Part 7 (1/2)
CHAPTER VIII.
WARDS OF OUR NATIVE LAND.
The Indians' Admirers and Critics--At School and After--Indian Courts.h.i.+p and Marriage--Extraordinary Dances--Gambling by Instinct--How ”Cross-Eye” Lost his Pony--p.a.w.ning a Baby--Amusing and Degrading Scenes on Annuity Day.
Opinions differ materially as to the rights and wrongs, privileges and grievances, and worthiness and worthlessness of the North American Indian. Some people think that the red man has been shamefully treated and betrayed by the white man, and that the catalogue of his grievances is as long as the tale of woe the former is apt to tell, whenever he can make himself understood by a sympathetic listener.
Holders of this opinion live for the most part in districts where there are no Indians located.
There are others who think that the Indian has been absurdly pampered by the Government, and that it would be as sensible to try to change the arrangement of seasons as to attempt to prevent the survival of the fittest, or, in other words, to interfere with the gradual, but in their opinion inevitable, extermination of the Indian.
Those holding this extreme view are for the most part those who live near Indian reservations, and who have had opportunities of studying the red man's character.
Both views are of course unduly severe. As a useful citizen the Indian varies considerably, and it is rather as an interesting study that we approach the subject.
Civilization has a very peculiar effect upon the American Indian. The schools for Indian children are well managed, and the education imparted should be sufficient to prevent the possibility of a relapse into the unsatisfactory habits and the traditional uncleanliness of the different tribes. Sometimes the effect of education is excellent. There are many Indians to be found who have adopted civilized modes of living, and who have built up homes and ama.s.sed little fortunes by farming, raising cattle and trading. Some of the Indians, notably those of the five civilized tribes or nations in Indian Territory, resemble white men in appearance very much. They will sometimes work side by side with swarthy Caucasians, whose skin has been tanned by exposure to the sun, and except for the exceptionally high cheek bone and the peculiarly straight hair, there is little to distinguish the Indian from the white man.
But these cases are exceptions to the general rule, which is that education is looked upon by Indians as a degradation rather than otherwise. Great difficulty is often experienced in persuading parents to allow their children to be taken to the training schools at all, and so much compulsion is often necessary that an appearance of kidnaping is imparted. The first thing that is done with an Indian boy or girl admitted to one of these schools, is to wash the newcomer with considerable vigor from head to foot, and to cut off the superfluous, and, generally speaking, thickly matted hair.
The comfort of short hair, neatly combed and brushed, seldom impresses itself upon the youthful brave. For obvious reasons this is, however, insisted upon, and while the boy is at school he is kept neat and clean.
Directly, however, he returns to his tribe he is in danger of relapsing into the habits of his forefathers. Too often he is sneered at for his neatness. His short hair is looked upon as an offense, and he is generally willing to fall in with tribal fas.h.i.+ons, abandon his neat clothing, and let his hair grow and his face acc.u.mulate the regulation amount of dust and dirt.
The Indian trader and the pioneer generally will tell you that the only good Indian is a dead Indian. He will repeat this adage until it becomes wearisome in its monotony. Then, perhaps, he will vary it by telling you that of all the mean Indians the educated one is the meanest. This is only true in some instances, but it is a fact that education does not invariably benefit the Indian at all.
Almost all Indians are pa.s.sionately fond of dancing. Several books have been written descriptive of the various dances of different tribes. Some of them have a hidden meaning and dangerous significance, while others are merely for the purpose of amus.e.m.e.nt and recreation. For these dances the Indians generally put on the most fancy costumes they have, and their movements are sometimes graceful and sometimes grotesque. The sign dance, as seen in some of the Southwestern tribes, is a curious one. One of the belles of the tribe leads a man into the dancing apartment, which consists of one of two tepees thrown together. In one are the tomtom beaters, in the other the dancers. In this room the couple begin to dance, making signs to each other, the meaning of which may be: ”Well, what do you think of me? Do you like me? Do you think me pretty? How do I affect you?” and so on, the signs all being closely watched by the spectators, who applaud, giggle, chuckle or laugh uproariously by turns, as the case may be. Such a dance is a questioning bee, a collision of wits on the part of two really facetious Indians.
Wit is a universal trait of the savage. Some white men draw. All Indians draw. Some white men are cunning. All Indians are cunning. Some white men are humorous. All Indians are witty. Dry wit, with a proverbial philosophy in it which would have delighted the soul of Tupper, is indigenous to the Indian. The Indian is the finest epigrammist on earth.
His sentences are pithy and sententious, because short--never long and involved. A book of Indian wit and wisdom would have an enormous sale, and reveal the very core of his thought on a typical scale.
The Indian flirt is sweet, saucy, subtle, seductive. She has the art of keeping in stock constantly about her a score of bucks, each one of whom flatters himself that he, and he alone, is the special object of her admiration. Every tribe has had its belle. Poquite for the Modocs, Ur-ska-te-na for the Navajos, Mini-haha for the Dakotas, Romona for the neighboring bands. These belles have their foes among Indian women, but, however cordially hated, they never brawl or come to blows.
Love-making is one of the interesting night scenes in an Indian camp.
When a young man wants to court a pretty red couquette, he stands at the door of his lodge on a bright day and flashes a ray of light from his sun-gla.s.s on the face of his sweetheart far away. She sees the ray as it falls on her, and follows in the direction whence it is thrown, right or left. She understands the secret of these flash lights. Soon the lovers meet, each under a blanket; not a word, not a salutation is exchanged; they stand near each other for a time and then retire, only to repeat the affair day after day.
At last, upon some favorable night, the Indian youth visits the door of her lodge; she comes out and sits down on the ground beside him; still no word is spoken. At last she arises from the ground; he also rises, and standing before her, throws his blanket over both of them. No sooner has he done so than she doffs her blanket, letting it fall upon the ground, which is the admission on her part that she loves him, and does him obeisance as her future lord and master.
Every Indian camp at night is full of such lovers, with wooings as sweet, lips as willing, embraces as fond, lives as romantic, hearts as true, and elopements as daring and desperate as ever graced a Spanish court. The old people come together with their friends and hold a council. ”How many ponies can he pay for her?” has a good deal to do with the eligibility of the suitor. That night he brings his articles of dowry to the door of his fiancee. If they are still there next morning, he is rejected; if not, accepted.
No formal marriage ceremony is gone through as a rule. The heart is the certificate and the Great Spirit the priest. Under the tribal government of the Indians, the rights of women were respected and clearly defined.
She was the head of the house, and all property, save an insignificant amount, descended at death to her. She was in many tribes personified as the princ.i.p.al object of wors.h.i.+p, prayer and adoration, in the tutelary G.o.ddess of the tribe. Now all is changed. The Indian of to-day is not the Indian of fifty years ago, and cannot be studied in the same light.
His manners, customs and habits are all changed, and polygamy, more and more, creeps in with all its appalling degradations.
On special occasions an entire tribe is gathered under an open s.p.a.ce in the cottonwoods to celebrate their princ.i.p.al dances. Hands are wildly waved above the heads of the dancers around a central fire of logs, piled in a conical heap. Around this blazing pile runs the dark circle which was built at sunset, inclosing sacred ground, which must not be trespa.s.sed on. The old chanter stands at the gate of the corral and sings. The men built the dark circle in less than an hour. When done, the corral measures forty paces in diameter. Around it stands a fence eight feet high, with a gate in the east ten feet wide.
At night-fall many of the Navajo people move, temporarily, all their goods and property into the corral, and abandon their huts or hogans.
Those who do not move in are watchers to protect their property, for there are thieves among the Navajos. At 8 o'clock a band of musicians enters, and, sitting down, begins a series of cacophonous sounds on a drum. As soon as the music begins, the great wood pile is lighted. The conflagration spreads rapidly and lights the whole landscape and the sky. A storm of red, whirling sparks fly upward, like bright golden bees from out a hive, to a height of a hundred feet. The descending ashes fall in the corral like a light shower of snow. The heat soon grows so intense that in the remotest parts of the enclosure it is necessary for a person to screen his face when he looks towards the fire.
Suddenly a warning whistle is heard in the outer darkness, and a dozen forms, lithe and lean, dressed only with the narrow white breech-clout and moca.s.sins, and daubed with white earth until they seem a group of living marbles, come bounding through the entrance, yelping like wolves, and slowly moving round the fire. As they advance, in single file, they throw their bodies into diverse att.i.tudes, some graceful, some strained, some difficult, some menacing, and all grotesque. Now they face the east, now the west, now the south, now the north, bearing aloft their slender wands, tipped with eagle down, holding and waving them with surprising effects. Their course around the fire is to the left, east, west, south, north, a course invariably taken by all the dancers of the night.