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 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
LIBRARY 
 
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 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 Class 
 
BUILDERS OF THE NATION 
 
 OR 
 From the Indian Trail to the Railroad 
 
 National Edition 
 Complete in Twelve Volumes 
 

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Nation Bag at fyt Asimcg -Watting for ttje 
 
 From an original painting by F>ank ! . Johnson. 
 
 
NATIONAL EDITION 
 
 COMPLETE IN TWELVE VOLUMES 
 
 f -*^^^z < -~r^^ ~ ^ 
 
 guifdecs^Nation 
 
 THE INDIAN 
 
 By 
 
 George Bird Grinnell 
 
 Author of Pawnee Hero Stories and 
 Folk Tales 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 
 "*- "=* 
 
 NE\NT YORK 
 
 TIlEBg^MPTONSOCIETY 
 
 PUBLISHERS 
 
 OFTHE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 rtf 
 
Copyright, 1895, 
 By D. APPLETON & COMPANY 
 
 Copyright, 1908 
 By THE BRAMPTON SOCIETY 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 VIII. PRAIRIE BATTLEFIELDS 125 
 
 IX. IMPLEMENTS AND INDUSTRIES . . . .143 
 
 X. MAN AND NATURE 163 
 
 XI. HIS CREATION 182 
 
 XII. THE WORLD OF THE DEAD ..... 195 
 XIII. PAWNEE RELIGION 202 
 
 XIV. THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW .... 214 
 
 XV. THE COMING OF THE WHITE MAN 224 
 
 APPENDIX. THE NORTH AMERICANS YESTER 
 DAY AND TO-DAY 241 
 
 INDEX , 2G9 
 
 Indian. II. 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 RATION DAY AT THE AGENCY WAITING FOR THE 
 
 BEEF FRONTISPIECE 
 
 From an Original Painting by Frank T. Johnson 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CROOKED HAND, A PAWNEE BRAVE 125 
 
 PIEGAN TRAVOIS 156 
 
 QUATSENA VILLAGE, WEST COAST VANCOUVER ISLAND, 162 
 
 CREE LODGE AND RED RIVER CART .... 176 
 
 PAWNEE DIRT LODGE 192 
 
 GROUP OF SAPALELLE LA TETES, WEST COAST VANCOU 
 VER ISLAND 214 
 
 GROUP OF ASSINIBOINES 260 
 
 Indian. II. 
 
Crooked Hand, a Pawnee Brave. 
 
THE STORY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 PRAIRIE BATTLEFIELDS. 
 
 IK the historic period, the Indian has always been 
 a warrior. Urged on by the hope of plunder, the 
 longing for reputation, or the desire for revenge, he 
 has raided the white settlements and made hostile in 
 cursions against those of his own race ; and each war 
 party that set out endeavoured to injure as much as 
 possible the enemy it attacked. As each woman 
 might fight or be a mother of warriors, and as each 
 child might grow to be a warrior or a woman, women 
 and children were slain in war as gladly as men, for 
 the killing of each individual was a blow to the ene 
 my. It helped to weaken his power and to strike ter 
 ror to his heart. 
 
 But the Indian has not always been a warrior. 
 Long ago, there was a time when war was unknown 
 and when all people lived on good terms with their 
 neighbours, making friendly visits, and being hos 
 pitably received, and when they in turn were visited, 
 returning this hospitality. The Blackfeet say that 
 " in the earliest times there was no war," and give a 
 circumstantial account of the first time that a man 
 was killed in war; the Arickaras have stories of a 
 time when war was unknown, and tell about the first 
 fighting that took place ; and in like manner many 
 of the tribes, which, in our time have proved bravest 
 
 125 
 
126 THE STORY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 and most ferocious in war, tell of those primitive days 
 before conflict was known. 
 
 I have elsewhere * given my reasons for believing 
 that previous to the coming of the whites there were 
 no general or long-continued wars among the Indians, 
 because there was then no motive for war. No doubt 
 from time to time quarrels arose between different 
 tribes or different bands of the same tribe, and in 
 such disputes blood was occasionally shed, but I do 
 not believe that there was anything like the systematic 
 warfare that has existed in recent years. The quar 
 rels that took place were usually trivial and about 
 trivial subjects about women, about the division of 
 a buffalo, etc. Real wars could have arisen only by 
 the irruption of one tribe into the territory of an 
 other, and the land was so broad and its inhabitants 
 so few that this could have occurred but seldom. 
 
 It is difficult for us, with our knowledge of im 
 proved implements of war, to comprehend how blood 
 less these early wars of the Indians must have been. 
 A shield would stop a stone-headed arrow, and at a 
 slightly greater distance a robe would do the same. 
 Their stone-headed lances were adapted to tearing 
 and bruising rather than to piercing the flesh, and 
 their most effective weapon was no doubt the stone 
 warclub, or battleaxe, which was heavy enough, if 
 the blow was fairly delivered, to crush in a man s 
 skull. In those old days, we may imagine that in 
 many, if not in most, of the battles that took place, 
 the combatants, however anxious they may have been 
 to kill, were forced to content themselves with beating 
 and poking each other, giving and receiving nothing 
 
 * Blackfoot Lodge Tales, p. 243. 
 
PRAIRIE BATTLEFIELDS. 127 
 
 more serious than a few bruises. Those who have 
 witnessed fights in modern times between consider 
 able bodies of Indians armed with iron-pointed arrows, 
 knives, and hatchets, will remember how very trifling 
 has been the loss of life in proportion to the numbers 
 of the men engaged. Such battles, as I have elsewhere 
 shown, might go on for half a day without loss of life 
 on either side, but when one party acknowledged de 
 feat and turned to run, the slaughter in the pursuit 
 might be considerable. 
 
 In these wars between different tribes, the greatest 
 losses usually occurred when one party was surprised 
 by another, the attacking party killing a number of 
 men at the first onslaught, and perhaps in the ensuing 
 panic. If, however, those attacked rallied and turned 
 to fight, the assailants, unless they greatly outnum 
 bered their enemy, often drew off at once, satisfied 
 with what they had accomplished in the surprise. 
 
 The story of the last great fight which took place 
 between the three allied tribes of Pawnees and the 
 Skidi tribe, just previous to the latter s incorporation 
 into the Pawnee nation, is an example of this, and has 
 never been told in detail. It gives a good idea of one 
 view of Indian warfare, shows that they had some no 
 tions of strategy, and also brings out in strong relief 
 the common sense and benevolence of the Kit ka-hah- 
 ki chief. The story was told me many years ago by 
 an old Chaui , substantially as given below. He said : 
 
 It was long ago. At that time my father was a 
 young man. I had not been born. Many years before, 
 the three tribes of Pawnees had come up from the 
 south, and had found the Skidi living in this country. 
 Their villages were scattered along the Broad River 
 (the Platte) and the Many Potatoes River (Loup). 
 
128 THE STORY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 There were many of them, a great tribe. But there 
 were many more of the Pawnees than there were of 
 the Skidi. 
 
 When our people first met the Skidi, we were 
 friendly ; we found that we spoke a language almost 
 the same, and so we learned that we were relations 
 the same people so we smoked together and used to 
 visit each other s villages, and to eat together. We 
 were friends. But after a while, some of the Skidi 
 and some of the Chaui got to quarrelling. I do not 
 know what it was about. After that there were more 
 quarrels, and at last a Skidi was killed ; and after that 
 the people were afraid to go near the Skidi village, 
 and the Skidi did not come near the Chaui village for 
 fear they might be killed. 
 
 One time in the winter, a party of men from the 
 Chaui village, which then stood on the south side of 
 the Broad Kiver, just below the place of the Lone 
 Tree (now Central City, Neb.), crossed the river to 
 hunt buffalo between the Platte and the Loup. While 
 they were killing buffalo, a war party of the Skidi at 
 tacked them and fought them, and killed almost all 
 of them. Some of the Chaui got away and went back 
 to their village and told what had happened, and how 
 the Skidi had attacked them. 
 
 Now at this time the Chaui and the Skidi tribes 
 were about equal in numbers, and the Chaui did not 
 feel strong enough to attack the Skidi alone. They 
 were afraid, for they knew that if they did this, it 
 might be that the Skidi would defeat them. The 
 Kit ka-hah-ki tribe were living on the Much Manure 
 River (Republican), and the Pita-hau-i rat on the Yel 
 low Bank River (Smoky Hill). To these two tribes 
 of their people the Chaui sent the pipe, telling them 
 
PRAIRIE BATTLEFIELDS. 129 
 
 what had happened, and asking them for help against 
 the Skidi. Each of the tribes held a council about 
 the matter. All the best warriors and the wise old 
 men talked about it, and each one gave his opinion as 
 to what should be done ; and they decided to help the 
 Chaui . The two villages moved north and camped 
 close to the Chaui village, and all the warriors of all 
 three tribes began to get ready for the attack. By 
 this time it was early summer, and the Platte Kiver, 
 swollen "by the melting of the snows in the mountains, 
 was bank full too deep and swift to be crossed either 
 by wading or swimming. So the women made many 
 " bull boats " of fresh buffalo hides and willow branch 
 es, and in these the Pawnee warriors crossed the stream. 
 The main village of the Skidi was on the north side 
 of the Loup River, only about twenty miles from that 
 of the Chaui . The crossing of the Pawnees was ac 
 complished late in the afternoon, and a night march 
 was made to a point on the south side of the Loup, 
 several miles below the Skidi village. 
 
 Here they halted and distributed their forces. One 
 hundred men, all mounted on dark-coloured horses, 
 were sent further down the stream, and were told what 
 to do when morning came. The remaining warriors 
 hid themselves, half in the thick timber which grew 
 in the wide bottom close along the river, and half in 
 the ravines and among the ridges of the sandhills 
 above this bottom. Between the sandhills and the 
 timber was a wide, level, open space. The Pawnees 
 were so many that their lines reached far up and down 
 the stream. 
 
 When daylight came, the one hundred men who 
 had been sent down the stream came filing down from 
 the prairie one after another. Each man was bent 
 
130 THE STORY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 down on his horse s neck and covered with his buffalo 
 robe, so that at a distance these one hundred riders 
 looked like one hundred buffalo, coming down to the 
 water to drink. The spot chosen for them to pass 
 could be seen from the village of the Skidi. In that 
 village, a long way off, some one who was watching 
 saw these animals, and called out to the others that 
 buffalo were in sight. It was at once decided to go 
 out and kill the game, and a large force of Skidi set 
 out to do this. They crossed the river opposite the 
 village, and galloped down the bottom on the south 
 side. In doing this, they had to pass between the 
 Pawnees who were hidden in the timber and those in 
 the sandhills. They rode swiftly down the river, no 
 one of them all suspecting that anything was wrong ; 
 but after they had passed well within the Pawnee lines, 
 these burst upon them from all sides and charged 
 them. Attacked in front, on either side, and in the 
 rear taken wholly by surprise, and seeing they were 
 outnumbered the Skidi tried to retreat, and scat 
 tering, broke through the lines wherever they could 
 and ran, but all the way up that valley the victorious 
 Pawnees slaughtered them as they fled. They took a 
 good revenge, and killed more than twice as many of 
 the Skidi as those had of the Chaui . 
 
 At last the Skidi who were left alive had crossed 
 the river and reached their village, and had told their 
 people what had happened, and how they had been 
 attacked and defeated, and had lost many of their 
 men. All the warriors who were left in the village 
 armed themselves, and came to the river bank to meet 
 the Pawnees when they should cross, determined to 
 die there fighting for their homes. 
 
 When the Pawnees reached the crossing, a part of 
 
PRAIRIE BATTLEFIELDS. 
 
 them wanted to ford the river at once and attack the 
 Skidi village and kill all the people in it, so that none 
 of the Skidi should be left alive. The chiefs and head 
 men of the Pita-hau-i rat and the Chaui wanted to do 
 this, but the Kit ka-hah-ki chief said : " No, this shall 
 not be so. They have fought us and made trouble, 
 it is true, but now we have punished them for that. 
 They speak our language, and they are the same peo 
 ple with us. They are our relations, and they must 
 not be destroyed." But the other two tribes were very 
 bitter, and said that the Kit ka-hah-ki could do as 
 they liked, but that they were going to attack the 
 Skidi village, burn it, and kill the people. For a long 
 time they disputed and almost quarrelled as to what 
 should be done. At length the Kit ka-hah-ki chief 
 got angry, and said to the others : " My friends, listen 
 to me. You keep telling me what you are going to do, 
 and that you intend to attack this village and destroy 
 all these people, and you say that the Kit ka-hah-ki 
 can do what they please, but that you intend to do as 
 you have said. Very well, you will do what seems 
 good to you. Now I will tell you what the Kit ka- 
 hah-ki will do. They will cross this river to the Skidi 
 village, and will take their stand by the side of the 
 Skidi and defend that village, and you can then try 
 whether you are strong enough and brave enough to 
 conquer the Kit ka-hah-ki and the Skidi, fighting 
 side by side as friends." When the Chaui and the 
 Pita-hau-i rat heard this, they did not know what to 
 say. They knew that the Skidi and the Kit ka-hah-ki 
 were both brave, and that together these two tribes 
 were as many as themselves. So they did not know 
 what to do. They were doubtful. 
 
 At last the Kit ka-hah-ki chief spoke again, and 
 10 
 
132 THE STORY OP THE INDIAN. 
 
 said : " Brothers, what is the use of quarrelling over 
 this. The Skidi have made trouble. They live here 
 by themselves, away from the rest of us. Now let us 
 make them move their village over to the Platte and 
 live close to us, so that they will be a part of the Paw 
 nee tribe." To this proposition all the Pawnees, after 
 some talk, agreed. 
 
 They made signs to the Skidi on the other bank 
 that they did not wish to fight any more, they wanted 
 to talk now, and then they crossed over. They told 
 the Skidi what they had decided to do, and these, 
 cowed by their defeat and awed by the large force 
 opposed to them, agreed to what had been decided. 
 
 The Pawnees took for themselves much of the 
 property of the Skidis many horses. This was to 
 punish them for having broken the treaty. Also they 
 made many of the Skidi women marry into the other 
 Pawnee tribes, so as to establish closer relations with 
 them. Since that time the Skidi have always been a 
 part of the Pawnee nation. 
 
 Cunning is matched with cunning in the following 
 story, told me by the Cheyennes : 
 
 About the year 1852 the Pawnees and the Chey 
 ennes had a fight at a point on the Republican River, 
 where there was a big horseshoe bend in which much 
 timber grew. A war party of each tribe was passing 
 through the country, and the scouts of each discovered 
 the other at about the same time, but neither party 
 knew that its presence had been detected. The Chey 
 ennes, however, suspecting that perhaps they had been 
 seen, displayed great shrewdness. They went into the 
 timber, built a large fire, ate some food, and then cut 
 a lot of logs, which they placed by the fire and about 
 which they wrapped their blankets and robes, so that 
 
PRAIRIE BATTLEFIELDS. j.33 
 
 they looked like human figures lying down asleep. 
 Then the Cheyennes retired into the shadow of a cut 
 bank and waited. Toward the middle of the night, 
 after the fire had burned down, the Pawnees were 
 seen coming, creeping stealthily through the brush, 
 and when they had come close to the fire, they made 
 an attack, shooting at the supposed sleepers, and then 
 charging upon them. As soon as they were in the 
 camp and were attacking the dummies, the Cheyennes 
 began to shoot, and then in their turn charged, and in 
 the fight which followed eighteen or nineteen Paw 
 nees were killed. 
 
 The old Cheyenne who told me this, chuckled de 
 lightedly, as he remarked, " The Cheyennes often 
 laugh at this now." 
 
 The Indians set a high value on life, and do not 
 willingly risk it. Warriors and chiefs always tried to 
 keep those under their command from exposing them 
 selves, for it was a disgrace for the leader of a war 
 party to lose any of his men. It w r as their policy to 
 inflict the greatest possible injury on the enemy with 
 the least possible risk to themselves. They aimed to 
 strike a telling blow, and before the enemy had recov 
 ered from the surprise to put themselves out of the 
 way of danger. Their war was one of ambuscades 
 and surprises, and having been educated to this method 
 of fighting, they were not at all fitted to carry on bat 
 tles in which there was steady and open fighting. In 
 light cavalry tactics or guerilla warfare they excelled, 
 but in the early days they could not face the steady 
 fire of men at bay. Under such conditions they be 
 came unsteady and soon broke. The fact that they 
 have been brought up to fight on a different principle 
 from the white man has gained for Indians the repu- 
 
134 THE STORY OF THE INDIAtf. 
 
 tation of being cowards, but in later years the warfare 
 of more than one tribe of plains Indians has demon 
 strated that when they have learned the white man s 
 way of fighting, they are as brave as he. 
 
 Notwithstanding all that has been said, desperate 
 battles were now and then waged between Indian 
 tribes, fights which, for ferocity and bravery, perhaps 
 equal anything that we know of in civilized warfare. 
 The last considerable fight which took place between 
 the Piegan tribe and the allied Crows and Gros Ven- 
 tres of the Prairie was such an one. The story of this 
 fight, as I give it below, is compiled from the narra 
 tives which I took down in the year 1891 from the 
 lips of three men who were engaged in the battle, and 
 I have no doubt that it is a fairly accurate account of 
 the events of the day. The occurrence is interesting 
 from the completeness of the victory and the great 
 number of the slain on the defeated side. Aside from 
 this, the account, as here given, is full of characteristic 
 Indian forms of thought, and, in the matter-of-fact 
 way in which its bloody details are related, it furnishes 
 an excellent illustration of the point of view from 
 which Indians look at war and its events. 
 
 It was toward the end of the summer, when the 
 cherries were ripe twenty-four years ago (1867) that 
 this fight took place. Wolf Calf was already old. 
 Mad Wolf was a young man just in his prime. Eaven 
 Lariat was a full-fledged warrior. Wolf Tail was 
 very young ; he had not yet taken a woman to sit be 
 side him. 
 
 All the Piegans except Three Suns band in all 
 perhaps two thousand lodges were camped about 
 twenty miles east of the Cypress Hills. On the day 
 before the fight, early in the morning, a single Piegan 
 
PRAIRIE BATTLEFIELDS. 135 
 
 had been travelling along near the Cypress Hills, on 
 his way back from a journey to war. He had only one 
 horse. As he was riding along, he passed near a large 
 camp of Crows and Gros Ventres. They saw him be 
 fore he did them and chased him, but he rode in among 
 the pines and got away from them, and reached the 
 Piegan camp in safety. He gave the alarm, telling 
 the people what he had seen, but they did not believe 
 him. They said : " This cannot be true. If two people 
 had said it, or three, we would believe it, but this man 
 is just trying to frighten us." So they did nothing. 
 
 The man who at this time was the chief of the 
 Piegans was one of those who made the first treaty with 
 the whites. His name in that treaty was Sits in the 
 Middle. His last given name was Many Horses. On 
 the day when the fight took place, early in the morn 
 ing, before it was light, before they had turned loose 
 the horses, the old chief got up and said to his wife, 
 " Saddle up, now, and we will go out to where I killed 
 buffalo yesterday, and get some meat and the brains." 
 His wife saddled the horses and they started, and had 
 ridden quite a long way out on the prairie before it 
 became plain daylight. 
 
 About this time Mad Wolf, as he lay in his lodge, 
 heard a man on a little hill just outside the camp shout 
 ing out : " Everybody get up and look. A great herd of 
 buffalo is coming this way." Mad Wolf sprang out of 
 bed and rushed out, naked as he was, and a few others 
 with him, not many. They saw the buffalo coming. 
 It was a great sight, a tremendous throng as far as you 
 could see, coming toward the camp, but still far off. 
 A man named Small Wolf took a few young men and 
 started out toward them, to kill some. After a little 
 time a man, who stood there on the hill looking, said ; 
 
136 THE STORY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 " Hold on. Perhaps those are not buffalo. Are there 
 not some white animals among them ? They may be 
 horses." He called to some one to bring him a field 
 glass, and when he had looked through it, he said : 
 " Oh, it is just a multitude of people coming. They 
 are Crows and Gros Ventres." Then they all shouted 
 in a loud voice, for most of the people were still in 
 bed : " Get out here ! The Crows and Gros Ventres 
 are coming ! Take courage ! " 
 
 A war party of Piegans had been out, and, return 
 ing, had camped close to the main Piegan camp ; also 
 some people had gone out the night before to camp 
 close to the buffalo, so as to make a run early in the 
 morning. The enemy attacked these outlying parties 
 first, and drove them, killing some, and the people in 
 camp heard the shooting. About this time, Small 
 Wolf came running into camp, gasping for breath, 
 and called out: " Come quick and help us ; my party 
 is almost overcome ! " By this time, too, the enemy 
 had run off about half the band of horses belonging 
 to Many Horses. 
 
 In those days the people were not well armed. 
 Some of them had guns, but most had only bows and 
 arrows and lances and heavy whips. 
 
 The Piegans had run to drive their horses into 
 camp, and as they came in, they began to get ready to 
 go out and fight. The head men tried to persuade 
 the first ones to wait, so that all should start out to 
 gether, but some were in too great a hurry to wait. 
 
 By this time the enemy were close to the camp and 
 on a little ridge. There were women and boys in the 
 party. The Piegans had begun to fight, but not very 
 many had yet gone out. A Piegan, named Scream 
 ing Owl, whose medicine was very strong, was the 
 
PRAIRIE BATTLEFIELDS. 137 
 
 first man shot. He was hit in the belly with a ball, 
 but it did not go into his body. 
 
 There was a Gros Ventre chief who was very brave. 
 He seemed to be going everywhere among his peo 
 ple, encouraging them and fighting bravely himself. 
 Some Piegan shot this man, breaking his leg above the 
 knee, and he fell. Then all the Crows and Gros 
 Ventres cried out in a mournful way that the medi 
 cine had been broken, but still they stood about their 
 chief, and fought there and would not leave him, and 
 the Piegans could not drive them. 
 
 Not very long after the fight began, some of the 
 people found lying on the prairie the bodies of the old 
 chief Many Horses and his wife, and a man named 
 Calf Bull, shouted out: "Now fight well and do your 
 best. Our old chief is killed. We have found him 
 over here dead. Let us take vengeance on these ene 
 mies." The Piegans all cried out, " Our father and 
 our chief is killed ! " and they all made a noise and 
 slapped their mouths and made a rush for the 
 Crows. 
 
 In another part of the field one of the enemy, who 
 could talk good Piegan, stepped out to one side and 
 held up a pistol and said : " Piegans, here is your great 
 chief s gun. I have killed him and taken it. Take 
 courage now." Then an old Piegan, named Stinking 
 Head, called out to the Piegans : " Men, women, and 
 boys ! Old men, young men, and children ! They 
 have killed our great chief ! Take great courage ! " 
 Then they all took courage and shouted the warcry. 
 
 When the Piegans all learned that Many Horses 
 had been killed, they made so fierce a charge that 
 the enemy turned and ran. In a coulee toward the 
 Cypress Hills they had built some breastworks of 
 
138 THE STORY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 stones, and when the Piegans made this charge, the 
 Crows and Gros Ventres ran to get behind this shelter. 
 But the Piegans were so close behind them that they 
 did not stop there, but ran on and out of the breast 
 works on the other side, before they stopped and 
 turned to fight. The Piegans were close behind them, 
 and Wolf Calf was riding ahead of all the others. 
 There was a Crow running on foot behind the rest, 
 and Wolf Calf dropped his rein and got ready to 
 shoot this man. He thought the young colt he was 
 riding was then running as fast as it could, but when 
 he fired his gun at the Crow, the horse ran so much 
 faster that before he could catch his rein to stop it, 
 he was right in the midst of the Crows. Half a dozen 
 shot at him, killing his horse and wounding him in the 
 leg above the ankle. As it happened, none of the 
 Crows near him now had loaded guns, but when his 
 horse went down, they all fell upon him and began to 
 pound him with their coup sticks and whip handles. 
 Then the Piegans who were near called out, " Come ! 
 let us make a charge and save the old man before he 
 gets killed ! " They rushed in and drove the enemy 
 back, and rescued Wolf Calf; White Calf, and two 
 others, now dead, pulling him out of the melee. 
 
 Wolf Tail this day did two brave things. Some 
 Piegans had surrounded a Gros Ventre, who was called 
 He Stabbed a Good Many. This man still had his 
 gun loaded, and was pointing it at the Piegans and 
 keeping them off, for they were afraid of him. Wolf 
 Tail was the last of the Piegans to get to him. He 
 rode up to the Gros Ventre, jumped off his horse, 
 snatched the gun, and took it away from him. Then 
 he called out to the Piegans : " Come on now ; there 
 is no longer any danger. Come up and kill him!" 
 
PRAIRIE BATTLEFIELDS. 139 
 
 Wolf Tail walked away from the Gros Ventre, who 
 was then killed by one of the Piegans. 
 
 After this he came up with another Gros Ventre, 
 who was shooting arrows. He also had a lance. Wolf 
 Tail rode up behind him, jumped off his horse, and 
 seized the man. He took away from him his lance 
 and arrows, pulled out his pistol, and shot him. 
 
 The Crows and Gros Ventres were now all running 
 away, and the Piegans were following and killing 
 them. They began with those who were on foot, cut 
 ting them off a few at a time, killing the men and 
 taking the women and boys prisoners. There are now 
 some middle-aged men in the Piegan camp who were 
 taken in this fight. 
 
 At last the footmen were all killed, and they made 
 a charge on the mounted men. They cut off a bunch of 
 these from the main body, and rushed them toward a 
 cut coulee and over a steep bank ; but when the Piegans 
 saw the enemy falling down the side of the coulee, they 
 rode around it and caught those who were left alive 
 as they were coming out, and killed them in bunches 
 of four or five. They kept following the main body 
 for hours, and at last they had been running and fight 
 ing so long that all the Indians were now very tired, 
 and they could no longer run, but the enemy were 
 walking away and the Piegans walking after them. 
 The enemy s horses would give out and stop, and the 
 Piegans would kill the riders, for by this time the 
 Crows and Gros Ventres were so frightened that they 
 no longer showed fight, and the Piegans had no 
 trouble in killing them. Some one overtook an old 
 Gros Ventre, who called out : " Spare me ! I am 
 old ! " The Piegan s heart was touched and he was 
 going to spare him, but another man ran up and said, 
 
THE STORY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 " Oh, yes, we will spare you," and he blew out his 
 brains. 
 
 Very few of the enemy were killed with guns. It 
 was not necessary. They killed some by running over 
 them with their horses, others with bows and arrows, 
 others with hatchets, some they lanced, pounded some 
 on the heads with whips, stabbed some, and killed 
 some with stones. They followed them about eighteen 
 miles. The trail that they made was a mile and a 
 half wide, and all along this the enemy were dropped, 
 here two or three, there half a dozen, as thick as buf 
 falo after a killing. 
 
 At last they reached the gap in the Cypress Hills 
 where the pines are, and the enemy got in among the 
 timber. Then the Piegans said : " Come. That will 
 do. We have killed enough. Let us stop here and 
 go back." So they returned to their camp. They 
 counted as they were going back more than four hun 
 dred dead of the enemy, and there must have been 
 many more who had crawled into the grass and died. 
 
 After the fight was over and the Piegans had 
 turned back, a Gros Ventre woman, whose husband 
 had been killed and her daughter captured, made up 
 her mind that she would go back and look for them. 
 When she got into the timber, she said to the others 
 who were with her, " My man is killed and my 
 daughter is gone, and I am going down into the Pie- 
 gan camp to find out what has become of her." She 
 still had a horse and rode down the mountain after 
 the Piegans. Lying on the prairie there was a Gros 
 Ventre Indian, who had been knocked down and 
 scalped, and had pretended that he was dead. Some 
 time after the Piegans had gone he opened his eyes, 
 and as he did so, he saw this woman riding by him. 
 
PRAIRIE BATTLEFIELDS. 141 
 
 He called out to her and asked her to take him back 
 to the Gros Ventres, but she refused, telling him that 
 she was going to look for her daughter. The man 
 got up on his feet, but the skin of his forehead hung 
 down over his eyes so that it blinded him, and he had 
 to hold it up with one hand in order to see. He 
 walked toward the woman, who had stopped, talking 
 to her, and when he had come close to her, he made a 
 rush toward her, so as to get hold of the horse s tail 
 and take the horse away from the woman, so that he 
 could ride after his people. But when he tried to 
 grasp the tail, he reached out with both hands to 
 catch it, and the skin dropped over his eyes and 
 blinded him, and he stumbled and fell, and the woman 
 avoided him, and presently when he got up and lifted 
 his skin, the woman was a good way off. She rode on 
 to the Piegan camp and found her daughter there, 
 and both were adopted into the tribe and died there. 
 
 Up to the time when they returned to their own 
 camp, the Piegans had not known how many of their 
 own people they had lost. Now they learned that 
 three great chiefs, six warriors, and one woman had 
 been killed. Then all the Piegans cried, because they 
 thought so much of their chief Many Horses. His 
 relations spoke to Four Bears, the camp orator, and he 
 went out through the camp and called out and said : 
 " Let every person bring one blanket each for the 
 burial of this chief, and each one who brings a blanket 
 shall take a rope and catch one horse out of his band." 
 The people did this, and gave Many Horses a great 
 funeral, for all liked him and his wife, because they 
 had been kind and generous to everybody. 
 
 Some time after the funeral, Four Bears went out 
 again through the camp and shouted out : " Bring out 
 
142 THE STORY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 your captives, your women and children that you have 
 taken. Bring out all the things that you have taken 
 shields, guns, arrows, bows, scalps, medicine pipes; 
 everything of value that you have taken and put 
 them in a pile so that we can look at them." The 
 people did this, and it made a nne show. When all 
 these things were spread out, some great warrior went 
 along the line and took up each thing in turn, as he 
 came to it, and shouted out the name of the person 
 who had taken it, so that everybody would know who 
 was brave. This was a coup. Even women and chil 
 dren counted coups on the things they had taken. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 IMPLEMENTS AND INDUSTRIES. 
 
 THE white man found the Indian a savage in the 
 stone age of development. For the most part the flesh 
 of beasts and the wild fruits of the earth nourished 
 him, skins sheltered and clad him, wood, stone, and 
 bone armed and equipped him. He had no knowledge 
 of metals, but he had learned how to fashion the stone 
 mace or warclub, to chip out flint knives and arrow- 
 points, to tan skins, to bake pots, and had invented 
 that complex weapon the bow and arrow. He had a 
 hunting companion, the dog, which was also his beast 
 of burden. 
 
 No one now can tell the story of the Indian s ad 
 vance in culture : what was the history of the bow or 
 the store-pointed arrow ; who first devised the lodge 
 or the dog travois. All these things are said to have 
 been given them by the Creator, who had pity on his 
 children, once without means of defence against the 
 stronger beasts, and who starved when roots and ber 
 ries were not to be had. For tradition tells us of a 
 time between the creation of the red man and the 
 coming of the white man, when the Indian lacked 
 even the simple weapons that his Creator gave him 
 later. Some of the stories say that then men had no 
 hands, only paws, armed with long claws like a bear, 
 and that with these they unearthed the roots of the 
 
 143 
 
144 THE STORY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 prairie, or drew down to their faces the branches of 
 the berry bushes laden with ripe fruit. Then, indeed, 
 the people were poor, weak, and ignorant, and had no 
 means of getting a living. Then they must have been 
 a prey to the wild creatures. The buffalo are said to 
 have eaten them, and not only the buffalo but the deer 
 and the antelope as well. After this, the stories go on, 
 they learned the art of making snares and traps, in 
 which they took the smaller wild creatures, whose flesh 
 furnished them a part of their subsistence, and whose 
 skins were their first clothing. The club no doubt 
 they already had, and from this the evolution of the 
 stone-headed axe or hammer was natural. With these 
 they pounded to death the animals that they caught 
 in their snares. Perhaps the knife was next invented, 
 and then the lance which is only a knife with a long 
 handle and this may sometimes have been thrown 
 from the hand. Last, and by far the greatest of all, 
 must have come the wonderful discovery of the bow 
 and arrow. But of the manner of these inventions 
 and of their sequence no memory or tradition now 
 remains. 
 
 For the most part the Indians of the West lived in 
 skin lodges. This was partly because such dwellings 
 were warm, dry, and easily obtained, but especially be 
 cause they were light and convenient and could readily 
 be moved about from place to place, and so were in 
 all respects suited to the needs of a nomadic people. 
 But not all the Indians were dwellers in tents. The 
 evolution of the house had progressed far beyond the 
 single-roomed shelter of grass or bark or skins. The 
 Indians of the East had large connected houses of 
 poles, sometimes fortified. The Pawnees and Mandans 
 built great sod or dirt houses, in which many families 
 
IMPLEMENTS AND INDUSTRIES. 145 
 
 lived in common, the sleeping places about the walls 
 being separated by permanent wooden partitions, while 
 in front of each a curtain was let down so as to form 
 an actual room. Further to the south are still in use 
 the many-roomed, many-storied houses of the Pueblo 
 people, which were the highest development of the 
 house among the Indians north of Mexico. 
 
 Tradition warrants us in believing that many tribes 
 who now live in lodges once had permanent houses, 
 and that the exclusive use of skin lodges among the 
 plains tribes may have come about in comparatively 
 recent times. Many of these tribes have lived on these 
 plains for a short time only say two or three cen 
 turies having migrated thither from some earlier 
 home, and many of them have traditions of a time 
 when they lived in permanent houses, though often 
 the story is so vague that nothing is known of the 
 character of these dwellings. The Pawnees, on the 
 other hand, say that in their ancient home which 
 was probably on the Pacific slope they dwelt in 
 houses built of stone. 
 
 The highest development of architecture within 
 the historic period was in the south, as shown by the 
 ruins of Central America, Mexico, and Arizona ; yet 
 tribes who lived in the north, whether on the Atlan 
 tic or Pacific slopes, had permanent dwellings, and it 
 seems probable that those which we have known only 
 as nomads may have retrograded in this respect, and 
 lost the art of building which they once possessed. 
 
 The common movable home of the plains tribes was 
 the conical tipi made of a number of dressed buffalo 
 skins, sewed together and supported by about sixteen 
 lodge poles. To the north, among the Lake Winni 
 peg Chippeways, the tipi covering is of birch bark, 
 
146 THE STORY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 which, when done up for transportation, is in seven 
 rolls. The largest and longest when unrolled reaches 
 around the lodge poles at the ground from one side of 
 the door to the other ; the one next in length fits 
 around the lodge poles above the lower strip, lapping 
 a little over it, so as to shed the rain. One still shorter 
 goes on above this, and so on to the top of the cone. 
 At both ends of each strip there is a lath-like stick of 
 wood to keep the bark from fraying or splitting. The 
 pieces of which these strips are composed are neatly 
 sewed together with tamarak roots wattap . There 
 are no wings or ears about the smokeholes of such a 
 lodge, but these are not needed in the timber where it 
 is used. 
 
 The large sod houses of the Pawnees, Arickaras, and 
 Mandans, have often been described. The Wichitas 
 build odd-looking beehive-like dwellings of grass ; the 
 hogans of the Navajoes are of brush and sticks ; both 
 walls and roofs of the houses of the northwest coast 
 Indians are made of shakes, split from the cedar. On 
 the whole, the difference between the homes of the 
 various tribes is very great. 
 
 Food supply and defence against enemies depended 
 on the warrior s weapons. These were his most precious 
 possessions, and he gave much care to their manufac 
 ture. Knowing nothing of metals, he made his edge 
 tools of sharpened stones. Let us see how the arrow- 
 maker worked. 
 
 The camp is sleepy, for it is midday and the heat 
 of the blazing sun has driven almost every one to seek 
 the shade. The few young men who have not gone 
 out to hunt are asleep in the lodges, and most of the 
 women have put aside for the time their work on the 
 hides and meat, and are sitting in the lodges sewing 
 
IMPLEMENTS AND INDUSTRIES. 147 
 
 moccasins, or else are pounding choke cherries, seated 
 on the ground beneath skins spread over poles to make 
 a shade. Only here and there one, old and very indus 
 trious, is hard at work, careless of the heat. Even 
 the children for the time have stopped their noise and 
 retired to the fringe of bushes along the stream, where 
 they are playing quietly. Near a lodge, small and 
 weather-beaten, two men seated under a shade are 
 hard at work. Each holds between his knees a block 
 of stone, from which, by light sharp blows of a small 
 stone hammer, he is chipping off triangular flakes of 
 flint for making arrowheads. The material used by 
 one of the men is a black obsidian obtained by trade 
 from the Crows to the south, while the other has a 
 piece of milky chalcedony picked up in the moun 
 tains to the west. Each of these blocks has been 
 sweated by being buried in wet earth, over which a 
 fire has been built, the object of this treatment being 
 to bring to light all the cracks and checks in the stone, 
 so that no unnecessary labour need be performed on a 
 piece too badly cracked to be profitably worked. As 
 the workmen knock off the chips, they turn the blocks, 
 so that after a little they become roughly cylindrical, 
 always growing smaller and smaller, until at length 
 each is too small to furnish more flakes. They are 
 then put aside. 
 
 Each man now collects all the flakes he had 
 knocked off, and, piling them together on one corner 
 of his robe, carefully examines each one. Some are 
 rejected at a glance, some put in a pile together as 
 satisfactory, while over others the arrow-maker pon 
 ders for a while, as if in doubt. Presently he seems 
 to have satisfied himself, and prepares for his second 
 operation. For this he takes in his left palm a pad of 
 11 
 
THE STORY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 buckskin large enough to cover and protect it while 
 holding the sharp flake, while over his right hand he 
 slips another piece of tanned hide something like a 
 sailmaker s " palm," and used for the same purpose. 
 Against his " palm " the arrow-maker places the head 
 of a small tool a straight piece of deer or antelope 
 horn or of bone about four inches long, and pressing 
 its point against the side of the piece of flint held in 
 the other hand, he flakes off one little chip of the 
 stone and then another close to it, thus passing along 
 the edge of the unformed flint until one side of it is 
 straight, and then along the other. He works quickly 
 and apparently without much care, except when he is 
 near the point, for this is a delicate place, and care 
 lessness or haste here may endanger the arrowhead ; 
 for, if its point should be broken, it is good for noth 
 ing. Sometimes an unseen check will cause the head 
 to break across without warning, and the labour ex 
 pended on this particular piece is thus wasted. But 
 usually the arrow-maker works rapidly and spoils but 
 few points. After the head is shaped, there are often 
 left some thin projecting edges which mar its sym 
 metry and add nothing to its effectiveness. These are 
 broken off either by pressure or by a sharp blow with 
 some light instrument, such as a bit of bone or of hard 
 wood. 
 
 The making of these stone points has now been 
 almost entirely forgotten, but I have seen a beautiful 
 and perfect dagger, six or eight inches long, made 
 from a piece of glass bottle. 
 
 There is a wide variation in the shape and size of 
 these stone points. Some are very small, others large, 
 some are fine and delicate, and others coarse and 
 clumsy. The edges are usually regular and fairly 
 
IMPLEMENTS AtfD INDUSTRIES. 
 
 smooth, but sometimes serrated. A wound inflicted 
 by one of them is said to have been much more serious 
 than that inflicted by a hoop-iron point, and the In 
 dian of to-day believes that the stone points had some 
 what the effect of a poisoned arrowhead. There is a 
 grain of foundation for this, since the stone point 
 would make a ragged wound, and the point if deeply 
 buried in the flesh could not easily be extracted or 
 pushed on through, but would readily become detached 
 from the arrow shaft. On the other hand, it would 
 make a clean wound, which would heal much more 
 easily than a bullet wound. 
 
 These arrowheads were roughly triangular in 
 shape, but often had a short shank for attachment to 
 the shaft. This shank, or the middle part of the short 
 side of the triangle, was set into a notch in the shaft, 
 fastened by a glue made from the hoofs of the buffalo, 
 and made additionally secure by being whipped in 
 place by fine sinew strings, put on wet. 
 
 The arrow shafts are not less important than the 
 heads. They should be straight, strong, and heavy, and 
 for this reason year-old shoots of the dogwood, cherry, 
 or service berry make the best arrow wood. The Indians 
 of the southwest use reeds of the cane, and with them 
 the shaft is often composed of three or more pieces. 
 Some tribes use shoots of the willow, but this warps 
 so readily and is so light and weak that it will hardly 
 be employed if any other wood can be had. The 
 length and thickness of the shaft varies with the tribe 
 as does also the manner of feathering, of fastening 
 on the heads, and of painting but it almost always 
 has two or three winding grooves throughout its 
 length, the purpose of which is said to be to facilitate 
 the flow of blood, and probably also the arrow s en- 
 
150 THE STORY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 trance into the flesh. The arrow shafts, after being 
 cut and scraped free from bark, are bound together in 
 bundles and hung up to dry in the lodge, where it is 
 warm. When partly seasoned, they are taken down 
 and picked over. Those which are not entirely 
 straight are handled, bent this way and that, and the 
 bundle is then again hung up, and left until the wood 
 is thoroughly seasoned, when the shafts are again gone 
 over and the bad ones rejected. Usually they are 
 brought down to the proper thickness by scraping with 
 a bit of flint or glass, or with a knife, but often a slab 
 of grooved sandstone is used for this purpose. This 
 has the same effect as if they were sandpapered down. 
 The grooves in the shaft are made by passing it through 
 a hole bored through a rib or a vertebra s dorsal spine, 
 or sometimes, it is said, by pressure of the teeth, in 
 which the wood is held while being bent. This hole 
 is just large enough for the shaft to pass through, 
 and is circular, except for one or two projections, 
 which press into the wood and cut out the grooves. 
 The feathers are usually three in number, put on with 
 glue, but wound above and below with sinew. The 
 notch for the string is deep and in the same plane 
 with the arrow s head. The private mark of the owner 
 is usually found close to the end of the feathers. It 
 may be a fashion of painting or some arrangement of 
 stained feathers. The feathers are rarely two or four, 
 and their length varies greatly with the tribe. They 
 are usually taken from birds of prey. 
 
 The most important part of the warrior s equip 
 ment was the bow, and over no part of it was more 
 time and labour spent. In every lodge there were 
 kept sticks of bow wood, some of them so far ad 
 vanced in manufacture that but little labour was re- 
 
IMPLEMENTS AND INDUSTRIES. 151 
 
 quired to complete them. While the bow was usually 
 made of wood, bone and horn were also used. Those 
 of bone were fashioned of two or more pieces of the 
 rib of some large animal an elk or a buffalo neatly 
 fitted and spliced together. Those of elk horn were 
 also made of several pieces, fitted and glued together, 
 and wrapped with sinew. Buffalo or sheep horn 
 bows were made of several pieces, which were boiled 
 or steamed and straightened before being put to 
 gether. Bows made of horn or bone were very stiff, 
 and sometimes could hardly be drawn by a white man, 
 though handled by their owners with apparent ease. 
 Their manufacture was a long, slow process, and they 
 were highly valued, and it was not easy to induce an 
 owner to sell one. They were made chiefly among 
 the mountain Indians, such as the Crows, Snakes, and 
 Utes, but were often traded to other tribes. 
 
 Almost all the native woods in one section of the 
 country or another were used for bows. In later 
 times hickory was a favourite wood, and old oxbows 
 were highly valued by the Indians, who used to steam. 
 and straighten them and then make them into bows. 
 Other woods employed were the osage orange, ash, 
 cedar, yew, choke cherry, and willow. The wood was 
 seasoned with care, worked down carefully, straight 
 ened again and again, oiled and handled, and, finally, 
 as the last operation, the nocks were cut, the sinew 
 backing applied, a wrapping of buckskin secured 
 about the grip of the bow, and it was finished. Good 
 bows of plains and mountain tribes were always backed 
 with sinew, which added much to the spring and 
 strength of the weapon. Some tribes toward the 
 Pacific coast backed their bows with salmon skin. 
 The bowstring was always made of twisted sinew. 
 
152 MU STOEY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 The bow and arrows were carried in a bow case and 
 quiver, fastened together and slung over the shoulder. 
 The covering of these was often otter or panther skin, 
 the hide of a buffalo calf, or, in later times, of domestic 
 cattle. 
 
 Among most of the plains tribes the use of the bow 
 was discontinued long ago, and at the present time 
 only boys bows are in use. The old familiarity and 
 skill with the arm are lost. In old times, however, the 
 bow at short range was an extremely effective weapon, 
 and a skilled archer could shoot so rapidly that he had 
 no difficulty in keeping several horizontally directed 
 arrows in the air at the same time. The bow could 
 be shot more rapidly and effectively than a revolving 
 pistol. 
 
 The power of the bow is well known. There are 
 perfectly well authenticated instances where two buf 
 falo, running side by side, have been killed by the same 
 arrow, and it was not uncommon for an arrow to go 
 so far through an animal that the point and a part 
 of the shaft projected on the other side. The arrow 
 could be shot to a distance of three or four hundred 
 yards. 
 
 The stone axe, the maul, and the lance were all 
 simple weapons. The axehead was usually of soft 
 stone, ground down to an edge, and a groove was 
 worked out at right angles to its length, so that the 
 green withe by which it was fastened to the handle 
 should not slip off. Over this, green rawhide was 
 sewed with sinew, and this hide usually extended over 
 the whole length of the handle. The maul or war- 
 club was made of a grooved oval stone, fastened to a 
 handle in the same way as the axe. The club had a 
 long handle and carried a small stone, no larger than 
 
.IMPLEMENTS AND INDUSTRIES. 153 
 
 a man s fist. The woman s maul was short handled 
 and the stone was large and heavy. The lancehead 
 was made of flint, flaked sharp, and lashed to a shaft 
 with sinew or wet rawhide strings. 
 
 A very important part of the warrior s outfit was 
 the shield, with which he stopped or turned aside the 
 arrows of his enemy. It was usually circular in shape, 
 and was made of the thick, shrunken hide of a buffalo 
 bull s neck. It was heavy enough to turn the ball 
 from an old-fashioned smooth-bored gun. The shield 
 was usually highly ornamented, and often had the 
 warrior s " medicine " painted on it, and was often 
 fringed with eagle feathers about its circumfer 
 ence. 
 
 Clothing was made of skins tanned with or without 
 the fur. Buffalo tribes, as a rule, wore clothing made 
 for the most part of the skins of this animal, and used 
 comparatively little buckskin. As their work was 
 chiefly on these large heavy skins, they were poor tan 
 ners by comparison with those tribes which lived in 
 the mountains and made their clothing largely of deer 
 skin. The leggings, shirts, and women s dresses, have 
 often been described. Moccasins for summer wear 
 covered the foot only, not coming up over the ankle, 
 but winter moccasins were provided with a high flap 
 which tied about the ankle under the legging. Some 
 tribes used moccasins made wholly of deer skin and 
 without a sole ; with others a parfleche sole was al 
 ways provided. They were ornamented in front with 
 stained porcupine quills, or in later times with beads ; 
 sometimes, too, there are little fringes about the ankle 
 or down the front, and two little tags from the heels. 
 All the sewing of this clothing was done with thread 
 made of sinew, and in old times with awls made of 
 
154: THE STORY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 bone or stiff thorns. Such sewing was very enduring, 
 and the dressed skin would wear out before the seams 
 gave way. 
 
 Many of the tribes especially those to the south 
 made a simple pottery, either formed on a mould or 
 else within or without a frame of basket-work, which 
 sometimes was afterward burned away in the baking. 
 The best pottery, that of the southwest, was often, if 
 not always, made by coiling a long rope of clay, tier 
 above tier, until the vessel was completed. Some of 
 the ware so made was singularly graceful and perfect. 
 Often it was ornamented by indented markings drawn 
 while the clay was soft, or by figures painted before 
 the baking. With the advent of the whites and the 
 introduction of vessels of metal, the manufacture of 
 such pottery ceased, and it is now carried on in but 
 very few tribes. 
 
 Among the northern tribes, where pottery was least 
 known, ladles, spoons, bowls, and dishes were usually 
 formed from horn or wood. The horns of the buffalo, 
 the mountain sheep, and the white goat were used for 
 these purposes, those of the last-named species being 
 often elaborately carved and ornamented by the north 
 west coast tribes. Plates or dishes made of pieces of 
 buffalo horn fitted and sewn together with sinew were 
 common. Excrescences on tree trunks, knocked off 
 and hollowed out, made good wooden bowls. Stone 
 pots and ollas and stone mortars were common, es 
 pecially on the southwest coast, as were also the basalt 
 mills used for grinding the corn, metates. Some plains 
 tribes used wooden mortars, usually made of oak or 
 some other hard wood, with a long and heavy wood 
 en pestle. The Lake Winnipeg Chippeways still 
 use a mill of two circular stones, revolving one upon 
 
IMPLEMENTS AND INDUSTRIES. 155 
 
 the other, but the idea of this may have been bor 
 rowed from the whites. By some tribes cups and 
 buckets were made from the lining of the buffalo s 
 paunch, and many others wove basketware, so tight 
 that it would hold water, and such vessels were even 
 used to cook in, the water being heated with hot 
 stones. 
 
 Implements for tanning fleshers were made of 
 stone, with the edges flaked off until they were sharp, 
 or of elkhorn steamed and bent at one end for three 
 inches at right angles to the course of the antler and 
 sharpened, or of bone, as the cannon bone of a buffalo, 
 cut diagonally so as to give a sharp edge, and notched 
 along this sharpened border. All these were servicea 
 ble, and were commonly employed. 
 
 The different tribes had but slight knowledge of 
 the textile art, and this knowledge seems to have been 
 greatest in the south and on the coast. Many tribes 
 wove baskets and mats of reeds and grass, yet the 
 plains Indians, who had in the fleece of the buffalo an 
 excellent material for weaving cloth, never seem to 
 have got any further than to twist ropes from it. The 
 Mokis of the south and the coast tribes of the north 
 practised the aboriginal art of blanket-weaving, and 
 the Navajoes, after they obtained their flocks from 
 the Spaniards, took up this art and now practise it in 
 singular perfection. The blanket- weaving of the north 
 is less skilful. The rounded hats woven of cedar bark 
 by the northwest coast tribes deserve mention. The 
 plains tribes plaited ropes of rawhide; those of the 
 northern coast make ropes of cedar bark, and long 
 fishing-lines by knotting together the slender stems of 
 the kelp. 
 
 Three vehicles were known to the primitive In- 
 
156 THE STOIIY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 dian the travels in the south and the sledge in the 
 north for land travel, and the canoe wherever there 
 were water ways. The sledge could be used only when 
 the ground was snow -covered, and it was scarcely 
 known south of the parallel of 50. In primitive 
 times both sledge and travois were drawn by dogs, but 
 as soon as horses were obtained, the dogs were freed 
 from the travois, and horses drew the loads. From 
 time immemorial the travois has been used by the 
 plains savage to transport his possessions, and it is 
 only when he makes his first slow step toward civili 
 zation that he exchanges it for a wagon. What his 
 canoe is to the Indian who traverses the water ways of 
 the north, or his dog sledge to the fur-clad Innuit, the 
 travois * is to the dweller on the plains. Where in 
 use to-day, it consists of two poles about the size of 
 lodge poles, crossed near their smaller ends, and toward 
 the larger held in place by crosspieces three feet apart. 
 The space between these two cross braces is occupied 
 by a stiff rawhide netting running from one pole to 
 the other, and strong enough to carry a weight of sev 
 eral hundred pounds. The crossed ends of the poles 
 are placed over a horse s withers just at the front of 
 the saddle, and the separated braced ends drag upon 
 the ground behind. The body and hips of the horse 
 are in the empty space between the angles at the 
 withers and the first crosspiece, which comes close 
 behind the hocks. Bearing a part of the weight on 
 his shoulders, the horse drags this rude contrivance 
 
 * This is a French trapper word, perhaps a corruption of 
 travers or d travers, across, referring to the crossing of the 
 poles over the horse s withers. It hardly seems that it can come 
 from travaux or trqineau, as has been suggested. 
 
I- r-- 
 
IMPLEMENTS AND INDUSTRIES. 157 
 
 and its load over the rough prairie, along narrow 
 mountain trails or through hurrying torrents, with 
 rarely a mishap. On the platform of the travois are 
 carried loads of meat from the buffalo-killing, the va 
 rious possessions of the owner in moving camp from 
 place to place, a sick or wounded individual too weak 
 to ride, and sometimes a wickerwork cage shaped like 
 a sweat lodge, in which are confined small children, 
 or even a family of tiny puppies with their mother. 
 Things that cannot be conveniently packed on the 
 backs of the horses are put upon the travois. Some 
 times the travois bears the dead, for with certain tribes 
 it is essential to the future well-being of the departed 
 that they be brought back to the tribal burying ground 
 near the village. 
 
 The highest type of Indian canoe is that of birch 
 bark, employed by the tribes of the. north an^north- 
 east, yet in many respects the canoe of the northwest 
 coast equals or excels it. The latter being of wood, 
 and of one piece, is much more substantial than thye 
 birch ; yet even it must be cared for, since a rough 
 knock or two on the beach may split it from end to 
 end, and if it should receive injury, the work of repair 
 ing is much more difficult than that of patching a 
 bark canoe. The vessels used on the northwestern 
 coast vary in length from ten to eighty feet, and are 
 hollowed out from the trunk of a single tree of the 
 white cedar. After the tree trunk has been flattened 
 above and roughly shaped, the work of hollowing it 
 out begins. Fires are built on the top of the log, care 
 fully watched, and so controlled that they burn evenly 
 and slowly down into the wood. When they have 
 gone far enough, they are extinguished, the interior is 
 ecraped, and then the canoe-builder, using a wooden 
 
)58 THE STORY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 handle in which is fastened a small chisel, carefully 
 goes over the whole surface. At each blow he takes 
 off a little scale of wood, as large as a man s thumb and 
 quite thin, and this he continues, within and without, 
 until the canoe is completed. It is then braced by 
 two or more crosspieces, which are sewed to the gun 
 wales with steamed cedar twigs on either side, so that 
 the vessel cannot spread. The painting follows, and 
 the vessel is ready for use. Only seasoned and perfect 
 timber is used for these canoes. 
 
 In such canoes, the Indians of the north Pacific 
 make long journeys over the open seas, often ventur 
 ing out of sight of land, facing rough weather, and 
 capturing sea otters, seals, sea lions, and whales. The 
 larger canoes were used to carry war parties, and the 
 sudden appearance of one of these great boats full of 
 fighting men carried consternation to the hearts of 
 the dwellers in the village that it threatened. Trav 
 ellers in these canoes, when they meet a heavy head 
 wind, are often obliged to lie windbound for days be 
 fore they can continue their journey. 
 
 Besides the long pointed paddles with a crossbar 
 at the handle, which are used to propel the canoes, 
 each of the larger ones is provided with a mast stepped 
 in a chock in the bottom, and supported by one of the 
 forward crossbars. A spritsail is used with a following 
 wind, but as the canoes have no keel, it is impossible 
 to beat, and even with a beam wind the vessel slips 
 rapidly off to leeward. 
 
 Dugouts widely different from those of the north 
 west coast, and canoes made of pine or spruce bark, 
 are used by some of the canoe people of the northern 
 liocky Mountains, the Kutenais, Kalispels, and others. 
 Those of bark are quite remarkable in type, being 
 
IMPLEMENTS AND INDUSTRIES. 159 
 
 much longer on the bottom than the top, and termi 
 nating before and behind in a long slender point, 
 which looks somewhat like the ram of a man-of-war. 
 The bark is stripped off the tree trunk in a single 
 piece, the outer surface being shaved or scraped 
 smooth. It is then bent inside out, so that the in 
 side of the canoe is formed of the outside of the bark. 
 The ends are then brought together and sewed up 
 with long fibres of roots, the awl or needle used being 
 of bone. The seams are pitched with gum from the 
 spruce. The gunwale on either side is strengthened 
 by strips of hard wood, sewn to the bark by roots or 
 cedar bark, and these strips meet and are fastened to 
 gether at either end of the boat, and along the cut 
 edge of the bark on either side of the two ends, a strip 
 of hard wood is sewn and the two strips lashed togeth 
 er. The boat is strengthened by ribs of ha%d wood, 
 which run across from one gunwale to the other, fol 
 lowing the skin of the canoe, and a number of longi 
 tudinal strips form a flooring and strengthen the sides. 
 Thus the vessel, like the birch canoe, has a real frame, 
 though this is built inside the skin, reversing the usual 
 order. Crossbars or thwarts run from gunwale to gun 
 wale, and give additional stiffness. Sometimes the 
 bark immediately below the gunwales is from the birch 
 tree. The paddle has a straight, simple handle, with 
 out crosspiece. These canoes are thus quite elaborate, 
 but they are extremely difficult to handle by one who 
 is not accustomed to them, and turn over on very small 
 provocation. 
 
 The birch bark canoe of the northern Indians is 
 identical with that used in the east, and its form and 
 material are familiar to all. It is a graceful, seaworthy 
 structure, very light and easily transported from place 
 
160 THE STORY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 to place, and very readily repaired. It is in general 
 use throughout the north. 
 
 On the plains, canoes are unknown, for there are 
 no water ways which make them necessary, and though 
 many tribes which had migrated from the east had in 
 their earlier homes made and used these vehicles, yet 
 when the conditions of their life made them unneces 
 sary, the art of building them was soon forgotten. On 
 some of the larger streams, however, boats were needed 
 to ferry across the chattels of the people when travel 
 ling, and this want was supplied by the invention of 
 the " bull boat." This was something like the skin 
 coracle of the ancient Britons, but was even more 
 primitive. It was a circular vessel, shaped like a shal 
 low teacup, made of a fresh buffalo hide stretched over 
 a frame of green willow branches. All the holes in 
 the skin were sewed up, and all the seams pitched with 
 tallow. The vessel was carefully loaded with goods 
 for transportation, a place being left at one point for 
 the paddler. Owing to the shape of the boat, it could 
 not be rowed or paddled in the ordinary way. The 
 woman dipped her paddle in the water and drew it 
 directly toward her, and toward the side of the boat, 
 and in this way pulled the boat to the opposite shore. 
 Men did not often use these boats, but usually swam 
 over with the horses. Such boats were not perma 
 nent, for as soon as they had served their purpose, 
 the frames were torn out of them and the hides were 
 used for some other purpose. Bull boats were used 
 chiefly on the lower Missouri and Platte rivers. On 
 the upper Missouri, rafts were the only means of ferry 
 ing across the streams. 
 
 The Indian s ideas of art are rude. He has an eye 
 for bright colors, but no notion of drawing. His fig- 
 
IMPLEMENTS AND INDUSTRIES. 161 
 
 ures of men and animals are grotesque, and are as 
 grotesquely painted in staring hues of red, yellow, and 
 black, his paints being burned clays and charcoal. In 
 his pottery and his carving, however, he is more ad 
 vanced. Some of his water jars and other vessels 
 have very graceful shapes, and some pots, representing 
 human heads, which have been exhumed from the an 
 cient mounds, are full of character. 
 
 It is in the art of carving, however, that the great 
 est skill was shown. Using the soft catlinite of the 
 pipe-stone quarry, the plains warrior whittled out his 
 great red pipe as symmetrically as if turned in a lathe, 
 often ornamenting it with the head and neck of a 
 horse or a bear. The canoe man of Puget Sound 
 carved the soft cedar of the canoe prow into a figure 
 head. The Navajoes of the south and the Haidahs of 
 the north are skilled silversmiths to-day, and the 
 dwellers on the British Columbia and Alaskan coasts 
 still fashion the great totem poles, which tell the story 
 of their descent from some mythical ancestor. Very 
 remarkable skill is shown by the Queen Charlotte s 
 Sound Indians in their work in a black slate rock 
 which they carve into all sorts of shapes. I have 
 seen platters and dishes, pipes, and models of houses, 
 beautifully carved and often inlaid with carved bits 
 of ivory taken from the teeth of the walrus or the 
 whale. 
 
 Great time and patience must be expended on this 
 work, and on the drilling of straight holes through 
 the stems of their pipes, some of them four feet in 
 length. While the bowls of these pipes are most often 
 of the stone known as catlinite, sometimes they are 
 of wood or bone, or even petrified wood or quartz 
 pebble. 
 
162 THE STORY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 The musical instruments of the Indians are few. 
 Drums, whistles, rattles, an instrument called by the 
 whites a " fiddle " consisting of a gourd and notched 
 stick along which another stick is drawn and a 
 flageolet with three or four stops were the principal 
 ones. The flageolet used by some tribes is an instru 
 ment of considerable range and power, and the music 
 made on it, heard at night in the camp when some 
 young man is serenading his sweetheart, is very 
 charming. The whistles are used chiefly in war, the 
 drums in festal or religious ceremonies, the rattles to 
 beat time at the dance or to frighten away bad spirits. 
 This rattle is one of the important possessions of the 
 healer, and is often so highly valued that the owner 
 refuses to sell it. 
 
 The music of these people is chiefly vocal. They 
 are unwearied singers, and love, war, religion, sorrow, 
 or joy are alike expressed IL their songs. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 MAN AND NATUKE. 
 
 LIKE the wild bird and the beast, like the cloud 
 and the forest tree, the primitive savage is a part of 
 nature. He is in it and of it. He studies it all 
 through his life. He can read its language. It is 
 the one thing that he knows. He is an observer. 
 Nothing escapes his eye. The sighs of clouds, the 
 blowing of the winds, the movements of birds and 
 animals all tell to him some story. It is by observing 
 these signs, reading them, and acting on them that he 
 procures his food, that he saves himself from his ene 
 mies, that he lives his life. 
 
 But though a keen observer, the Indian is not a 
 reasoner. He is quick to notice the connection be 
 tween two events, but often he does not know what 
 that connection is. He constantly mistakes effect for 
 cause, post hoc for propter hoc. If the wind blows 
 and the waves begin to roll on the surface of the lake, 
 he says that the rolling of the waves causes the blow 
 ing of the breeze. The natural phenomena which 
 we understand so little, he does not understand at all. 
 In his attempts to assign causes for them, he gives 
 explanations which are grotesque. The moon wanes 
 because it is sick, and at last it dies and a new one 
 is created ; or it grows small because mice are gnaw 
 ing at its edges, nibbling it away. He hears a grouse 
 12 163 , 
 
164 THE STORY OP THE INDIAN. 
 
 rise from the ground with a roar of wings, and con 
 cludes that the roar of the thunder must be made by 
 a bird much larger ; or he sees an unknown bird rise 
 from the ground, and just as it flies the thunder rolls, 
 hence this bird causes the thunder and is the thunder 
 bird. 
 
 To him the sun, moon, and stars are persons. 
 The animals, trees, and mountains are powers and in 
 telligences. The ravens foretell events to come, the 
 wolves talk to him of matters which are happening at 
 a distance. If he is unhappy and prays fervently for 
 hel^>, some animal may take pity on him and assist 
 him by its miraculous power. He understands his 
 own weakness and realizes the strength of the forces 
 of nature. He realizes, too, their incomprehensibility. 
 To him they are mysteries. 
 
 The Indian s life is full of things that he does not 
 understand of the mysterious, of the superhuman. 
 These mysteries he greatly fears, and he prays without 
 ceasing that he may be delivered from the unknown 
 perils which threaten him on every hand. He has a 
 wholesome dread of material dangers, of enemies on 
 the warpath, of bears in the mountains ; but far more 
 than these he fears the mysterious powers that sur 
 round him powers which are unseen until they strike, 
 which leave no tracks upon the ground, the smoke of 
 whose fires cannot be seen rising through the clear air. 
 He fears the burning arrow shot by the thunder ; the 
 unseen under-water animals which may seize him, as 
 he is crossing stream or lake, and drag him beneath 
 the waves; the invisible darts of evil spirits which 
 cause disease not to be cured by any medicine of roots 
 or herbs ; the ghost, terrible not for what it may do, 
 "but only because it is a ghost. Against such dangers 
 
MAN AND NATURE. 
 
 he feels that he has no defence. So it is that he 
 prays to the sun, the moon, the stars, the mountains, 
 the ghosts, the above-people, and the under-water 
 people. For pity and for protection he appeals to 
 everything in nature that his imagination indues with 
 a power greater than his own. 
 
 In an Indian camp it is not the average man that 
 has communication with the other and unseen world. 
 All pray, it is true, but to most of these prayers no 
 answer is vouchsafed. It is only now and then that 
 visions or communications from the supernatural 
 world come to men and women. Those who are thus 
 especially favoured are not, so far as we can tell from 
 their histories, particularly deserving. The help that 
 they receive they owe not so much to any good works 
 that they have performed, or to any merit of their 
 own, as to the kindness of heart of the supernatural 
 powers. In another volume * I have given some ac 
 count of the practice of dreaming for power, an act 
 of penance and self-sacrifice which, when carried out, 
 often secured the pity and help of the supernatural 
 powers, and which seems to have been well-nigh uni 
 versal among the Indians. 
 
 The powers influencing the Indian s life may be 
 either malignant or beneficent, but by far the greater 
 number seem to be well disposed and helpful. Stories 
 about this latter class are much more numerous than 
 those of hurtful powers, and it seems that usually 
 these supernatual beings are easily moved by prayer 
 and accessible to pity. On the other hand, a man who 
 fails to show respect to these forces is likely to die. 
 On the west side of the Eocky Mountains, there is a 
 
 * Blackfoot Lodge Tales, p. 191. 
 
166 THE STORY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 mountain sheep skull grown into a great pine tree 
 trunk. This is a sacred object, reverenced by all. 
 Once, however, a Nez Perce laughed at his compan 
 ions because they offered presents to this skull, and 
 to show that he did not believe in it he shot at it with 
 his gun. The next day as he was travelling along his 
 rifle, accidentally discharged, killed him. 
 
 The depths of the water shelter a horde of mys~ 
 terious inhabitants. Some of them are people, but 
 quite different from those who live on the prairie. 
 Others are animals similar to those which we have on 
 land, while others are monsters. The under-water 
 people use the water fowl the swans, geese, and 
 pelicans for their dogs ; that is, for their beasts of 
 burden. Small water birds are used as messengers by 
 the supernatural powers. The Dakotas and Chey- 
 ennes tell us that the under-water monsters have long 
 horns and are covered with hair. The Cheyennes 
 say that they lay eggs, and that any human being 
 who eats one of these eggs, shortly becomes himself 
 one of these water monsters. 
 
 With some prairie tribes there seems in early times 
 to have been a tendency to explain the advent of any 
 animal new to them by concluding that it was an 
 under-water animal that had taken to living on the 
 land. Thus, by some, the first white men were 
 thought to be under-water people, just as by others 
 they were believed to be spirits or mysteries. The 
 Piegans tell with much detail how the first horses 
 came up out of a lake. The story which was first 
 told me by Almost-a-Dog, and since by other old 
 people, is this : 
 
 A long time ago a Piegan warrior s dream told 
 him about a lake far away, where there were some 
 
MAN AND NATURE. 
 
 large animals, which were harmless and which he 
 could catch, tame, and use to pack on, like dogs. 
 And because they were very large and could carry a 
 heavy load, they would be better to use than the dogs, 
 on which the people then carried their packs. " Go 
 to this lake," said his dream, " and take with you a 
 rope, so that you can catch these animals." 
 
 So the man took a long rope of bull s hide, and 
 went to the shore of the lake, and dug a hole in the 
 sand there, and hid in it. While he watched, he saw 
 many animals come down to the lake to drink. Deer 
 came down and coyotes and elk and buffalo. They 
 all came and drank. After a while, the wind began to 
 blow and the waves to rise and roll upon the beach, 
 saying sh-li-li-h, sh-h-h-h. At last came a band of 
 large animals, unlike any that the man had ever seen 
 before. They were big like an elk, and had small 
 ears and long tails hanging down. Some were white, 
 and some black, and some red and spotted. The 
 young ones were smaller. When they came down to 
 the water s edge and stopped to drink, his dream said 
 to the man, " Throw your rope and catch one." So 
 the man threw his rope, and caught one of the largest 
 of the animals. It struggled and pulled and dragged 
 the man about, and he was not strong enough to hold 
 it, and at length it pulled the rope out of his hand, 
 and the whole band ran into the lake and under the 
 water and were not seen again. The man went back 
 to camp feeling very sad. 
 
 He prayed for help to his dream, which said : 
 " Four times you may try to catch these animals. If 
 in four times trying you do not get them, you will 
 never see them again." Then the man made a sacrifice, 
 and prayed to the Sun and to Old Man, and his dreain 
 
168 ^HE STORY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 spoke to him in his sleep, and told him that he was 
 not strong enough to catch a big one, that he ought 
 try to catch one of the young then he could hold it. 
 The man went again to the shores of the big lake, 
 and again dug a hole in the sand and lay hidden 
 there. He saw all the animals come down to drink 
 the deer, the wolves, the elk, and the buffalo. At 
 last the wind began to rise and the waves to roll and 
 to say sh-li-li-li, sh-h-h-h upon the shore. Then came 
 the band of strange animals to drink at the lake. 
 Again the man threw his rope, and this time he 
 caught one of the young and was able to hold it. He 
 caught all of the young ones out of the band and took 
 them to the camp. After they had been there a little 
 while, the mares the mothers of these colts came 
 trotting into the camp ; their udders were full of 
 milk. After them came all the others of the band. 
 
 At first the people were afraid of these new ani 
 mals and would not go near them, but the man who 
 had caught them told everybody that they were harm 
 less. After a time they became tame, so that they 
 did not have to be tied up, but followed the camp 
 about as it moved from place to place. Then the 
 people began to put packs on them, and they called 
 them po-no-Jcah mi-ta,) that is, elk-dog, because they 
 are big and shaped like an elk, and carry a pack like 
 a dog. This is how the Piku ni got their horses. 
 
 If the under- world is peopled with mysterious and 
 terrible inhabitants, not less strange and powerful are 
 those who dwell in the regions of the upper air. 
 There lives the thunder, that fearful one, who strikes 
 without warning, whose bolt shatters the lofty crag, 
 blasts the tallest pine, and fells the strongest animal, 
 a moment before active and full of life. There are 
 
MAN AND NATURE. 169 
 
 the winds, the clouds, the ghosts, and many other 
 persons, whom sometimes we feel, but never see. 
 
 As has been said, the thunder is usually regarded 
 as a great bird, but this appears to have relation 
 merely to the sound that it produces. Often the 
 thunder is described as a person, sometimes as a 
 dreadful man with threatening eyes, or again, young 
 and handsome. Sometimes it is a monster, birdlike 
 only in that it has wings and the power of flight. 
 Thunder is terrible and must be prayed to, and be 
 sides this, he brings the rain which makes the crops to 
 grow and the berries large and sweet, and for this 
 reason, too, he must be prayed to. The rainstorm 
 and the thunder are scarcely separated in the Indian s 
 mind. Sometimes, when the thunder appears most 
 dangerous, it can be frightened away. A friend of 
 mine was once on the prairie in a very severe storm. 
 The hair of his head and the mane of his horse stood 
 straight out. The thunder was crashing all about 
 him and kept drawing nearer and nearer. The man 
 was very much frightened and did not know what to 
 do, but at length in despair he began to shoot his gun 
 at the thunder, loading as fast as he could, and firing 
 in the direction of the sound. Soon after he began 
 to do this, the thunder commenced to move away and 
 at last ceased altogether. 
 
 Some tribes believe that a bitter hostility exists 
 between the thunder birds and the under- water mon 
 sters, the birds attacking these last when they see 
 them, and striving to carry them off. 
 
 The Rev. J. 0. Dorsey tells of a Winnebago In 
 dian, who was said to have been an eye witness of such 
 a conflict, and who was called on by each of the com 
 batants for assistance in the fight, each promising to 
 
170 THE STORY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 reward him for his aid. The man was naturally very 
 much afraid, and was doubtful what part he should 
 take in the combat, but at length he determined to 
 assist the thunder bird and shot an arrow into the 
 water monster. This terminated the fight in favour 
 . of the aerial power, which then flew away with its foe. 
 But the wounded under-water monster called back to 
 the man, " Yes, it is true that you may become great, 
 but your relations must die." And it was so. The 
 man did become great, but his relations died. Some 
 times, however, arrows shot by man will not injure 
 an under-water animal. It pays no attention to the 
 arrows. 
 
 One view taken of the thunder is given in a story 
 told in the Blackf oot Lodge Tales ; another is found 
 in the story of the Thunder Pipe, a Blood story : 
 
 This happened long ago. In the camp the chil 
 dren playing, had little lodges and sticks for lodge 
 poles, and used to make travois for their dogs. A 
 number of them would get together and harness their 
 dogs and move camp about a mile, carrying their little 
 brothers and sisters, and then put up their lodges. 
 Such was the children s play. 
 
 One day, while they were out doing this, a big 
 cloud came up. The children said, " We had better 
 go home. It looks as if it were going to rain." They 
 waited too long, and before they had started, the storm 
 began. Some went on home in the rain, and some 
 went into the brush, to wait there till the storm had 
 passed. It was thundering and lightening a very 
 hard storm. It grew worse and worse, and the thun 
 der came closer, and those who had stayed became 
 frightened, and at length ran home in the rain. 
 
 After the children had all reached the camp, one 
 
MAN AND NATURE. 171 
 
 was still missing a girl about fifteen years old, very 
 pretty. When the storm had passed, some of the 
 people went out to look for this child, but they could 
 not find her. This alarmed the camp, and everybody 
 turned out to try to find the little girl. They looked 
 for her for three days, but could not find her. The 
 mother was very sorry to have lost her child, and 
 gashed her legs and arms and cut on the ends of her 
 fingers, and the father did the same. They sat up on 
 the hills mourning, and would not eat, nor drink, nor 
 come to camp, they were so sorry for the loss of the 
 girl. At last the camp moved and went to another 
 stream. 
 
 Soon after they got there, another terrible storm 
 came up. The clouds were black, the rain poured 
 down, and the thunder crashed everywhere about the 
 camp. During the storm, while it was raining heavi 
 est, a young man came running into the lodge of the 
 mourners and said to them, "Your girl has come 
 back." The girl was brought into the lodge, and her 
 father and mother were very happy to see her. Be 
 fore they had time to speak, she said to them, " Father 
 and mother, I have been away, but it was not my 
 fault." They asked her, " Where have you been ? " 
 She replied : " I cannot tell you that. I do not know 
 where I have been. While it was raining and thun 
 dering the other day a young man came and stood 
 beside me and said, Let us go. I did not want to 
 go, but he took me. I have been crying all the time 
 ever since, and at last he took pity on me and brought 
 me back. If you will go to my grandmother s lodge 
 you will see him. He is in there. You will also find 
 a pipestem, which your son-in-law has given me. 
 Bring it to this lodge." 
 
172 THE STORY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 The parents went over to the lodge to get the pipe- 
 stem, and were much surprised to see what a hand 
 some young man was there. They did not know him. 
 He was a stranger to them. He was so handsome 
 they were frightened. 
 
 The old people took the stem and brought it to 
 their lodge, and said to their daughter : " Well, it is 
 good that you are married. Your husband is a very 
 fine-looking man. Who is he ? " She answered, " I 
 cannot tell you, for I do not know." " When did you 
 first see him ? Where did he find you ? " they said. 
 The girl replied : " I was bending down ovej a tree 
 trunk when the thunder fell right in front of me. 
 When I raised myself up quickly and looked, this 
 young man was standing by me. I did not wish to 
 go with him, but he took me. We had only walked 
 a little way when I found I was in a strange land, and 
 I have been crying ever since. At last he said to 
 me, Well, if you are so lonesome, I will have to 
 take you back to your people. It was a fine, bright 
 day when we started this morning, but we had gone 
 only a little way when we were walking in a small 
 mist. As we came further this mist grew larger and 
 rose and clouded over the whole sky, and we walked 
 on in it. After a while, I found the rain pouring 
 down, and the next thing I knew I was standing here 
 in your camp." 
 
 The parents talked to the young man, but he would 
 not answer them. The girl told the people that while 
 in the strange land the young man gave her a pipe- 
 stem to give to her father. When he was in trouble 
 and wanted help, he might ask for it from this pipe- 
 stem. Then the Thunder power would aid him. 
 " When your father is tired of it," he said " he may 
 
MAN AND NATURE. 173 
 
 give it to his children, and they may use it with the 
 same power. So long as this stem is kept by your 
 people it will be a great help to them." 
 
 This is where the stem came from that belongs 
 to Mahkwe yi pis to-ki. It has been kept in this 
 tribe, handed down from those days, and is still in 
 the Blood carnp. 
 
 The winter storms of snow and cold are ruled by 
 a person sometimes called Coldmaker. He is white, 
 not as the white man is white, but rather like the 
 snow, and is clad in white, and rides a white horse. 
 He brings the storm, riding in the midst of it, and 
 some people have the power to call him and to bring 
 on a snowstorm. 
 
 The wind does not often take material shape and 
 is seldom seen, yet in some cases it speaks to people. 
 Also it is sometimes made a messenger by the ruler. 
 Various causes are assigned for the blowing of the 
 wind, and one of these told me years ago by an old 
 Blood Indian, who knew the men to whom this hap 
 pened is perhaps worth repeating : 
 
 A good many years ago the camp was moving 
 from the north down through this country (that along 
 Milk River and the head waters of the Marias). 
 When they had got down here they ran out of Vherbe 
 and moved up toward the mountains to gather some, 
 and there they saw Windmaker. 
 
 There were three young men who went out to 
 gather Vherbe. They went up on the foothills, and 
 as they were going along they saw, down below them 
 in a valley, a strange animal. It was small the size 
 of a white man s cow, blue-roan in colour, and had a 
 very long tail. They stood looking down at it, and 
 
174: THE STORY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 said to each other, " What kind of an animal is 
 that ? " None of them had ever seen anything like it. 
 
 At length, while it was walking about grazing, it 
 raised its head and looked toward them, and they saw 
 that it had very long ears. When it looked toward 
 them, it moved its ears backward and forward two or 
 three times, and at once there came two or three 
 terrible gusts of wind. It turned, and started to trot 
 off toward the mountains, and they followed it. It 
 threw its ears backward and forward, and gusts of 
 wind kept coming. They chased it, and it ran into a 
 piece of timber, in which there was a lake. Here the 
 men separated, one going around the timber on either 
 side of the lake, while the third followed the animal. 
 
 When the two men had gone around the timber 
 and came to the further edge of the lake, the wind 
 died down very suddenly. They stood there, waiting 
 and looking for the animal. The man who had fol 
 lowed it saw the tracks going into the lake, and signed 
 to the others to come to him. They, too, saw where 
 it had gone into the water, but although they went 
 all around the lake, they could not see any tracks 
 where it had come out. They waited about till dark, 
 but it did not come out of the lake, so they went back 
 to their camp and told the medicine man what they 
 had seen. 
 
 Before that the people had never known what it 
 was that made the wind blow, but now, when they had 
 seen this animal, the medicine man decided that it 
 caused the wind, and they called it Windmaker. 
 
 The beliefs in animals are as numerous as the 
 tribes almost as the individuals of the tribes. Many 
 of them have already been alluded to, or will be 
 
MAN AND NATURE. 175 
 
 spoken of in the chapter on religion. The Dakotas 
 believe that the bear and the wolf exert evil influ 
 ences, and cause disease and death, while the Pawnees 
 regard them as friendly and helpful. Besides the 
 reverence felt for the buffalo, there are believed to 
 exist certain mysterious buffalo which cannot be 
 killed and which have great power. 
 
 The Pawnee Indians have a special belief about 
 a little animal which they call ground dog, and which, 
 from their description, I believe to be the black- 
 footed ferret (Putorius nigripes). This animal, being 
 nocturnal in habit and, spending most of its time in 
 burrows under ground, is seldom seen. The Pawnees 
 believe that if this animal sits up and looks at a man, 
 working its jaws, as if chewing, the entrails of that 
 man will at once be cut to pieces and he will die. 
 
 A considerable proportion of the " medicine " per 
 formances in any camp have to do with healing. 
 While the Indians are skilful in curing simple ail 
 ments and in surgery of a certain kind, there are 
 many more serious diseases which they do not at all 
 comprehend, and for which they have no medical 
 treatment. Such diseases they believe to be caused 
 by evil spirits, which must be driven away by the 
 dream power of the doctor, who relies for help on this 
 power and not on any curative agents. The treat 
 ment consists of burning sweet-smelling vegetation to 
 purify the air, of singing and praying to invoke the 
 help of the power, of rattling and making alarming 
 sounds to frighten away the evil spirits, and of suck 
 ing and brushing off the skin of the patient to re 
 move the mechanical causes of the disease. The dif 
 ferent operations of this healing process have often 
 been described. Usually such treatment gives no re- 
 
176 THE STORY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 lief and the patient dies, but in wounds or other in 
 juries these doctors have a success which oftentimes is 
 very remarkable. In another place I have given some 
 examples of this success, and I add here two other 
 cases where men have cured themselves or were cured 
 by others through dream power. Some of these stories 
 come from eyewitnesses. 
 
 A small party of Piegans were camped at Fort 
 Brule, at the mouth of the Marias River, when, one 
 morning about daylight, a war party of enemies 
 rushed upon them. The gates of the fort were 
 barred, so some of the women put up their travois 
 against the stockade and climbed over the walls for 
 shelter, while some dug pits in the ground outside 
 the stockade. A very heavy fight began. Two 
 women and one man were killed just outside the 
 stockade door by a lance in the hands of a Cree. 
 
 There was another camp of Piegans not far off, 
 and when the fight began one of the Indians ran 
 from Fort Brule and told these others that the 
 Crees were attacking them. A party of warriors hur 
 ried down, and when they reached the fort, the Crees 
 began to retreat. The Piegans followed them, and 
 the two parties took their stand on a ridge, the Orees 
 on one side and the Piegans on the other. A Piegan 
 named White Bear was trying to get closer to the 
 enemy, and a Cree crept up close to him and shot 
 him through the body, the ball entering at the kid 
 neys and coming out at the shoulders. His compan 
 ions dragged the man to the camp. He was still 
 breathing when they got him to the camp. Soon 
 after he died. 
 
 There was an old woman in the camp, a very power 
 ful doctor, and when she saw that the man was dead, 
 
MAN AND NATURE. 177 
 
 she took her buffalo robe and painted it on the head 
 and on the back and down the sides. She covered the 
 boy with the painted robe, and then asked for a dish 
 of yellow clay and some water. When these were 
 brought to her, she untied from White Bear s neck the 
 skin of a little mole that he used to carry about, and 
 put this skin in the dish of yellow clay. Then she 
 began to sing her medicine song, and went up to the 
 dead man and caught him by the little finger and shook 
 him, and said, " Wake up." At this time the lodge 
 was crowded full, and many stood about looking under 
 the lodge skins, which were raised. The woman would 
 shake the robe which lay on the man, and say, " Wake 
 up ; you are wanted to smoke." After she had done 
 this four times, the fourth time she did it, this man 
 moved. -When he moved, the old woman asked that 
 the pipe be lighted. This was done and the pipe 
 handed to her, and after taking a small smoke and 
 making a prayer to the ghosts, she said to the young 
 man, " Wake up," and at the same time pulled the 
 robe off him. White Bear staggered to his feet and 
 reached out his hand to take the pipe, but the old 
 woman kept backing away from him, till she came to 
 where stood the dish of yellow chalk with the skin in 
 it. There the man took the pipe and began to smoke, 
 and the blood poured from both the bullet holes. He 
 sat down beside the dish that had the mole in it, and 
 finally lay down and smoked, and when he smoked he 
 blew the smoke toward the mole and the yellow clay. 
 When he had finished smoking he covered the mole 
 skin over with a piece of buckskin, and then after a 
 minute or two took the skin off, and the mole was there 
 alive, scratching and digging in the yellow clay. He 
 lay down beside it, and the mole left the dish, ran over 
 
178 THE STORY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 on to his body, went to the bullet hole, put his head 
 in it, and began to pull out clots of blood. After it 
 had done this at one hole, it ran to the other and did 
 the same thing, and when it had done that, it went 
 back to the dish and remained there, and White Bear 
 again covered it with the piece of buckskin. Then 
 he took it off, and when he did so, there was nothing 
 there but the stuffed skin. After he had sung a song, 
 White Bear made a speech, saying that he had been 
 dead, but now he had come to life, and that after four 
 nights he would be well. The fourth day he was able 
 to go about. 
 
 A few days after he was able to get about, White 
 Bear started out as leader of a war party against the 
 Pend d Oreilles. One day, as they were marching 
 along, he said to his fellows, " I am going ahead to 
 see what I can discover." A war party of the ene 
 my saw him coming, and lay in ambush for him 
 in a ravine. As he was walking along with folded 
 arms, they fired on him, and a ball went through his 
 wrist and through his body. His party were not far 
 behind, and when they heard the shooting, they rushed 
 up and drove off the enemy and saved their leader. 
 When the fight was over White Bear said : " I am 
 badly hurt. We will have to go back." 
 
 They started back, and when they reached the 
 camp White Bear was nearly dead. They thought 
 he was going to die. The same doctoring was gone 
 through with that had been performed a few days 
 before, and with the same result. W hite Bear was 
 cured. 
 
 Here is another example : 
 
 The Big Snake a Piegan went to war. They 
 passed along through the Cut Bank country to go 
 
MAN AND NATURE. 179 
 
 across the mountains, and took the Good Hole through 
 the Mountains (Cadotte) pass. One day, as they were 
 going along, they met a war party of Crows. The 
 Crows saw them first, and lay in ambush for them. 
 As they were walking along, a volley was fired on them, 
 and the leader was shot down and killed. Another 
 one of the party was wounded, but the Piegans rushed 
 on the Crows and drove them off. 
 
 The Piegans started back, and when they had 
 reached the Muddy, the wounded man was nearly 
 dead. This man had with him the stuffed skin of a 
 curlew. 
 
 "When he found that he could go no further, he 
 stopped and asked his companions to sing his medi 
 cine song, saying that he would try whether he could 
 do anything for himself. A sack of red paint was got 
 out and untied, and he put the curlew skin down on 
 the paint. The pipe was filled and handed to him 
 lighted, and when he smoked he blew the smoke down 
 onto the curlew skin. After the second song was sung, 
 the curlew got up and shook itself, and dusted itself 
 in the red paint. The man lay down on a robe spread 
 out for him, and the curlew left the paint and walked 
 up to him. It put its bill down in the wound and 
 worked it about, doing this several times. Then the 
 man turned over on his back, and the bird did the 
 same thing to the other wound, every now and then 
 uttering its call. After it had done this, it walked over 
 to the red paint and sat down in it, and they covered it 
 over with a skin. When they took the skin off, the 
 bird was gone, and there was only the bird s skin 
 there. The man got well at once. White Calf saw 
 this himself. 
 
 Other stories are told in which the skin of a weasel 
 13 
 
180 THE STORY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 and a skunk became alive and worked similar cures, 
 and the list might be indefinitely prolonged. 
 
 If a white man saw such things as these happen he 
 could not explain them, and would be likely to con 
 sider thorn the work of the devil, or at least of some 
 supernatural power. The Indians cannot explain 
 them either ; and believing the evidence of their eyes, 
 they also believe that these things are done by the 
 dream, or the secret helper, of the person who exer 
 cises the power. 
 
 All these things which we speak of as medicine the 
 Indian calls mysterious, and when he calls them mys 
 terious this only means that they are beyond his power 
 to account for, that they are inexplicable. We say 
 that the Indian calls whisky " medicine water." He 
 really calls it mysterious water that is, water which 
 acts in a way that he can not understand, making him 
 dizzy, happy, drunk. In the same way some tribes 
 call the horse " medicine dog," and the gun " medi 
 cine iron," meaning mysterious dog and mysterious 
 iron. He whom we call a medicine man may be a 
 doctor, a healer of diseases ; or if he is a juggler, a 
 worker of magic, he is a mystery man. All Indian 
 languages have words which are the equivalents of our 
 word medicine, something with curative properties; 
 but the Indian s translation of " medicine," used in 
 the sense of magical or supernatural, would be myste 
 rious, inexplicable, unaccountable. 
 
 The word " medicine," as we use it in this connec 
 tion, is from the French word for doctor. The early 
 trappers saw the possessors of this supernatural power 
 use it in healing, and called the man who employed it 
 a medecin or doctor. From calling the doctor medecin, 
 it was an easy transition to call his power by the same 
 
MAN AND NATURE. isj 
 
 name, and the similarity in sound of the English and 
 French words made the term readily adopted by Eng 
 lish-speaking people. The term " medicine man " 
 originally meant doctor or healer, but one who effected 
 his cures by supernatural power. So at last " medi 
 cine " came to mean this power, and " medicine man " 
 the person who controlled the power, and the notion 
 of curing or healing became in a measure lost. 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 HIS CREATION. 
 
 CIVILIZED man has devoted much time to specu 
 lation and theory as to the origin of the Indian with 
 out as yet reaching any definite conclusion. The red 
 man has been assigned to different races, and has been 
 called a Hebrew, a Malay, and a Chinaman. Whence 
 he came we do not know, but it is certain that he has 
 inhabited this continent for a very long time long 
 enough to have established here a well-differentiated 
 race, about whose purity and antiquity there is no 
 question. The curious resemblances to other races 
 which have so often been noticed are probably en 
 tirely fortuitous. 
 
 But if the white man gropes in darkness searching 
 for light as to this origin, the Indian himself has no 
 such doubts. Each tribe has a definite story of its 
 own creation, which has been handed down by oral 
 tradition from father to son for many generations. A 
 considerable number of these myths have been record 
 ed, and they are of great interest as shedding some 
 light on the primitive beliefs of a wholly primitive 
 people. Such traditions have unquestionably under 
 gone certain changes in process of transmission, but 
 the modifications and additions are, I think, less con 
 siderable than is commonly believed. The Indian pre 
 serves in a remarkable way the tales handed down to 
 
 _ 182 
 
SIS CREATION. 183 
 
 him from his ancestors. To him such traditions have 
 a certain sanctity, and he does not consciously change 
 them. They are, as it were, chapters from his sacred 
 book, and in repeating them he tries to give them ex 
 actly as they have been told to him. In receiving 
 these and other traditions from the Indians, I have 
 often been interested to see the pains taken to give 
 each tale in its proper form to tell the story exactly 
 as it should be told. If in the course of his narration 
 the speaker s memory proves at fault on any point, he 
 will consult authorities, asking the opinions of old 
 men who are best acquainted with the story, refresh 
 ing his memory by their assistance, fully discussing 
 the doubtful point, and weighing each remark and 
 suggestion with care before continuing his tale. 
 
 The creation stories of the various tribes are quite 
 different, though in those which are akin there is usu 
 ally more or less similarity. Often the stories are told 
 with much detail.* In some cases the very spot at 
 which their ancestors first had life is described, but 
 in others no locality is assigned to the event. Such 
 stories usually include, besides the mere act of cre 
 ation, the early history of the tribes, and an account 
 of how his primitive weapons and some instruction 
 as to the manner of using them were given to early 
 man. 
 
 Sometimes the fact of creation is given in general 
 terms only, or again the material used, and the differ 
 ent acts performed in shaping man and giving him 
 life are described with some minuteness. On the other 
 hand, the earliest stories that we have of some tribes 
 describe them as already existing, but in some far-away 
 
 * See The Blackfoot Genesis. Blackfoot Lodge Tales, p. 137. 
 
184 THE STORY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 place, or perhaps under the ground, or beneath the 
 surface of a lake. 
 
 Such tales, bearing as they usually do on the first 
 acts of the Creator, who is the principal God, have an 
 intimate connection with the religious beliefs of the 
 tribes, and are a part of their religious history. In an 
 article * published in 1893 I gave the creation myth 
 of the Pawnees. I quote the substance of it here : 
 
 Tirdwa is the Creator. He made the mountains, 
 the prairies, and the rivers. 
 
 The men of the present era were not the original 
 inhabitants of the earth. They were preceded by 
 another race people of great size and strength. 
 These were so swift of foot, and so powerful, that 
 they could easily run down and kill the buffalo. A 
 great bull was readily carried into camp on the back 
 by these giants, and when a calf or a yearling was 
 killed, tho man thrust its head under his belt and car 
 ried it dangling against his leg, as the men of to-day 
 carry a rabbit. Often when these people overtook a 
 buffalo they would strike it with their hands, or kick 
 it with the foot, to knock it down, and to-day, the Ari- 
 karas say, you can see the marks of these blows the 
 prints of the hands and the feet on the flesh of the 
 buffalo beneath the skin, where these people kicked 
 and scratched the animals. 
 
 The race of giants had no respect for the Ruler. 
 On the contrary, they derided and insulted him in 
 every way possible. When the sun rose, or when it 
 thundered and rained, they would defy him. They 
 had great confidence in their own powers, and believed 
 that they were able to cope with the Creator. As they 
 
 * Journal of American Folk-Lore, vol. vi, p. 113, 1893. 
 
HIS CREATION. 185 
 
 increased in numbers they grew more defiant, and at 
 length became so bad that Tirdwa determined to de 
 stroy them. This he attempted to do at first by shoot 
 ing the lightning at them ; but the bolts glanced aside 
 from their bodies without injuring them. When he 
 found that they could not be killed by that means, he 
 sent a great rain, which destroyed them by drowning. 
 The ground became water-soaked and soft, and these 
 large and heavy people sank into it and were engulfed 
 in the mire. The great fossil bones of mastodons, ele 
 phants, and Brontotheridce are said to be the bones of 
 these giants ; and that such remains are often found 
 sticking out of cut banks, or in deep cafions, buried 
 under many feet of earth, is deemed conclusive evi 
 dence that the giants did sink into the soft earth and 
 so perish. 
 
 After the giant race had passed away, Tirdwa cre 
 ated a new people, a man and a woman, who were like 
 those now on the earth. These people were at first 
 poor, naked, and were without any knowledge of how 
 they should live ; but after a time the Creator gave 
 them the corn, the buffalo, and the wild roots and 
 fruits of the prairie for food, bows and arrows to kill 
 their game, and fire sticks to furnish a means of cook 
 ing it. The Ruler provided for them these various 
 things, such as trees bearing fruits, and things that 
 grow in the ground, artichokes, wild turnips, and 
 other roots. In the rivers he put fish, and on the 
 land game. All these things, everything good to eat 
 found on the plains or in the timber, was given to 
 them by Tirdwa. 
 
 All these gifts were presented to the Pawnees in 
 the country in which they were originally created, and 
 which, as clearly appears from the statements of the 
 
186 THE STORY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 oldest men, was far to the southwest. It was in this 
 original country that the Pawnees received their sacred 
 bundles. When they were given them, the people 
 knew nothing of iron, but used flint knives and ar 
 rowheads. The bundles are said to have been handed 
 down from the Father, though in certain cases, special 
 stories are told how particular bundles came to be re 
 ceived. 
 
 A more detailed account of the creation and the 
 doings of the original people is given by the Arikaras, 
 but it is not in all respects like that told by the Paw 
 nees, for these two tribes, though belonging to the 
 same family, separated long ago. This story, which 
 is generally known in the Arikara tribe, has come 
 to me from various sources. Two Crows the chief 
 priest and the fountain of sacred learning for the tribe 
 Pahukatawa, Fighting Bear, and others have given 
 me portions of this history; but the most complete 
 account I owe to the kindness of the Rev. C. L. Hall, 
 who had it from a Ree known as Peter Burdash, arid 
 he received it direct from Ka-ka-pit ka (Two Crows), 
 the priest. The account is as follows : In the begin 
 ning Atiucli (= Pawnee Atius] created the earth and 
 a people of stone. These people were so strong that 
 they had no need of the Creator, and would not obey 
 him. They even defied him ; so he determined to put 
 an end to them. He therefore caused a great rain, 
 which fell continuously for many days, until the land 
 was all covered with water, and the trees were dead and 
 the tops of the hills were submerged. Many of these 
 people being big and heavy, and so able to move only 
 slowly, could not reach the tops of the hills, to which 
 all tried to escape for safety, and even those who did 
 so were drowned by the rising waters, which at last 
 
HIS CREATION. 187 
 
 covered the whole land. Everything on the earth was 
 dead. To-day in the washed clay bluffs of the bad 
 lands the horizontal lines of stratification are shown 
 as marking the level of the waters at various times 
 during this flood, and the hard sandstone pinnacles 
 which cap the bluffs, and which sometimes present a 
 rude semblance of the human form, are pointed out 
 as the remains of these giants. 
 
 Now when everything was dead, there were left a 
 mosquito flying about over the water and a little duck 
 swimming on it. These two met, and the duck said 
 to the mosquito, " How is it that you are here ? " The 
 mosquito said, " I can live on this foam ; how is it 
 with you ? " The duck answered, " When I am hun 
 gry, I can dive down and eat the green weed that grows 
 under the water." Then said the mosquito : " I am 
 tired of this foam. If you will take me with you to 
 taste of the things of the earth, I shall know that you 
 are true." So the duck took the mosquito under 
 his wing, where he would keep dry, and dived down 
 with him to the bottom of the water, and as soon as 
 they touched the ground all the water disappeared. 
 There was now nothing living on the earth. 
 
 Then Atiucli determined that he would again make 
 men, and he did so. But again he made them too 
 nearly like himself. They were too powerful, and he 
 was afraid of them, and again destroyed them all. 
 
 Then he made one man like the men of to-day. 
 When this man had been created he said to himself : 
 " How is it now ? There is still something that does 
 not quite please me." Then Atiucli made a woman, 
 and set her by the man, and the man said : " You 
 knew why I was not pleased. You knew what I 
 wanted. Now I can walk the earth in gladness." 
 
188 THE STORY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 AtiucJi seems to have made men and the animals 
 up above in the sky where he lives, and when he was 
 satisfied with what he had made, he resolved to place 
 them upon the earth. So he called the lightning to 
 put them on the earth, and the lightning caused a 
 cloud to come, and the cloud received what Atiucli 
 had made. But the lightning, acting as he always 
 does, set them down on the earth with a crash, and as 
 the ground was still wet with the water that had cov 
 ered it, they all sank into the soft earth. This made 
 the lightning feel very badly, and he cried ; and to this 
 day, whenever he strikes the earth, he cries. That is 
 what we hear when it thunders. 
 
 Now all living things were under the ground in 
 confusion and asking one another what each was ; 
 but one day, as the mole was digging around, he 
 broke a hole through, so that the light streamed in, 
 and he drew back frightened. He has never had 
 any eyes since ; the light put them out. The mole 
 did not want to come out, but all the others came 
 out on to the earth through the hole the mole had 
 made. 
 
 After they had come out from the ground, the 
 people looked about to see where they should go. 
 They had nothing. They did not know what to do, 
 nor how to support themselves. They began to travel, 
 moving very slowly ; but after their third day s camp 
 a boy, who had been left behind asleep at the first 
 camp that they had made, overtook the company, 
 carrying in his arms a large bundle. The people 
 asked him what this was. He replied that when he 
 woke up and found the people gone, he cried to 
 Father for help, and Father gave him this bundle, 
 which had taught him to find the way to his people. 
 
HIS CREATION. 189 
 
 Then the people were glad, and said that now they 
 would find the way, and they went on. 
 
 After they had gone a long way, they came to a 
 deep ravine with high steep banks, and they could 
 not cross it. There they had to stop. All came to 
 this place, but they could not get over it. They 
 asked the boy what they should do, and he opened 
 the bundle, and out of it came a bird with a sharp 
 bill * the most sacred of all birds, the bone striker. 
 Wherever this bird strikes its bill, it makes a hole. 
 This bird flew over the ravine and began to strike 
 the bank with his bill, and flew against the bank 
 again and again, and at last the dirt fell down and 
 filled up the ravine and made a road for the people 
 to pass across. A part of them passed over, but be 
 fore all had crossed, the road closed up, and the ravine 
 became as it had been at first. Those who were be 
 hind perished. They were changed into badgers, 
 snakes, and animals living in the ground. They 
 went on further, and at length came to a thick wood 
 so thick that they could not pass through it. Here 
 they had to stop, for they did not know how they 
 could get through this timber. Again they asked the 
 boy what should be done, and he opened the bundle, 
 and an owl came out from it and went into the wood 
 and made a path through it. A number of the peo 
 ple got through the wood, but some old women and 
 poor children were lagging behind, and the road 
 closed up and caught them, and these were changed 
 to bears, wildcats, elks, and so on. 
 
 The people went on further, and came to a big 
 river which poured down and stopped them, and they 
 
 * This is thought to be a woodpecker (Colaptes). 
 
190 THE STORY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 waited on the bank. When they went to the bundle, 
 a big hawk came out of it. This bird flew across 
 the river and caused the water to stop flowing. They 
 started across the dry river bed, and when part had 
 gone across and were on this side, and some old 
 women and poor children were still in the stream bed, 
 the water began to flow again and drowned them. 
 These people were turned into fishes, and this is why 
 fishes are related to men. 
 
 They went on until they came to some high hills 
 called the Blue Mountains, and from these mountains 
 they saw a beautiful country that they thought would 
 be good to live in ; but when they consulted the boy 
 who carried the bundle, he said, " No, we shall see 
 life and live in it." So they went on. 
 
 Soon after this, some people began to gamble, and 
 one party won everything that the others had, and at 
 last they began to quarrel and then to fight, and the 
 people separated and went different ways, and the 
 animals, which had all this time been with them, got 
 frightened and ran away. But some of the people 
 still remained, and they asked the boy what they 
 should do, and he went to the bundle and took from 
 it a pipe, and when he held up the pipe the fighting 
 ceased. With the pipe was a stone arrowhead, and 
 the boy told them they must make others like this, 
 for from now on they would have to fight ; but be 
 fore this there had been no war. In the bundle they 
 found also an ear of corn. The boy said : " We are 
 to live by this. This is our Mother." The corn 
 taught them how to make bows and arrows. 
 
 Now the people no longer spoke one language, 
 and the eight tribes who had run away no longer 
 understood each other and lived together, but wan- 
 
HIS CREATION. 191 
 
 dered about, and the Mother (Atind = Pawnee Atira) 
 no longer remained with them, but left them alone. 
 The ninth or remaining band which included the 
 Rees, Mandans, and Pawnees now left the Blue 
 Mountains and travelled on until they reached a great 
 river, and then they knew what the boy meant by 
 saying " We shall see life and live in it." Life meant 
 the Missouri River, and they said, " This is the place 
 where our Mother means us to live." The first night 
 they stayed by the river, but they went off in the 
 morning and left behind them two dogs asleep. One 
 was black, the other white ; one was male, the other 
 female. At the third camp they said, " This is a 
 good place ; we will live here." They asked the boy 
 what they should do, and he told them that they 
 should separate into three bands ; that he would di 
 vide the corn among them, and they could plant it. 
 He broke off the nub and gave it to the Mandans, the 
 big end and gave it to the Pawnees, and the middle of 
 the ear he gave to the Rees. To this day the Mandans 
 have the shortest corn, the Rees next in size, and the 
 Pawnees the best and largest. He also took from the 
 bundle beans, which he divided among the people, 
 and the sack of a buffalo s heart full of tobacco, 
 Here by the river they first planted and ate, and were 
 well off, while the eight bands that had run away 
 were dying of hunger. When they got here they had 
 no fire. They knew nothing of it. They tried to get 
 it from the sun, and sent the swallow to bring it. He 
 flew toward the sun, but could not get the fire, and 
 came back saying that the sun had burned him. This 
 is why the swallow s back is black to-day. The crow 
 was sent. He used to be white, but the sun burned him 
 too. Another kind of bird was sent, and he got the fire. 
 
192 THE STORY OP THE INDIAN. 
 
 After this they travelled again, and as they trav 
 elled they were followed by two great fires, that came 
 up on the hills behind them and shut them in, so that 
 they did not know how to escape. The bundle told 
 them to go to a cedar tree on a precipice, and that if 
 they held fast to this, they would not be hurt by these 
 two great bad things. They did so and escaped, but 
 all cedars have been crooked ever since. These two 
 great fires were the two dogs that had been left behind 
 at their first camp. These dogs then came to them 
 and said : "Our hearts are not all bad. We have bit 
 ten you because you left us without waking us up, 
 but now we have had our revenge, and we want to live 
 with you." But sickness and death have followed the 
 people ever since they first left these dogs behind. 
 
 The dogs were taken back into the company and 
 grew old. The female dog grew old and poor and 
 died first, and was thrown into the river, and after 
 that the male dog died ; but before he died they said 
 to him, " Now you are going to die and be with your 
 wife." " Yes," he replied. " But you will not hate 
 us. From this time you will eat us, and so you will 
 think well of us. And from the female dog s skin has 
 come the squash, and you will like this, and on this 
 account, also, you will not hate us." So ever since 
 that day, dogs have been raised as friends, and after 
 ward eaten for revenge, because of their treachery. 
 
 After this, they looked out on the prairie and 
 saw some great black animals having horns, and they 
 looked as though they were going to attack them. 
 The people dug a hole, and got in and covered it 
 over, and when the buffalo rushed on them they were 
 safe, though their dwelling trembled and the people 
 thought the roof would fall in. Finally some one 
 

 
 iT 
 
 I 
 
 
HIS CREATION. 193 
 
 looked out and saw the buffalo standing around. 
 They did not look very fierce, so forty men, women, 
 and children ventured out ; but the buffalo attacked 
 them, tore off their arms and ate them, and tore off 
 their hair. Ever since that time there has been a lock 
 of Eee hair in the buffalo s mouth, hanging down 
 from his chin. One handsome young woman was car 
 ried off by the buffalo. They held a council to know 
 what they should do with her. She said she could 
 not travel, and they did not wish to kill her. They 
 did not wish to let her go either. But one night, when 
 she was sleeping in the midst of the band, a young 
 bull came to her and pulled her sleeve and told her 
 to follow him, that he would show her the way back 
 to her people. He did so, and his parting words to 
 her were : " Tell your people that we do not like the 
 bows and arrows that -they make, and so we have at 
 tacked you." * 
 
 The young woman was gladly received. They asked 
 the boy with the bundle what should be done with the 
 buffalo. He answered : " The buffalo are to be our 
 food. They ate us first, so now we will always fol 
 low them for food. We must make arrows like the 
 
 * The Algonquin Blackfeet also tell of a time soon after the 
 creation when the buffalo used to eat them. This was before 
 they had bows and arrows ; in fact, in some accounts it is even 
 said that then the people had paws like the bears, and supported 
 themselves by digging roots and gathering berries. When Ndpi, 
 the Blackfoot Creator, learned that the buffalo were killing and 
 eating the people, he felt very badly, and he split their paws so 
 as to make fingers on them, and made bows and arrows and 
 taught the people how to use them. There is also a Blackfoot 
 story of a young woman who was captured and taken away 
 by the buffalo, and who afterward returned to the tribe. See 
 Blackfoot Lodge Tales, pp. 104 and 140. 
 
194: THE STORY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 one Tinawd ( Pawnee Tirdwa) gave us with the pipe, 
 and fight the buffalo with them." After making many 
 arrows of the flint they use for striking fires, they all 
 came out of the hole in the earth and lived by plant 
 ing and hunting. 
 
 The Rees have always kept near the Missouri River, 
 and have lived by planting. The bundle reputed 
 to have been given to the boy in the beginning is 
 now in the house of Two Crows. It is still powerful. 
 It contains the ear of corn which was first given to 
 the Rees. When a great young man dies a chief s 
 son and the people mourn, the relations are asked to 
 the Ree medicine lodge, and the ear of corn is taken 
 from the bundle, put for a short time in a bucket of 
 water and then replaced in the bundle. As many as 
 drink of that water are cured of sad hearts, and never 
 mourn their friends again. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE WORLD OF THE DEAD. 
 
 LIKE most people, civilized or savage, the Indian 
 believes in the immortality of the soul. To him the 
 future life is very real, for sometimes in dreams or 
 during a fainting fit, or in delirium of sickness vi 
 sions come to him which he believes are glimpses into 
 the life of another world a world peopled by the 
 spirits of the departed. It is always difficult to induce 
 the Indian to formulate his views on the future life. 
 Often perhaps he has none, or if he has such beliefs, 
 like our own on the same subject, they are vague and 
 hazy. Besides this, Indians are little accustomed to 
 deal with abstract conceptions, and lack words to 
 express them. Nevertheless, some notion of their be 
 liefs may be gathered from the accounts which they 
 give of ghosts and the ghost country, for all the tribes 
 have tales which speak of the inhabitants of the spirit 
 world, and tell us what they do and how they live. 
 Such stories purport to come from those who have 
 died and have been restored to life again, or from liv 
 ing persons who have visited the country where the 
 spirits dwell, and then returning to their tribe have 
 reported the condition and the ways of the departed. 
 
 The views held of this world of the dead differ 
 widely in different tribes. With some it appears to 
 be a real " happy hunting ground," a country of wide 
 14 195 
 
196 THE STORY OP THE INDIAN. 
 
 green prairies and cool clear streams, where the buffalo 
 and other game are always plenty and fat, where the 
 lodges are ever new and white, the ponies always 
 swift, the war parties successful, and the people hap 
 py. Sometimes, even now, the Indian of the south, 
 when the slanting rays of the westering sun tinge the 
 autumnal haze with red, beholds dimly, far away, the 
 white lodges of such a happy camp, and, dazzled by 
 the tinted beams, sees through the mist and dust 
 ghostly warriors returning from the buffalo hunt, 
 leading horses laden as in olden times with dripping 
 meat and with shaggy skins. A speech made by the 
 spirit of a Pawnee woman shows the feeling that these 
 people have about the future life. This woman not 
 long after her death appeared to her husband, who, 
 holding their young child in his arms, was mourning 
 for her, and said : " You are very unhappy here. 
 There is a place to go where we would not be unhappy. 
 Where I have been nothing bad happens to one. Here 
 you never know what evil will come to you. You and 
 the child had better come to me." In the same story 
 father and mother and child at last die, and it is said 
 of them, " They have gone to that place where there is 
 a living " strong testimony to the Pawnee s faith in 
 a happy future life.* 
 
 With other tribes the ghost country is a land of 
 unrealities, where the unhappy shadows endure an 
 existence which is an unsubstantial mockery of this 
 life. Here they hunt shadow buffaloes with arrows, 
 which, on being lifted from the ground, are found to be 
 only blades of grass ; their camps or their buffalo traps 
 when approached vanish from sight ; or their canoes, 
 
 * Pawnee Hero Stories and Folk-Tales, p. 129, 
 
. THE WORLD OF THE DEAD. 19? 
 
 though real to the ghosts, are to mortal eyes rotten, 
 moss-covered and full of holes ; their salmon and trout 
 are only dead branches and leaves, floating on the 
 river s current, and even the people themselves, though 
 to all appearance human, turn to skeletons if a word 
 is spoken above a whisper. 
 
 To us, who have been reared in the hope of an im 
 mortality which promises happiness, there is some 
 thing inexpressibly pathetic in these vague concep 
 tions of a future life which is so much more miserable 
 than the savage existence in this world, checkered 
 though it is ; for even to the savage, while he is still 
 alive, hope always remains. If his camp has been at 
 tacked, his people slain, and he himself is a fugitive, 
 hiding from enemies who are eager to take his life, he 
 looks forward to a time when he shall take vengeance 
 for these wrongs and destroy those who have injured 
 him ; or if the people are starving, and he sees his 
 wives and little ones wasting away with hunger, he 
 thinks always that to-morrow may bring the buffalo 
 and plenty and contentment. But to this gloomy 
 future life there is no period. It must go on forever. 
 
 The melancholy views of a future state held by 
 such tribes as the Blackfeet, the Gros Ventres of the 
 Prairie, the Chinooks, and some other Pacific slope 
 tribes, present singular resemblances to those ex 
 pressed in the earlier Greek and Eoman mythology. 
 
 The spirits of the dead take various forms, but 
 they are always unsubstantial as air, though to the eye 
 they may appear real. They are frequently seen by 
 living persons, but are likely to vanish at any moment. 
 The tiny whirlwinds of dust often seen moving about 
 on the prairie in hot summer days are believed by the 
 Pawnees to be ghosts, by other tribes owls are thought 
 
198 THE STORY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 to be ghosts. Sometimes spirits take the forms of 
 skeletons, which may be able to walk about, or they 
 may appear as ordinary men and women. It seems 
 possible that these spirits can at will take forms such 
 as please them, and in a specific case a ghost appeared 
 in the form of a bear, and in another it took the shape 
 of a wolf. To see a ghost is by no means an every- day 
 matter. Much more often they are heard to speak or 
 to whistle, and such sounds terrify those who hear 
 them, for the Indians are much afraid of ghosts. 
 Some of these spirits are beneficent, others are harm 
 ful, and of the latter, being the more dreaded, much 
 more is heard than of those which wield kindly pow 
 ers. The hurtful ghosts frighten people by tugging 
 at their blankets while they are walking through the 
 timber at night, or they whistle down the smokehole, 
 or tap on the lodge skins. Such acts, though suffi 
 ciently alarming, are not in themselves very serious, 
 and may perhaps be indulged in only for the sake of 
 frightening people. But the spirits that are really 
 inimical do much more terrible things than these. 
 They shoot arrows of disease at people, causing rheu 
 matism, paralysis, St. Vitus s dance, long wasting ill 
 ness, and oftentimes death. 
 
 The actual location of the world of spirits the 
 home of the dead varies with the tribe. Many of 
 the peoples of the southern plains believe to-day that 
 this home of the dead is above us, in or above the 
 sky ; others hold that it is to the west, beyond the big 
 water ; others still think that it is in the south or east. 
 The Blackfeet locate this country of the future close 
 to their present home, in the desolate sandhills south 
 of the Saskatchewan Kiver. 
 
 Occasionally, glimpses are seen among some tribes 
 
THE WORLD OF THE DEAD. 199 
 
 of a belief in the transmigration of souls. The Kla- 
 math and Modoc Indians believe that the spirits of 
 the dead inhabit the bodies of fishes. The ghosts of 
 medicine men, conjurors, or priests, after death are 
 often thought to take the shape of an owl always a 
 bird of mysterious, if not supernatural, powers or the 
 soul of a very brave man might after death inhabit 
 the body of some brave, fierce animal, like a bear. 
 Yet this is not supposed to happen commonly, nor do 
 the helpful animals which so constantly appear in the 
 folk stories of the Indians ever seem to be the spirits 
 of those who have lived on earth. These belong to a 
 class of beings entirely different from mortals. 
 
 On the other hand, in the creation story of the 
 Arikaras, which details also the earlier wanderings of 
 the first Indians, it is said, as already remarked, that 
 certain people who were overwhelmed by water, by 
 land slides, and in forest fallings, were changed into 
 fishes and various other animals which live principally 
 under ground or in the woods. 
 
 Some Indians believe in reincarnation, the indi 
 vidual at each succeeding birth retaining the sex and 
 the same peculiar physical characteristics. It is re 
 lated that a certain chief of the Wrangel Indians 
 named Harsha, who died about two hundred years 
 ago, has since been reincarnated five times, and at 
 each birth is knov/n by the scar of a stab in the right 
 groin. Another chief, reincarnated three times, is 
 always recognised by a peculiar lock of gray hair. 
 These Indians believe that heaven or the abode of 
 the spirits is above us. It is reached by a ladder 
 and entered through a hole at the point where the 
 ladder ends. 
 
 In almost all the tribes it is believed that per- 
 
200 THE STOEY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 sons who have died may, under extraordinary circum 
 stances, become alive again ; in other words, that the 
 ghosts may return from the ghost country to the tribal 
 home, resuming their mortal shapes, and to all appear 
 ance again becoming persons. There seems always a 
 possibility, however, that such returned ghosts will 
 vanish on some provocation or other. This idea, which 
 is found among the tribes of the plains, the moun 
 tains, and the Pacific coast, is common to the folk 
 stories of all races. It is to be remembered, however, 
 that the story of a ghost who had returned to life 
 and had afterward, through some fault of relations or 
 friends, been forced to disappear, would be much more 
 likely to be preserved in the unwritten literature of a 
 tribe than one telling of a person who, after having 
 died, has come to life, and then has remained with the 
 tribe, living out a full term of years. 
 
 I have met several men who believe that they them 
 selves have died, visited the camps of the ghosts, and 
 then for some reason returned to life and to their 
 homes, and some of them have related to me what 
 they had seen in the ghost country. Besides this, I 
 have been told many other stories, which relate with 
 more or less detail what is done and said there. A 
 study of such stories will present as clear an idea of 
 this future life, and the way it is regarded by the In 
 dians, as can be given in any other way. 
 
 Some of these stories resemble in a remarkable de 
 gree tales of other lands, which are familiar even to 
 our children. One of these, told with some detail, is 
 of singular interest, for it presents a close parallel to 
 the classical myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, but the 
 Indian hero was more fortunate than his Old World 
 prototype, for he was successful in his quest, and re- 
 
THE WORLD OF THE DEAD. 201 
 
 covered the wife for whose sake he had faced the hor 
 rors of the ghost country and the peril of death. 
 
 Interesting in connection with such visits paid by 
 human beings to the supernatural world are the fre 
 quent allusions in these accounts to the peculiar odour 
 exhaled by living persons. The gods, or the ghosts, 
 when they come near to the place where the individual 
 is concealed, often discern his presence by this odour, 
 and call out, " I smell a person," or " What is this bad 
 smell?" The burning of sweet grass or sweet pine 
 usually purifies the air, so that the smell is no longer 
 complained of. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 PAWKEE KELIGI02ST. 
 
 VOLUMES might be written on the Indian religion 
 without exhausting it. The different beliefs of the 
 various tribes, their ceremonial, and the religious his 
 tory, as given in their traditions, comprise an interest 
 ing and difficult study. As a specific example of the 
 religious beliefs of a particular tribe, I quote an ac 
 count of the Pawnee religion taken from the paper * 
 already mentioned. It gives a somewhat detailed 
 statement of the faith of that people when I first 
 knew them, and before they had been greatly changed 
 by contact with civilization. 
 
 The Deity of the Pawnees is Atius Tirdtva.\ He 
 is an intangible spirit, omnipotent and beneficent. 
 He pervades the universe, and is its supreme ruler. 
 Upon his will depends everything that happens. He 
 can bring good luck or bad ; can give success or fail 
 ure. Everything rests with him. As a natural con 
 sequence of this conception of the Deity, the Pawnees 
 are a very religious people. Nothing is undertaken 
 without a prayer to the Father for assistance. When 
 the pipe is lighted, the first few whiffs are blown to 
 the Deity. When food is eaten, a small portion of it 
 
 * Journal of American Folk-Lore, vol. vi, p. 113, 1893. 
 f Atius = father. Tirdwa spirit. 
 203 
 
PAWNEE RELIGION. 2Q3 
 
 is placed on the ground as a sacrifice to him. He is 
 propitiated by burnt offerings. When they started 
 off on the summer and winter hunts, a part of the 
 first animal which was killed, either a deer or buffalo, 
 was burned to him. The first buffalo killed by a 
 young boy was offered to him. The common prayer 
 among the Pawnees is, " Father, you are the Euler." 
 They always acknowledge his power and implore his 
 help. He is called " Father, who is above " ; " Fa 
 ther, who is in all places." 
 
 Tirawa lives up above in the sky. They say, 
 " The heavens are the house of Tirdwa, and we live 
 inside of it." The overarching hemisphere of the 
 sky, which on all sides reaches down to earth at the 
 horizon, in their minds is likened to the walls and roof 
 of the dome-shaped dirt lodges, which the Pawnees in 
 habit. A similar conception prevails among the Black- 
 feet. 
 
 Next in importance to Atius comes the Earth, 
 which is greatly reverenced. The Pawnees came out 
 of the earth and return to it again. The first whiffs 
 of the pipe are offered to Atius, but after these smokes 
 to him, the next are blown to the earth, and the 
 prayer, " Father of the dead, you see us," is expressed. 
 Not very much is said by the Pawnees about the rev 
 erence which they feel for the earth, but much is told 
 about the power of the Mother Corn, " through which 
 they worship," which cares for and protects them, 
 which taught them much that they know, and which, 
 symbolizing the earth, represents in material form 
 something which they revere. A Ree priest said to 
 me : " Just as the white people talk about Jesus 
 Christ, so we feel about the corn." Various explana 
 tions are given of the term " Mother," which is ap- 
 
204 THE STORY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 plied to the corn, but none are altogether satisfactory. 
 The reference may be to the fact that the corn has 
 always supported and nourished them, as the child is 
 nourished and supported by its mother s milk, or, 
 with a deeper meaning, it may be to the productive 
 power of the earth, which each year brings forth its 
 increase. 
 
 The Sun and the Moon and the Stars are personi 
 fied. They are regarded as people, and prayers are 
 made to them. There is some reason for believing 
 that the sun and the moon once occupied a more im 
 portant position in the Pawnee religious system than 
 they do to-day. There are some songs which refer 
 to the Sun as the Father and the Moon as the Mother, 
 as if the sun represented the male and the moon the 
 female principle. O-pi-ri-kus, the Morning Star, is 
 especially revered by the Skidi, and human sacrifices 
 were made to it. 
 
 It is represented that each day or night the Sun, 
 Moon, and Stars paint themselves up and start out 
 on a journey, returning to their respective lodges after 
 their course is accomplished. There are two or three 
 versions of a story which tells of a young woman 
 taken up from earth by a Star and married to him. 
 This young woman lived up in heaven for a time, but 
 was killed while attempting to escape to earth again. 
 Her child the son of the Star reached the earth, and 
 lived long in the tribe. He had great power, which he 
 derived from his father. 
 
 The Thunder is reverenced by the Pawnees, and a 
 special ceremony of sacrifice and worship is performed 
 at the time of the first thunder in spring, which tells 
 them that the winter is at an end, and that the season 
 for planting is at hand. 
 
PAWNEE RELIGION. 205 
 
 The various wild animals are regarded as agents 
 or servants of Atius, and are known as nahurac, a 
 word which means animal. It does not refer par 
 ticularly to these magical or mystical animals which 
 are the Deity s servants, but is a general term applied 
 to any fish, reptile, bird, or beast. The nahurac per 
 sonify the various attributes of Atius. He uses them 
 as his messengers, and they have great knowledge and 
 power, which they derive from him. They hold a re 
 lation to the supreme power very similar to that of 
 the angels in the Old Testament. The animals which 
 possess these peculiar powers are, of course, not real 
 animals. They are we may presume spirits who 
 assume these shapes when they appear to men. Some 
 times, or in some of the stories, they are represented 
 as changing from the animal shape to that of men as 
 in the account of the origin of the Young Dog s 
 Dance.* 
 
 Perhaps no one at the present day could specify 
 the precise attributes of each of the different nahurac, 
 but there are certain characteristics which are well 
 known to pertain to some of them. 
 
 Of all the animals, none was so important to the 
 Pawnees as the buffalo. It fed and clothed them, 
 and, with their corn, was all their support. This 
 alone was enough to entitle it to a very high place in 
 their esteem. It was a sacred animal of great power, 
 and was a favourite secret helper, and although it did 
 not receive a measure of reverence equal to that felt 
 for the Mother Corn, it was yet the most sacred and 
 highly respected of all the animals. The eidolon of 
 the buffalo its skull occupied a prominent position 
 
 * Journal of American Folk-Lore, vol. iv, p. 307. 
 
206 THE STORY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 in many of the Pawnee sacred ceremonies, and rested 
 on the top of many a lodge, signifying that it was the 
 special helper of the owner. Even to-day, although 
 the buffalo has long been extinct, everywhere in the 
 Ree village this same object may be seen, at once the 
 relic of a noble animal which has disappeared from the 
 land, and the symbol of a faith which is passing away 
 with the passing of a people. The buffalo appears to 
 have typified force or power, as well as the quality 
 of dashing blindly onward. Besides this, there were 
 some buffaloes which were invulnerable, which could 
 not be killed by ordinary weapons. It was necessary 
 to rub on the arrow used against them, or in later 
 times on the bullet, a peculiar potent medicine before 
 the missile would penetrate the skin. Such buffaloes 
 were usually described as sexless, of enormous size, 
 and without joints in their legs. 
 
 While the bear was by no means so sacred as the 
 buffalo, he was regarded as singular for wisdom and 
 power. He symbolizes invulnerability. He knows 
 how to cure himself. No matter how badly he may 
 be wounded, if only a little breath is left in his body 
 he can heal himself. It is said that sometimes he 
 does this by plugging up with certain medicine herbs 
 the wounds which have been inflicted on him. He 
 has also the power of breathing out from his nostrils 
 different-coloured dusts red, blue, and yellow or of 
 spitting out different-coloured earths. Certain medi 
 cine bears which belonged to two of the bands could 
 not be wounded by ball or arrow. Of one of these it 
 was said, " The lead will flatten out, the spike (of the 
 arrow) will roll up " when it strikes his body. 
 
 The beaver was regarded as an animal of great 
 wisdom and power, and a beaver was always one of the 
 
PAWNEE RELIGION. 207 
 
 four chiefs who ruled the councils of the nahurac. 
 Craft was typified in the wolf ; courage, fierceness, or 
 success in war by the birds of prey, the eagle standing 
 at the head ; the deer stood for fleetness, etc. 
 
 The black eagle, the white-headed eagle, and the 
 buzzard are messengers of Tirdwa ; by them he sent 
 his orders to the first high priest, and instructed him 
 in the secrets of his priestship and in the other se 
 crets. The buzzard and the white-headed eagle repre 
 sent the old men those who have little hair and those 
 whose hair is white ; it is from these ancient men that 
 the secrets have been handed down from generation 
 to generation. 
 
 The nahurac had an organization and methods of 
 conveying information to favoured individuals. They 
 had meeting places where they held councils which 
 were presided over by chiefs. The meeting places 
 were in underground lodges or caves, and there were 
 known to the Pawnees, when they lived in their old 
 home in Nebraska, no less than five such places. 
 These were at Pa-huk, under the high bluff opposite 
 Fremont, Nebraska ; at Ah-ka-ivit akol, under a high 
 white bluff at the mouth of the Cedar River ; at La- 
 la-iva-kotitl-td, under an island in the Platte Eiver 
 opposite the Lone Tree (now Central City, Nebraska) ; 
 under the Sacred Spring Kltz-a-wltz uk, on the Solo 
 mon River in Kansas ; and at Paliu r, or Guide Rock, 
 in Kansas. 
 
 Persons who were pitied by the nahurac were 
 sometimes taken into the lodges, where their cases 
 were discussed in council, and they were helped, and 
 power and wisdom were given them by the animals. 
 After it had been determined that he should thus be 
 helped, the various animals, one after another, would 
 
208 THE STORY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 rise in their places and speak to the man, each one 
 giving him the power which was peculiar to itself. In 
 such a council the buffalo would often give the man 
 the power of running over those opposed to him : 
 " You shall run over your enemies, as I do over mine." 
 The bear would give him the power to heal himself if 
 wounded and to cure others. The eagle would give 
 him his own courage and fierceness : " You shall kill 
 your enemies, as I do mine." The wolf would give 
 him the power to creep right into the midst of the 
 enemy s camp without being seen. The owl would 
 say to him, " You shall see in the night as I do " ; the 
 deer, " You shall run as fast as I can." So it would 
 go on around the circle, each animal giving him that 
 power or that knowledge which it typified. The 
 speeches made in such nahurac councils were similar 
 in character to those which would be made in any 
 council of men. 
 
 Usually much of the knowledge taught a person, 
 who was being helped by the nahurac, was that of the 
 doctors, and those who had received this help were 
 able to perform all those wonderful feats in the doc 
 tor s dances for which the Pawnees were so justly re 
 nowned. Often, too, these persons were made invul 
 nerable, so that the arrows or the bullets of the enemy 
 would not penetrate their flesh. 
 
 The stay of the individuals who might be taken 
 into the nahurac lodges did not, as a rule, last longer 
 than four days, though often a man who had been 
 once received there might come again. If the time 
 mentioned was not long enough to enable him to ac 
 quire all the knowledge of the naliurac, it sometimes 
 happened that after such a visit the various animals 
 would meet the person singly out in the hills or on 
 
PAWNEE RELIGION. 209 
 
 the prairie, and would there communicate to him addi 
 tional knowledge, especially that touching on the effi 
 cacy of various roots and herbs used in healing. 
 
 It is to be noted that the nahurac did not content 
 themselves with giving to the person whom they pitied 
 help, and nothing more. They also gave him good 
 advice, telling him to trust always in the Euler, and 
 to look to One above, who is the giver of all power. 
 Often they explained that all their power came from 
 Atius ) whose servants they were ; that they did not 
 make themselves great, that they were mortal, and 
 there would be an end to their days. 
 
 It is not always specified what shape was taken by 
 the four chiefs who ruled the nahurac councils ; but 
 in at least one story it is stated that these were a beaver, 
 an otter, a sandhill crane, and a garfish. In another 
 story a dog appears to have been the chief. These 
 animal councils had a servant who acted as their mes 
 senger, and carried word from one nahurac lodge to 
 another. This bird is described with some detail in 
 more than one of the Pawnee stories, and was evi 
 dently a species of tern. 
 
 The animals were the usual medium of communi 
 cation between Atius and man. They most often 
 appeared to persons in sleep, telling them what to do, 
 giving them good advice, and generally ordering their 
 lives for them. But there is one story in which an 
 individual is said to have spoken face to face with the 
 Father. 
 
 The four cardinal points were respected by the 
 Pawnees, and their place was high, although they 
 were not often spoken of, except in prayers. Still, the 
 formula in smoking was to blow first four smokes to 
 Atius , then four to the earth, and last of all to each 
 
210 THE STORY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 of the cardinal points. The east represented the 
 night, for it is from that direction that the darkness 
 comes. So, in one of the stories, a speaker, in advising 
 a young man as to how he should act, says of smoking : 
 "And always blow four smokes to the east, to the 
 night ; for in the night something may come to you. 
 which will tell you a thing which will happen," that 
 is, come true. It would be hard to find a closer par 
 allel to our saying, " The night brings counsel." It 
 is worthy of note that this conception of the east is 
 the absolute reversal of our notion that the east brings 
 the light the morning ; one of the most familiar fig 
 ures in our literature. 
 
 Closely connected with their respect for the night 
 is their firm confidence in dreams, which to a great 
 extent govern their lives. Their belief in a future life 
 is in part founded on dreams which they have had of 
 being themselves dead, and finding themselves in vil 
 lages where they recognised among the inhabitants 
 relations and acquaintances who had long been dead. 
 The faith in another life after this one is ended is ex 
 emplified by stories already published, which tell of 
 the coming to life of persons who have died, and is 
 fortified by the experiences of certain living men who 
 believe themselves once to have died and visited these 
 villages of the dead. 
 
 Prayers for direct help are, as a rule, made only to 
 the Father, and not to the animals, nor to the Sun, 
 Moon, and Stars. But the last are constantly implored 
 to act as intercessors with Atius to help the people. 
 A prayer frequently made to the animals by a person 
 in distress was this : " If you have any power, inter 
 cede for me." It is constantly stated in the tales cur 
 rent among the Pawnees that in minor matters the 
 
PAWNEE RELIGION. 211 
 
 animals may be depended on for help, but if anything 
 very difficult is sought, the petitioner must look only 
 to the Father. The animals seem in many ways to 
 hold a position in the Pawnee religious system anal 
 ogous to that of the saints in the Koman Catholic 
 faith. 
 
 Something must be said about the sacred bundles 
 which are to the Pawnees what the Ark of the Cove 
 nant was to the ancient Israelites. Concerning these 
 I may quote what has been written : 
 
 " In the lodge or house of every Pawnee of influ 
 ence, hanging on the west side, and so opposite the 
 door, is the sacred bundle, neatly wrapped in buck 
 skin, and black with smoke and age. What these 
 bundles contain we do not know. Sometimes, from 
 the ends, protrude bits of scalps, and the tips of pipe- 
 stems and slender sticks ; but the whole contents of 
 the bundle are known only to the priests and to its 
 owner perhaps not always even to him. The sacred 
 bundles are kept on the west side of the lodge, because, 
 being thus furthest from the door, fewer people will 
 pass by them than if they were hung in any other part 
 of the lodge. Various superstitions attach to these 
 bundles. In the lodges where certain of them are 
 kept it is forbidden to put a knife in the fire ; in 
 others, a knife may not be thrown ; in others, it is not 
 permitted to enter the lodge with the face painted ; or, 
 again, a man cannot go in if he has feathers tied in his 
 head. 
 
 " No one knows whence the bundles came. Many 
 of them are very old ; too old, even, to have a history. 
 Their origin is lost in the haze of the long ago. They 
 say : < The sacred bundles were given us long ago. No 
 one knows when they came to us. " 
 15 
 
THE STORY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 It is to be observed that the miracles which so fre 
 quently occur in the heroic myths of the Pawnees, and 
 which generally result in the bringing to life of the 
 person who is pitied by the nahurac, often take place 
 during a storm of rain accompanied by wind and thun 
 der. Examples of this are found in the stories of the 
 Dun Horse, Pahukatawa, Ore ke rahr, and others. 
 The rain, the wind, and the thunder may be regarded 
 as special manifestations of the power of the Deity, or 
 these may perhaps be considered as veils which he uses 
 to conceal the manifestations of this power from the 
 eyes of men. 
 
 What has already been said shows that the mythol 
 ogy of the Pawnees inculcates strongly the religious 
 idea, and impresses upon the listener the importance 
 of trusting in the Ruler and asking his help. 
 
 Perhaps the most singular thing about this Paw 
 nee religion, as it has been taught to me, is its close 
 resemblance in many particulars to certain forms of 
 the religion of Christ as it exists to-day. While their 
 practices were those of a savage people, their theories 
 of duty and their attitude toward the Supreme Being 
 were on a much more lofty plane. The importance 
 of faith in the Deity is most strongly insisted on ; sac 
 rifices must be made to him offerings of the good 
 things of this earth, often of parts of their own bodies ; 
 penance must be done. But, above all things else, 
 those who desire success in life must humble them 
 selves before the Deity and must implore his help. 
 The lessons taught by many of the myths are precisely 
 those which would be taught by the Christian priest 
 to-day, while the burnt-offerings to Atius may be 
 compared with like sacrifices spoken of in the Old 
 Testament, and the personal tortures undergone dur- 
 
PAWNEE .RELIGION. 213 
 
 ing certain of their ceremonies are almost the exact 
 equivalents of the sufferings inflicted on themselves by 
 certain religionists of the middle ages. 
 
 On the whole, the Pawnee religion, so far as I un 
 derstand it, is a singularly pure faith, and in its essen 
 tial features will compare favourably with any savage 
 system. If written in our own sacred books, the trust 
 and submission to the will of the Ruler shown in some 
 of the myths, which I have elsewhere recorded, would 
 be called sublime. What, for example, could be finer 
 than the prayer offered by a man who, through the 
 hostility of a rival, is in the deepest distress and ut 
 terly hopeless of human aid, and who throws himself 
 on the mercy of the Creator, and at the same time im 
 plores the intercession of the nahurac ? This man pre 
 pares to offer his horse as a sacrifice to the animals, but 
 before killing it he says : " My Father [who dwells] in 
 all places, it is through you that I am living. Perhaps 
 it was through you that this man put me in this con 
 dition. You are the Ruler. Nothing is impossible to 
 you. If you see fit, take this [trouble] away from me. 
 Now you, all fish of the rivers, and you, all birds of 
 the air, and all animals that move upon the earth, and 
 you, Sun ! I present to you this animal. You birds 
 in the air, and you animals upon the earth, we are re 
 lated ; we are alike in this respect, that one Ruler 
 made us all. You see me, how unhappy I am. If 
 you have any power, intercede for me." 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW. 
 
 No subject is more difficult than the religion of 
 a savage people. It is not always easy to determine 
 just what are the beliefs of a civilized race. Certain 
 marked differences between various sects, and the form 
 and ritual of each, may be described with more or less 
 accuracy, but the actual beliefs are hardly to be arrived 
 at. This is partly because most people do not them 
 selves know what they believe or at least have never 
 put in words all the points of their faith and also 
 because no two individuals have precisely the same 
 belief. 
 
 We have been told of late years that there is no 
 evidence that any tribe of Indians ever believed in one 
 overruling power, yet in the early part of the seven 
 teenth century Jesuits and Puritans alike testified that 
 tribes which they met believed in a god, and it is cer 
 tain that at the present time many tribes worship a 
 Supreme Being who is the Ruler of the universe. 
 
 In the case of many of these tribes this god lives 
 up above in the sky in what we would call heaven, but 
 sometimes his abiding place is under the ground or 
 again at the different cardinal points. The Pawnees, 
 as already stated, now locate him above, yet one story 
 which they tell places him in the west beyond the 
 big water. In the same region is the dwelling-place 
 
 214 
 
THE OLD FAITH AND THE NSW. 215 
 
 of the Sun, the chief Blackfoot god. Other tribes 
 place their principal god in the east, and often his 
 home is beyond the big water which surrounds the 
 continent. Some tribes west of the Rockies worship 
 the Wolf as chief god and creator. 
 
 I am inclined to believe that many of the tribes of 
 this continent once worshipped the Sun as some still 
 do or perhaps originally the light or the dawn was 
 the god. The prayer of the Blackfoot invariably be 
 gins, " Hear Sun, hear Old Man, Above People listen, 
 Under- water People listen." This might fairly be 
 called a prayer to the Sun as the supreme ruler, but 
 also an appeal to all the powers of Nature as well. A 
 Pawnee prayer already quoted reverses this order, and 
 is addressed more specifically to " You all fish of the 
 rivers, you all birds of the air, and all animals that 
 move upon the earth, and you, Sun ! " 
 
 In cases where the Sun is the Supreme Father, or 
 old man, the Moon is often the sun s wife, the mother, 
 the old woman ; or, on the other hand, the Earth may 
 be the mother. In any case it is true that all tribes 
 have a great reverence for the earth, which they regard 
 as the producer not only of themselves but of all food, 
 the fruitful one, from whom comes all their support. 
 But this is an idea which is as broad as humanity; 
 witness our own figure of Mother Earth. In fact, with 
 many tribes the earth seems to rank as the second of 
 the powers or influences that are prayed to, and in 
 smoking, though the first smoke and prayer is offered 
 to the power above, the second is almost invariably 
 blown downward to the earth. In like manner, while 
 some tribes in blessing or in healing hold up the palms 
 of the hands to the sunlight before passing them over 
 the person to be blessed or the part to be cured, 
 
216 THE STORY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 others, as the Cheyennes, place the palms upon the 
 ground, as if the good influence was to be derived 
 from the earth. 
 
 Besides the sun, moon, and earth, certain of the 
 stars are held in especial reverence, and this is true 
 particularly of the morning star, which by the Black- 
 feet is called Early Eiser, and is believed to be the son 
 of the Sun and Moon. The Skidi, as has elsewhere 
 been stated, made special sacrifices to this planet, 
 which they believed to have great influence over their 
 crops. Many of the tribes have names for the planets, 
 the brighter stars, and the more important constella 
 tions, and relate stories to account for their existence 
 or for the grouping of the stars. Thus the Great 
 Bear is called the Seven Persons by the Blackfeet, 
 and Broken Back by the Arapahoes ; the Pleiades, 
 the Seven Stars by Pawnees and Blackfeet, Grouped 
 Together Stars by the Cheyennes. Venus is known 
 by the Cheyennes as " Belonging to the Moon." The 
 Milky Way is called Spirit Eoad by the Cheyennes, 
 and is the road travelled by the spirits of the departed 
 on their way to the future world. The Blackfeet call 
 it the Wolf Road, and believe it the short trail from 
 the Sun s lodge to this world. Most tribes call it the 
 Ghost s Road. 
 
 Besides such intangible and all-pervading spirits 
 as the Spirit Father of the Pawnees, already men 
 tioned, and the heavenly bodies, there are many su 
 pernatural agencies of another and secondary class, 
 which are often spoken of as minor gods, but which 
 seem rather to occupy a position corresponding very 
 closely to the saints and angels of our religious sys 
 tem. To such agencies all of them subordinate- to 
 the supreme power prayers are offered in much the 
 
THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW. 217 
 
 same way that for many centuries petitions have been 
 made by certain sects of the Christian religion to saints 
 and holy personages. These agencies, which often as 
 sume a material shape, and which appear to men in 
 the form of beasts, birds, rocks, buttes, or mountains, 
 sometimes represent certain forces of Nature, or again 
 only qualities or powers, mental or physical. These 
 forces or qualities do not, however, invariably take a 
 visible shape ; and although the thunder is believed 
 by many tribes to have the form of a bird, there are 
 others by which it has never been seen. 
 
 In all the important affairs of life help is asked of 
 these supernatural agencies ; prayers are made to them 
 and sacrifices offered a puff of smoke, a little food, or 
 a bit of tobacco or red cloth. They occupy the posi 
 tion of intercessors, mediators between man and the 
 supreme power. The different classes of these super 
 natural agencies which appear to inhabit the air and 
 sky above, the world about us and the world beneath 
 us, have already been referred to. They have the 
 power to give to favoured ones the special qualities 
 which each represents, and, besides, to implore for 
 him the help of the Deity. To the man who fasted 
 and dreamed for power, and who steadfastly enduring 
 the hunger and thirst and the frightful visions which 
 so often caused him to give up the attempt bore all 
 this suffering to the end, one of these supernatural 
 agencies would often appear as his struggle drew to a 
 close, and though at first perhaps seeming severe and 
 stern, would at length soften and become more kindly, 
 and would then offer wise counsel and friendly ad 
 vice, promising to give him its power and to help him 
 through life. This was the man s secret helper, his 
 "medicine," the special being to whom his prayers 
 
218 THE STORY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 were hereafter offered. This is what is meant when an 
 Indian is spoken of as having been " helped by a wolf," 
 a bear, or an eagle. 
 
 The Indian, however, does not call this assisting 
 power by any of these names. He usually speaks of it 
 as his dream or sleep, and says, " It came to me in 
 my sleep," or " A spirit told me in my sleep," and the 
 Blackfoot when he prays says, " Listen, my dream." 
 The so-called " medicine " or bundle of sacred things, 
 which many Indians always carry with them is called 
 by the same name. The owner believes these things 
 to have been given him, or that he has been directed 
 to make them by his dream, and such articles, while 
 he has them about his person, protect him from harm. 
 A friend to whom I was once of service afterward gave 
 me his dream. He told me that he had carried it in 
 battle for many years, and that it had always kept him 
 safe. It was a necklace of bear claws and spherical 
 leaden bullets, and was perhaps the most highly valued 
 of all his possessions. Whirlwind, the chief of the 
 Cheyennes, used to tell of the power of his dream a 
 little hawk which he wore on his war bonnet which 
 had always protected him in battle, and especially in 
 one fight, when, during a charge on his enemies, who 
 were fighting behind cover, the bullets flew so thick 
 about him that every feather on his bonnet was cut 
 away, yet no ball touched him, nor was the hawk hit. 
 
 Instances where men have been struck and knocked 
 down by balls, which yet, on account of the power of 
 this protection, did not enter the flesh or inflict a 
 wound, are commonly spoken of. 
 
 It is impossible to state definitely just how these 
 different powers are regarded whether it is an actual 
 worship that is offered to them ; whether, as has been 
 
THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW. 210 
 
 said, " All nature is alive with gods ; every mountain, 
 every tree is worshipped, and the commonest animals 
 are objects of adoration " ; or whether one supreme god 
 is adored through these various objects and creatures 
 which typify that god s various attributes. Even the 
 Indian himself does not know just which of these is 
 true. Probably the average red man actually worships 
 each such object. At least it is certain that every ob 
 ject in Nature may have its special property or power 
 which is to be reverenced, and perhaps propitiated. 
 Such objects are probably types, an animal, or plant, 
 or butte, standing for a quality, and being reverenced 
 as the material embodiment of that quality. If, for 
 example, the eagle typifies courage and dash in war, 
 young men about to go on the warpath offer prayers 
 and sacrifices to the eagle, asking him to give them 
 some of his bravery. Yet such prayer is not offered to 
 any actual bird but to some representative eagle per 
 haps a spiritual one which stands for bravery ; for 
 while many animals stand for qualities or special pow 
 ers, the actual animals are in no sense sacred. Some 
 tribes teach kindness and consideration to all living 
 things, and forbid their unnecessary destruction ; but 
 even these tribes do not regard any animals as sacred 
 in the sense that they are not to be killed when it 
 is necessary. The animals representing these quali 
 ties have special powers, they are supernatural, they 
 are nearer the Deity than men, yet they are his serv 
 ants. Whatever powers they may possess are not cre 
 ated by themselves nor in any sense inherent in them, 
 but have been given to them by the Ruler, and are ex 
 ercised only by his permission. 
 
 The coming of the white man has brought to the 
 Indian even to him who has not been exposed to the 
 
220 THE STORY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 teaching of the missionaries more or less of skepti 
 cism as to his own religion. He believes that all good 
 gifts, whether mental or material, come from the su 
 preme power, and he sees that the white man has a 
 monopoly of such gifts. Hence, in many cases, he has 
 come to think that the white man s god is rich and 
 wise, while the Indian s is poor and foolish. The one 
 taught his children well, and gave them guns, machin 
 ery, and money, the power to talk to each other at a 
 distance, the wisdom to know beforehand what to do 
 in certain circumstances, and great shrewdness in all 
 the affairs of life. The other furnished to his children 
 only their simple arms and utensils and the buffalo for 
 their food. These things satisfied the Indian so long 
 as he knew of nothing better, but now that he is wiser, 
 he cannot but feel more or less contempt for a god 
 who could do no more for his children than this, and 
 he does not hesitate to express the contempt which he 
 feels. 
 
 On the other hand, this does not make him more 
 ready for conversion to a belief in the white man s re 
 ligion. This religion offers to him a set of ideas entirely 
 new and entirely different in character from any that 
 he has ever had before, and he cannot at first com 
 prehend them at all. An Indian friend, who had 
 listened long to the arguments of a Christian mission 
 ary, spoke to me with severe scorn of the foolishness 
 of the latter s promises of heaven and threats of hell. 
 "How is it possible for me to go up into the sky?" 
 he said. " Have I wings like an eagle to fly away ? 
 Or how can I get to that place down below ? I have 
 no claws like a badger to dig down through the 
 ground." 
 
 The Indians, as has often been pointed out, are es- 
 
THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW. 221 
 
 sentlally a religious people. They realize man s feeble 
 ness, his inability to successfully contend with the 
 powers of Nature, and so they ask for the assistance of 
 all those beings whom they believe to have powers 
 greater than themselves. The sacrifices with which 
 they accompany their prayers may vary from a spoon 
 ful of food or a bit of calico to a scalp taken in war, 
 a horse, or a piece of flesh cut from the body. An ac 
 quaintance of mine, who had lost three fingers from 
 his left hand and two from his right, told me that at 
 different times in the course of seven years he had 
 sacrificed these missing members in the furtherance of 
 a special object, which he at last attained. In one of 
 the Pawnee stories which I have recorded * a father is 
 related to have sacrificed his only son, whom he dearly 
 loved, in the belief that this act would secure divine 
 favour. 
 
 There can be no doubt that in many cases the In 
 dian religion of to-day has been greatly influenced by 
 the teachings of Christian missionaries, and this seems 
 to be true of Pacific coast tribes to a much greater 
 degree than of those dwelling on the plains. More 
 than once, when camping with Indians whose home lay 
 on the west side of the Rocky Mountains, I have been 
 impressed by the survival of evidences of Christian 
 teachings among people who have apparently forgot 
 ten those teachings, even though some of their forms 
 still persist. And when one sees a wild Indian one 
 whom he knows to be a thorough pagan make the 
 sign of the cross before he prays, one cannot but 
 wonder whence came this man s knowledge of God, 
 who told him the story of the cross. 
 
 * Pawnee Hero Stories and Folk-Tales, p. 161. 
 
222 THE STORY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 Such a sight carries the mind back over the cen 
 turies, and makes real to the observer the extent and 
 the permanence of the devoted work done here in 
 America by the black-robed priests who marched with 
 the little steel-clad army of the Conquistadores when, 
 with all the pomp and circumstance of glorious war, 
 they entered Mexico. At first these fathers made 
 their converts by the sword. Later their unflagging 
 zeal and patient faith subdued tribe after tribe, until 
 at length they reached the western ocean. Slowly 
 they spread along the coast, north and south, and to 
 the outlying islands of the sea, and planted the cross 
 deeper and deeper in the wilderness. In trackless 
 deserts, in tangled forests they preached Christ and 
 his kingdom. The wild tribes of the parched cactus 
 plains, the gentle races of the Pueblo villages, the 
 hardy fishermen of the seashore alike yielded to the 
 faith and energy which inspired these ministers of 
 God. Little by little they made their way up the 
 coast you can trace their progress on the map to 
 day San Diego, San Pedro, San Luis, San Jose, San 
 Francisco, San Juan ever fighting the battle of the 
 cross, upheld by their faith. The blazing sun of sum 
 mer poured down upon them his withering heat ; they 
 did not blench. The frosts and snows of winter 
 chilled them ; they pushed on. Sky-reaching moun 
 tains barred their progress; they surmounted them. 
 Floods stood in their way ; they crossed them. Pain 
 fully, slowly, on foot through an unknown country, 
 in perils of waters, in perils by the heathen, in perils 
 in the wilderness, " in weariness and painfulness, in 
 watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings 
 often, in cold and nakedness," they held their stead 
 fast way. No danger daunted them, no difficulty 
 
THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW. 223 
 
 turned them back. Death did not stop their march. 
 If one faltered and stumbled and fell, another stepped 
 calmly forward and took his place. No need now to 
 look at the means they sometimes employed, nor to 
 remember that among these servants of God all were 
 not alike worthy. Look only at what they accom 
 plished, and remember at what a cost. And though 
 their earnest labours failed to establish here in the new 
 world the religious empire of which they dreamed, yet 
 no doubt each faithful soul had, in the consciousness 
 of duty well performed, his own abundant reward. 
 And although of their teachings in many tribes much 
 or all has been forgotten, still, even now in wild camps 
 in the distant mountains, the sign of the cross and 
 the vesper bell may remind the wanderer of a time, 
 now long past, when faith was strong and men were 
 willing to die for God s glory. There, in such lonely 
 camps among rugged peaks and far from the haunts 
 of men, is still practiced a rite of the Church. There 
 still grows, though stunted, deformed, and changed, 
 the plant whose seed was first sown centuries ago by 
 that devoted band. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE COMING OF THE WHITE MAN". 
 
 KNOWLEDGE of the white man came to the differ 
 ent tribes of the west at different times, but a cen 
 tury ago most of them knew little of him, and there 
 are many tribes which have had a real intercourse 
 with the whites for a still shorter time. Long before 
 this the Spaniards in the southwest and 011 the Pacific 
 coast had made their presence felt, but the Indians 
 usually do not consider that Spaniards are of the same 
 race with the people of European origin who came to 
 them from the east, and often they have a special 
 name for them. 
 
 Even after the Indians had learned of the existence 
 of white people, they did not at once come into con 
 tact with them. It was often quite a long time before 
 they even began to trade with them, and when they 
 did so, it was in a very small way. The first articles 
 traded for were arms, beads, blankets, and the gaudy 
 finery that the savage loves. Horses which trans 
 formed the Indian, which changed him from a mild 
 and peaceful seeker after food to a warrior and a 
 raider were by many tribes first obtained not directly 
 from the whites, but by barter from those of their 
 own race. 
 
 Most tribes still preserve traditions of the time 
 when they met the first white men, as well as of the 
 
 224 
 
THK COMING OF THE WHITE MAN. 225 
 
 time when they first saw horses ; but in many cases 
 this was so long ago that all details of the occurrence 
 have been lost. It is certain that the Spaniards and 
 their horses had worked their way up the Pacific 
 slope into Oregon and Washington long before there 
 was any considerable influx of white trappers into the 
 plains country and the Rocky Mountains ; and that of 
 the western tribes, those which in miles were furthest 
 from Mexico were the last to learn of the whites and 
 their wonderful powers. One of these peoples was 
 the Blackfeet, of whom I have been told by men still 
 living in the tribe that fifty years ago no Blackfoot 
 could count up to ten, and that a little earlier the 
 number of horses in all three tribes of that confedera 
 tion was very small. Then they had but few guns, 
 and many of them even used still the stone arrowheads 
 and hatchets and the bone knives of their primitive 
 ancestors. 
 
 A people whose intercourse with the whites has 
 been so short and, until recent times, so limited, ought 
 to retain some detailed account of their earliest meet 
 ing with civilized men, and such a tradition has come 
 to me from John Monroe, a half-breed Piegan, now 
 nearly seventy years old. It tells of the first time the 
 Blackfeet saw white people a party of traders from 
 the east, either Frenchmen from Montreal, or one of 
 the very earliest parties of Hudson Bay men which 
 ascended the Saskatchewan River. John Monroe first 
 heard the narrative when a boy from a Blood Indian 
 named Sutane, who was then an old man, and Su- 
 tane s grandfather was one of the party who met the 
 white people. The occurrence probably took place 
 during the latter half of the eighteenth century. 
 
 When this people lived in the north, a party of the 
 
226 THE STORY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 Blackfeet started out to war. They travelled on, al 
 ways going southward, until they came to a big water. 
 While passing through a belt of timber on the north 
 bank of this river, they came upon what they took for 
 strange beaver work, where these animals had been 
 cutting down the trees. But on looking closely at 
 the cuttings, they saw that the chips were so large 
 that it must have been an animal much bigger than a 
 beaver that could open its mouth wide enough to cut 
 such chips. They did not understand what this could 
 be, for none of them had ever seen anything like it 
 before. Each man expressed his mind about this, 
 and at last they concluded that some great under- water 
 animal must have done it. At one place they saw 
 that the trunk of a tree was missing, and found the 
 trail over the ground where it had been dragged away 
 from the stump. They followed this trail, so as to 
 see where the animals had taken the log, and what 
 they had done with it, and as they went on, they 
 found many other small trails like this one, all leading 
 into one larger main trail. They then saw the foot 
 prints of persons, but they were prints of a foot 
 shaped differently from theirs. There was a deep 
 mark at the heel ; the tracks were not flat like those 
 made by people.* 
 
 They followed the trail, which kept getting larger 
 and wider as it went. Every little while, another trail 
 joined it. When they came to where they could look 
 through the timber, they saw before them a little open 
 spot on the bank of the river. They looked through 
 the underbrush, and saw what they at first thought 
 
 * This deep mark was no doubt the imprint of the heel of a 
 shoe. 
 
THE COMING OF THE WHITS MAN. 227 
 
 were bears, and afterward took to be persons, lifting 
 logs and putting them up in a large pile. They crept 
 closer, to where they could see better, and then con 
 cluded that these were not people. They were very 
 woolly on the face. Long masses of hair hung down 
 from their chins. They were not clothed wore no 
 robes. The Blackfeet said : " Why, they have nothing 
 on ! They are naked ! " Some of them said, " Those 
 are Suye tuppi " (water people). They stole around 
 to another point of the timber, still nearer, where they 
 could see better. There they came close to one of 
 these people alone. He was gathering sticks and put 
 ting them in a pile. They saw that the skin of his 
 hands and face was white. This one had no hair on 
 his face.* So they said : " Well, this must be a she 
 water animal. The he ones have hair on the face, 
 and the she ones do not." 
 
 The oldest man of the party then said : " We had 
 better go away. Maybe they will smell us or feel us 
 here, and perhaps they will kill us, or do something 
 fearful Let us go." So they went away. 
 
 When they got back to their camp, they told what 
 they had seen ; that to the south they had found ani 
 mals that were very much like people water animals. 
 They said that these animals were naked. That some 
 of them had red bodies, f and some were black all over, 
 except a red mark around the bodies and a fine red 
 tail. I Moreover, these people wore no robes or leg 
 gings and no breech-clouts. 
 
 * This was probably a boy gathering poles for roofing. 
 
 f Wore red shirts. 
 
 \ The old Hudson Bay men used to wear about the waist a 
 red sash the ends of which hung down in front. When they 
 were working, to get these ends out of the way, they would pass 
 16 
 
228 THE STOftY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 This description caused a great excitement in the 
 camp. Some thought that the strange beings were 
 water animals, and others that they were a new peo 
 ple. All the men of the camp started south to see 
 what this could be. Before they left the camp, the 
 head man told them to be very careful in dealing with 
 the animals, not to interfere with them nor to get in 
 their way, and not to try to hurt them nor to anger 
 them. 
 
 The party started, and when they reached the 
 opening, the animals were still there at work. After 
 they had watched them for some time the head man 
 of the party said to the others : " All you stay here, 
 and I will go down to them alone. If they do nothing 
 to me you wait here, but if they attack or hurt me, 
 you rush on them, and we will fight hard, and try not 
 to let them capture any of us." The man started, and 
 when he came close to the corner of the houses he 
 stood still. One of the men, who was working near 
 by, walked up to him, looked him straight in the face, 
 and stretched out his arm. The Indian looked at him, 
 and did not know what he wanted. Some more of 
 the men came up to him, and the Indian saw that all 
 of them were persons like himself, except that they 
 were of a different colour and had a different voice. 
 The hair on their faces was fair. 
 
 When the other Indians saw that no harm had 
 been done to their leader, some of them went down to 
 him, one by one, and by twos and threes, but most of 
 the party remained hidden in the timber. They were 
 still afraid of these strange new beings. 
 
 them around the body and under the sash, so that they hung 
 down behind. 
 
THE COMING OF THE WHITE MAN. 229 
 
 The whites spoke to them, and asked them to 
 come into the house, making motions to them, but the 
 Indians did not understand what was meant by these 
 signs. The whites would walk away, and then come 
 back and take hold of the Indians robes and pull 
 them. At last some of the Blackfeet followed the 
 white men into the house. Those who had gone in 
 came back and told the others strange stories of the 
 wonderful things they had seen in this house. As 
 they gained confidence, many others went in, while 
 still others would not go in, nor would they go close 
 to the new people. 
 
 The whites showed them a long and curious-look 
 ing piece of wood. They did not know of what kind 
 of stone one part of it was made. It was hard and 
 black. The white man took down from the wall a 
 white cow s horn and poured out some black sand into 
 his hand, and poured it down into a hole in this long 
 stick. Then he took a little bunch of grass and pushed 
 this into the hole with another stick, then measured 
 with his fingers the length of the stick left out of the 
 hole. Then he took a round thing out of a bag, and 
 put it into the hole, and put down some more fine 
 grass. Then he poured out some more of the black sand 
 into the side of the stick. The Indians stood around, 
 taking great interest in the way the man was hand 
 ling this stick. The white man now began to make 
 all kinds of signs to the Indians, which they did not 
 understand. Sometimes he would make a big sound 
 with his mouth, and then point to the stick. He 
 would put the stick to his shoulder, holding it out in 
 front of him, and make a great many motions. Then 
 he gave it to one of the Indians. He showed him the 
 under parts, and put his finger there. The Indian 
 
230 THE STORY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 touched the under part and the stick went off in the 
 air and made a thundering sound, a terrible crash. 
 The Indian staggered back, and the others were very 
 much scared. Some dropped to the ground, while all 
 the whites laughed and shook their heads at them. 
 All laughed, and made many signs to the Blackfeet, 
 none of which they understood. The white man took 
 down the horn of black sand, and again did these 
 things to the stick, but this time the Indians all stood 
 back. They were afraid. When he had finished the 
 motions, the white man invited them out of doors. 
 Then he sat down, and took aim at a log lying on the 
 ground. The same great thunder sounded. He 
 walked up to the log, showed the bullet hole, and 
 pushed a little stick into it ; then he loaded the gun 
 again. 
 
 By this time the Indians were beginning to under 
 stand the power of the stick. After the white man 
 had loaded it, he handed the gun to the Indian, took 
 him close to the log, showed him how to aim the gun 
 and how to pull the trigger. The Indian fired and hit 
 the log. 
 
 The white men showed these Blackfeet their knives, 
 whittling sticks with them, and showing them how 
 well they could cut. The Indians were very much de 
 lighted with the power of these knives. Then they 
 saw a big, woolly white man standing out in front of 
 the house, and he with his axe would cut a big log in 
 two in only a short time. All these things were very 
 strange to them. The white men looked closely at the 
 Blackfoot war dresses and arms and wanted them, 
 and gave their visitors some knives and copper cups 
 for their dresses and the skins that they wore. The 
 visitors stayed with the white men some days, camping 
 
THE COMING OF THE WHITE MAN. 231 
 
 near by. They kept wondering at these people, at how 
 they looked, the things which they had, and what they 
 did. The white men kept making signs to them, but 
 they understood nothing of it all. 
 
 After a time the Blackfeet returned to their camp. 
 Afterward, many others visited the whites, and this 
 was the beginning of a friendly intercourse between 
 the two peoples. After a time they came to under 
 stand each other a little, and trade relations were 
 opened. The Indians learned that they could get the 
 white man s things in exchange for the skins of small 
 animals, and they began to trade and to get guns. It 
 was when they got these arms that they first began to 
 take courage, and to go out of the timber on to the 
 prairie toward the mountains. In those old days the 
 Hudson Bay traders used to tell the Indians to bring 
 in the hair from the skins of buffalo, to put it in 
 sacks and bring it in to trade. They did so, but all 
 of a sudden the traders would take no more buffalo 
 hair. 
 
 This probably refers to the attempt made during 
 the last century in the Selkirk settlement to establish 
 a corporation for making cloth from buffalo hair. 
 
 Of the special articles brought by the white men, 
 the first to exercise an important influence on the 
 people were horses. The possession of these animals 
 greatly increased their liberty, stimulated them to 
 wars with their neighbours, and in fact wrought a 
 most important change in the character of the peo 
 ple.* The knowledge of the horse advanced from the 
 south northward, and these animals spread northward 
 
 * Blackfoot Lodge Tales, p. 242. 
 
232 THE STORY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 up the Pacific coast more rapidly than on the east side 
 of the mountains. The tribes of the southern plains 
 Comanches, Kiowas, Wichitas, Arapahoes, Navajoes, 
 and others obtained horses very early. The Pawnees 
 and various tribes of the Dakotas later. The Utes, 
 Snakes, and Kutenais had horses early ; and the last 
 of the plains tribe to obtain them were the Blackfeet, 
 Assiniboines, and Plains Crees. In the case of tribes 
 that have long had horses, it is impossible to even ap 
 proximate the date at which they were obtained it 
 happened too long ago but with the more northern 
 tribes, which have had horses for a short time only, I 
 have been more successful in my inquiries, and from 
 several old men among the Piegans I have accounts 
 of the first coming of horses. 
 
 As I have said, many myths exist to account for 
 the coming of the horse, but this Piegan testimony is 
 that of an eye-witness. Wolf Calf is probably over 
 one hundred years old. He well remembers when the 
 first white men passed through the country, and old 
 men of seventy years or thereabouts tell me that he 
 was a proved warrior when they were little boys. He 
 believes that he was born in 1793. From him I have 
 definite and detailed accounts of the ways of the Pie 
 gans in days before they had been at all influenced 
 by civilized man. I believe his statements to be as 
 worthy of credence as any can be which depend solely 
 on memory. The account which follows is a transla 
 tion of his narrative, taken down from his own lips 
 some years ago. He said : 
 
 " Long ago, when I was young, just getting big 
 enough to use a bow, we used arrowpoints of stone. 
 Then the knives were made of flint. Not long after 
 this, arrowpoints of sheet iron began to come into use. 
 
THE COMING OP THE WHITE MAN. 233 
 
 After we used the stone knives, we began to get white 
 men s knives. The first of these that we had were 
 made of a strip of tin. This was set into a bone, so 
 that only a narrow edge of the tin protruded, and this 
 was sharpened and used for skinning. 
 
 " Before that time the Piegans had no horses. 
 When they moved their camp they packed their lodges 
 on dogs. 
 
 " The first horses we ever saw came from west of 
 the mountains. A band of the Piegans were camped 
 on Belly River, at a place that we call Smash the 
 Heads, where we jumped buffalo. They had been 
 driving buffalo over the cliff here, so that they had 
 plenty of meat. 
 
 " There had come over the mountains to hunt buf 
 falo a Kutenai who had some horses, and he was run 
 ning buffalo ; but for some reason he had no luck. 
 He could kill nothing. He had seen from far off the 
 Piegan camp, but he did not go near it, for the Piegans 
 and the Kutenais were enemies. 
 
 " This Kutenai could not kill anything, and he 
 and his family had nothing to eat and were starving. 
 At last he made up his mind that he would go into 
 the camp of his enemies and give himself up, for he 
 said, I might as well be killed at once as die of hun 
 ger. So with his wife and children he rode away 
 from his camp up in the mountains, leaving his lodge 
 standing and his horses feeding about it, all except 
 those which his woman and his three children were 
 riding, and started for the camp of the Piegans. 
 
 " They had just made a big drive, and had run a 
 great lot of buffalo over the cliff. There were many 
 dead in the piskun, and the men were killing those 
 that were left alive, when suddenly the Kutenai, on 
 
234 THE STORY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 his horse, followed by his wife and children on theirs, 
 rode over a hill near by. When they saw him, all the 
 Piegans were astonished and wondered what this could 
 be. None of them had ever seen anything like it, and 
 they were afraid. They thought it was something 
 mysterious. The chief of the Piegans called out to 
 his people : This is something very strange. I have 
 heard of wonderful things that have happened from 
 the earliest times until now, but I never heard of any 
 thing like this. This thing must have come from 
 above (i. e., from the sun), or else it must have come 
 out of the hill (i. e., from the earth). Do not do any 
 thing to it ; be still and wait. If we try to hurt it, 
 may be it will ride into that hill again, or may be some 
 thing bad will happen. Let us wait. 
 
 " As it drew nearer, they could see that it was a man 
 coming, and that he was on some strange animal. The 
 Piegans wanted their chief to go toward him and speak 
 to him. The chief did not wish to do this ; he was 
 afraid ; but at last he started to go to meet the Kute- 
 nai, who was coming. When he got near to him, the 
 Kutenai made signs that he was friendly, and patted 
 his horse on his neck and made signs to the chief. I 
 give you this animal. The chief made signs that he 
 was friendly, and the Kutenais rode into the camp 
 and were received as friends, and food was given 
 them and they ate, and their hunger was satisfied. 
 
 " The Kutenai stayed with these Piegans for some 
 time, and the Kutenai man told the chief that he had 
 more horses at his camp up in the mountains, and that 
 beyond the mountains there were plenty of horses. 
 The Piegan said, 1 1 have never heard of a man riding 
 an animal like this. He asked the Kutenai to bring 
 in the rest of his horses ; and one night he started out, 
 
THE COMING OP THE WHITE MAN. 235 
 
 and the next day came back driving all his horses be 
 fore him, and they came to the camp, and all the peo 
 ple saw them and looked at them and wondered. 
 
 " Some time after this the Kutenai said to the Pie- 
 gan chief : c My friend, why not come across the moun 
 tains to my country and visit me ? I should like to 
 have you see my country. Bring with you those of 
 your people who wish to come. My people will give 
 you many horses. 
 
 " Then the Piegan chief said : It is good. I will 
 go with you and visit you. He told his people that 
 he was going with this Kutenai, and that any of them 
 who wished to do so might go with him. Many of the 
 Piegans packed their dogs with their lodges and with 
 dried meat and started with the Kutenai, and those 
 who had no dogs packed dried meat in their parfleches 
 and carried it on their backs. 
 
 " In those days the Piegans did not take women to 
 sit beside them until they were near middle life about 
 thirty-five or forty years old ; but among those who 
 went across the mountains was a young man less than 
 thirty years old, who had taken a wife. Many of the 
 people did not like this, and some made fun of him 
 because he had taken a wife so young. 
 
 " The party had not travelled many days when they 
 got across the mountains, and near to where the Ku 
 tenai camp was. When they had come near it, the 
 Kutenai man went on ahead, and when he had reached 
 his village, he told the chief that he had with him vis 
 itors, Piegans who lived on the prairie, and that they 
 had no horses, but had plenty of buffalo meat. The 
 Kutenai chief told the man to bring these Piegans 
 into the camp. He did so, and they were well re 
 ceived and were given presents of horses, and they 
 
236 THE STORY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 traded their buffalo meat for more horses. The young 
 man with the wife had four parfleches of dried meat, 
 and for each one of these he received a horse, and all 
 four were mares. 
 
 " The Piegans stayed with the Kutenais a long 
 time, but at length they returned over the mountains 
 to their own country, taking their horses with them. 
 When the other bands of the Piegans saw these horses 
 and heard what had happened, they began to make 
 peace with the Kutenais, and to trade with them for 
 more horses. The young man who had a wife kept 
 the four mares, and took them about with him wher 
 ever he went. He said to his wife : " We will not give 
 away any of these horses. They are all mares and all 
 young. They will breed and soon we will have more. 
 The mares bred, and the young man, as he grew older, 
 proved to be a good warrior. He began to go to war 
 against the Snakes, and to take horses from them, and 
 after a time he had a great herd of horses. 
 
 " This young man, though once everybody had 
 laughed at him, finally became head chief of the Pie 
 gans. His name at first was Dog, and afterward Sits 
 in the Middle, and at last Many Horses. He had so 
 many horses he could not keep track of them all. 
 After he had so many horses, he would select ten boys 
 out of each band of the Piegans to care for his horses. 
 Many Horses had more horses than all the rest of the 
 tribe. Many Horses died a good many years ago. 
 These were the first horses the Piegans saw. 
 
 " When they first got horses the people did not 
 know what they fed on. They would offer the ani 
 mals pieces of dried meat, or would take a piece of 
 backfat and rub their noses with it, to try to get them 
 to eat it. Then the horses would turn away and put 
 
THE COMING OF THE WHITE MAN. 237 
 
 down their heads, and begin to eat the grass of the 
 prairie." 
 
 The date first mentioned by Wolf Calf would be 
 if we assume his age to be given correctly about 
 1804-1806, or when he was from ten to twelve years 
 of age, and I presume that their first horses may have 
 come into the hands of the Blackfeet about that time, 
 or in the very earliest years of the present century. 
 This would agree fairly well with the statement of 
 Mr. Hugh Monroe, who says that in 1813, when he first 
 came among this people, they had possessed horses for 
 a short time only, and had recently begun to make war 
 excursions to the south on a large scale for the purpose 
 of securing more horses from their enemies. Hugh 
 Monroe s wife, who was born about 1796-1798, used 
 to say that when she was a little girl the Piegans had 
 no horses, dogs being their only beasts of burden, and 
 all the evidence that I can gather in this tribe seems 
 to point to the date given as that at which they ob 
 tained their first horses. We know that the chief 
 Many Horses was killed in the great battle of the Cy 
 press Hills in the autumn of 1867, and he is always 
 spoken of as a very old man at that time. 
 
 Wolf Calf also gave the following account of the 
 first visit of white traders to a Piegan camp. He said : 
 " White people had begun to come into this country, 
 and Many Horses young men wanted ropes and iron 
 arrowpoints and saddle blankets, and the people were 
 beginning to kill furs and skins to trade. Many 
 Horses began to trade with his own people for these 
 things. He would ask the young men of the tribe to 
 kill skins for him, and they would bring them to him 
 and he would give them a horse or two in exchange. 
 Then he would send his relations in to the Hudson 
 
238 THE STORY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 Bay post to trade, but he would never go himself. The 
 white men wanted to see him, and sent word to him 
 to come in, but he would never do so. 
 
 " At length, one winter, these white men packed 
 their dog sledges with goods and started to see Many 
 Horses. They took with them guns. The Piegans 
 heard that the whites were coming, and Many Horses 
 sent word to all the people to come together and meet 
 him at a certain place, where the whites were coming. 
 When these came to the camp, they asked where Many 
 Horses lodge was, and the people pointed out to them 
 the Crow painted lodge. The whites went to this 
 lodge and began to unpack their things guns, cloth 
 ing, knives, and goods of all kinds. 
 
 " Many Horses sent two men to go in different di 
 rections through the camp and ask all the principal 
 men, young and old, to come together to his lodge. 
 They all came. Some went in and some sat outside. 
 Then these white men began to distribute the guns, 
 and with each gun they gave a bundle of powder and 
 ball. At this same time, the young men received white 
 blankets and the old men black coats. Then we first 
 got knives, and the white men showed us how to use 
 knives ; to split down the legs and rip up the belly 
 to skin for trade. There were not knives enough for 
 each to have one, and it was then that knives with tin 
 edges were made. 
 
 " The whites showed us many things. They had 
 flint, steel, and punk, and showed the Indians how to 
 use them. A white man held the flint and struck it 
 with the steel and lighted the punk. Then he gave 
 them to an Indian and told him to do the same. He 
 did so, but when he saw the spark burning the tinder, 
 he was frightened and dropped it, 
 
THE COMING OF THE WHITE MAN. 239 
 
 " Before that, fire was made with firesticks, the 
 twirling stick, being made of greasewood, was hard, 
 and in the hollow which received the point, finely 
 powdered dry grass was put, which caught the fire. 
 This was transferred to tinder and blown into a 
 flame." 
 
 As I have said elsewhere, the possession of guns 
 and horses transformed the Blackfeet from a more or 
 less stationary people dwelling in the timber, and de 
 voting all their energies to hunting and the food sup 
 ply, to a tribe whose chief ambition was the acquiring 
 of glory and riches by warlike pursuits. Now they 
 began to go to war, and in a few years they had con 
 quered from their enemies on the south a great terri 
 tory, and had begun to make themselves rich in horses. 
 Inhabiting a country abounding in buffalo, it was easy 
 for them to procure robes to supply to the traders who 
 at length penetrated their country, and so to provide 
 themselves with all the goods that the white men of 
 fered. But fast in the wake of the white men followed 
 disease, and smallpox and measles and scarlet fever 
 breaking out in their camps, swept off thousands upon 
 thousands of the race. The white men learned that 
 Indians liked liquor and began to use this in trade, 
 and liquor killed more than disease. 
 
 Any tribe of Indians who had obtained possessions 
 of any sort from the white men had manifestly a tre 
 mendous advantage over any other tribe who still had 
 only their primitive equipment, and we are told by 
 Cheyenne tradition that that brave and warlike people 
 during their migration toward the southwest were ut 
 terly routed and put to flight by the Assiniboines, who 
 had recently obtained guns from the white traders. 
 
 As a rule, the early intercourse between Indians 
 
240 THE STORY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 and whites in the west was friendly, and their rela 
 tions pleasant. Yet among the more warlike tribes, 
 stranger and enemy were synonymous terms, so that 
 the horses of white men were often stolen. Of course, 
 when this occurred, efforts were made to kill the thieves, 
 and thus active war was very often brought about. A 
 man or two killed on either side would for some time 
 to come insure reprisals and fighting at all subsequent 
 meetings of parties of whites and Indians belonging 
 to the tribe engaged, and each battle would make 
 others more probable. Sometimes a peace would be 
 made which was lasting, and there are some tribes 
 which have never engaged in any wars with the 
 whites, while others, in the face of shameful injury 
 and ill treatment, have always been their faithful allies 
 in their wars with other tribes. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 THE NORTH AMERICANS YESTEKDAY AND TO-DAY. 
 
 THE Indians of this continent constitute a single 
 race, whose physical characteristics are remarkably 
 alike throughout all tribes. Though the diverse condi 
 tions of life in various parts of a wide continent have 
 caused differences of stature, colour, and development 
 in certain directions, these differences are of minor 
 importance, and it is probable that there is no such 
 wide variation as is found among different groups of 
 the white, black, and yellow races. 
 
 An Indian is always an Indian, yet each tribe has 
 its own characteristics. The popular notion that all 
 Indians have the same speech and the same modes of 
 life is wholly erroneous. In North America, north 
 of Mexico, there were nearly sixty distinct linguistic 
 stocks or groups of languages, which, so far as known, 
 had no relation to each other, and represent groups of 
 Indians apparently unconnected by ties of blood with 
 any other family. In other words, these tribes differ 
 from each other in speech more widely than do the 
 different European nations ; for all the European na 
 tions, such as Russian, German, Italian except the 
 intrusive Turks, Huns, etc. constitute parts of a sin 
 gle linguistic stock, the Indo-European or Aryan. 
 The difference between two Indian linguistic stocks, 
 
 241 
 
24:2 THE STORY OP THE INDIAN. 
 
 such as Algonquin and Dakota, is, therefore, not that 
 between Greeks and Germans, but between the greater 
 groups Aryan and Turanian, or Aryan and Semetic, 
 and such stocks as Algonquin, Dakota, Pawnee, Atha 
 bascan, and Iroquois constitute families of equal rela 
 tive rank with the Old World families just men 
 tioned. 
 
 While some of the Indian families were made up 
 of many tribes speaking different dialects, or even 
 using languages unintelligible to each other, and con 
 trolling a vast extent of territory, others consisted of 
 a single small tribe without apparent affinities with 
 any of its neighbours. So, on the Pacific coast, where 
 about two thirds of the different linguistic stocks ex 
 ist, one may find a little village of fishing Indians who 
 they say have from time immemorial inhabited this 
 same region, and who yet have nothing in common 
 with their nearest neighbours a few miles away, and are 
 unable to communicate with them except by signs, or 
 to-day by the so-called Chinook jargon, the com 
 mon trade language of the northwest coast. 
 
 But while a vast territory might be inhabited and 
 controlled by one family, as much of the eastern United 
 States and Canada nearly as far as the Rocky Moun 
 tains was controlled by the Algonquin family, this 
 occupancy did not necessarily mean that all other 
 families were excluded from such territory. At va 
 rious points all over such a region, there might be 
 areas, large or small, which were held by tribes genet 
 ically distinct from the prevailing family and holding 
 their own against their neighbours. 
 
 As the families differed from each other in lan 
 guage, so the tribes differed in culture. North of the 
 Mexican boundary, all tribes were practically in the 
 
THE NORTH AMERICANS. 243 
 
 stone age of development. The use of metals was un 
 known. In a few cases, native copper was employed 
 for ornament or utensil, but it was treated as a stone 
 hammered into shape. It was not known as a metal. 
 The Indian s arms were made of stone, chipped, ham 
 mered, and ground from flint or some other hard rock. 
 His clothing was made of skin. Many tribes made 
 pottery of a very simple kind, useful for dishes and 
 cooking utensils. Their permanent dwellings were as 
 varied as the regions which they inhabited, yet in their 
 movable lodges or tipis, which were made of skins or 
 bark, one type prevailed over almost the whole conti 
 nent. While the subsistence of the people was largely 
 derived from hunting and fishing, or from the wild 
 fruits of the earth, yet a very large proportion of the 
 tribes practised agriculture. This is especially true of 
 those which inhabited the country of abundant rain 
 fall lying between the Atlantic Ocean and the Missis 
 sippi River, yet it was by no means confined to these 
 alone, for many tribes of the high dry plains, of Paw 
 nee, Dakota, and, in ancient times, Algonquin stock, 
 raised crops of corn, beans, and squashes. The tribes 
 of the extreme southwest depended for support very 
 largely on agriculture, and practised irrigation. 
 
 Picture writings were used among almost all the 
 tribes, but were, of course, carried to their greatest 
 perfection among those families whose culture was 
 highest. Among the Nahuatl and Mayas of the south, 
 and the Algonquins and Iroquois of the north, such 
 picture writings on skin, bark, or cloth sometimes 
 took the form of long historical documents, or served 
 to render permanent the ritual of important ceremo 
 nies. But even among the nomads of the plains, 
 paintings on skins often commemorated the important 
 IT 
 
244: THE STORY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 events of the year, sometimes by months, and some of 
 these ran back for many years even, it is said, for a 
 century. Such writings were, if not history, at least 
 records. 
 
 The social condition of the North Americans has 
 been greatly misunderstood. The place of woman in 
 the tribe was not that of a slave or of a beast of bur 
 den. The existence of the gentile organization, in 
 most tribes with descent in the female line, forbade 
 any such subjugation of woman. In many tribes 
 women took part in the councils of the chiefs ; in 
 some, women were even the tribal rulers ; while in 
 all they received a fair measure of respect and affec 
 tion from those related to them. At a council held 
 in 1791 with the Huron-Iroquois the women spoke to 
 the American commissioner as follows : " You ought 
 to hear and listen to what we women shall speak as 
 well as the sachems, for we are the owners of this land, 
 and it is ours. It is we that plant it for our and their 
 use. Hear us, therefore, for we speak of things that 
 concern us and our children." 
 
 Among the Mokis and other Pueblos, and among 
 the Navajoes, men and women work together in the 
 fields. With the Mokis the young unmarried women 
 are not expected or allowed to perform such heavy 
 work as carrying water up the mesa, and with the 
 ISTavajoes a man may even cut out and sew a buckskin 
 shirt. Just at present, the keeper of the tribal medi 
 cine of the Kiowas is a woman, and in the same tribe 
 the grandmother practically rules the family, although 
 she works as hard as the other women. Among the 
 Cheyennes the woman has great influence. 
 
 The notion that women were slaves no doubt had 
 its origin in the fact that their duties are such as civ- 
 
THE NORTH AMERICANS. 245 
 
 ilized men commonly regard as toil, while the more 
 arduous pursuits of hunting and war are looked upon 
 by white men as amusements. As a matter of fact, 
 the labours of this savage life were not unevenly 
 divided between the sexes. In their home life the 
 Indians were much like other people. The men, as a 
 rule, were affectionate husbands and fathers, often un 
 dergoing severe sacrifices and privations for the sake 
 of their families. Parents were devotedly attached to 
 their children, and a strong feeling existed between 
 the members of a family, even though the tie of blood 
 uniting them was remote. 
 
 Another misconception of Indian character has 
 obtained a firm footing in the popular mind. It is 
 generally believed that these people are grave, taci 
 turn, and sullen in their ordinary life. This is far 
 from being true. Instead, they are fond of society, 
 gossipy, great talkers, with a keen sense of humour and 
 great quickness of repartee. In their villages and their 
 camps, frequent visits were paid from lodge to lodge. 
 In time of plenty, feasts were continual, and social 
 gatherings for dancing, story-telling, or conversation 
 occurred more often than in civilized communities. 
 Constantly among young men, and often among young 
 women, were formed friendships which remind one of 
 the attachment that existed between David and Jona 
 than, and such friendships frequently lasted through 
 life, or were interrupted only when family ties were 
 assumed. 
 
 It is in the system of government devised by some 
 of them that the North Americans show their greatest 
 advance in culture. The so-called civilizations of the 
 south of Peru and Mexico while much higher than 
 those of tribes inhabiting the territory now the United 
 
246 THE STORY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 States and Canada, yet differed from them in degree 
 rather than in kind, and the league of the Iroquois, 
 since it has been thoroughly understood, has chal 
 lenged admiration both for its organization and its 
 purposes. This was an offensive and defensive feder 
 ation of five tribes the Onondagas, Oneidas, Senecas, 
 Cayugas, and Mohawks formed by the Onondaga chief 
 Hiawatha about the middle of the sixteenth century. 
 Of it Mr. Hale says : " The system he devised was to 
 be not a loose and transitory league but a permanent 
 government. While each nation was to retain its own 
 council and management of local affairs, the general 
 control was to be lodged in a federal senate, composed 
 of representatives to be elected by each nation, hold 
 ing office during good behaviour, and acknowledged as 
 ruling chiefs throughout the whole confederacy. Still 
 further and more remarkable, the federation was not 
 to be a limited one. It was to be indefinitely expan 
 sible. The avowed design of its purpose was to abolish 
 war altogether." As is well said by Dr. Brinton, " Cer 
 tainly this scheme was one of the most farsighted, and 
 in its aim beneficent, which any statesman has ever 
 designed for man." 
 
 As a rule, the government of the Indians was a 
 simple democracy. The chiefs were usually elected 
 though sometimes hereditary and held office for life, 
 or until advancing years caused their resignation. As 
 has been said, women were sometimes made chiefs. 
 Often the chief of a tribe was chosen from the chiefs 
 of the gentes by his fellow chiefs. In one of the 
 tribes of the Iroquois league the council which elected 
 the chief was composed altogether of women. But 
 the chief s power was not absolute. In minor mat 
 ters which pertained to the ordinary affairs of the 
 
- THE NORTH AMERICANS. 247 
 
 everyday life of the people, he acted independently 
 and his orders were obeyed, but grave concerns, such 
 as quarrels between prominent men, relations with 
 neighbouring tribes, the making of war or peace, were 
 discussed in a council of chiefs and prominent men, 
 where each individual was at liberty to express his 
 opinion and to cast his vote. The head chief acted 
 as the presiding officer of such council, and if he was 
 a strong man his views carried great weight ; but un 
 less he could win over to his side a majority of the 
 council he had to yield. Thus the chief s authority 
 was personal rather than official, but for this very rea 
 son it was strong ; for, where the office was elective, 
 that man was made chief who had proved by his deeds 
 from childhood to middle age that he was a more able 
 man than his fellows that he was brave in war, wise 
 in peace, careful for the well-being of his people in 
 the everyday affairs of life, generous and kindly, yet 
 firm in short, that he was a leader in time of war 
 and a father in time of peace. His council was com 
 posed of men young and old, some one of whom might 
 later take his place. 
 
 I give a brief sketch of the past and present homes 
 and conditions of some of the more important of the 
 North American family stocks. 
 
 ALGONQUIN". 
 
 The area occupied by this family was far more ex 
 tensive than that held by any other North American 
 stock. On the Atlantic seaboard they controlled the 
 territory from Labrador on the north to North Caro 
 lina on the south. From Labrador westward, tribes 
 of this stock occupied all of British America nearly to 
 the Rocky Mountains and south of Peace River and 
 
24:8 THE STORY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 Churchill Eiver. They also held parts of what are now 
 North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Mis 
 souri, all of Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, and West 
 Virginia, and most of Michigan, Ohio, and Maryland. 
 There was a settlement in South Carolina, and a west 
 ern branch had pushed its way into South Dakota and 
 Wyoming, and westward into Colorado. No other 
 family of North Americans held territory at all com 
 parable for extent or for excellence either in fertility 
 or abundance of game with that possessed by the Al- 
 gonquins, who, in numbers, intelligence, and physical 
 qualities, stand among the first of the families of 
 North American Indians. 
 
 It is impossible to conjecture what were the num 
 bers of the Algon quins before the coming of the 
 whites, but we may imagine that they were large. If 
 the territory which they inhabited was thinly settled, 
 it was also vast. Most of the southeastern tribes of 
 this stock practised agriculture as well as hunting, 
 and inhabiting as they did a fertile country, which 
 also abounded in game and in natural fruits, it may 
 be conjectured that they found little or no difficulty 
 in supporting life. It is not likely that in primitive 
 times they often suffered from hunger. They were 
 brave, too, and well able to defend themselves against 
 the attacks of their enemies, and there would seem to 
 be no reason why this naturally vigorous stock should 
 not have been very numerous, at least until it ap 
 proached the point where the food question became 
 troublesome. 
 
 In the vast territory occupied by the Algonquins 
 there were many different tribes, and it is not to be 
 imagined that all of these recognised the tie of blood 
 which connected them, or that all of this family were 
 
THE NORTH AMERICANS. 249 
 
 necessarily friends and allies. The reverse of this was 
 true, and quarrels and wars between different tribes 
 probably took place frequently. Yet often the tribes 
 of this blood united against the fierce Iroquois, whose 
 territory about the easternmost of the Great Lakes and 
 the upper St. Lawrence River, lay in the very midst of 
 the Algonquin lands, and another division of which bor 
 dered these lands upon the south. Between these two 
 great families there was a deep and bitter hostility, 
 sometimes interrupted by intervals of peace, which, 
 however, were not of long duration. To this rule the 
 Wyandots, descendants of the old Hurons, were a no 
 table exception. They were uniformly allies of the 
 Algonquins. 
 
 The date at which the westernmost branches of the 
 Algonquin stock came to their present homes is com 
 paratively recent, for it is within the last two hundred 
 and fifty years that the Arapahoes including the Gros 
 Ventres of the prairie the Blackfeet, and the Chey- 
 ennes reached the Continental Divide. If we may 
 believe Cheyenne tradition, they were the first tribe 
 to penetrate as far as the Rocky Mountains. Their 
 oral history tells that with the Arapahoes they came 
 into the Black Hills country, in Dakota, about two 
 hundred and twenty-five years ago, having journeyed 
 from the northeast, perhaps originally from the shores 
 of Lake Superior, or possibly of Hudson Bay, for 
 they describe an immense body of water in a barren, 
 treeless country, abounding in great rocks. The Black- 
 feet came next. They say that not many generations 
 ago they lived near Peace River, far from the moun 
 tains. To the east of them were the timber Crees, 
 and to the north tribes of Athabascan stock. They 
 made their way slowly south and west, and probably 
 
250 THE STORY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 reached the Rocky Mountains less than one hundred 
 and fifty years ago. 
 
 The following list of the principal tribes of the 
 Algonquin stock is taken in part from Brinton and 
 from Powell : 
 
 ABNAKI " eastlanders." Nova Scotia and south bank of the 
 St. Lawrence River. 
 
 ALGONQUIN = people living " on the other side " of the stream. 
 North of the St. Lawrence River, Ontario, and Quebec. 
 
 ARAPAHOE = " traders " (!) (Dunbar). Flanks of the Rocky 
 Mountains from Black Hills to head waters of the Arkansas 
 River. 
 
 BLACKFOOT. Flanks of the Rocky Mountains from the Sas 
 katchewan River south to Yellowstone River. 
 
 CHEYENNE = " red or painted " i. e., alien, so-called by the 
 Sioux (Clark). Flanks of the Rocky Mountains from Black 
 Hills to head waters of Arkansas River. 
 
 CREE, abbreviated from Kiristinon "killer" (f). Southern 
 and western shores of Hudson Bay, west to Rocky Moun 
 tains. 
 
 DELAWARE, or Leni Lenapi = " original, or principal, men." 
 Along the Delaware River. 
 
 ILLINOIS, from ilini = " men." On the Illinois River. 
 
 KICKAPOO = people of the river, " easily navigable." Upper 
 Illinois River. 
 
 MAHICAN, a dialectic form of Mohegan, but a distinct tribe. 
 Lower Hudson River. 
 
 MIAMI = " pigeon." Miami and Upper Wabash Rivers. 
 
 MIKMAK. Nova Scotia. 
 
 MILISIT = " broken talkers." New Brunswick. 
 
 MENOMINI " wild rice people." About Green Bay, Wisconsin. 
 
 MOHEGAN. Lower Connecticut River. 
 
 MONTAGNAIS " mountaineers " (French writers). Northern 
 shores of lower St. Lawrence River. 
 
 MASSACHUSETT = people " at the Blue Hills." On Massachu 
 setts Bay. 
 
 MONTAUK = people at the " manito tree." Eastern Long Island. 
 
 NANTICOKE. Eastern shore of Chesapeake Bay. 
 
THE NORTH AMERICANS. 251 
 
 OJIBWA or CHIPPEWA = people of the " puckered moccasin " (?) 
 
 (Warren). Ontario River. 
 PANTICO. North of Pamlico Sound. 
 
 PIANKASHA = " western people." On lower Wabash River. 
 POTTAWATOMI = " blowers " i. e., " council firemakers." South 
 
 of Lake Michigan. 
 SAC (Fox) = " yellow earth " people (Drake). About Rock River, 
 
 Illinois. 
 SHAWANO or SHAWNEE = southern people. On Cumberland 
 
 River. 
 
 Most of the eastern tribes of the Algonquins have 
 long been extinct, having either perished utterly, or 
 their scattered fragments having migrated and joined 
 other tribes, in which they have become merged. But 
 these extinct tribes will not be wholly forgotten, for 
 their names are fixed in the geography of this coun 
 try, and will thus be preserved so long as America 
 shall endure. 
 
 In the Seventh Annual Eeport of the Bureau of 
 Ethnology, published in 1891, the present number of 
 the Algonquin race is given as ninety-five thousand, 
 of which about sixty thousand are in Canada and the 
 remainder in the United States. Many of these last 
 are self-supporting and more or less civilized, though 
 still clinging tenaciously to many of their ancient be 
 liefs and practices. The same volume contains a list 
 of the tribes officially recognized, and their present 
 numbers and locations, compiled chiefly from the Re 
 port for 1889 of the United States Commissioner of 
 Indian Affairs and the Canadian Report for 1888, 
 which gives the following facts : 
 ABNAKI, including Passamaquoddies and Milisits in Maine, New 
 
 Brunswick, and Quebec. 1,874 (?). 
 ALGONQUIN, in Ontario and Quebec. Canada. 4,767 (f). 
 ARAPAHOE, at Cheyenne agency, Oklahoma Territory, and at 
 
 Shoshoni agency, Wyoming. 2,157. 
 
252 THE STORY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 The Atse na or Gros Ventres of the Prairie, a detached band 
 of the Arapahoes, are not mentioned in this list. They are 
 at the Fort Belknap agency in northern Montana with the 
 Assiniboines, and number about 509. 
 
 BLACKFOOT, at the Blackfoot agency, Montana, at Calgary, and 
 on Belly River, in Northwest Territories, 6,743. 
 
 CHEYENNE, at Cheyenne agency, Oklahoma Territory, Tongue 
 River agency, Montana, and Pine Ridge agency, South Da 
 kota, 3,473. 
 
 CREE, in Manitoba and the Northwest Territories. A few Crees 
 who were engaged in the Riel rebellion took refuge in Mon 
 tana, where they still remain, supporting themselves by 
 trapping and the sale of articles which they manufacture. 
 17,386. 
 
 DELAWARE, about one thousand are incorporated and live with 
 the Cherokees in the Indian Territory, others are with the 
 Wichitas in the Indian Territory, the Senecas and Onon- 
 dagas in New York, the Chippewas on the Thames River 
 in Ontario, the Six Nations on Grand River, Ontario, and 
 with the Chippewas at the Pottawatomi agency in Kansas. 
 1,750 (?). 
 
 KICKAPOO a part are at the Sac and Fox agency, Indian Terri 
 tory, others at the Pottawatomi agency, Kansas, and some 
 in Mexico. 762 (?). 
 
 MENOMINI, at Green Bay agency, Wisconsin. 1,311. 
 
 MIAMI, Quapaw agency, Indian Territory, and in Indiana. 
 374 (!). 
 
 MICMAC, in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, 
 and Quebec, Canada. 4,108. 
 
 MISSISAUGA, with Monsoni, Muskegon, etc., in Ontario and Ru 
 pert s Land, Canada. 4,790. 
 
 MONTAGANIS, Quebec. 1,919. 
 
 NASCOAPEE, Quebec. 2,860. 
 
 OJIBWA or CHIPPEWA, at White Earth agency, Minnesota ; La 
 Pointe agency, Wisconsin ; Mackina agency, Michigan ; 
 Devil s Lake agency, North Dakota ; Pottawatomi agency, 
 Kansas ; Chippewas of Lake Superior, Lake Huron, Sarnia, 
 on the Thames, on Walpole Island, on Manitoulin and Cock- 
 burn Islands, all in Ontario, Canada, and Sauteux and Chip 
 pewas in Manitoba. 31,928 (?). 
 
THE NORTH AMERICANS. 253 
 
 OTTAWA, at Quapaw agency, Indian Territory ; at Mackina 
 agency, Michigan ; on Manitoulin and Cockburn Islands, 
 Ontario, Canada. 4,794 (f). 
 
 PEORIA, Quapaw agency, Indian Territory. 160. 
 
 POTTAWATOMI, at the Sac and Fox agency, Oklahoma Territory ; 
 Pottawatomi agency, Kansas ; Mackina agency, Michi 
 gan ; Prairie Band, Wisconsin ; on Walpole Island, On 
 tario, Canada. 1,465. 
 
 SAC and Fox, at Sac and Fox agency, Oklahoma Territory ; Sac 
 and Fox agency, Iowa ; Pottawatomi agency, Kansas. 973. 
 
 SHAWNEE, Quapaw agency, Indian Territory ; Sac and Fox 
 agency, Oklahoma Territory ; incorporated with the Chero- 
 kees, Indian Territory. 1,519. 
 
 STOCKBRIDGE (Mohican), at Green Bay, Wisconsin, and in New 
 York with the Tuscaroras and Senecas. 117. 
 
 ATHABASCAN. 
 
 What the Algonquin linguistic family was to east 
 ern North America the Athabascan was to the west. 
 Both touched the land of the Innuit on the north, and 
 the east and west range of each covered sixty degrees 
 of longitude, so that between Hudson Bay and the 
 Rocky Mountains the countries of the two overlapped ; 
 but while the southernmost tribe of the Algonquin was 
 only thirty degrees from the northern limit of the 
 family, at least forty degrees of latitude separated the 
 Athabascans of the Arctic from those of Mexico. This 
 great north and south area was, however, not contin 
 uous. There was a wide territory, extending over four 
 teen or fifteen degrees of latitude, where except for 
 a few small settlements on the Pacific coast no Atha 
 bascans were found. 
 
 Although the area occupied by the Athabascans 
 was so extensive, it presented in its adaptability for 
 human occupancy a marked contrast to that possessed 
 by the Algonquins. These, in their southern terri- 
 
254: THE STORY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 tory, inhabited a country of abundant rainfall, fertile 
 and admirably adapted for agricultural pursuits, while 
 those Athabascans who were not dwellers in the frozen 
 north occupied an arid, desert country, where rains are 
 infrequent and agriculture impossible, except by means 
 of irrigation. 
 
 Physically, the members of this family are moder 
 ately well developed, being often tall and muscular 
 and very enduring, but those of the north are said to 
 be short-lived. They are a strong and masterful peo 
 ple, and Mr. Mooney, who has seen much of them, 
 writes me : " Excepting in the extreme north we find 
 the Tinne tribes almost everywhere asserting and exer 
 cising superiority over their neighbours. This applies 
 to the detached bands in Washington, Oregon, and 
 California, and to the Navajoes in the south. The 
 Tinne tribes in California have imposed their lan 
 guage and tribal regulations upon their neighbours. 
 The Navajoes are pre-eminent stock raisers, weavers, 
 and metal workers. The Apache are our wiliest In 
 dian fighters, and were steadily driving the civilized 
 Mexicans southward, when the United States inter 
 fered." 
 
 As might be supposed from the distance which 
 separates the homes of the northern and southern 
 groups of this family, the two differed widely in their 
 ways and modes of life. The Athabascans of the north 
 were hunters and fishermen. In summer they followed 
 the great game or spread their nets in the lakes ; in 
 winter they harnessed their dogs to the sledges and 
 careered over the frozen wastes. The desert-inhabit 
 ing Apaches and Navajoes of the south know neither 
 dog sledges nor boats. They are mountaineers and 
 hunters, famed for their endurance and able to take 
 
THE NORTH AMERICANS, 255 
 
 up the track of a deer, and between sunrise and sun 
 set to run him down and kill him with a knife. Al 
 though hunters, they are also tillers of the soil, raising 
 corn and other vegetables, and gathering the nuts of 
 the pifion, the bean of the mesquite, and the root of 
 the American aloe. 
 
 The Athabascans use lodges of skin or bark in the 
 north, and in the south rude huts made of branches 
 of trees. They make pottery and wickerwork baskets, 
 which are so tightly woven that they serve as water 
 vessels, and their stone nictates used for grinding corn 
 are far more efficient implements than the mortar in 
 which the grain was pounded by tribes further to the 
 east. The canoes of the interior tribes of the north 
 are of bark. The Navajoes have long been renowned 
 for the handsome blankets which they weave. This 
 with them is not an aboriginal art, but is borrowed 
 from their immediate neighbours the Mokis and Zunis, 
 with whom and with some northwest coast tribes it is 
 aboriginal, for the latter weave excellent blankets from 
 the fleece of the wild white goat. 
 
 Among the tribes of this family, great differences 
 exist in the gentile systems and in the laws of con 
 sanguinity. In some tribes, descent is in the female 
 line, and a man considers his father no relation, 
 while in other tribes the son belongs to his father s 
 gens. 
 
 Of the northern group of the Athabascans, the 
 southernmost tribe inhabiting the central region are 
 the Sarsi, who for many years have lived with the 
 Blackfeet. These are an offshoot of the Beaver In 
 dians, and, according to tradition, left their own coun 
 try about one hundred years ago on account of a 
 quarrel with another camp of their own people, and 
 
256 THE STORY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 migrated southward. They joined the Blackfeet, and 
 have lived with them ever since. 
 
 Among the best-known tribes of Athabascan stock 
 are the 
 
 APACHE = " enemies." Arizona and Northern Mexico. 
 ATNA = "strangers." On Copper River, Alaska. 
 BEAVER. On Peace River, British America. 
 CHIPPEWYAN = " pointed coats." Coast of Hudson Bay and 
 
 north of Crees. 
 
 HUPA. California, Trinity River. 
 KENAI = " people." Kenai Peninsula, Alaska. 
 KUCHIN = " people." Yukon River, Alaska. 
 NAVAJO = " whetstone or knife - whetting people" (Mooney). 
 
 New Mexico and Arizona. 
 
 NEHANI = " yellow knives " (?). Upper Stikine River, Alaska. 
 SARSI. Beaver offshoot. 
 
 SIKANI. Upper Peace River, British America. 
 SLAVE. Upper Mackenzie River, British America. 
 TAKULI = " carriers." Fraser River, British Columbia. 
 TUTUTENA. Rogue River, Oregon. 
 UMPQUA. Near Salem, Oregon. 
 WAILAKI people of the " northern language." Northern 
 
 California. 
 
 The northern tribes of this group are more gener 
 ally known as Hare Indians, Dog Ribs, Chippewyans, 
 Yellow Knives (Nehani), Strong Bows, Carrier (Ta- 
 kuli), etc. There are supposed to be about thirty- 
 three thousand Athabascans, of whom about one 
 fourth belong to the northern group. Of the south 
 ern tribes tKe best known are the various bands of 
 Apaches inhabiting Arizona and Mexico, who have 
 shown themselves so fierce in war and so apt in escap 
 ing the troops sent in pursuit of them, and the Nava- 
 joes, whose fame rests in large measure on the peaceful 
 art of blanket weaving. The Apaches are still more 
 or less wild, and have not made very great progress 
 
- THE NORTH AMERICANS. 257 
 
 toward civilization ; but tlie Navajoes possess some cat 
 tle, many horses, and great herds of sheep and goats, 
 and have long been self-supporting. They are well- 
 disposed and industrious, saving and progressive, and 
 in advancement toward civilization stand high among 
 the tribes of the west. They probably number be 
 tween eighteen and twenty thousand. 
 
 The small tribes of Athabascans of the Pacific 
 coast are at various agencies in California and Ore 
 gon, usually with tribes of other stocks. They are 
 moderately advanced, till the ground, raise some live 
 stock, and the men labour for the whites in the salmon 
 canneries, the hop fields, and on the farms. 
 
 DAKOTA. 
 
 Six States of the Union bear the names of tribes of 
 the Dakota stock, and of late years no group of North 
 American Indians has been better known than these. 
 At the time when general immigration to the country 
 west of the Mississippi began, this family occupied 
 much of the territory entered on by the whites, and 
 for a number of years conflicts and wars were frequent, 
 culminating in 1876 with the Ouster battle. For a 
 few years after that, the army was at work clearing out 
 the scattered camps of hostile Sioux in Montana and 
 Dakota, but since that time there has been nothing in 
 the nature of a general war between this stock and the 
 whites, though there was a short-lived but bloody out 
 break in 1890- 91. 
 
 The name Dakota or Lahkota, by which the prin 
 cipal tribes of this stock, the Sioux, call themselves, 
 means " confederated," " allied," while the commoner 
 term Sioux is a French corruption of an Algonquin 
 word, nadowe si-iig, meaning originally " snakes," and 
 
258 THE STORY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 so enemies. In this sense it has been used by the 
 Ojibwa in modern times, although not as applied to 
 the Sioux. 
 
 History and tradition find several of the most im 
 portant tribes of the Dakotas occupying upper Michi 
 gan, Wisconsin, and eastern Minnesota, though long 
 before this some must have taken the journey to and 
 across the Great Plains. The Crows have occupied 
 the eastern flanks of the Rocky Mountains, and the 
 Stonies a tribe of the Assiniboines the mountains 
 still further north for a very long time. The Assini 
 boines, too, must long have lived in the prairie coun 
 try of what is now eastern North Dakota, for accord 
 ing to Cheyenne tradition they were there when these 
 last migrated from the northeast. It is probable, how 
 ever, that the great body of those tribes now known in 
 the vernacular as Sioux, lived in early historic times 
 about the western great lakes and the head waters of 
 the Mississippi. From this territory they were driven, 
 or crowded out, by the westward movement of the Al 
 gonquin tribes and by settlements, and spread them 
 selves over much of the Great Plains. 
 
 An eastern origin is now pretty well established for 
 this stock, for in Virginia, North and South Carolina, 
 and Mississippi were the homes of tribes now extinct, 
 which philologists class with this stock.* Such were 
 the Catawba in South Carolina; the Tutelo, Saponi, 
 and Woccon, in North Carolina; the Occaneechi in 
 Virginia ; the Biloxi and possibly other tribes in Mis 
 sissippi. Catlin has shown that the Mandans reached 
 the Missouri River by travelling down the Ohio. With- 
 
 * Mooney, The Siouan Tribes of the East, Bulletin Bureau 
 of Ethnology, Washington. 
 
, THE NORTH AMERICANS. 250 
 
 in recent times a number of the Dakota tribes have 
 occupied the timbered country, and have not been 
 dwellers on the plains. Such are the Winnebagoes, 
 Osages, Quapaws, Missourias, and others. 
 
 Physically and intellectually the Dakotas stand 
 high, and in stature and development the mountain 
 Crows are exceeded by no tribe in the west, unless it 
 be the Cheyennes and Arapahoes. 
 
 Most of the tribes have lost the agricultural habits 
 which all probably once possessed, and which the Man- 
 dans, Hidatsa. and some others still practise. Others 
 have only recently given up this habit, as occasionally 
 shown by a sub-tribal name as Mini-co-o-ju " They 
 plant by the water." Some of the Dakotas manufac 
 tured pottery, and the Mandans even made blue glass 
 beads after the coming of the whites. This tribe, 
 too, occupied permanent houses. 
 
 There was the widest variation in the gentile sys 
 tem, where it existed at all. With some, descent was 
 in the male, with others, in the female line. The 
 chieftainship was hereditary, descending from father 
 to son, though an early traveller found the Winne 
 bagoes ruled over by a woman chief. The country 
 held by the Dakota stock in modern times included 
 a part of Wisconsin and of western Minnesota, most 
 of North Dakota, Iowa, and Missouri, more than half 
 of Arkansas, Montana, and Wyoming, South Dakota, 
 and a large part of eastern Nebraska and Kansas, and 
 parts of British Ame ica near the Eocky Mountains. 
 Within the last hundred years their neighbours have 
 been, on the north and east and a part of the west, 
 Algonquins ; on the south Pawnees, Shoshonis, and 
 Kiowas ; and on the west, Shoshonis, Kiowas, and Al 
 gonquins. Besides this, their territory was interrupted 
 18 
 
2(50 THE STORY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 by settlements of Pawnees, who, having invaded their 
 territory, had driven out, conquered, or were still at 
 war with various tribes of this stock. 
 
 Most of the plains tribes of Dakota stock depended 
 for food upon the buffalo and were wanderers, follow 
 ing the herds from place to place, and, on the prairie, 
 dwelling in the conical skin lodges, which were the 
 common habitations of the plains tribes. 
 
 The principal tribes of the Dakota stock are : 
 
 ABSORAKA = " Crows " (?). (The name seems to refer to some 
 
 kind of bird.) 
 ASSINIBOINES = " stone boilers." On Saskatchewan, Souris, and 
 
 Assiniboine River, British America. 
 BILOXI. Biloxi Bay, Mississippi. 
 CATAWBA. Catawba River, South Carolina. 
 CROWS (or Absoraka). On Yellowstone River, North Dakota. 
 DAKOTA PROPER or Sioux " confederate." Western Minnesota, 
 
 North and South Dakota. 
 
 IOWA = " sleepy ones." On the Iowa River, Iowa. 
 KANSA or KAW. On the Kansas River, Kansas. 
 MANDAN. Upper Missouri River, North Dakota. 
 HIDATSA or MINITARIS, a branch of the Crows = " those who 
 
 cross the water " (Minitari). Upper Missouri River, North 
 
 Dakota. 
 MISSOURIA = people of the Great Muddy. Originally on lower 
 
 Missouri River, Missouri. 
 OCCANEECHI. Southern Virginia. 
 
 OMAHA = " upper stream people." Niobrara River, Nebraska. 
 OSAGE. In southern Missouri. 
 OTO. On lower Platte River, Nebraska. 
 PONCA. Northwestern Nebraska. 
 QUAPAW or ARKANSA, "down stream people." On the lower 
 
 Arkansas, Arkansas. 
 SAPONI. Central North Carolina. 
 WINNEBAGO = " stinking lake people." Eastern Wisconsin. 
 
 The number of people of the Dakota stock is esti 
 mated to be about 45,000, and of these about 42,000 
 
THE NORTH AMERICANS. 261 
 
 are in the United States. About 24,000 belong to the 
 Sioux tribes, as the term is commonly applied, 1,700 
 to the Assiniboines, 1,200 to the Omahas, 1,600 to the 
 Osages, 2,200 to the Winnebagoes, and 3,000 to the 
 Crows, including the Minitaris or Hidatsa. Most of 
 these Indians have made considerable progress toward 
 civilization. They have cattle, cultivate the ground 
 with some success, and, as a rule, live in log houses. 
 There are no longer any " wild " Indians among them, 
 and they are becoming though slowly a fairly hard 
 working part of the population of the West. Their 
 various reservations and agencies, of which there are 
 many, are situated in Wisconsin, Minnesota, the Da- 
 kotas, Montana, Nebraska, Kansas, and the Indian 
 Territory. 
 
 IROQUOIS. 
 
 In the early history of America no Indian family 
 was better known than the Iroquois a name given to a 
 group of tribes, some of whom made up the celebrated 
 Six Nations. The territory occupied by this family 
 lay wholly in the east, and in two principal situations. 
 The northernmost of these included territory on both 
 sides of the St. Lawrence Kiver, from where Quebec 
 now stands, westward to Lake Huron, all about Lakes 
 Ontario and Erie, and south to the Chesapeake Bay. 
 They thus held portions of Canada, Ohio, Michigan, 
 Central New York, and the greater part of Pennsyl 
 vania, southward along the valley of the Susquehanna 
 to the salt water. The other Iroquois were established 
 almost in one body in Virginia, Tennessee, North and 
 South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama. The northern 
 territory was surrounded on all sides by lands occupied 
 by the Algonquins, while the southern group of the 
 
202 THE STORY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 tribes had for neighbours Algonquins on the north 
 and west, Dakotas on the east, and Muskogis on the 
 south. 
 
 No Indian family excelled the Iroquois in physical 
 development or in culture. The records of the civil 
 war, in which some companies of Iroquois fought, 
 show that these stood highest of any bodies of our 
 soldiers in stature and in physical strength and vigour. 
 Intellectually they ranked as high. The league of the 
 five nations Cayugas, Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, 
 and Senecas to which was afterward added a sixth, 
 the Tuscaroras, alone stamps them as a stock whose 
 intellectual vigour exceeded that of their neighbours. 
 Their intelligence was shown in other ways. They 
 were, to a greater extent than almost any other Indian 
 family, agriculturists, and their crops supplied each 
 year more food than they could possibly consume. 
 They lived in permanent villages, but in most other 
 respects their everyday life was not markedly different 
 from that of other Indians. 
 
 It was among the Iroquois that the gentile system 
 obtained its highest development among our northern 
 tribes. Descent was in the female line, and mothers 
 in the Iroquois villages had a power and an influence 
 greater than those of the men. They were the owners 
 of the land and of most of the personal property ; they 
 were the councillors of the tribes, and sometimes even 
 its chiefs. The ancient gentile system of these people 
 still persists, even among the civilized Iroquois, on 
 their reservations in Central New York, and on Grand 
 River, Ontario, and of late years this has become a 
 cause of more or less heartburning and dissatisfac 
 tion. Among the Senecas to-day half-breed children 
 of an Indian father and a white woman are called by 
 
THE NORTH AMERICANS. 263 
 
 the Senecas whites, are not allowed to draw tribal an 
 nuities, nor to have any share in the public affairs of 
 the nation ; while the children of a white father and 
 an Indian mother are regarded as Indians, and have 
 all an Indian s rights and privileges. The same rule 
 holds in marriages between Indians of the different 
 tribes, the child belonging to the tribe of the mother 
 and not to that of the father. This matter has several 
 times come up in the courts for adjudication. 
 
 The southern group of the Iroquois included the 
 Cherokees and the Tuscaroras, the former chiefly in 
 the mountain region of North Carolina and Tennessee, 
 and the latter in eastern North Carolina. They did 
 not differ especially from their northern relations. 
 Like them, they built connected houses of logs, and 
 fortified their villages. They were industrious agri 
 culturists and made good pottery. The ancestors of 
 the Cherokees were quite certainly the builders of 
 some of the famous mounds in Ohio. 
 
 The myths, legends, and sacred rituals of the Iro 
 quois are perhaps better known than those of any other- 
 Indians. To assist in the preservation of these they 
 used certain aids to memory in the shape of beads or 
 shells strung on buckskin strings, the combination of 
 the beads suggesting certain facts and events. The 
 Book of Rites, edited by Mr. Horatio Hale, is an ex 
 ample of the ritual of this remarkable people. The 
 Cherokees, likewise, had a great body of ritual record 
 ed in their modern native alphabet. Mr. Mooney has 
 procured practically all of this about seven hundred 
 formulas and expects to translate it all. A part has 
 already appeared in his Sacred Formulas of the Chero 
 kees, in the Seventh Annual Eeport of the Bureau of 
 Ethnology. There is a mass of similar material still 
 
264 ME STORY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 existing in many, if not in most other tribes, although 
 few of these extended productions have been reduced 
 to writing and translated. 
 
 The principal tribes of the Iroquois were these : 
 
 CAYUGA = people of the " swampy land." South of Lake On 
 tario, New York. 
 
 CHEROKEE. Mountain region of Carolina, Georgia, and Ten 
 nessee. 
 
 CONESTOGA = " lodge pole people." Lower Susquehanna River, 
 Pennsylvania, and Maryland. 
 
 ERIE = " wild cats." South of Lake Erie, Ohio, and New York. 
 
 NEUTRAL NATION. West of Niagara River, Ontario. 
 
 NOTTAWA = " snake," i. e., enemy. Southern Virginia. 
 
 ONEIDA = people of the " stone." Central New York. 
 
 ONONDAGA = people of the " little hill." Central New York. 
 
 SENECA. Western New York. 
 
 TUSCARORA = flax or hemp pullers (?) (Hewitt ; Morgan makes it 
 "shirt weavers"). The name refers to a vegetable cloth 
 fibre. Eastern North Carolina. 
 
 WYANDOT or HURONS Huron is the old provincial French for 
 " bear." East of Georgian Bay, Ontario, and south ; south 
 west of Lake Erie in Ohio and Michigan. 
 
 The present number of the Iroquois is estimated at 
 about 44,000, of whom about 9,000 are in Canada. The 
 Cherokees one of the five civilized tribes make up 
 by far the greater part of these, numbering not far 
 from 28,000, of whom more than 26,000 are in Indian 
 Territory, the remainder forming the eastern band, 
 who are in the counties of Swain, Jackson, Cherokee, 
 and Graham, in North Carolina. The Cherokee na 
 tion, however, includes a large number of adopted 
 whites and negroes. Of the Cayugas there are about 
 1,300, most of them in Canada, but a few in New York 
 and the Indian Territory. About 2,400 Mohawks are 
 in Canada, as are also 1,000 Oneidas, 300 of whom are 
 in New York and 1,700 at Green Bay agency, 
 
THE NORTH AMERICANS. 265 
 
 consin ; 350 Onondagas are in Canada, and 550 on 
 New York reservations. Of the 3,100 Senecas, 127 
 are at the Quapaw agency, Indian Territory, 200 are 
 in Canada, and the remainder in New York. The 
 Tuscaroras number about 750, of whom about half 
 are in Canada and half in New York. There are 
 700 Wyandots, 300 at the Quapaw agency and 400 in 
 Canada. Besides these, there are about 4,400 Indians 
 of this stock known as Caughnawagas and St. Regis, 
 in Canada and southern New York, who seem to be a 
 mixture of all the tribes of the Six Nations, the Mo 
 hawks predominating. All the Cherokees and all the 
 New York reservation Indians are civilized and self- 
 supporting. 
 
 MUSKOGI. 
 
 An especial interest attaches to the Muskogi or 
 Chocta-Muskhogi linguistic stock, because its sur 
 vivors constitute four out of the five so-called civi 
 lized tribes, and also because there is a reasonable 
 probability that they are the descendants of some of 
 those people who built the great mounds in the Mis 
 sissippi Valley and in the Gulf States, which have 
 given rise to so many speculations and theories as to 
 their origin. This stock inhabited the country " from 
 the Savannah Kiver and the Atlantic west to the 
 Mississippi, and from the Gulf of Mexico north to 
 the Tennessee River " ; and although the tribes dif 
 fered somewhat from one another in physical charac 
 teristics, their relationship is close. 
 
 The culture of this people was high. They were 
 industrious cultivators of the soil, and raised large 
 crops of corn, beans, squashes, and tobacco. Their 
 towns were large and fortified, and often built on 
 
266 THE STORY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 high mounds artificially constructed, and their houses 
 substantial, and containing several rooms. Though 
 made of stone, their weapons and utensils were very 
 finely finished. 
 
 Their religious system was highly developed and 
 its ritual elaborate, and they had an extensive oral 
 literature. Their mortuary customs were singular, 
 the bodies of the dead in some tribes being exposed 
 until the flesh decayed, when the bones were cleaned 
 and buried in the gentile mound. 
 
 The gentile system prevailed, descent being in 
 the female line. Women had a standing equal to 
 that of men, and occasionally one filled the office 
 of chief. 
 
 The neighbours of the Muskogi stock were the 
 Algonquins and Iroquois on the north, the Timu- 
 quans of Florida, and the isolated Dakota colony of 
 the Biloxi on the south, and the Natches, Tonicas, 
 and southern Dakotas on the west. 
 
 Some of the tribes of the Muskogi stock were : 
 
 ALIBAMU = " burnt clearing " (not " here we rest ") (Gatschet). 
 
 On the Alabama River, Alabama. 
 APALACHI = " people on the other side " (Gatschet). Apalachi 
 
 Bay, Florida. 
 CHAKTA or OHOCTA from a Spanish word, meaning "flat 
 
 head" (Gatschet). Southern Mississippi. 
 CHIKASA or CHICKASAW = " rebels or renegades." Northern 
 
 Mississippi. 
 HITCHITI = " looking up ahead " (Gatschet). Southeastern 
 
 Georgia. 
 MASKOGI or CREEK PROPER doubtfully from the Algonquin 
 
 word maskigo, meaning " swampy." Central Alabama. 
 SEMINOLE = " wanderers or runaways." Northern and Central 
 
 Florida. 
 
 YAMASI = " gentle " (Gatschet). Southern coast of South Caro 
 lina 
 
THE NORTH AMERICANS. 267 
 
 The territory occupied by this stock is thus seen 
 to be not very large, yet owing to their industrious 
 habits and their adaptability to civilized pursuits, they 
 have made a good struggle for existence, and to-day 
 are doing well and increasing in numbers. The Apa- 
 lachi and Yamasi are extinct, and but few remain of 
 the Alibamu ; but there are 10,000 Choctaws, 2,500 
 Chickasaws, 9,500 Creeks, and 2, GOO Seminoles in the 
 Indian Territory, a few Choctaws in Louisiana, and 
 about 400 Seminoles in Florida. The Indians of this 
 stock who are in the Indian Territory are civilized and 
 well to do. 
 
 Besides the stocks already spoken of, there are 
 others, whose importance deserves a more extended 
 mention than can here be given. One of these is the 
 Shoshoni, a family occupying the Rocky Mountains 
 and the plains on the flanks of that range from Red 
 Deer s River which flows into the Saskatchewan 
 or perhaps even from the head of Peace River, south 
 through Mexico. This stock includes tribes whose 
 names are well known, and its culture ranged from 
 the lowest to the highest, from the miserable Diggers 
 and Sheep-eaters to the Aztecs, who had some acquaint 
 ance with metal, and far exceeded any other North 
 American tribe in their approach to civilization. To 
 this stock belong the brave but peaceful Snakes, the 
 warlike Comanches, the Pai-Utes, the Gosiutes, the 
 mountain-loving Utes, the Mokis, the Guaymas, the 
 Mayas, the Papagos, the Pimas, the Yaquis, the Az 
 tecs, the Tlascalans, and others reaching south to 
 Guatemala. Dr. Brinton gives forty-four tribes of 
 this stock, divided into three groups, and covering 
 territory from British to Central America. 
 
268 THE STORY OF THE INDIAN. 
 
 Another family of importance is the Pawnee or 
 Caddo, whose territory extended interruptedly from 
 the Gulf of Mexico to the upper Missouri. They 
 were immigrants from the southwest, probably from 
 the shores of the Gulf of California, and brought with 
 them to their northern home some religious cere 
 monies and beliefs which remind us of the Aztecs. 
 The usual form of sacrifice was a burnt offering". 
 
 o 
 
 They lived in permanent villages, tilled the soil, and 
 manufactured pottery. Some of their traditions al 
 lude to a time when a woman was their chief. 
 
 It is hoped that from the foregoing pages some 
 notion may be had of the past and present condition 
 of some of the best-known tribes of the North Amer 
 icans. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Agriculture, 48, 64. 
 Algonquins, 247. 
 Animal beliefs. 174, 205. 
 Antelope, 87. 
 Arrow making, 146. 
 Athabascans, 253. 
 Atius Tirawa, 202. 
 Axe, 152. 
 
 Bear, beliefs about, 206. 
 
 Beaver, beliefs about, 206. 
 
 Berries, 65, 71. 
 
 Berry Child, 109. 
 
 Big Snake, 178. 
 
 Boats, 160. 
 
 Bone, gambling with, 2T. 
 
 Bow, 150. 
 
 Bridled Man, 115. 
 
 Buffalo hunting, 71. 
 
 Buffalo, in mythology, 192. 
 
 Buffalo, sacred animal, 205. 
 
 Buffalo stone, 60. 
 
 Buffalo traps, 57. 
 
 Buffalo, 52, et seq. 
 
 Bundles, sacred, 91, 105, 189, 211, 
 
 218. 
 Buzzard, belief about, 207. 
 
 Caches, 49. 
 Caddos, 268. 
 Camas root, 65, 72. 
 Canoe, 157 et seq. 
 Cardinal points, 210. 
 Carving, 161. 
 Children s games, 17. 
 Children, 17, 78. 
 
 Christianity, teachings of, 221 
 Clothing, 153. 
 Coldmaker, 173. 
 Corn, Mother, 190, 208. 
 Corn, origin, 190, 203. 
 Coup, 142. 
 Creation, 183. 
 
 Dakotas, 257. 
 
 Dancing, social, 24. 
 
 Deer, 81. 
 
 Dolls, 19. 
 
 Dreams and dreaming, 10^ i(J6, 
 
 175, 210, 217. 
 Dress, 6, 37, 153. 
 Dwellings, 144 et seq. 
 
 Eagle, belief* about, 207. 
 Elk, 81, 87. 
 
 Feasting, 9, 81. 
 
 Ferret, black-footed, 175. 
 
 Firesticks, 239. 
 
 Fishing, 49. 
 
 Four Bears, 97, 141. 
 
 Future life, 195 et sg. 
 
 Gambling, 22, 24, 26, lOO t ita 
 Game as food, 50. 
 Gardens, 48. 
 Ghosts, 196 et seq. 
 Giants, 184. 
 Government, 245. 
 
 Hands, gambling game, 27. 
 
 Horse racing, 29. 
 
 Horses, first possession of, 231. 
 
270 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Horses taken by war parties, 88. 
 Household utensils, 154. 
 Hunting buffalo, 71. 
 Hunting mountain sheep, 82. 
 
 Implements, 143 et seq. 
 I-nis kim, 60. 
 Iroquois. 261. 
 
 Left Hand, 94. 
 Lodges, 144 et seq. 
 
 Marriage, 8, 30 et seq. 
 
 Maul, 152. 
 
 Medicine, 175. 
 
 Medicine man, 180. 
 
 Medicine sweat, 5. 
 
 Missionaries, 221. 
 
 Moccasins, 153. 
 
 Moon, 204, 215. 
 
 Mountain sheep, 81. 
 
 Mountain sheep, hunting the, 82. 
 
 Musical instruments, 162. 
 
 Muskogis, 265. 
 
 Nahurac, 205. 
 
 Painting bodies, 4, 25. 
 
 Pawnees, 268. 
 
 Pawnee creation myths, 184. 
 
 Pawnee marriage, 41. 
 
 Pawnee-Skidi fight, 127. 
 
 Pemmican, 49. 
 
 Picture writing, 243. 
 
 Piegan and Crow and Gros Ven- 
 
 tres fight, 134. 
 Pipes and smoking, 31, 45, 161, 
 
 202, 209. 
 Pottery, 154. 
 Prayers and praying, 52. 61, 68, 73, 
 
 87, 91, 165, 175, 202, 210, 213, 215. 
 
 Keincarnation, 199. 
 Religious ceremonies, 52, 61, 68, 
 73, 87, 91, 203, 204. 
 
 King game, 5, 21. 
 Roots for food, 64. 
 
 Sacred bundles, 91, 105, 189, 211, 
 
 218. 
 
 Sacrifices, 52, 68, 87, 124, 204, 
 Salmon fishing, 66. 
 Shields, 153. 
 Shoshoni, 267. 
 Skidi war woman, 104. 
 Sledges, 156. 
 
 Smoking, 31, 45, 161, 202, 209. 
 Spirits, 196. 
 Stars, 204, 216. 
 Stick game, 5, 21. 
 Stone implements, 143. 
 Subsistence, 48. 
 Sun, 204, 215. 
 Sweat lodge, 3, 5. 
 
 Three Suns, 12, 30, 82. 
 Thunder, 204. 
 Thunder bird, 169. 
 Thunder pipe, 170. 
 Tipi, 145. 
 
 Tirawa, 184, 202 et seq. 
 Traps for game, 57. 
 Travois, 156. 
 
 Under-water people, 166. 
 Utensils, 143 et seq. 
 
 War parties, 88 et seq. 
 
 Weaving, 155. 
 
 Wheel game, 21. 
 
 White Bear, 177. 
 
 White men, first meeting, 224. 
 
 Wife, 46. 
 
 Windmaker, 173. 
 
 Wolf Calf, 232. 
 
 Woman changed to rock, 69. 
 
 Woman s position, 46, 244. 
 
 Women, daily life of, 6. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 (16) 
 
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