Part 4 (1/2)

[Seclusion of girls at p.u.b.erty among the Tinneh Indians of British Columbia.]

Among the Tinneh Indians about Stuart Lake, Babine Lake, and Fraser Lake in British Columbia ”girls verging on maturity, that is when their b.r.e.a.s.t.s begin to form, take swans' feathers mixed with human hair and plait bands, which they tie round their wrists and ankles to secure long life. At this time they are careful that the dishes out of which they eat, are used by no other person, and wholly devoted to their own use; during this period they eat nothing but dog fish, and starvation _only_ will drive them to eat either fresh fish or meat. When their first periodical sickness comes on, they are fed by their mothers or nearest female relation by _themselves_, and on no account will they touch their food with their own hands. They are at this time also careful not to touch their heads with their hands, and keep a small stick to scratch their heads with. They remain outside the lodge, all the time they are in this state, in a hut made for the purpose. During all this period they wear a skull-cap made of skin to fit very tight; this is never taken off until their first monthly sickness ceases; they also wear a strip of black paint about one inch wide across their eyes, and wear a fringe of sh.e.l.ls, bones, etc., hanging down from their foreheads to below their eyes; and this is never taken off till the second monthly period arrives and ceases, when the nearest male relative makes a feast; after which she is considered a fully matured woman; but she has to refrain from eating anything fresh for one year after her first monthly sickness; she may however eat partridge, but it must be cooked in the crop of the bird to render it harmless. I would have thought it impossible to perform this feat had I not seen it done. The crop is blown out, and a small bent willow put round the mouth; it is then filled with water, and the meat being first minced up, put in also, then put on the fire and boiled till cooked. Their reason for hanging fringes before their eyes, is to hinder any bad medicine man from harming them during this critical period: they are very careful not to drink whilst facing a medicine man, and do so only when their backs are turned to him. All these habits are left off when the girl is a recognised woman, with the exception of their going out of the lodge and remaining in a hut, every time their periodical sickness comes on. This is a rigidly observed law with both single and married women.”[120]

[Seclusion of girls at p.u.b.erty among the Tinneh Indians of Alaska.]

Among the Hareskin Tinneh a girl at p.u.b.erty was secluded for five days in a hut made specially for the purpose; she might only drink out of a tube made from a swan's bone, and for a month she might not break a hare's bones, nor taste blood, nor eat the heart or fat of animals, nor birds' eggs.[121] Among the Tinneh Indians of the middle Yukon valley, in Alaska, the period of the girl's seclusion lasts exactly a lunar month; for the day of the moon on which the symptoms first occur is noted, and she is sequestered until the same day of the next moon. If the season is winter, a corner of the house is curtained off for her use by a blanket or a sheet of canvas; if it is summer, a small tent is erected for her near the common one. Here she lives and sleeps. She wears a long robe and a large hood, which she must pull down over her eyes whenever she leaves the hut, and she must keep it down till she returns. She may not speak to a man nor see his face, much less touch his clothes or anything that belongs to him; for if she did so, though no harm would come to her, he would grow unmanly. She has her own dishes for eating out of and may use no other; at Kaltag she must suck the water through a swan's bone without applying her lips to the cup. She may eat no fresh meat or fish except the flesh of the porcupine. She may not undress, but sleeps with all her clothes on, even her mittens. In her socks she wears, next to the skin, the h.o.r.n.y soles cut from the feet of a porcupine, in order that for the rest of her life her shoes may never wear out. Round her waist she wears a cord to which are tied the heads of femurs of a porcupine; because of all animals known to the Tinneh the porcupine suffers least in parturition, it simply drops its young and continues to walk or skip about as if nothing had happened.

Hence it is easy to see that a girl who wears these portions of a porcupine about her waist, will be delivered just as easily as the animal. To make quite sure of this, if anybody happens to kill a porcupine big with young while the girl is undergoing her period of separation, the foetus is given to her, and she lets it slide down between her s.h.i.+rt and her body so as to fall on the ground like an infant.[122] Here the imitation of childbirth is a piece of h.o.m.oeopathic or imitative magic designed to facilitate the effect which it simulates.[123]

[Seclusion of girls at p.u.b.erty among the Thompson Indians of British Columbia.]

Among the Thompson Indians of British Columbia, when a girl attained p.u.b.erty, she was at once separated from all the people. A conical hut of fir branches and bark was erected at some little distance from the other houses, and in it the girl had to squat on her heels during the day.

Often a deep circular hole was dug in the hut and the girl squatted in the hole, with her head projecting above the surface of the ground. She might quit the hut for various purposes in the early morning, but had always to be back at sunrise. On the first appearance of the symptoms her face was painted red all over, and the paint was renewed every morning during her term of seclusion. A heavy blanket swathed her body from top to toe, and during the first four days she wore a conical cap made of small fir branches, which reached below the breast but left an opening for the face. In her hair was fastened an implement made of deer-bone with which she scratched herself. For the first four days she might neither wash nor eat, but a little water was given her in a birch-bark cup painted red, and she sucked up the liquid through a tube made out of the leg of a crane, a swan, or a goose, for her lips might not touch the surface of the water. After the four days she was allowed, during the rest of the period of isolation, to eat, to wash, to lie down, to comb her hair, and to drink of streams and springs. But in drinking at these sources she had still to use her tube, otherwise the spring would dry up. While her seclusion lasted she performed by night various ceremonies, which were supposed to exert a beneficial influence on her future life. For example, she ran as fast as she could, praying at the same time to the Earth or Nature that she might be fleet of foot and tireless of limb. She dug trenches, in order that in after life she might be able to dig well and to work hard. These and other ceremonies she repeated for four nights or mornings in succession, four times each morning, and each time she supplicated the Dawn of the Day. Among the Lower Thompson Indians she carried a staff for one night; and when the day was breaking she leaned the staff against the stump of a tree and prayed to the Dawn that she might be blessed with a good husband, who was symbolized by the staff. She also wandered some nights to lonely parts of the mountains, where she would dance, imploring the spirits to pity and protect her during her future life; then, the dance and prayer over, she would lie down on the spot and fall asleep. Again, she carried four stones in her bosom to a spring, where she spat upon the stones and threw them one after the other into the water, praying that all disease might leave her, as these stones did. Also she ran four times in the early morning with two small stones in her bosom; and as she ran the stones slipped down between her bare body and her clothes and fell to the ground. At the same time she prayed to the Dawn that when she should be with child, she might be delivered as easily as she was delivered of these stones. But whatever exercises she performed or prayers she offered on the lonely mountains during the hours of darkness or while the morning light was growing in the east, she must always be back in her little hut before the sun rose. There she often pa.s.sed the tedious hours away picking the needles, one by one, from the cones on two large branches of fir, which hung from the roof of her hut on purpose to provide her with occupation. And as she picked she prayed to the fir-branch that she might never be lazy, but always quick and active at work. During her seclusion, too, she had to make miniatures of all the articles that Indian women make, or used to make, such as baskets, mats, ropes, and thread. This she did in order that afterwards she might be able to make the real things properly. Four large fir-branches also were placed in front of the hut, so that when she went out or in, she had to step over them. The branches were renewed every morning and the old ones thrown away into the water, while the girl prayed, ”May I never bewitch any man, nor my fellow-women! May it never happen!” The first four times that she went out and in, she prayed to the fir-branches, saying, ”If ever I step into trouble or difficulties or step unknowingly inside the magical spell of some person, may you help me, O Fir-branches, with your power!” Every day she painted her face afresh, and she wore strings of parts of deer-hoofs round her ankles and knees, and tied to her waistband on either side, which rattled when she walked or ran. Even the shape of the hut in which she lived was adapted to her future rather than to her present needs and wishes. If she wished to be tall, the hut was tall; if she wished to be short, it was low, sometimes so low that there was not room in it for her to stand erect, and she would lay the palm of her hand on the top of her head and pray to the Dawn that she might grow no taller. Her seclusion lasted four months. The Indians say that long ago it extended over a year, and that fourteen days elapsed before the girl was permitted to wash for the first time. The dress which she wore during her time of separation was afterwards taken to the top of a hill and burned, and the rest of her clothes were hung up on trees.[124]

[Seclusion of girls at p.u.b.erty among the Lillooet Indians of British Columbia.]

Among the Lillooet Indians of British Columbia, neighbours of the Thompsons, the customs observed by girls at p.u.b.erty were similar. The damsels were secluded for a period of not less than one year nor more than four years, according to their own inclination and the wishes of their parents. Among the Upper Lillooets the hut in which the girl lodged was made of bushy fir-trees set up like a conical tent, the inner branches being lopped off, while the outer branches were closely interwoven and padded to form a roof. Every month or half-month the hut was s.h.i.+fted to another site or a new one erected. By day the girl sat in the hut; for the first month she squatted in a hole dug in the middle of it; and she pa.s.sed the time making miniature baskets of birch-bark and other things, praying that she might be able to make the real things well in after years. At the dusk of the evening she left the hut and wandered about all night, but she returned before the sun rose. Before she quitted the hut at nightfall to roam abroad, she painted her face red and put on a mask of fir-branches, and in her hand, as she walked, she carried a basket-rattle to frighten ghosts and guard herself from evil. Among the Lower Lillooets, the girl's mask was often made of goat-skin, covering her head, neck, shoulders and breast, and leaving only a narrow opening from the brow to the chin. During the nocturnal hours she performed many ceremonies. Thus she put two smooth stones in her bosom and ran, and as they fell down between her body and her clothes, she prayed, saying, ”May I always have easy child-births!” Now one of these stones represented her future child and the other represented the afterbirth. Also she dug trenches, praying that in the years to come she might be strong and tireless in digging roots; she picked leaves and needles from the fir-trees, praying that her fingers might be nimble in picking berries; and she tore sheets of birch-bark into shreds, dropping the shreds as she walked and asking that her hands might never tire and that she might make neat and fine work of birch-bark. Moreover, she ran and walked much that she might be light of foot. And every evening, when the shadows were falling, and every morning, when the day was breaking, she prayed to the Dusk of the Evening or to the Dawn of Day, saying, ”O Dawn of Day!” or ”O Dusk,” as it might be, ”may I be able to dig roots fast and easily, and may I always find plenty!” All her prayers were addressed to the Dusk of the Evening or the Dawn of Day. She supplicated both, asking for long life, health, wealth, and happiness.[125]

[Seclusion of girls at p.u.b.erty among the Shuswap Indians of British Columbia.]

Among the Shuswap Indians of British Columbia, who are neighbours of the Thompsons and Lillooets, ”a girl on reaching maturity has to go through a great number of ceremonies. She must leave the village and live alone in a small hut on the mountains. She cooks her own food, and must not eat anything that bleeds. She is forbidden to touch her head, for which purpose she uses a comb with three points. Neither is she allowed to scratch her body, except with a painted deer-bone. She wears the bone and the comb suspended from her belt. She drinks out of a painted cup of birch-bark, and neither more nor less than the quant.i.ty it holds. Every night she walks about her hut, and plants willow twigs, which she has painted, and to the ends of which she has attached pieces of cloth, into the ground. It is believed that thus she will become rich in later life.

In order to become strong she should climb trees and try to break off their points. She plays with _lehal_ sticks that her future husbands might have good luck when gambling.”[126] During the day the girl stays in her hut and occupies herself in making miniature bags, mats, and baskets, in sewing and embroidery, in manufacturing thread, twine, and so forth; in short she makes a beginning of all kinds of woman's work, in order that she may be a good housewife in after life. By night she roams the mountains and practises running, climbing, carrying burdens, and digging trenches, so that she may be expert at digging roots. If she has wandered far and daylight overtakes her, she hides herself behind a veil of fir branches; for no one, except her instructor or nearest relatives, should see her face during her period of seclusion. She wore a large robe painted red on the breast and sides, and her hair was done up in a knot at each ear.[127]

[Seclusion of girls at p.u.b.erty among the Delaware and Cheyenne Indians.]

Ceremonies of the same general type were probably observed by girls at p.u.b.erty among all the Indian tribes of North America. But the record of them is far less full for the Central and Eastern tribes, perhaps because the settlers who first came into contact with the Red Man in these regions were too busy fighting him to find leisure, even if they had the desire, to study his manners and customs. However, among the Delaware Indians, a tribe in the extreme east of the continent, we read that ”when a Delaware girl has her first monthly period, she must withdraw into a hut at some distance from the village. Her head is wrapped up for twelve days, so that she can see n.o.body, and she must submit to frequent vomits and fasting, and abstain from all labor. After this she is washed and new clothed, but confined to a solitary life for two months, at the close of which she is declared marriageable.”[128]

Again, among the Cheyennes, an Indian tribe of the Missouri valley, a girl at her first menstruation is painted red all over her body and secluded in a special little lodge for four days. However, she may remain in her father's lodge provided that there are no charms (”medicine”), no sacred bundle, and no s.h.i.+eld in it, or that these and all other objects invested with a sacred character have been removed.

For four days she may not eat boiled meat; the flesh of which she partakes must be roasted over coals. Young men will not eat from the dish nor drink from the pot, which has been used by her; because they believe that were they to do so they would be wounded in the next fight.

She may not handle nor even touch any weapon of war or any sacred object. If the camp moves, she may not ride a horse, but is mounted on a mare.[129]

[Seclusion of girls at p.u.b.erty among the Esquimaux.]

Among the Esquimaux also, in the extreme north of the continent, who belong to an entirely different race from the Indians, the attainment of p.u.b.erty in the female s.e.x is, or used to be, the occasion of similar observances. Thus among the Koniags, an Esquimau people of Alaska, a girl at p.u.b.erty was placed in a small hut in which she had to remain on her hands and knees for six months; then the hut was enlarged a little so as to allow her to straighten her back, but in this posture she had to remain for six months more. All this time she was regarded as an unclean being with whom no one might hold intercourse. At the end of the year she was received back by her parents and a great feast held.[130]

Again, among the Malemut, and southward from the lower Yukon and adjacent districts, when a girl reaches the age of p.u.b.erty she is considered unclean for forty days and must therefore live by herself in a corner of the house with her face to the wall, always keeping her hood over her head and her hair hanging dishevelled over her eyes. But if it is summer, she commonly lives in a rough shelter outside the house. She may not go out by day, and only once at night, when every one else is asleep. At the end of the period she bathes and is clothed in new garments, whereupon she may be taken in marriage. During her seclusion she is supposed to be enveloped in a peculiar atmosphere of such a sort that were a young man to come near enough for it to touch him, it would render him visible to every animal he might hunt, so that his luck as a hunter would be gone.[131]

-- 5. _Seclusion of Girls at p.u.b.erty among the Indians of South America_

[Seclusion of girls at p.u.b.erty among the Guaranis, Chiriguanos, and Lengua Indians of South America.]

When symptoms of p.u.b.erty appeared on a girl for the first time, the Guaranis of Southern Brazil, on the borders of Paraguay, used to sew her up in her hammock, leaving only a small opening in it to allow her to breathe. In this condition, wrapt up and shrouded like a corpse, she was kept for two or three days or so long as the symptoms lasted, and during this time she had to observe a most rigorous fast. After that she was entrusted to a matron, who cut the girl's hair and enjoined her to abstain most strictly from eating flesh of any kind until her hair should be grown long enough to hide her ears. Meanwhile the diviners drew omens of her future character from the various birds or animals that flew past or crossed her path. If they saw a parrot, they would say she was a chatterbox; if an owl, she was lazy and useless for domestic labours, and so on.[132] In similar circ.u.mstances the Chiriguanos of southeastern Bolivia hoisted the girl in her hammock to the roof, where she stayed for a month: the second month the hammock was let half-way down from the roof; and in the third month old women, armed with sticks, entered the hut and ran about striking everything they met, saying they were hunting the snake that had wounded the girl.[133] The Lengua Indians of the Paraguayan Chaco under similar circ.u.mstances hang the girl in her hammock from the roof of the house, but they leave her there only three days and nights, during which they give her nothing to eat but a little Paraguay tea or boiled maize. Only her mother or grandmother has access to her; n.o.body else approaches or speaks to her.

If she is obliged to leave the hammock for a little, her friends take great care to prevent her from touching the _Boyrusu_, which is an imaginary serpent that would swallow her up. She must also be very careful not to set foot on the droppings of fowls or animals, else she would suffer from sores on the throat and breast. On the third day they let her down from the hammock, cut her hair, and make her sit in a corner of the room with her face turned to the wall. She may speak to n.o.body, and must abstain from flesh and fish. These rigorous observances she must practise for nearly a year. Many girls die or are injured for life in consequence of the hards.h.i.+ps they endure at this time. Their only occupations during their seclusion are spinning and weaving.[134]

[Seclusion of girls at p.u.b.erty among the Yuracares of Bolivia.]

Among the Yuracares, an Indian tribe of Bolivia, at the eastern foot of the Andes, when a girl perceives the signs of p.u.b.erty, she informs her parents. The mother weeps and the father constructs a little hut of palm leaves near the house. In this cabin he shuts up his daughter so that she cannot see the light, and there she remains fasting rigorously for four days. Meantime the mother, a.s.sisted by the women of the neighbourhood, has brewed a large quant.i.ty of the native intoxicant called _chicha_, and poured it into wooden troughs and palm leaves. On the morning of the fourth day, three hours before the dawn, the girl's father, having arrayed himself in his savage finery, summons all his neighbours with loud cries. The damsel is seated on a stone, and every guest in turn cuts off a lock of her hair, and running away hides it in the hollow trunk of a tree in the depths of the forest. When they have all done so and seated themselves again gravely in the circle, the girl offers to each of them a calabash full of very strong _chicha_. Before the wa.s.sailing begins, the various fathers perform a curious operation on the arms of their sons, who are seated beside them. The operator takes a very sharp bone of an ape, rubs it with a pungent spice, and then pinching up the skin of his son's arm he pierces it with the bone through and through, as a surgeon might introduce a seton. This operation he repeats till the young man's arm is riddled with holes at regular intervals from the shoulder to the wrist. Almost all who take part in the festival are covered with these wounds, which the Indians call _culucute_. Having thus prepared themselves to spend a happy day, they drink, play on flutes, sing and dance till evening. Rain, thunder, and lightning, should they befall, have no effect in damping the general enjoyment or preventing its continuance till after the sun has set. The motive for perforating the arms of the young men is to make them skilful hunters; at each perforation the sufferer is cheered by the promise of another sort of game or fish which the surgical operation will infallibly procure for him. The same operation is performed on the arms and legs of the girls, in order that they may be brave and strong; even the dogs are operated on with the intention of making them run down the game better. For five or six months afterwards the damsel must cover her head with bark and refrain from speaking to men. The Yuracares think that if they did not submit a young girl to this severe ordeal, her children would afterwards perish by accidents of various kinds, such as the sting of a serpent, the bite of a jaguar, the fall of a tree, the wound of an arrow, or what not.[135]

[Seclusion of girls at p.u.b.erty among the Indians of the Gran Chaco.]

Among the Matacos or Mataguayos, an Indian tribe of the Gran Chaco, a girl at p.u.b.erty has to remain in seclusion for some time. She lies covered up with branches or other things in a corner of the hut, seeing no one and speaking to no one, and during this time she may eat neither flesh nor fish. Meantime a man beats a drum in front of the house.[136]

Similarly among the Tobas, another Indian tribe of the same region, when a chief's daughter has just attained to womanhood, she is shut up for two or three days in the house, all the men of the tribe scour the country to bring in game and fish for a feast, and a Mataco Indian is engaged to drum, sing, and dance in front of the house without cessation, day and night, till the festival is over. As the merrymaking lasts for two or three weeks, the exhaustion of the musician at the end of it may be readily conceived. Meat and drink are supplied to him on the spot where he pays his laborious court to the Muses. The proceedings wind up with a saturnalia and a drunken debauch.[137] Among the Yaguas, an Indian tribe of the Upper Amazon, a girl at p.u.b.erty is shut up for three months in a lonely hut in the forest, where her mother brings her food daily.[138] When a girl of the Peguenches tribe perceives in herself the first signs of womanhood, she is secluded by her mother in a corner of the hut screened off with blankets, and is warned not to lift up her eyes on any man. Next day, very early in the morning and again after sunset, she is taken out by two women and made to run till she is tired; in the interval she is again secluded in her corner. On the following day she lays three packets of wool beside the path near the house to signify that she is now a woman.[139] Among the Pa.s.ses, Mauhes, and other tribes of Brazil the young woman in similar circ.u.mstances is hung in her hammock from the roof and has to fast there for a month or as long as she can hold out.[140] One of the early settlers in Brazil, about the middle of the sixteenth century, has described the severe ordeal which damsels at p.u.b.erty had to undergo among the Indians on the south-east coast of that country, near what is now Rio de Janeiro. When a girl had reached this critical period of life, her hair was burned or shaved off close to the head. Then she was placed on a flat stone and cut with the tooth of an animal from the shoulders all down the back, till she ran with blood. Next the ashes of a wild gourd were rubbed into the wounds; the girl was bound hand and foot, and hung in a hammock, being enveloped in it so closely that no one could see her. Here she had to stay for three days without eating or drinking. When the three days were over, she stepped out of the hammock upon the flat stone, for her feet might not touch the ground. If she had a call of nature, a female relation took the girl on her back and carried her out, taking with her a live coal to prevent evil influences from entering the girl's body.