building,--a boat sixty feet long,--was made in quite recent times, and only stone knives and hatchets were used in the process.

I found too, in that afternoon walk, some curiously shaped splinters of jasper, which at first did not seem very well adapted to any purpose; and yet, although mere fragments, they had every appearance of having been purposely shaped, and not of accidental resemblances to a hook or sickle blade. When I got home, I read that perfect specimens, mine being certainly pieces of the same form, had been found away off in Norway; and Professor Nilsson, who has carefully studied the whole subject, says they are fish-hooks.

Instead of my broken ones, we have in the fourth ill.u.s.tration some uninjured specimens of these fish-hooks from Norway. Two are made of flint, the largest one being bone; and hooks of exactly the same patterns really have been found within half a mile of the little valley I worked in that afternoon.

The fish-hooks shown in our picture have been thought to be best adapted for, and really used in, capturing cod-fish in salt water, and perch and pike in inland lakes. The broken hooks I found were fully as large; and so the little brook that now ripples down the valley, when a large stream, must have had a good many big fishes in it, or the stone-age fishermen would not have brought their fishing-hooks, and have lost them, along this remnant of a larger stream.

But it must not be supposed that only children in this bygone era did the fishing for their tribe. Just as the men captured the larger game, so they took the bigger fishes; but it is scarcely probable that the boys who waded the little brooks with bows and arrows would remain content with that, and, long before they were men, doubtless they were adepts in catching the more valuable fishes that abounded, in Indian times, in all our rivers.

So, fishing, I think, was another way in which the stone-age children played.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FISH-HOOKS]

GAMES AND SPORTS OF THE INDIAN BOY

BY DR. CHARLES ALEXANDER EASTMAN

[These are actual recollections of the wild life.

The Indian boy whose experiences are described wrote them out himself many years afterward when, having graduated at Dartmouth College and the Boston University School of Medicine, he had become an educated man, and a physician among his own people.]

THE Indian boy was a prince of the wilderness. He had but very little work to do during the period of his boyhood. His princ.i.p.al occupation was the practising of a few simple but rigid rules in the arts of warfare and the chase. Aside from this, he was master of his time.

Whatever was required of us boys was quickly performed; then the field was clear for our games and plays. There was always keen compet.i.tion between us. We felt very much as our fathers did in hunting and war--each one strove to excel all the others. It is true that our savage life was a precarious one, and full of dreadful catastrophes; however, this never prevented us from enjoying our sports to the fullest extent.

As we left our tepees in the morning, we were never sure that our scalps would not dangle from a pole in the afternoon! It was an uncertain life, to be sure. Yet we observed that the fawns skipped and played happily while the gray wolves might be peeping forth from behind the hills, ready to tear them limb from limb.

Our sports were molded by the life and customs of our people--indeed, we practised only what we expected to do when grown. Our games were feats with the bow and arrow, foot and pony races, wrestling, swimming, and imitations of the customs and habits of our fathers. We had sham fights with mud b.a.l.l.s and willow wands, we played lacrosse, made war upon bees, shot winter arrows (which were used only in that season), and coasted upon ribs of animals and buffalo-robes.

Our games with bow and arrow were usually combined with hunting; but as I shall take hunting for the subject of another letter, I will speak only of such as were purely plays.

No sooner did the boys get together than they divided into squads, and chose sides; then a leading arrow was shot at random into the air.

Before it fell to the ground, a volley from the bows of the partic.i.p.ants followed. Each player was quick to see the direction and speed of the leading arrow, and he tried to send his own with the same speed and at an equal height, so that when it fell it would be closer than any of the others to the first.

It was considered out of place to shoot an arrow by first sighting the object aimed at. This was usually impracticable, because the object was almost always in motion, while the hunter himself was often on the back of a pony in full gallop. Therefore, it was the offhand shot that the Indian boy sought to master. There was another game with arrows which was characterized by gambling, and was generally confined to the men.

The races were an every-day occurrence. At noon the boys were usually gathered by some pleasant sheet of water, and as soon as the ponies were watered, they were allowed to graze for an hour or two, while the boys stripped for their noonday sports. A boy might say, "I can't run, but I challenge you for fifty paces," to some other whom he considered his equal. A former hero, when beaten, would often explain his defeat by saying, "I had drunk too much water!" Boys of all ages were paired for a "spin," and the little red men cheered on their favorites with spirit!

As soon as this was ended, the pony races followed. All the speedy ponies were picked out, and riders chosen. If a boy said, "I cannot ride," what a shout went up! Such derision!

Last of all came the swimming. A little urchin would hang to his pony's long tail, while the latter held only his head above water and glided sportively along. Finally the animals were driven into a fine field of gra.s.s, and we turned our attention to other games.

Lacrosse was an older game, and was confined entirely to the Sisseton and Santee Sioux. Shinny, such as is enjoyed by white boys on ice, is now played by the western Sioux. The "moccasin-game," although sometimes played by the boys, was intended mainly for adults.

The "mud-and-willow" fight was rather a severe and dangerous sport. A lump of soft clay was stuck on one end of a limber and springy willow wand, to be thrown with considerable force--as boys throw apples from sticks. When there were fifty or a hundred on each side, the battle became warm; but anything to arouse the bravery of Indian boys seemed to them a good and wholesome sport.

Wrestling was largely indulged in by all of us. It may seem odd, but the wrestling was by a great number of boys at once--from ten to any number on a side. It was really a battle, but each one chose his own opponent.

The rule was that if a boy sat down, he was let alone; but as long as he remained standing within the field he was open to an attack. No one struck with the hand, but all manner of tripping with legs and feet and hurting with the knees was allowed; altogether it was an exhausting pastime--fully equal to the American game of foot-ball. Only the boy who was an athlete could really enjoy it.

One of our most curious sports was a war upon the nests of wild bees. We imagined ourselves about to make an attack upon the Chippewas or some other tribal foe. We all painted and stole cautiously upon the nest; then, with a rush and a war-whoop, sprang upon the object of our attack and endeavored to destroy it. But it seemed that the bees were always on the alert, and never entirely surprised; for they always raised quite as many scalps as did their bold a.s.sailants! After the onslaught upon the bees was ended, we usually followed it by a pretended scalp-dance.

On the occasion of my first experience in this mode of warfare, there were two other little boys who also were novices. One of them, particularly, was too young to indulge in such an exploit. As it was the custom of the Indians, when they killed or wounded an enemy on the battle-field, to announce the act in a loud voice, we did the same. My friend Little Wound (as I will call him, for I do not remember his name), being quite small, was unable to reach the nest until it had been well trampled upon and broken, and the insects had made a counter charge with such vigor as to repulse and scatter our numbers in every direction. However, he evidently did not want to retreat without any honors; so he bravely jumped upon the nest and yelled:

"I, brave Little Wound, to-day kill the only fierce enemy!"

Scarcely was the last word uttered when he screamed as if stabbed to the heart. One of his older companions shouted:

"Dive into the water! Run! Dive into the water!" for there was a lake near by. This advice he obeyed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: INDIAN BOYS PLAYING "FOLLOW MY LEADER"]

When we had rea.s.sembled and were indulging in our mimic dance, Little Wound was not allowed to dance. He was considered not to be in existence--he had been "killed" by our enemies, the Bee tribe. Poor little fellow! His tear-stained face was sad and ashamed, as he sat on a fallen log and watched the dance. Although he might well have styled himself one of the n.o.ble dead who had died for their country, yet he was not unmindful that he had _screamed_, and that this weakness would be apt to recur to him many times in the future.