USA > Illinois > Will County > History of Will County, Illinois, Volume One > Part 4
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My article referred to the locality as unique in this region, mainly because of the great abundance of small triangular and, slender chert arrow points together with the rejects and refuse of their manufacture. It also contains shell spoons, polished bone cylinders, edged hammerstones, grooved sandstones, polished antler points cut or bored, hollowed out, deer and elk phalanges, and bone pins. These and the potsherds, also the animal bones, agree with those from the Fisher site. Clay deposits exposed on the Kankakee River Banks offered abund- ant material for the manufacture of pottery. The culture of the surrounding country is characterized by notched arrow- points made from flint, chalcedony and other stone, and some of these appearing among the "Refuse Heap" relics may be correlated with the upper level of the Fisher site. Not one piece punch-stamped or rouletted ware has appeared among the numerous "Refuse Heap" potsherds. These facts, together with other evidence, go to show that the "Kankakee River Re- fuse Heap" and Fisher Middle Level are the same and preceded the prevailing and better known culture of this region."
CHAPTER V.
THE INDIANS.
"HIAWATHA"-TRADITIONS-BLENDING OF TRIBES-CHIEFS-HABITS AND CUS- TOMS-FISHING AND HUNTING-GRAINS-CULTIVATION OF THE SOIL- DOMESTIC ARTICLES-THE BOW AND ARROW-OTHER IMPLEMENTS- ARROW MAKER-WAMPUM-POTTERY-TRIBES-TRAILS-CHARACTERIS- TICS-RELIGION-WARS AND INDIAN TROUBLE
From Longfellow's "Hiawatha" we take this sentiment as an introduction to the account of the Indians.
Ye who love the haunts of Nature, Love the sunshine of the meadow, Love the shadow of the forest, Love the wind among the branches, And the rain-shower and the snow-storm, And the rushing of great rivers Through their palisades of pine-trees, And the thunder in the mountains, Whose innumerable echoes Flap like eagles in their eyries; Listen to these wild traditions, To this Song of Hiawatha !
Ye who love a nation's legends, Love the ballads of a people, That like voices from afar off Call to us to pause and listen,
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Speak in tones so plain and childlike, Scarcely can the ear distinguish Whether they are sung or spoken: Listen to this Indian Legend, To this Song of Hiawatha!
Ye whose hearts are fresh and simple, Who have faith in God and Nature, Who believe, that in all ages Every human heart is human, That in even savage bosoms There are longings, yearnings, strivings For the good they comprehend not, That the feeble hands and helpless, Groping blindly in the darkness, Touch God's right hand in that darkness And are lifted up and strengthened: Listen to this simple story, To this Song of Hiawatha!
Ye, who sometimes, in your rambles Through the green lanes of the country, Where the tangled barberry-bushes Hand their tufts of crimson berries Over stone walls gray with mosses Pause by some neglected graveyard, For a while to muse, and ponder On a half-effaced inscription, Written with little skill of song-craft, Homely phrases, but each letter Full of hope and yet of heart-break, Full of all the tender pathos Of the Here and the Hereafter:
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How do we know the history of the Indian? The Red Man was a Stoic whose mind was seldom revealed to a white man. His contact with whites made him more communicative, never- theless his philosophy of life, his traditions, and his religion, are not easy to understand because he conceals rather than re- veals. He had no written language. Picture writing was used and some records are preserved. He passed his traditions from generation to generation but the Red Man, the child of nature, was a poet and this colored the traditions in each reiteration. His stocism is illustrated in the account of the "Sacred Pack" which came from a member of the Fox Tribe after four genera- tions of contact with whites. This will be given in succeeding pages.
Mounds are found in numbers in Will County as in other parts of the State. Many of our own remain unexplored. Indian trails have been fixed to show regions traversed and possible migrations.
In preceding pages, under Aborigines, we spoke of the blend- ing of the tribes from the land of the Eskimo to Central Amer- ica and even to Cape Horn. Sir John Lubbock states it thus: "Their manners and customs, their opinions and mental habits, had, whenever they were inquired into, at the earliest dates, much in common. Their modes of war and worship, hunting and amusements were very simple. In the sacrifice of prison- ers taken in war; in the laws of retaliation; in the sacred character attached to public transactions solemnized by smok- ing the pipe; in the adpotion of persons taken in war, in fami- lies; in the exhibition of dances on almost every occasion that can enlist human sympathy; in the meagre and articial style of music; in the totemic tie that binds relationships together, and in the system of symbols and figures cut and marked on their grave posts, on trees, and sometimes on rocks, there is a perfect identity of principles, arts, and opinions."
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The Red Men of North America, sometimes called the Red Indians, have been presented in many lights by historians, prose writers, poets, and fiction writers. The poet presents an ideal- ized being with the human traits found in the best European stock. Longfellow's Hiawatha is the most familiar character. of this type. The reader admires Hiawatha for his patience, his endurance, his devotion to his people, and sacrifices which' he made that they might prosper. The romance of his life enchants us. The artist has pictured him in many paintings. Is this the real Indian character or is the glorified being of our imagination in which we vision the attributes which we are most anxious to see ?
The historian presents King Philip as a patriot of the high- est order. Pontiac is shown as one who sought to redeem the land of his fathers. Black Hawk and Keokuk are glorified in story and in sculpture. Tecumseh is brought forward as a statesman among the Red Men from the Mississippi to the Atlantic and from the Lakes to the Gulf.
The Indians were unstable in their government as well as in their dwelling places. They migrated at short intervals either in search of food and clothing procured by hunting and fishing, or in conquests through tribal warfare. One tribe absorbed another or fragments of two or more tribes united for common defense against invading warriors. Oftimes disease destroyed the greater part of a tribe thus leaving a fragmentary organi- zation which was easily enslaved by invading people. In times of plenty they feasted and when game was scarce, they starved.
For such a people language, government, religion, manners, and customs are followed with difficulty. Nevertheless, quite a definite philosophy of life was established and religion be- came more or less fixed. It is our purpose to present these as the accounts progress.
In so far as the history of Will County is concerned, three groups are of interest because, either directly or indirectly, they
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CHICAGO STREET, JOLIET, ILL.
POSTOFFICE, JOLIET, ILL.
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are associated with the territory now included in Will County. The Algonquins are the first and most numerous, extending from Kentucky to the Mississippi River and eastward as far as Maine. This group included many tribes, but those most intimately associated with Will County are Mascoutens, Sacs, Foxes, Pottawottamies, and Illinois.
The Iroquois, or Five Nations of New York included Mo- hawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas. They came through the Des Plaines Valley frequently on war expeditions against the Illinois and other tribes. Less frequently they journeyed through this highway to trade for goods which could be bartered with the whites. None of this group became per- manent residents. They left an imprint in the language and customs through intermarriage but never enough to make radi- cal changes.
The Dacotahs of the Northwest, known as the Sioux family traveled this route in war parties or in expeditions for trade. These were nomads who were engaged in war, most of the time. No permanent residents are recorded. The Winnebargoes about Green Bay, were of this family. They are mentioned frequent- ly in the accounts of the labors of Father Marquette, Father Allouez, and of Tonty, and others.
The region between Lake Michigan on the east and the Mississippi River on the west, known as the Illinois Basin, is a region of great fertility where the soil overlies beds of coal of unmeasured value. The Indian's manner of living made no demand upon the stores of fuel underneath the surface. For him the dead wood found in the primeval forests sufficed to keep his small fires burning. He was inured to the cold and his cooking was less complex than our own. His conservation of fuel, or rather his saving of labor, is summed up in this state- ment by an observing Red Man, "White Man makes big fire and sits way off. Indian makes small fire and sit close up."
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But, the virgin soil of the prairies produced abundant pas- turage for herds of game. Thus food was abundant and skins for clothing and shelter were easy to get. The alluvial soil in the river bottoms was easy to cultivate while the ground water was sufficient to grow his crops even when the season was dry. The rivers teemed with fish. Wild fruits were to be had for the gathering.
These things meant much wealth to the Indians and con- sequently, conquest followed conquest. Tribes were extermin- ated, or driven out, or subjected to slavery and absorption by the conquering peoples. The Red Man was of a migratory na- ture, restless when game was scarce and food was hard to ob- tain. The Illinois Basin was the scene of many wars. The vic- torious ones may have lived in comfort for a few decades, or for many generations, but eventually others came to drive them away for he who lives in superfluous abundance grows weak in body and vaccillating in mind.
Thus many nations found a home here, as neighbors some- times but more often conquerors. Highways of trade and routes of travel known to them have since become canals, rail- road routes, concrete roads. Through Will County the Des Plaines Valley is the great thoroughfare. A mere list of the present day routes evidences this: The Illinois and Michigan Canal and The Chicago Drainage Channel; the Chicago and Alton Railroad and the Sante Fe Railroad; routes 44 and 44A of the State Highway System under construction.
School histories were disposed to picture the natives as lazy loafers who sat around idling and smoking, permitting the squaws to provide food and fuel, to carry the burdens on the march, to erect the houses, dress the skins for clothing and wig- wams, raise the crops, and care for the children. The early whites jumped at conclusions because they found a people whom they did not understand. The stoicism of the Red Man ac- centuated his peculiarities. To him hunting was labor; fish-
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ing to procure the necessities of life became a task; tracking game was a profession in which skill was acquired through years of study. The women did manual labor that the husband and father might retain the celerity and precision demanded of him as a provider and protector.
The Red Man was a skilled hunter. He knew the haunts and habits of the game he followed. His skill in stalking was only equalled by his ability to use the weapons he carried. As a hunter, he never killed more than he could use. The white man might have learned much from him in this regard. That his supply of food and clothing might endure, he practiced con- servation, migrating if need be, to allow sufficient reproduction to take place.
Fishing provided a goodly portion of the food needed. Spears were used; crude nets were employed; weirs of brush and twigs were fashioned in the streams to catch the fish. His knowledge of the habits of fish was good and sufficed to direct him in the catch.
The agriculture of the aborigines of North America did not come from Europe. It is a result of the gradual development of a people who developed a civilization of their own. This is designated as a semi-civilization in many of the books on pre- historic times. The grains of the Old World are entirely absent. American agriculture centers around maize, an American plant. This is a wonderful crop so far as raising it is concerned. It was possible to find land suited to the crop in alluvial land in river bottoms. This soil was easily cultivated with the rude tools which they devised.
The same fields were used year after year. The fertility of the soil was maintained by fertilizing with fish, or by annual inundations of the alluvial plains which were used, such as the one at Utica in the valley of the Illinois River or the one in the valley of the Rock River.
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"The Indians for the most part, cultivate some maize, and are great reverers of this useful grain. As soon as the first ripe ears of maize are brought to the chief he institutes a grand feast where music and dance delight the company, and where the pipe of peace is industriously smoked. The benefits of maize to the white settlers are manifold. As soon as the ears have attained some maturity it furnishes a good healthy food. The ears are either boiled in water, or roasted by the fire. From its meal bread is prepared, and they make a porridge from it which, with milk, is an excellent dish. Besides this it is fed to all cattle, especially horses and pigs. Even its dry stalks are carefully preserved in stacks, to serve as fodder for horses and cattle during the winter." Ferdinand Ernst, September 25, 1919.
The following account of corn is taken from the Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society for January, 1919. It pre- sents an excellent account of this grain which is a wonderful crop.
The flowering of the corn and the shooting of the ears is one of the marvels of nature. As we gaze, we see the hand of the Creator performing anew the miracle of feeding thousands with less than five loaves and two fishes. We see the abode of the clods of the valley made into the House of Bread; abundance comes to take the place of want; wealth and opulence fill the room of pinching poverty. We should marvel not then, that the red man danced for joy when the green corn was fit for food. That the corn dance was expressive of his thankfulness to the great Spirit for his bounteous blessings. We should mar- vel indeed if civilized man did not thank God also for his bounty for the same cause. Look on the waving, ripening field, when the maple and oak leaves are turning red. Its tasseled plumes are waving jauntily the ensign of victory. Watch the bended caskets, bursting with golden fatness. The fulfilment of prom- ise, the reward of faith and intelligent effort.
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The Genesis of the corn plant is shrouded in the mystery of creation. It was called Indian corn probably by common consent and usage by the first white man who came in contact with it for the same reason that the Aborigines of this country were called Indians. Columbus started on his great western voyage with the purpose of sailing to India and having sailed till he reached the shore, he naturally imagined he had found India and called the wondering natives that he met, Indians and as they were the primitive farmers who were then raising corn, he naturally named it Indian corn.
While the origin of the plant is surrounded by mystery, its actual existence as a food plant, is well authenticated by the records of the world, extending over many centuries. At the time of the discovery of America, its cultivation as a domestic cereal, was extensive over the whole western continent. It was among the first objects that attracted the attention of those who landed upon our shores. In A. D. 1002, it is recorded that Thor- wald, brother of Lief, saw wooden cribs for corn upon the Min- gen Island, and Karsefn in 1006 and Thorwald also saw and brought aboard their ship, ears of corn from the portion of land that is now called Massachusetts. Columbus found it cul- tivated extensively in Hayti on his first western voyage in 1492. In 1498 reported his brother having passed through eighteen miles of cornfields on the Isthmus. Magellan was able to sup- ply his ships with corn from Rio Janeiro in 1520 and after that American explorers mentioned this corn from Columbus' time to that of the arrival of the French at Montreal in 1535. De Soto landed in Florida in 1593 and speaks of fields of corn, beans and pumpkins that they found there in great abundance. In 1605, Champlain found fields of corn at the mouth of the Ken- nebec River and Hudson in 1609 saw a great quantity of maize along the river now known as the Hudson.
Captain Miles Standish relates that when the Puritans landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620, they found about five hun-
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dred acres of ground that showed the evidence of a former corn crop and that later they discovered a cache where the crop was stored. It was this maize that carried the colony safely through the first long and dreary winter and when spring came, they began to plant the new plant themselves. "We set the last spring some twenty acres of Indian corne and sowed some six acres of barley and peas; our corne would prove well and God be praised, we had a good increase." We will note that Miles did not send the good John Alden, to plant this field or deputize him to write the report of it All of which proves that Miles Standish was a better and more efficient officer in the commis- sary department than he was a lover. The Indians at that time knew the value of applying fertilizers to their fields. In Mex- ico, they used ashes for this purpose; the Peruvians used bird guano, gathered from the small islands off the coast and went so far as to protect the bird and assure the supply, by putting to death anyone who disturbed them during their nesting sea- son. The North American Indian, used dead fish as a fertilizer; the Plymouth colonist were taught by the Indians: "Both ye manner how to set your corne and after how to dress and tend it, and were also told, except they gather fish and set with ye corne in old grounds, it would come to nothing." This makes plain to us how hard it is now to raise a corn crop in classic old New England, compared with the fat fields of Illinois.
The point of origin of this plant is left practically to an un- aided guess by the botanists based upon the characteristics of it and its apparent development. There is no doubt that Indian corn originated in America. At the discovery of the western hemisphere; it had been in cultivation so long, that many of its forms, had reached nearly the perfection they have today. There is the same difficulty in positively identifying its pro- genitor as in the case of many prehistoric vegetables now culti- vated for food by men. It probably originated in Paraguay, or
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on the upper plateau of Mexico and subsequently developed into its present form and productive usefulness.
Corn is so essential to the life and welfare of the native tribes of North America, that it has formed the basis of their religion; the subject of their songs, and the object of their prayers to deity. From Journal of Illinois State Historical Soc- iety, January 1919.
The Red Man manufactured articles for domestic use and for commerce (barter). The calumet or peace pipe was per- fected in the land of the Dacotahs; arrow heads were imported from other regions when material was not at hand; weapons of war and chase were traded as occasion demanded or as opportunities offered. The tribes were sufficient unto them- selves if necessity demanded it for they could produce all that was required for their simple mode of life. Yet they were quick to take up new things when they were obtainable.
While the bow and arrow are inferior to the rifle, in hunting it possesses the great virtue of silence. Among many tribes, arrow making was a trade, or profession, the manufacturer be- ing able to barter his goods for all that he needed for food, clothing, and luxuries. They used flint in Will County. Tumuli of the Aborigines produce arrow-heads of other materials but it is reasonable to suppose that these were brought or that the material was imported. One acre on East Washington Street, Joliet, on a point of the bluff south of Hickory Creek produced a cigar-box full of arrowheads after one ploughing in the spring, after it had been under cultivation fifty years. Did the arrow-maker have a factory on this hill?
The American Indian as a manufacturer excelled in many things perhaps. But the outstanding accomplishment is the manufacture of arrow heads. Many accounts have been given to show how it was done. The favorite is that it was done by a chipping process under a drill of some kind. Just what the
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drill was nobody seems to know. Sometimes it is called the flaking process but what this means is not clear.
The process not spoken of in books but the one which seems to be the most nearly correct is that the flint was baked in oil to soften it. While in this condition it was easily worked with such tools as the workman had at his command. After it had been worked in this soft state it was exposed again to the air when occidation took place and changed it back to its original hardness. Fire pots have been discovered which indicate that something of this kind was known and that this process was used in making the arrow heads, spear heads, knives, and etc. Within six months, that is, during the year 1927-1928, an Indian chief from the Northwest, an educated man, and one who is worldly wise, was asked to explain the process of manufacture of arrow heads and spear heads. He said, "The making of arrow heads is a lost art. My judgment is that it was done by a process of heating in oil. Just what the oil was or what the process was, I do not know. Other Indians who have given it thought confirm my opinion."
A hunter could shoot an arrow through the body of a buffalo. Such a weapon was formidable in battle as well as in the chase. The writer has seen Ute lads who had no trouble in shooting rabbits on the run. The western Jack is not a slow mover. The Indians resident in Will County were equally expert in manu- facturing and hunting.
Arrow-maker-From Hiawatha.
Only once his pace he slackened, Only once he paused or halted, Paused to purchase heads of arrows Of the ancient arrow-maker In the land of the Dacotahs, Where the Tales of Minnehaha
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Flash and gleam among the oak trees, Laugh and leap into the valley.
There the ancient Arrow-maker Made his arrow-heads of sandstone, Arrow-heads of chalcedony, Arrow-heads of flint and jasper, Smoothed and sharpened at the edges, Hard and polished, keen and costly.
Wampum was the money of the Indians before they came in contact with the whites. Indeed, it prevailed long after the Europeans began to trade with the Natives because he was cautious, and shunned new things, excepting whiskey (fire- water). Wampum had but little intrinsic value and yet there was a real worth because it represented much labor. It was no easy task to make it with the crude tools of the Indian. Drill- ing was the most difficult because the shells approached the hardness of his drills. Much of this Indian money was used in Will County as well as in Illinois and the Nation. In 1821, the American Fur Company began to operate in Illinois. In that year wampum was valued at $5.50 per thousand beads. Since the dollar exceeded the value of the dollar of 1928 manyfold, one must not be misled. It would not be amiss to say that $100 per thousand would be correct for today. That year the Com- pany sent 2 D 100 pieces to Chicago to be used in buying furs. Five dozen scalping knives were valued at $1.20 per dozen. Duck shot was sold at 20 cents a pound.
The Indian understood barter better than trading for cash. He would think of values in terms of furs, or wampum and then compare with the denominations used by white men.
The art of pottery was known to all of the tribes who lived in Will County. It is interesting to have this explanation of the discovery of this art. Basket weaving had been developed.
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In order to use it for cooking, it was necessary to protect it from the fire over which it was placed. The Indian woman daubed the outside with mud made from clay. After the fire had gone out she noticed burned pieces which had hardened. After many such experiences, and it is easy to imagine that once, when the mixing was thorough and the composition of clay and water was just right, such a covering may have come off without breaking.
Behold a bowl, hard, impervious to water, and able to resist fire. From this it was easy to proceed to more elaborate forms and with the artistic taste, to ornamentation.
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