Part 2 (1/2)

10. _Sara (extinct)_

A. Sara (”Tall gra.s.s”).

B. Keyauwi (meaning unknown).

11. _? Pedee (extinct)_

A. Pedee (meaning unknown).

B. Waccamaw (meaning unknown).

C. Winyaw (meaning unknown).

D. ”Hooks” and ”Backhooks”(?).

The definition of the first six of these divisions is based on extended researches among the tribes and in the literature representing the work of earlier observers, and may be regarded as satisfactory. In some cases, notably the Dakota confederacy, the const.i.tution of the divisions is also satisfactory, though in others, including the Asiniboin, Mandan, and Winnebago, the tabulation represents little more than superficial enumeration of villages and bands, generally by observers possessing little knowledge of Indian sociology or language. So far as the survivors of the Biloxi are concerned the cla.s.sification is satisfactory; but there is doubt concerning the former limits of the division, and also concerning the relations of the extinct tribes referred to on slender, yet the best available, evidence. The cla.s.sification of the extinct and nearly extinct Siouan Indians of the east is much less satisfactory. In several cases languages are utterly lost, and in others a few doubtful terms alone remain. In these cases affinity is inferred in part from geographic relation, but chiefly from the recorded federation of tribes and union of remnants as the aboriginal population faded under the light of brighter intelligence; and in all such instances it has been a.s.sumed that federation and union grew out of that conformity in mode of thought which is characteristic of peoples speaking identical or closely related tongues. Accordingly, while the grouping of eastern tribes rests in part on meager testimony and is open to question at many points, it is perhaps the best that can be devised, and suffices for convenience of statement if not as a final cla.s.sification. So far as practicable the names adopted for the tribes, confederacies, and other groups are those in common use, the aboriginal designations, when distinct, being added in those cases in which they are known.

The present population of the Siouan stock is probably between 40,000 and 45,000, including 2,000 or more (mainly Asiniboin) in Canada.

TRIBAL NOMENCLATURE

In the Siouan stock, as among the American Indians generally, the accepted appellations for tribes and other groups are variously derived. Many of the Siouan tribal names were, like the name of the stock, given by alien peoples, including white men, though most are founded on the descriptive or other designations used in the groups to which they pertain. At first glance, the names seem to be loosely applied and perhaps vaguely defined, and this laxity in application and definition does not disappear, but rather increases, with closer examination.

There are special reasons for the indefiniteness of Indian nomenclature: The aborigines were at the time of discovery, and indeed most of them remain today, in the prescriptorial stage of culture, i.e., the stage in which ideas are crystallized, not by means of arbitrary symbols, but by means of arbitrary a.s.sociations,(18) and in this stage names are connotive or descriptive, rather than denotive as in the scriptorial stage.

Moreover, among the Indians, as among all other prescriptorial peoples, the ego is paramount, and all things are described, much more largely than among cultured peoples, with reference to the describer and the position which he occupies-Self and Here, and, if need be, Now and Thus, are the fundamental elements of primitive conception and description, and these elements are implied and exemplified, rather than expressed, in thought and utterance. Accordingly there is a notable paucity in names, especially for themselves, among the Indian tribes, while the descriptive designations applied to a given group by neighboring tribes are often diverse.

The principles controlling nomenclature in its inchoate stages are ill.u.s.trated among the Siouan peoples. So far as their own tongues were concerned, the stock was nameless, and could not be designated save through integral parts. Even the great Dakota confederacy, one of the most extensive and powerful aboriginal organizations, bore no better designation than a term probably applied originally to a.s.sociated tribes in a descriptive way and perhaps used as a greeting or countersign, although there was an alternative proper descriptive term.-”Seven Council-fires”-apparently of considerable antiquity, since it seems to have been originally applied before the separation of the Asiniboin.(19) In like manner the egiha, ??iwe're, and Hotcangara groups, and perhaps the Niya, were without denotive designations for themselves, merely styling themselves ”Local People,” ”Men,” ”Inhabitants,” or, still more ambitiously, ”People of the Parent Speech,” in terms which are variously rendered by different interpreters; they were lords in their own domain, and felt no need for special t.i.tle. Different Dakota tribes went so far as to claim that their respective habitats marked the middle of the world, so that each insisted on precedence as the leading tribe,(20) and it was the boast of the Mandan that they were the original people of the earth.(21) In the more carefully studied confederacies the const.i.tuent groups generally bore designations apparently used for convenient distinction in the confederation; sometimes they were purely descriptive, as in the case of the Sisseton, Wahpeton, Sans Arcs, Blackfeet, Oto, and several others; again they referred to the federate organization (probably, possibly to relative position of habitat), as in the Yankton, Yanktonai, and Hunkpapa; more frequently they referred to geographic or topographic position, e.g., Teton, Omaha, Pahe'tsi, Kwapa, etc; while some appear to have had a figurative or symbolic connotation, as Brule, Ogalala, and Ponka. Usually the designations employed by alien peoples were more definite than those used in the group designated, as ill.u.s.trated by the stock name, Asiniboin, and Iowa. Commonly the alien appellations were terms of reproach; thus Sioux, Biloxi, and Hohe (the Dakota designation for the Asiniboin) are clearly opprobrious, while Paskagula might easily be opprobrious among hunters and warriors, and Iowa and Oto appear to be derogatory or contemptuous expressions. The names applied by the whites were sometimes taken from geographic positions, as in the case of Upper Yanktonai and Cape Fear-the geographic names themselves being frequently of Indian origin. Some of the current names represent translations of the aboriginal terms either into English (”Blackfeet,” ”Two Kettles,” ”Crow,”) or into French (”Sans Arcs,” ”Brule”,” ”Gros Ventres”); yet most of the names, at least of the prairie tribes, are simply corruptions of the aboriginal terms, though frequently the modification is so complete as to render identification and interpretation difficult-it is not easy to find Waca'ce in ”Osage” (so spelled by the French, whose orthography was adopted and misp.r.o.nounced by English-speaking pioneers), or Pa'qotce in ”Iowa.”

The meanings of most of the eastern names are lost; yet so far as they are preserved they are of a kind with those of the interior. So, too, are the subtribal names enumerated by Dorsey.

PRINc.i.p.aL CHARACTERS

PHONETIC AND GRAPHIC ARTS

The Siouan stock is defined by linguistic characters. The several tribes and larger and smaller groups speak dialects so closely related as to imply occasional or habitual a.s.sociation, and hence to indicate community in interests and affinity in development; and while the arts (reflecting as they did the varying environment of a wide territorial range) were diversified, the similarity in language was, as is usual, accompanied by similarity in inst.i.tutions and beliefs. Nearly all of the known dialects are eminently vocalic, and the tongues of the plains, which have been most extensively studied, are notably melodious; thus the leading languages of the group display moderately high phonetic development. In grammatic structure the better-known dialects are not so well developed; the structure is complex, chiefly through the large use of inflection, though agglutination sometimes occurs. In some cases the germ of organization is found in fairly definite juxtaposition or placement. The vocabulary is moderately rich, and of course represents the daily needs of a primitive people, their surroundings, their avocations, and their thoughts, while expressing little of the richer ideation of cultured cosmopolites. On the whole, the speech of the Siouan stock may be said to have been fairly developed, and may, with the Algonquian, Iroquoian, and Shoshonean, be regarded as typical for the portion of North America lying north of Mexico. Fortunately it has been extensively studied by Riggs, Hale, Dorsey, and several others, including distinguished representatives of some of the tribes, and is thus accessible to students. The high phonetic development of the Siouan tongues reflects the needs and records the history of the hunter and warrior tribes, whose phonetic symbols were necessarily so differentiated as to be intelligible in whisper, oratory, and war cry, as well as in ordinary converse, while the complex structure is in harmony with the elaborate social organization and ritual of the Siouan people.

Many of the Siouan Indians were adepts in the sign language; indeed, this mode of conveying intelligence attained perhaps its highest development among some of the tribes of this stock, who, with other plains Indians, developed pantomime and gesture into a surprisingly perfect art of expression adapted to the needs of huntsmen and warriors.

Most of the tribes were fairly proficient in pictography; totemic and other designs were inscribed on bark and wood, painted on skins, wrought into domestic wares, and sometimes carved on rocks. Jonathan Carver gives an example of picture-writing on a tree, in charcoal mixed with bear's grease, designed to convey information from the ”Chipe'ways” (Algonquian) to the ”Naudowessies,”(22) and other instances of intertribal communication by means of pictography are on record. Personal decoration was common, and was largely symbolic; the face and body were painted in distinctive ways when going on the warpath, in organizing the hunt, in mourning the dead, in celebrating the victory, and in performing various ceremonials. Scarification and maiming were practiced by some of the tribes, always in a symbolic way. Among the Mandan and Hidatsa scars were produced in cruel ceremonials originally connected with war and hunting, and served as enduring witnesses of courage and fort.i.tude. Symbolic tattooing was fairly common among the westernmost tribes. Eagle and other feathers were worn as insignia of rank and for other symbolic purposes, while bear claws and the scalps of enemies were worn as symbols of the chase and battle. Some of the tribes recorded current history by means of ”winter counts” or calendaric inscriptions, though their arithmetic was meager and crude, and their calendar proper was limited to recognition of the year, lunation, and day-or, as among so many primitive people, the ”snow,” ”dead moon,” and ”night,”-with no definite system of fitting lunations to the annual seasons. Most of the graphic records were perishable, and have long ago disappeared; but during recent decades several untutored tribesmen have executed vigorous drawings representing hunting scenes and conflicts with white soldiery, which have been preserved or reproduced. These crude essays in graphic art were the germ of writing, and indicate that, at the time of discovery, several Siouan tribes were near the gateway opening into the broader field of scriptorial culture. So far as it extends, the crude graphic symbolism betokens warlike habit and militant organization, which were doubtless measurably inimical to further progress.

It would appear that, in connection with their proficiency in gesture speech and their meager graphic art, the Siouan Indians had become masters in a vaguely understood system of dramaturgy or symbolized conduct. Among them the use of the peace-pipe was general; among several and perhaps all of the tribes the definite use of insignia was common; among them the customary hierarchic organization of the aborigines was remarkably developed and was maintained by an elaborate and strict code of etiquette whose observance was exacted and yielded by every tribesman. Thus the warriors, habituated to expressing and recognizing tribal affiliation and status in address and deportment, were notably observant of social minutiae, and this habit extended into every activity of their lives. They were ceremonious among themselves and crafty toward enemies, tactful diplomatists as well as brave soldiers, shrewd strategists as well as fierce fighters; ever they were skillful readers of human nature, even when ruthless takers of human life. Among some of the tribes every movement and gesture and expression of the male adult seems to have been affected or controlled with the view of impressing spectators and auditors, and through constant schooling the warriors became most consummate actors. To the casual observer, they were stoics or stupids according to the conditions of observation; to many observers, they were cheats or charlatans; to scientific students, their eccentrically developed volition and the thaumaturgy by which it was normally accompanied suggests early stages in that curious development which, in the Orient, culminates in necromancy and occultism. Unfortunately this phase of the Indian character (which was shared by various tribes) was little appreciated by the early travelers, and little record of it remains; yet there is enough to indicate the importance of constantly studied ceremony, or symbolic conduct, among them. The development of affectation and self-control among the Siouan tribesmen was undoubtedly shaped by warlike disposition, and their stoicism was displayed largely in war-as when the captured warrior went exultingly to the torture, taunting and tempting his captors to multiply their atrocities even until his tongue was torn from its roots, in order that his fort.i.tude might be proved; but the habit was firmly fixed and found constant expression in commonplace as well as in more dramatic actions.

INDUSTRIAL AND ESTHETIC ARTS

Since the arts of primitive people reflect environmental conditions with close fidelity, and since the Siouan Indians were distributed over a vast territory varying in climate, hydrography, geology, fauna, and flora, their industrial and esthetic arts can hardly be regarded as distinctive, and were indeed shared by other tribes of all neighboring stocks.

The best developed industries were hunting and warfare, though all of the tribes subsisted in part on fruits, nuts, berries, tubers, grains, and other vegetal products, largely wild, though sometimes planted and even cultivated in rude fas.h.i.+on. The southwestern tribes, and to some extent all of the prairie denizens and probably the eastern remnant, grew maize, beans, pumpkins, melons, squashes, sunflowers, and tobacco, though their agriculture seems always to have been subordinated to the chase.

Aboriginally, they appear to have had no domestic animals except dogs, which, according to Carver-one of the first white men seen by the prairie tribes,-were kept for their flesh, which was eaten ceremonially,(23) and for use in the chase.(24) According to Lewis and Clark (1804-1806), they were used for burden and draft;(25) according to the naturalists accompanying Long's expedition (1819-20), for flesh (eaten ceremonially and on ordinary occasions), draft, burden, and the chase,(26) and according to Prince Maximilian, for food and draft,(27) all these functions indicating long familiarity with the canines. Catlin, too, found ”dog's meat ... the most honorable food that can be presented to a stranger;” it was eaten ceremonially and on important occasions.(28) Moreover, the terms used for the dog and his harness are ancient and even archaic, and some of the most important ceremonials were connected with this animal,(29) implying long-continued a.s.sociation. Casual references indicate that some of the tribes lived in mutual tolerance with several birds(30) and mammals not yet domesticated (indeed the buffalo may be said to have been in this condition), so that the people were at the threshold of zooculture.