Part 9 (1/2)
Probably it at first consisted of a lot of little sticks or boards with some quaint red pictures upon them. These were probably kept tied together into a little bundle. The original sticks have long been lost, but the one hundred and eighty-four pictures were copied and are still preserved. They were intended to a.s.sist in remembering a long poetical legend in which the Algonkin ideas regarding the creation of the world and their tribal history were told.
At first everything was good. Animals and men lived in peace. Then a wicked serpent tried to drown the world. Only a few persons escaped to the back of a great turtle. Their great hero Nanabush helped them. The waters subsided. As the land where they now found themselves was cold, the people determined to move southward. The story of their quarrels and divisions on the journey is told, and also the way in which they seized their new home, destroying or driving out the original owners.
The song in which this story is told is long and full of old words difficult to understand. The Indians themselves must have had difficulty in remembering it. It was a great help to have these little sticks with the red pictures to remind them of its different parts.
Far to the west, close against the base of the Rocky Mountains, lived a famous Algonkin tribe-the Blackfeet. They were great buffalo hunters and warriors. We often think of Indians as being stern and morose, never smiling, never amused. Yet most tribes had sunny tempers like children.
Mr. Grinnell, to show this side of Indian nature, describes a day in camp in the olden, happy time. Two parts of his description describe feasts and gambling. Feasts were in constant progress: sometimes one man would give three in a day; men who were favorites might go from feast to feast all day long. If a man wished to give a feast, he ordered the best food he had to be cooked. Then, going outside, he called out the list of invited guests: the name of each one was cried three times. At the close of his invitation he announced how many pipes would be smoked: usually three.
When the guests came, each was given a dish, with his share of the food; no one might have a second help, but it was quite polite to carry away what was not eaten.
While the guests were feasting, the man of the house prepared a pipe and tobacco. After the eating was over, the pipe was lighted and pa.s.sed from hand to hand, each person giving it to the one on his left. Meantime stories of hunting and war were narrated and jokes cracked. Only one man spoke at one time, the rest listening until he was through. Thus they whiled away the time until the last pipe was smoked out, when the host, knocking the ashes from the pipe, told them they might go.
All Indians are gamblers, and they have many gambling games. The Blackfeet played one which was something like the famous game of Chunkey, played among the Creeks. (See XIX.) A wheel about four inches in diameter with five spokes on which were beads of different colors, made of horn or bone, was used. It was rolled along upon a smooth piece of ground at the ends of which logs were laid to stop it. One player stood at each end of the course. After a player set the wheel to rolling, he hurled a dart after it. This was done just before the wheel reached the end of its journey.
Points were counted according to the way in which the wheel and dart fell with reference to each other. Ten counts made the game. This game always attracted great crowds of spectators, who became greatly excited and bet heavily on the result.
[Ill.u.s.tration.]
Blackfoot Squaw Traveling.
At night about their camp-fires the Blackfeet delighted to tell their sacred stories, which they did not dare repeat in daylight. In telling a story of personal adventure, Indians, like white people, were often tempted to make it larger than it really was.
The Blackfeet and some other Indians had the following mode of getting at the truth. When a man told an improbable story some one handed a pipe to the medicine man, who painted the stem red and prayed over it, asking that the man's life might be long if his story were true, but cut short if the story were false. The pipe was then filled and lighted and given to the man. The medicine man said, as he handed it to him: ”Accept this pipe, but remember that if you smoke, your story must be as sure as that there is a hole through this pipe and as straight as the hole through this stem. So your life shall be long and you shall survive; but if you have spoken falsely, your days are counted.” If he refused to smoke, as he surely would if he had not spoken true things, every one knew that he was a braggart and a liar.
DANIEL GARRISON BRINTON.-Physician, anthropologist. Has written many books, mostly about American Indians. _The Lenape and their Legends_, in which the _Walam olum_ is given in full, is a volume in his _Library of Aboriginal American Literature_.
XVII. THE SIX NATIONS.
When white men began to settle what is now the state of New York, that part of it extending from about the Hudson River west along the Mohawk and on beyond it to the Niagara, was occupied by the Iroquois or Five Nations.
The separate tribes, naming them from the east, were the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas. These were flouris.h.i.+ng tribes; they had important villages and towns and large cornfields; they were, however, also hunting tribes and powerful in war. In fact, they were the terror of their milder Algonkin neighbors. Personally, Iroquois Indians were finely built, strong, energetic, and active.
They spoke languages much alike and probably derived from one ancient language. This was believed by them to prove that the five tribes were related. Still they were at one time frequently at war with each other.
This was before the white men came. Finally, a man named Hayenwatha was a chief among the Onondagas. He was wise, kind, and peaceable. There was at this same time another Onondaga chief named Atotarho, who was in character the opposite of Hayenwatha. He was a bold warrior and the dreaded foe of the Cayugas and Senecas, against whom he led war-parties; he was feared and disliked by his own people. When these two men were chiefs among the Onondagas, the Mohawks and the Oneidas were much hara.s.sed by their Algonkin neighbors, the Mohicans. Hayenwatha thought much over the sad condition of the Iroquois tribes. Constantly warring with their kindred in the west and troubled by outside foes in the east, their future looked dark. He thought of a plan of union which he believed would bring peace and prosperity.
Most Indian tribes consisted of a few great groups of persons, the members of which were related to each other and lived together. Such groups of related persons are called _gentes_; the singular of the word is _gens_.
There were three gentes among the Mohawks, three among the Oneidas, and eight in each of the other three tribes. These gentes usually bore the name of some animal; thus the Oneida gentes were the wolf, bear, and turtle. The people belonging to a gens were called by the gens name. Thus an Oneida was either a wolf, bear, or turtle. Every wolf was related to every other wolf in his tribe; every turtle to every other turtle; every bear to every other bear.
Each tribe was ruled by a council which contained members elected from each gens. Each gens had one or more councillors, according to its size and importance. Each member of the council watched with care to see that his gens got all its rights and was not imposed upon by others. Every tribe was independent of every other tribe.
Hayenwatha's idea was to unite the tribes into a strong confederacy.
Separately the tribes were weak, and a foe could do them much harm; united they would be so strong that no one could trouble them. He did not wish to destroy the tribes; he wished each to remain independent in managing its own affairs; but he desired that together they should be one great power which would help all. Three times he called a council of his people, the Onondagas, to lay his plan before them; three times he failed because the dreaded Atotarho, who did not desire peace, opposed his scheme.
When he found he could not move his own people, Hayenwatha went to the Mohawks, where he found help; they agreed that such a union was needed.
Next the Oneidas were interested. Two great chiefs, one Mohawk and one Oneida, then went to the Onondagas to urge these to join with them; again the plan failed because Atotarho opposed it. The two chiefs went further westward and had a council with the Cayugas, who were pleased with their plan. With a Cayuga chief to help them, they returned to the Onondagas.
Another council was held, and finally the Onondagas were gained over by promising the chieftaincy of the confederacy to Atotarho. There was then no trouble in getting the consent of the Senecas. Two chiefs were appointed by them to talk over the plan with the others. Hayenwatha met the six chiefs at Onondaga Lake, where the whole plan was discussed and the new union was made.