History of Vermilion County, together with historic notes on the Northwest, gleaned from early authors, old maps and manuscripts, private and official correspondence, and other authentic, though, for the most part, out-of-the-way sources, Part 21

Author: Beckwith, H. W. (Hiram Williams), 1833-1903
Publication date: 1879
Publisher: Chicago : H. H. Hill and Company
Number of Pages: 1164

USA > Illinois > Vermilion County > History of Vermilion County, together with historic notes on the Northwest, gleaned from early authors, old maps and manuscripts, private and official correspondence, and other authentic, though, for the most part, out-of-the-way sources > Part 21

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Pirogues were the trunks of trees hollowed out and pointed at the extremities. A fire was started on the trunk, out of which the pirogue was to be constructed. The fire was kept within the desired limits by the dripping of water upon the edges of the trunk. As a part became charred, it was dug out with stone hatchets and the fire rekindled. This kind of canoes was especially adapted for the navi- gation of the Mississippi and Missouri ; the current of these streams carrying down trees, which formed snags. rendered their navigation by bark canoes exceedingly hazardous. It was probably owing to this reason. as well as because there were no birch trees in their country. that the Illinois and Miamis were not. as the Jesuits re- marked, "canoe nations ;" they used the awkward, heavy pirogue instead.

Each nation was divided into villages. The Indian village, when unfortified, had its cabins scattered along the banks of a river or the

*"The small roots of the spruce tree afford the wattap with which the bark is sewed, and the gum of the pine tree supplies the place of tar and oakum. Bark, some spare wattap and gum are always carried in each canoe, for the repairs which fre- quently become necessary." Vide Henry's Travels. p. 14.

t The above extracts are taken from the Memoir Upon the Late War in North Amer- ica Between the French and English, 1755-1760, by M. Pouchot; translated and edited by Franklin Hough, vol. 2, pp. 216, 217, 218. Pouchot was the commandant at Fort Niagara at the time of its surrender to the English. He was exceedingly well versed in all that pertained to Indian manners and customs. and his work received the indorse- ment of Marquis Vaudreuil, Governor of Canada. Of the translation, there were only two hundred copies printed.

189

WIGWAMS.

shores of a lake, and often extended for three or four miles. Each cabin held the head of the family, the children. grandchildren, and often the brothers and sisters, so that a single cabin not unfrequently contained as many as sixty persons. Some of their cabins were in the form of elongated squares, of which the sides were not more than five or six feet high. They were made of bark, and the roof was prepared from the same material, having an opening in the top for the passage of smoke. At both ends of the cabin there were entrances. The fire was built under the hole in the roof, and there were as many fires as there were families.

The beds were upon planks on the floor of the cabin, or upon simple hides, which they called appichimon, placed along the parti- tions. They slept upon these skins, wrapped in their blankets. which. during the day, served them for clothing. Each one had his particular place. The man and wife crouched together. her back being against his body, their blankets passed around their heads and feet. so that they looked like a plate of ducks." These bark cabins were used by the Iroquois, and, indeed, by many Indian tribes who lived exclusively in the forests.

The prairie Indians, who were unable to procure bark, generally made mats out of platted reeds or flags, and placed these mats around three or four poles tied together at the ends. They were, in form, round, and terminated in a cone. These mats were sewed together with so much skill that, when new, the rain could not penetrate them. This variety of cabins possessed the great advantage that, when they moved their place of residence, the mats of reeds were rolled up and carried along by the squaws. t

" The nastiness of these cabins alone, and that infection which was a necessary consequence of it. would have been to any one but an Indian a severe punishment. Having no windows, they were full of smoke. and in cold weather they were crowded with dogs. The Indians never changed their garments until they fell off by their very rottenness. Being never washed, they were fairly alive with vermin. In summer the savages bathed every day, but immediately afterward rubbed themselves with oil and grease of a very rank smell. "In winter they remained unwashed, and it was impossible to enter their cabins without being poisoned with the stench."

All their food was very ill-seasoned and insipid. "and there pre- vailed in all their repasts an uncleanliness which passed all concep-

* Extract from Pouchot's Memoirs, pp. 185. 186.

+ Letter of Father Marest, Kip's Jesuit Missions, p. 199.

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HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.

tion. There were very few animals which did not feed cleaner."* They never washed their wooden or bark dishes. nor their porringers and spoons.+ In this connection William Biggs states : ".They+ plucked off a few of the largest feathers, then threw the duck .- feathers. entrails and all, -into the soup-kettle. and cooked it in that manner. ".

The Indians were cannibals, though human flesh was only eaten at war feasts. It was often the case that after a prisoner had been tortured his body was thrown into " the war-kettle." and his remains greedily devoured. This fact is uniformly asserted by the early French writers. Members of Major Long's party made especial inquiries at Fort Wayne concerning this subject. and were entirely convinced. They met persons who had attended the feasts. and saw Indians who acknowledged that they had participated in them. Joseph Barron saw the Pottawatomies with hands and limbs. both of white men and Cherokees, which they were about to devour. Among some tribes cannibalism was universal. but it appears that among the Pottawatomies and Miamis it was restricted to a frater- nity whose privilege and duty it was on all occasions to eat of the enemy's flesh : - at least one individual must be eaten. The flesh was sometimes dried and taken to the villages.

The Indians had some peculiar funeral customs. Joutel thus records some of his observations: " They pay a respect to their dead. as appears by their special care of burying them, and even of putting into lofty coffins the bodies of such as are considerable among them. as their chiefs and others, which is also practiced among the Accanceas, but they differ in this respect. that the Accan- ceas weep and make their complaints for some days, whereas the Shawnees and other people of the Illinois nation do just the con- trary. for when any of them die they wrap them up in skins and then put them into coffins made of the bark of trees. then sing and dance about them for twenty-four hours. Those dancers take care to tie calabashes. or gourds. about their bodies, with some Indian corn in them. to rattle and make a noise, and some of them have a drum. made of a great earthen pot. on which they extend a wild goat's skin, and beat thereon with one stick. like our tabors. During that rejoicing they threw their presents on the coffin. as bracelets.

* Charlevoix' Narrative Journal, vol. 2, pp. 132. 133.

For a full account of their lack of neatness in the culinary department, vide Hen- nepin, vol. 2, p. 120.

The Kickapoos. Narrative of William Biggs, p. 9.

Long's Expedition to the sources of the St. Peters, vol. 1, pp. 103-106.

191

BURIAL CEREMONIES.

pendants or pieces of earthenware. When the ceremony was over they buried the body, with a part of the presents, making choice of such as may be most proper for it. They also bury with it some · store of Indian wheat, with a pot to boil it in. for fear the dead per- son should be hungry on his long journey, and they repeat the cere- mony at the year's end. A good number of presents still remaining, they divide them into several lots and play at a game called the stick to give them to the winner."*

The Indian graves were made of a large size, and the whole of the inside lined with bark. On the bark was laid the corpse. accom- panied with axes, snow-shoes, kettle, common shoes, and, if a wo- man, carrying-belts and paddles.

This was covered with bark, and at about two feet nearer the surface, logs were laid across, and these again covered with bark, so that the earth might by no means fall upon the corpse.+ If the deceased, before his death, had so expressed his wish, a tree was hollowed out and the corpse deposited within. After the body had become entirely decomposed, the bones were often collected and buried in the earth. Many of these wooden sepulchres were dis- covered by the early settlers in Iroquois county, Illinois. Doubt- less they were the remains of Pottawatomies, who at that time re- sided there.

After a death they took care to visit every place near their cabins, striking incessantly with rods and raising the most hideous cries, in order to drive the souls to a distance, and to keep them from lurk- ing about their cabins. +

The Indians believed that every animal contained a Manitou or God, and that these spirits could exert over them a beneficial or prejudicial influence. The rattlesnake was especially venerated by them. Henry relates an instance of this veneration. He saw a snake, and, procured his gun, with the intention of dispatching it. The Indians begged him to desist, and, "with their pipes and to- bacco-pouches in their hands, approached the snake. They sur- rounded it, all addressing it by turns and calling it their grand- father, but yet kept at some distance. During this part of the cer- emony, they filled their pipes, and each blew the smoke toward the snake, which, as it appeared to me, really received it with pleasure. In a word, after remaining coiled and receiving incense for the space of half an hour, it stretched itself along the ground in visible good

* Joutel's Journal: Historical Collections of Louisiana, vol. 1, pp. 187, 188.

t Extract from Henry's Travels, p. 150.

# Charlevoix' Narrative Journal, vol. 2, p. 154.

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HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.

humor. The Indians followed it, and, still addressing it by the title of grandfather, beseeched it to take care of their families dur- ing their absence, and also to open the hearts of the English, that that they might fill their (the Indians') canoes with rum .* This reverence of the Indians for the rattlesnake will account for the vast number of these reptiles met with by early settlers in localities fa- vorable for their increase and security. The clefts in the rocky cliff's below Niagara Falls were so infested with rattlesnakes that the Indians removed their village to a place of greater security.

The Indians had several games, some of which have been already noticed. McCoy mentions a singular occurrence of this nature : "A Miami Indian had been stabbed with a knife, who lingered, and of whose recovery there was doubt. On the 12th of May a party re- solved to decide by a game of moccasin whether the man should live or die. In this game the party seat themselves upon the earth opposite to each other, while one holds a moccasin on the ground with one hand, and holds in the other a small ball ; the ball he affects to conceal in the moccasin, and does either insert it or not, as he shall choose, and then leaves the opposite party to guess where the ball is. In order to deceive his antagonist, he incessantly utters a kind of a sing-song, which is repeated about thrice in a minute, and moving his hands in unison with the notes, brings one of them, at every repetition, to the mouth of the moccasin, as though he had that moment inserted the ball. One party played for the wounded man's recovery and the other for his death Two games were played, in both of which the side for recovery was triumphant, and so they concluded the man would not die of his wounds. "+

The Indians had a most excellent knowledge of the topography of their country, and they drew the most exact maps of the conn- tries they were acquainted with. They set down the true north according to the polar star; the ports, harbors, rivers, creeks, and coasts of the lakes ; roads, mountains, woods, marshes and meadows. They counted the distances by journeys and half-journeys, allowing to every journey five leagues. These maps were drawn upon birch bark.+ "Previous to General Brock's crossing over to Detroit, he asked Tecumseh what sort of a country he should have to pass through in case of his preceding farther. Tecumseh took a roll of elm bark, and extending it on the ground, by means of four stones. drew forth his scalping knife, and, with the point, etched upon the

* Alexander Henry's Travels, p. 176.

+ Baptist Missions, p. 98.

# La Hontan, vol. 2, p. 13.

193

MARRIAGE AND RELIGION.

bark a plan of the country, its hills, woods, rivers, morasses, a plan which, if not as neat, was fully as accurate as if it had been made by a professional map-maker .*

In marriage, they had no ceremony worth mentioning, the man and the woman agreeing that for so many bucks, beaver hides, or, in short, any valuables, she should be his wife. Of all the passions. the Indians were least influenced by love. Some authors claim that it had no existence, excepting, of course, mere lust, which is pos- sessed by all animals. "By women, beauty was commonly no mo- tive to marriage, the only inducement being the reward which she received. It was said that the women were purchased by the night. week, month or winter, so that they depended on fornication for a living; nor was it thought either a crime or shame, none being esteemed as prostitutes but such as were licentious without a re- ward. "+ Polygamy was common, but was seldom practiced except by the chiefs. On the smallest offense husband and wife parted. she taking the domestic utensils and the children of her sex. Chil- dren formed the only bond of affection between the two sexes; and of them, to the credit of the Indian be it said, they were very fond. They never chastised them, the only punishment being to dash, by the hand, water into the face of the refractory child. Joutel noticed this method of correction among the Illinois, and nearly a hundred years later Jones mentions the same custom as existing among the Shawnees. ;

The Algonquin tribes, differing in this respect from the southern Indians, had no especial religion. They believed in good and bad spirits, and thought it was only necessary to appease the wicked spirits, for the good ones "were all right anyway." These bad spirits were thought to occupy the bodies of animals, fishes and rep- tiles, to dwell in high mountains, gloomy caverns, dangerous whirl- pools, and all large bodies of water. This will account for the offerings of tobacco and other valuables which they made when passing such places. No ideas of morals or metaphysics ever en- tered the head of the Indians; they believed what was told them upon those subjects, without having more than a vague impression of their meaning. Some of the Canadian Indians, in all sincerity, compared the Holy Trinity to a piece of pork. There they found the lean meat, the fat and the rind, three distinct parts that form

* James' Military Occurrences in the Late War Between Great Britain and the United States, vol. 1, pp. 291, 292.

* Journal of Two Visits made to Some Nations West of the Ohio, by the Rev. David Jones: Sabin's reprint, p. 75. + Idem.

194

HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.

the same piece. "* Their ideas of heaven was a place full of sen- sual enjoyments. and free from physical pains. Indeed. it is doubt- ful if, before their mythology was changed by the partial adoption of some of the doctrines of Christianity, they had any idea of spir- itual reward or punishment.

Wampum, prior to and many years subsequent to the advent of the Europeans, was the circulating medium among the North Ameri- can Indians. It is made out of a marine shell. or periwinkle. some of which are white, others violet. verging toward black. They are perforated in the direction of the greater diameter, and are worked into two forms, strings and belts. The strings consist of cylinders strung without any order. one after another. on to a thread. The belts are wide sashes in which the white and purple beads are arranged in rows and tied by little leathern strings, making a very pretty tissue. Wampum belts are used in state affairs, and their length. width and color are in proportion to the importance of the affair being negotiated. They are wrought. sometimes. into figures of considerable beauty.

These belts and strings of wampum are the universal agent with the Indians. not only as money, jewelry or ornaments. but as annals and for registers to perpetuate treaties and compacts between indi- viduals and nations. They are the inviolable and sacred pledges which guarantee messages, promises and treaties. As writing is not in use among them. they make a local memoir by means of these belts. each of which signify a particular affair or a circum- stance relating to it. The village chiefs are the custodians. and com- municate the affairs they perpetuate to the young people, who thus learn the history, treaties and engagements of their nation.+ Belts are classified as message, road, peace or war belts. White signifies peace. as black does war. The color therefore at once indicates the intention of the person or tribe who sends or accepts a belt. So general was the importance of the belt. that the French and English, and the Americans, even down as late as the treaty of Greenville, in 1795, used it in treating with the Indians. +

* Pouchot's Memoir, vol. 2, p. 223.

+ The account given above is taken from a note of the editor of the documents relative to the Colonial History of New York. etc., vol. 9. Paris Documents, p. 556.

# The explanation here given will assist the reader to an understanding of the grave significance attached to the giving or receiving of belts so frequently referred to in the course of this work.

CHAPTER XIX.

STONE IMPLEMENTS.

THE stone implements illustrated in this chapter are introduced as specimens of workmanship of the comparatively modern Indians, who lived and hunted in the localities where the specimens were found. The author is aware that similar implements have been illustrated and described in works which relate to an exclusively prehistoric race. Without entering into a discussion concerning the so-called " Mound Builders," that being a subject foreign to the scope of this work, it may be stated that some theorists have placed the epoch of the "prehistoric race " quite too far within the bounda- ries of well-established historical mention, and have assigned to the " Mound Builders " remains and relics which were undoubtedly the handiwork of the modern American Indians .*

Indeed many of the stone implements, also much of the pottery, and many of the so-called ancient mounds and excavations as well, found throughout the west, may be accounted for without going beyond the era of the North American Indian in quest of an explana- tion. It is not at all intended here to question the fact of the exist- ence of the prehistoric race, or to deny that they have left more or less of their remains, but the line of demarkation between that race

* Mr. H. N. Rust, of Chicago, in his extensive collection, has many implements similar to those attributed to prehistoric man, which he obtained from the Sioux Indi- ans of northwestern Dakota, with whom they were in daily use. Among his samples are large stone hammers with a groove around the head, and the handles nicely at- tached. The round stone, with flattened sides, generally regarded as a relic of a lost race, he found at the door of the lodges of the Sioux, with the little stone hammer, hooded with rawhide, to which the handle was fastened, with which bones, nuts and other hard substances were broken by the squaws or children as occasion required. The appearance of the larger disc, and the well-worn face of the hammer, indicate their long and constant use by this people. The round, egg-shaped stone, illustrated by Fig. 9, supposed to belong to the prehistoric age, Mr. Rust found in common use among this tribe. The manner of fastening the handle is illustrated in the cuts, Figs. 9 and 36. The writer is indebted to Mr. Rust for favors conferred in the loan of imple- ments credited to his collection, as well, also, for his valuable aid in preparing the illustrated portion of this chapter. The other implements illustrated were selected from W. C. Beckwith's collection. The Indians informed Mr. Rust that these clubs (Figs. 8 and 9) were used to kill buffalo, or other animals that had been wounded; as implements of offense and defense in personal encounters ; as a walking-stick (the stone being used as a handle) by the dandies of the tribe; and they were carried as a mace or badge of authority in the rites and ceremonies of the societies established among these Indians, which were similar in some respects to our fraternities.

195

196

HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.

and the modern Indian cannot be traced with satisfaction until after large collections of the remains of both races shall have been secured and critically compared under all the light which a careful examina- tion of historical records will shed upon this new and interesting field of inquiry.

Stone implements are by no means peculiar to North America ; they have been found all over the inhabitable world. Europe is especially prolific in such remains. While the material of which they are made varies according to the geological resources of the several countries in which they are found, there is a striking similarity in the shape, size and form of them all. At the present time like implements are in use among some of the South Sea Islanders, and by a few tribes of North American Indians living in remote sections, and enjoying but a limited intercourse with the enlightened world.

The stone age marks an important epoch in the progress of races of men from the early stages of their existence toward a higher civ- ilization. After they had passed the stone age, and learned how to manipulate iron and other metals, their advance, as a general rule, has been more rapid.

The implements here illustrated are specimens of some of the more prominent types of the vast number which have been found throughout the valleys of the Maumee, Wabash and Illinois Rivers, and the sections of country drained by their tributaries. They are picked up about the sites of old Indian villages, in localities where game was pursued, on the hillsides and in the ravines where they have become exposed by the rains, and in the furrows turned up by the plowshare. They are the remains of the early occupants of the territory we have described, - testimonials alike of their necessities and their ingenuity, and were used by them until an acquaintance with the Europeans supplied them with weapons and utensils formed out of metals. *

It will be observed from extracts found in the preceding chapter that our Indians made and used implements of copper and stone, manufactured pottery, some of which was glazed, wove cloth of fiber and also of wool, erected fortifications of wooden palisades, or of palisades and earth combined, to protect their villages from their enemies, excavated holes in the ground, which were used for defen-

* It may be well to state in this connection that the implements illustrated in this work, except the handled club, Figs. 9 and 36, were not found in mounds or in their vicinity, but were gathered upon or in the immediate neighborhood of places known to the early settlers as the sites of Piankeshaw, Miami, Pottawatomie and Kickapoo vil- lages, and in the same localities where have been found red-stone pipes of Indian make, knives, hatchets, gun-barrels, buckles, flints for old-fashioned fusees, brooches, wrist- bands, kettles, and other articles of European manufacture.

197

STONE IMPLEMENTS.

sive purposes, and erected mounds of earth, some of which were used for religious rites, and others as depositories for their dead. All these facts are well attested by early Spanish, French and Amer- ican authors, who have recorded their observations while passing through the country. We have also seen in previous chapters that our "red men " cultivated corn and other products of the soil, and were as much an agricultural people as is claimed for the " Mound Builders. "

The specimens marked Figs. 1. 2 and 3 are samples of a lot of one hundred and sixteen pieces, found in 1878 in a "pocket" on Wm. Pogue's farm, a few miles southeast of Rossville, Vermilion

FIG. 3=12.

FIG. 2=13.

FIG. 1=12.

Vermilion county. Ill.

Vermilion county, Ill.

county. Illinois. Mr. Pogue had cleared off a piece of ground for- merly prairie, on which a growth of jack oak trees and underbrush had encroached since the early settlement of the county. This land had never been cultivated, and as it was being broken up, the plow- share ran into the "nest," and turned the implements to view. They were closely packed together, and buried about eight inches below the natural surface of the ground, which was level with the other parts of the field, and had no appearance of a mound, excava- tion, or any other artificial disturbance. Two of the implements, judging from their eroded fractures, were broken at the time they

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History of Vermilion County, together with historic notes on the Northwest, gleaned from early authors, old maps and manuscripts, private and official correspondence, and other authentic, though, for the most part, out-of-the-way sources, Part 21

Author: Beckwith, H. W. (Hiram Williams), 1833-1903 Publication date: 1879 Publisher: Chicago : H. H. Hill and Company Number of Pages: 1164

Author: Beckwith, H. W. (Hiram Williams), 1833-1903
Publication date: 1879
Publisher: Chicago : H. H. Hill and Company
Number of Pages: 1164