CHAPTER XV.

CUSTOMS.

The notes given under this heading are divided into (1) cult societies; (2) daily life and habits; (3) games.

SECTION 1.

CULT SOCIETIES.

Voluntary associations, to be distinguished from those of an exclusively religious character, have flourished among most Indian tribes and are still found among those least affected by contact with civilization. Maj. Powell, the Director of the Bureau of Ethnology, has named them cult societies. Their members are designated by special paintings and marks entirely distinct from those relating to their clans or gentes and their personal names. Travelers have frequently been confused by the diversity of such designations.

The translated names of some of these societies found among the Sioux are “Brave Night Hearts,” “Owl Feathers,” and “Wolves and Foxes.” They control tribes in internal affairs and strongly influence their policy in external relations, and may be regarded as the substitute both for regular soldiery and for police. It is necessary that a young man proposing to be a warrior should be initiated into some one of these societies. But in distinguishing them from the purely shamanistic orders it must not be understood that their ceremonies and ties are independent of the cult of religion, or that they disregard it, for this among Indians would be impossible.

The following account of these societies among the Blackfeet or Satsika and their pictorial or objective devices is condensed from Maximilian of Wied’s Travels (_e_):

The bands, unions, or associations are found among the Blackfeet as well as all the other American tribes. They have a certain name, fixed rules and laws, as well as their peculiar songs and dances, and serve in part to preserve order in the camp, on the march, in the hunting parties, etc. Seven such bands or unions among the Blackfeet were mentioned to me. They are the following: (1) The band of the mosquitos. This union has no police business to do, but consists of young people, many of whom are only 8 or 10 years of age. There are also some young men among them and sometimes even a couple of old men, in order to see to the observance of the laws and regulations. This union performs wild, youthful pranks; they run about the camp whenever they please; pinch, nip, and scratch men, women, and children in order to give annoyance like the mosquitos. The young people begin with this union and then gradually rise higher through the others. As the badge of their band they wear an eagle’s claw fastened around the wrist with a leather strap. They have also a particular mode of painting themselves, like every other band, and their peculiar songs and dance. (2) The dogs. Its badge is not known to me; it consists of young married men, and the number is not limited. (3) The prairie dogs. This is a police union, which receives married men; its badge is a long hooked stick wound round with otter skin, with knots of white skin at intervals, and a couple of eagle’s feathers hanging from each of them. (4) Those who carry the raven. Its badge is a long staff covered with red cloth, to which black ravens’ feathers in a long thick row are fastened from one end to the other. They contribute to the preservation of order and the police. (5) The buffalo, with thin horns. When they dance they wear horns on their caps. If disorders take place they must help the soldiers, who mark out the camp and then take the first place. (6) The soldiers. They are the most distinguished warriors, who exercise the police, especially in the camp and on the march; in public deliberations they have the casting vote whether, for instance, they shall hunt, change their abode, make war or conclude peace, etc. They carry as their badge a wooden club the breadth of a hand, with hoofs of the buffalo cow hanging to the handle. They are sometimes 40 or 50 men in number. (7) The buffalo bulls. They form the first, that is, the most distinguished, of all the unions, and are the highest in rank. They carry in their hand a medicine badge, hung with buffalo hoofs, which they rattle when they dance to their peculiar song. They are too old to attend to the police, having passed through all the unions, and are considered as having retired from office. In their medicine dance they wear on their head a cap made of the long forelock and mane of the buffalo bull, which hangs down to a considerable length.

Fig. 737.--“The policeman” was killed by the enemy. Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1780-’81.

The man here figured was probably one of the active members of the associations whose functions are above described to keep order and carry out the commands of the chiefs.

These voluntary associations are not of necessity ancient or permanent. An instance is given in Fig. 738 which is instructive in the interpretation of pictographs. It is a copy of drawings on a pipe stem which had been made and used by Ottawa Indians. On each side are four spaces, upon each of which are various incised characters, three spaces on one side being reserved for the delineation of human figures, each having diverging lines from the head upward, denoting their social status as chiefs or warriors and medicine men.

Upon the space nearest the mouth is the drawing of a fire, the flames passing upward from the horizontal surface beneath them. The cross bands are raised portions of the wood (ash) of which the pipestem is made; these show peculiarly shaped openings which pass entirely through the stem, though not interfering with the tube necessary for the passage of the smoke. This indicates considerable mechanical skill.

Upon each side of the stem are spaces corresponding in length and position to those upon the opposite side. In the lower space of the stem is a drawing of a bear, indicating that the two persons in the corresponding space on the opposite side belong to the bear gens. The next upper figure is that of a beaver, showing the three human figures to belong to the beaver gens, while the next to this, the eagle, means that the opposite persons are members of the eagle gens. The upper figure is that of a lodge which contains a council fire, shown on the opposite side.

The signification of the whole is that two members of the bear gens, three members of the beaver gens, and three members of the eagle gens have united and constitute a society living in one lodge, around one fire, and smoke through the same pipe.

Reference may also be made to remarks by Prof. Dall (_d_) upon the use of masks by associations or special classes.

SECTION 2.

DAILY LIFE AND HABITS.

Fig. 739, printed from the Kejimkoojik rocks, in Nova Scotia, represents two Indians in a canoe following a fish to shoot it. This is not a pure example of the class of totemic designs. Both Indians in the canoe have paddles in which the device resembles the Micmac tribal device, but in that the hunters pursue a deer and not a fish and the canoe is “humpback.” The Passamaquoddy tribal pictographic sign in which a fish is followed, requires both Indians to have paddles, and, it may be understood that the two Indians in the canoe are Passamaquoddy, but in the figure one of them has laid aside his paddle and is shooting at the fish with a gun, which departs from the totemic device, and also shows that the drawing was made since the Indians of the region had obtained firearms from Europeans, but these were obtained three centuries ago, quite long enough for hunting scenes on some of the petroglyphs to exhibit the use of a gun instead of a bow.

This kind of fish hunting by gunshot is one of daily occurrence in the region during the proper season.

Fig. 740, from the same locality, is more ideographic. The line of the gun barrel is exaggerated and prolonged so as nearly to touch the fish, and signifies that the shot was a sure hit. The hunters are very roughly delineated. Possibly this hunting was at night with fire on a brazier and screens, a common practice which seems to be indicated.

Fig. 741, also from Kejimkoojik, is more ancient, but less distinct. The fish is larger, and the weapon may be a lance, not a gun.

Fig. 742, copied from a walrus ivory drill-bow, from Cape Darley, Alaska (Nat. Mus. No. 44211), illustrates the mode of whale-hunting by the Innuit. The crosses over the whale and beneath the harpoon line represent aquatic birds; the three, oval objects attached to the line are floaters to support the line and to indicate its course after the downward plunge of the harpooned cetacean.

A similar hunting scene by canoe, in which, however, the game was deer, is given in Fig. 743. The drawing is on birch bark, and was made by an old Indian named Ojibwa, now living at White Earth, Minnesota, an intimate friend and associate of the late chief Hole-in-the-Day. Ojibwa is supposed to be actor as well as depictor. He shows his lodges in _a_, where he resided many years ago; _b_ is a lake; _c_, _c_, _c_, _c_ represent four deer, one of which is shown only by the horns protruding above a clump of brush near the lake; _e_ represents Ojibwa in his canoe, _d_, floating on the river, _h_, _h_; _g_ is a pine torch, giving light and smoke, erected on the bow of the canoe, the light being thrown forward from a curve slice of birch bark at _f_, its bright inner surface acting as a reflector. The whole means that during one hunt, by night, the narrator shot four deer at the places indicated.

The accompanying Fig. 744 is reproduced from a drawing also incised on birch bark by Ojibwa, and relates to a hunting expedition made by his father and two companions, all of whom are represented by three human forms near the left-hand upper line. The circle at the left is Red Cedar lake, Minnesota; a river is shown flowing northward, and another toward the east, having several indications of lakes which this river passes through or drains. The circle within the lake denotes an island upon which the party camped, as is shown by the trail leading from the human forms to the island. Around the lake are a number of short lines which signify trees, indicating a wooded shore. The first animal form to the right of the human figures is a porcupine; the next a bittern. The two shelters in the right-hand upper corner indicate another camp made by the hunters, to which one of them dragged a deer, as shown by the man in that act, just to the left of the shelter.

Another camp of the same party of three is shown in the lower left-hand corner; the bow and arrow directed to the right indicates that there they shot a raccoon, a fisher, a duck (a man lying down decoyed this bird by calling), a mink, and an otter. The line above the lower row consists of the following animals, reading from the left to right, viz, bear, owl, wolf, elk, and deer.

Fig. 745 is a copy of a sketch made by Lean-Wolf, second chief of the Hidatsa, and shows the manner in which the women carry baskets used in gathering wild plums, bull-berries, and other small fruits. The baskets are usually made of thin splints of wood, and very similar in manner of construction to the well known bushel-basket of our eastern farmers.

Fig. 746 was also made by Lean-Wolf, and illustrates the old manner of hunting antelope and deer. The hunter would disguise himself by covering his head with the head and skin of an antelope, and so be enabled to approach the game near enough to use his bow and arrow.

In a similar manner the Hidatsa would mask themselves with a wolf skin to enable them to approach buffalo. This is illustrated in Fig. 747, which is a reproduction of a drawing made by the above-mentioned chief.

The next group of figures illustrates the custom of gaining and afterwards counting coups or hits, the French expression, sometimes spelled by travelers “coo,” being generally adopted. This is an honor gained by hitting an enemy, whether dead or alive, with an ornamented lance, or sometimes a stick, carried for the purpose as part of a warrior’s equipment. These sticks or wands are about 12 feet long, often of willow, stripped of leaves and bark, and each having some distinguishing objects, such as feathers, bells, brightly-colored cloth, or else painted in a special manner. Further remarks on this custom appear in Chapter XIII, Section 4.

_a_, in Fig. 748, Kills-the-Enemy, from Red-Cloud’s Census, exhibits the coup stick in contact with the dead enemy’s head. _b_ is taken from Bloody-Knife’s robe and shows an Indian about to strike his prostrate enemy.

Fig. 749.--Killed-First. Red Cloud’s Census. This is the case where a warrior struck the enemy with his coup stick first in order, which is the most honorable achievement, greater than the actual killing. The word translated kill or killed does not always imply immediate death, but the infliction of a fatal wound.

The apparent reason why the striking of the body of a dead or disabled enemy, whether or not killed or disabled by the striker, is more honorable than the actual infliction of the wound, is because the attempt to strike is vigorously resisted by the enemy, the survivors of which assemble to prevent the successful achievement; mere killing might be at a distance in comparative safety.

Fig. 750.--Enemies-hit-him. Red-Cloud’s Census. In this case the Dakota has been hit by the enemy’s lance or coup stick.

This group refers to the custom, east of the Rocky mountains, of exhibiting scalps.

Fig. 751.--A war party of Oglalas killed one Pawnee; his scalp is on the pole. American-Horse’s Winter Count, 1855-’56. This and the next figure show the custom of a successful war party on returning to the home village to display the scalps taken. This display is the occasion of special ceremonies. The marks on the foot signify that on their way home the men of the war party froze their feet.

Fig. 752.--Owns-the-Pole, the leader of an Oglala war party, brought home many Cheyenne scalps. American-Horse’s Winter Count, 1798-’99. The cross stands for Cheyenne, as explained above.

Fig. 753.--Black-Rock, a Dakota, was killed by the Crows. American-Horse’s Winter Count, 1806-’07. A rock or, more correctly translated, a large stone is represented above his head. He was killed with an arrow and was scalped. The figure is introduced here to show the designation of a scalped head, which is colored red--that is, bloody--when coloration is possible. It frequently appears in the Winter Counts of the Dakotas.

Fig. 754 was drawn by a Dakota Indian at Mendota, Minnesota, and represents a man holding a scalp in one hand, while in the other is the gun, the weapon used in killing the enemy. The short vertical lines below the periphery of the scalp indicate hair. The line crossing the leg of the Indian is only a suggestion of the ground upon which he is supposed to stand.

The following group pictographically expresses the hunting of antelopes.

Fig. 755.--They drove many antelope into a corral and then killed them. Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1828-’29. This and the following two figures show the old mode of procuring antelope and other animals by driving them into an inclosure.

Fig. 756.--They provided themselves with a large supply of antelope meat by driving antelope into a corral, in which they were easily killed. American-Horse’s Winter Count, 1828-’29.

Fig. 757.--They capture a great many antelope by driving them into a pen. Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1860-’61.

Fig. 758.--A woman who had been given to a white man by the Dakotas was killed because she ran away from him. Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1799-1800. The gift of the woman was in fact a sale, and, in addition to the crime of marital infidelity, the tribe was implicated in a breach of contract. The union line below the figures, mentioned before, means husband and wife. This picture illustrates, as far as may be done pictorially, a Dakotan custom as regards marriage and the penalty connected with it.

The following figures relate to several different forms:

Fig. 759.--They brought in a fine horse with feathers tied to his tail. Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1810-’11. White-Cow-Killer calls it “Came-with-medicine-on-horse’s-tail winter.” This illustrates the ornamentation of specially valuable or favorite horses, which, however, is not mere ornamentation, but often connected with sentiments or symbols of a religious character, and as often with the totemic, which from another point of view may also be regarded as religious.

Fig. 760.--A young man who was afflicted with smallpox and was in his tipi by himself sang his death song and shot himself. American-Horse’s Winter Count, 1784-’85. Suicide is more common among Indians than is generally suspected, and even boys sometimes take their own lives. A Dakota boy at one of the agencies shot himself rather than face his companions after his mother had whipped him; and a Paiute boy at Camp McDermit, Nevada, tried to poison himself with the wild parsnip because he was not well and strong like other boys. The Paiutes usually eat the wild parsnip when bent on suicide.

Fig. 761.--A Ree Indian hunting eagles from a hole in the ground was killed by the Two-Kettle Dakotas. The Swan’s Winter Count, 1806-’07. The drawing represents an Indian in the act of catching an eagle by the legs in the manner that the Arikaras were accustomed to catch eagles in their earth-traps. They rarely or never shot war eagles. The Dakotas probably shot the Arikara in his trap just as he put his hand up to grasp the bird.

In this connection Fig. 762 is properly inserted. It is a sketch made by an Ojibwa hunter to illustrate the manner of catching eagles, the feathers of which are highly prized by nearly all Indians for personal decoration and for war bonnets.

The upper character represents an eagle; the curved line at the right denotes the covering of branches and leaves of a temporary structure placed over a hole in the ground in which the Indian is secreted. He is depicted beneath covering, while a line, extending toward the eagle, terminates in a small oblong object, which is intended to represent the bait placed upon the covering to attract the eagle. The bait may consist of a young deer, a hare, or some other live animal of sufficient size to attract the eagle. When the latter swoops down and seizes the prey he is caught by the leg and held until assistants arrive, after which he is carried back to camp and plucked and is then liberated.

Fig. 763.--A Ree woman is killed by a Dakota while gathering pomme-blanche. The-Flame’s Winter Count, 1797-’98. Pomme-blanche, or navet de prairie, is a white root, somewhat similar in appearance to a white turnip, botanically Psoralea esculenta (Nuttal) sometimes P. argophylla. It is a favorite food of the Indians, eaten boiled down to a sort of mush or hominy. A forked stick is used in gathering these roots.

Fig. 764.--Lodge-Roll. Red-Cloud’s Census, No. 101. This figure shows the mode of rolling up the skins forming the tipi for transportation. It is attached to four lodge poles, the ends of which trail on the ground and constitute the “travail” which was dragged by dogs. Horses are now used for this purpose, and canvas takes the place of skins.

Fig. 765.--An enemy came into Lone-Horn’s lodge during the medicine feast and was not killed. The-Swan’s Winter Count, 1852-’53. The pipe is not in the man’s hand, and the head only is drawn with the pipe between it and the tipi.

An interesting custom of the Indians connected with the rite of sanctuary is that called by English writers “running the gauntlet.” When captives had successfully run through a line of tormentors to a post near the council-house they were for the time free from further molestation. In the northeastern tribes this was in the nature of an ordeal to test whether or not the captive was vigorous and brave enough to be adopted into the tribe, but among other tribes it appears in a different shape. Any enemy, whether a captive or not, could secure immunity from present danger if he could reach a central post, or if there were no post, the lodge or tipi of the chief. A similar custom existed among the Arikaras, who kept a special pipe in a “bird-box.” If a criminal or enemy succeeded in smoking the pipe contained in the box he could not be hurt. This corresponds with the safety found in laying hold of the horns of the Israelite altar.

The position of the pipe is significant. Its mouthpiece points to the entrance of the tipi. The visitor does not bring or offer peace, but hopes that the tribe visited may grant it to him.

The four figures next following refer to ceremonies by which a war party was organized among some of the tribes of the Plains. A brief account of the ceremonies specially relating to the pipe is as follows:

When a warrior desires to make up a war party he visits his friends and offers them a filled pipe as an invitation to follow him, and those who are willing to go accept the invitation by lighting and smoking it. Among the Dakotas this was succeeded by a muster feast and war dance. Any man whose courage has been proved may become the leader of a war party. The word leader has been generally translated “partisan,” an expression originally adopted by the French voyageurs. Among the Arapahos the would-be leader does not invite anyone to accompany him, but publicly announces his intention of going to war. He fixes the day for his departure, and states where he will camp the first night, naming some place not far off. The morning on which he starts, and before leaving the village, he invokes the aid of his guardian totem. He rides off alone, carrying his bare pipe in his hand with the bowl carefully tied to the stem to prevent it from slipping off. If the bowl should at any time accidentally fall to the ground he considers it an evil omen and immediately returns to the village, and nothing could induce him to proceed, as he thinks that only misfortune would attend him if he