USA > Illinois > Peoria County > Peoria > Peoria city and county, Illinois; a record of settlement, organization, progress and achievement, Vol. I > Part 2
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"Snch was the state of affairs when Ouatogo, the great chief of the Illini, whose fame extended beyond the great lakes, separating himself from the rest of his tribe, fasted in solitude for the space of a whole moon, and prayed to the Great Spirit, the Master of Life, that he would protect his children from the Piasa.
"On the last night of the fast the Great Spirit appeared to Ouatogo in a dream, and directed him to select twenty of his bravest warriors, each armed with a bow and poisoned arrows, and conceal them in a designated spot. Near the place of concealment another warrior was to stand in open view, as a victim for the Piasa, which they must shoot the instant he pounced upon his prey.
"When the chief awoke in the morning, he thanked the Great Spirit, and returning to his tribe told them his vision. The warriors were quickly selected and placed in ambush as directed. Ouatogo offered himself as the victim. He was willing to die for his people. Placing himself in open view on the bluffs, he soon saw the Piasa perched on the cliff eyeing his prey. The chief drew up his manly form to his utmost height, and, planting his feet firmly upon the earth, he began to chant the deathsong of an Indian warrior. The moment after, the Piasa arose into the air, and swift as the thunderbolt darted down on his victim. Scarcely had the horrid creature reached his prey before every bow was sprung and every arrow was sent quivering to the feather into his body. The Piasa uttered a fearful scream, that sounded far over the opposite side of the river, and expired. Ouatogo was unharmed. Not an arrow, not even the talons of the bird, had touched him. The Master of Life, in admiration of Ouatogo's deed, had held over him an invisible shield.
"There was the wildest rejoicing among the Illini, and the brave chief was carried in triumph to the council house, where it was solemnly agreed that in memory of the great event in their nation's history, the image of the Piasa should be engraved on the bluff.
"Such is the Indian tradition. Of course I cannot vouch for its truth. This much, however, is certain, that the figure of a huge bird, out in the solid rock, is still there, and at a height that is perfectly inaccessible.
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"How and for what purpose it was made I leave it for others to determine. Even at this day an Indian never passes the spot in his canoe without firing his gun at the figure of the Piasa. The marks of the balls on the rock are almost innumerable."
These works of the pre-historic races are interesting to us because they are within the territory occupied by our Illinois confederacy, and the story of the Piasa bird because it was probably the invention of the Illinois and had the chief of that tribe for its hero. The fact that the Indians who were here when Marquette and other missionaries came really knew nothing about these old ruins leads archaeologists to believe that the mound builders had gone long before our tribes came, as otherwise our tribes would probably have had some tradition of their presence or of how they were driven out. The mound builders seem to have enjoyed a higher state of civilization than the Indian tribes who succeeded them. Sic transit gloria mundi.
The Indians who were found here were a barbarous and savage race, as were most of those then found within the present territory of the United States, though our tribes were probably not so fierce and brutal as many others. Much as we most sincerely regret the fate of the Indians who seem to be passing away, the author-as a present representative of a family which, for seven generations, has lived each generation on the Indian frontier,-may be pardoned if he suggests that there seems to have been some excuse for the maxim of the old pioneers that "there were no good Indians but dead Indians." This, like all rules, of course, is to be understood with its exceptions, some of which will have attention later. There were some noble red men, and many of them were barbarously treated by infamous white men. It is a painful fact that the selfish, cunning and strong from that day to this have always imposed upon, trodden down and destroyed the weak, unwary and unwise, whether white, red or black, and are doing it in our very midst to-day notwithstanding all our efforts and all our constitutions and laws made to prevent it.
The laws of nature and the laws of God, which are the same thing, forbid that the magnificent prairies and forests with which He has blessed mankind should be permitted to remain in their primitive state as pasture ground for bison and bears in order to accommodate Indians who were unwilling to work, thus violating God's first command to man-"In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread"-while men who are willing to work and who can make one acre produce more food than an Indian obtained from a whole section must be al- lowed to go hungry. The Indians had no title to the land, and they could not use it. They did not even have possession of any of it except for villages in which they made no valuable improvements. They lived here and there. Wherever they could find fishing, they set up their wigwams or built little cabins sometimes of logs plastered with mud and covered with grass.
We must also remember that the first white men that came to visit the Indians came for the purpose of teaching them a better mode of living, a thing they needed to know but were very slow to learn.
The most beautiful parts of Virginia and Kentucky, the Shenandoah Valley and the Blue Grass region of Kentucky were never settled by the Indians at all but were left wildernesses and were the constant scenes of their internecine wars, savages fighting savages in a war of destruction and extermination, and this before ever the white men came. The name Kentucky, which the Indians gave to that country meant in their language "the dark and bloody ground" and they had made it such, while now to many "the old Kentucky Home" is the most heavenly place on earth.
Nor can the white men be charged with killing off the Indians by fighting them; for between the time the first white men came and the time when they could exert any influence over the Indians or fight them aggressively, many more Indians were killed by Indians than were ever killed by white men.
It is the usual characteristic of all Indian warriors that they indulged in
HORSHOR MILL, EAST SIDE OF PEORIA LAKE
KICK APOO ROAD SORVE NE-OLD LOG HUT
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HISTORY OF PEORIA COUNTY
polygamy, made slaves of their squaws, refusing to work themselves, tortured their captives, offered human sacrifices to their pagan gods and fought neigh- boring tribes to extermination.
THE PEORIAS
We are now ready to be introduced to the Peorias and as it is the first time that we have met them and as Marquette is our only mutual friend, we will permit him to introduce us in his own way.
The time is the 25th of June, 1673; the place, the western bank of the Mississippi, between Burlington and Fort Madison at the mouth of the Des Moines.
Marquette's introduction is somewhat long but very interesting and he gives us a pretty good description of their manner of life and their hospitality. Al- though neither he nor Joliet had ever met this tribe, each party had learned something of the other through the traders and Marquette and Joliet under- stood to some extent the languages of the Indians in this part of the country. In his own words as translated for our better understanding by John G. Shea, Marquette says :
"We advanced constantly, but as we did not know where we were going, having already made more than a hundred leagues without having discovered anything but beasts and birds, we kept well on our guard. Accordingly we made only a little fire on the shore at night to prepare our meal, and after sup- per kept as far from it as possible, passing the night in our canoes, which we anchored in the river pretty far from the bank. Even this did not prevent one of us from always serving as a sentinel, for fear of a surprise.
"At last, on the 25th of June, we perceived footprints of men by the water- side, and a beaten path entering a beautiful prairie. We stopped to examine it, and concluding that it was a path leading to some Indian village, we resolved to go and reconnoitre; we accordingly left our two canoes in charge of our people, cautioning them strictly to beware of a surprise ; then M. Jollyet and I undertook this rather hazardous discovery for two single men, who thus put themselves at the discretion of an unknown and barbarous people. We fol- lowed the little path in silence, and having advanced about two leagues, we discovered a village on the banks of the river, and two others on a hill, half a league from the former.
"Then, indeed, we recommended ourselves to God, with all our hearts; and, having implored His help, we passed on undiscovered, and came so near that we even heard the Indians talking. We then deemed it time to announce our- selves, as we did by a cry, which we raised with all our strength, and then halted without advancing any farther. At this cry the Indians rushed out of their cabins, and having probably recognized us as French, especially seeing a black gown, or at least having no reason to distrust us, seeing we were but two, and had made known our coming, they deputed four old men to come and speak with us. Two carried tobacco-pipes well-adorned, and trimmed with many kinds of feathers. They marched slowly, lifting their pipes toward the sun as if offering them to him to smoke, but yet without uttering a single word. They were a long time coming the little way from the village to us. Having reached us at last, they stopped to consider us attentively. I now took courage, seeing these ceremonies, which are used by them only with friends, and still more on seeing them covered with stuffs, which made me to judge them to be allies. I, therefore, spoke to them first, and asked them who they were; they answered that they were Illinois, and, in token of peace, they presented their pipes to smoke. They then invited us to their village where all the tribe awaited us with impatience. These pipes for smoking are called in the country, calumets, a word that is so much in use that I shall be obliged to employ it in order to be understood, as I shall have to speak of it frequently.
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"At the door of the cabin in which we were to be received, was an old man awaiting us in a very remarkable posture, which is their usual ceremony in receiving strangers. This man was standing, perfectly naked, with his hands stretched out and raised toward the sun, as if he wished to screen himself from its rays, which nevertheless passed through his fingers to his face. When we came near him, he paid us this compliment: 'How beautiful is the sun, O Frenchman, when thou comest to visit us! All our town awaits thee, and thou shalt enter all our cabins in peace.' He then took us into his cabin where there was a crowd of people, who devoured us with their eyes, but kept a profound silence. We heard, however, these words occasionally addressed to us: 'Well done, brothers, to visit us !'
"As soon as we had taken our places, they showed us the usual civility of the country, which is to present the calumet. You must not refuse it, unless you would pass for an enemy, or at least for being impolite. It is, however, enough to pretend to smoke. While all the old men smoked after us to honor us, somie came to invite us on behalf of the great sachem of all the Illinois to proceed to his town, where he wished to hold a council with us. We went with a good retinue, for all the people who had never seen a Frenchman among them could not tire looking at us; they threw themselves on the grass by the wayside, they ran ahead, then turned and walked back to see us again. All this was done without noise, and with marks of a great respect entertained for us. "Having arrived at the great sachem's town, we espied him at his cabin-door, between two old men, all three standing naked, with their calumet turned to the sun. He harangued us in a few words, to congratulate us on our arrival, and then presented us his calumet and made us smoke; at the same time we entered his cabin, where we received all their usual greetings. Seeing all assembled and in silence, I spoke to them by four presents which I made: by the first. I said that we marched in peace to visit the nations on the river to the sea; by the second, I declared to them that God their Creator had pity on them, since, after their having been so long ignorant of Him, He wished to become known to all nations; that I was sent on His behalf with this design ; that it was for them to acknowledge and obey Him; by the third, that the great chief of the French informed them that he spread peace everywhere, and had overcome the Iroquois. Lastly, by the fourth, we begged them to give us all the information they had of the sea, and of the nations through which we should have to pass to reach it.
"When I had finished my speech. the sachem rose, and laying his hand on the head of a little slave, whom he was about to give us, spoke thus: 'I thank thee, Blackgown, and thee, Frenchman,' addressing MI. Jollyet, 'for taking so much pains to come and visit us; never has the earth been so beautiful, nor the sun so bright, as today; never has our river been so calm, nor so free from rocks, which your canoes have removed as they passed; never has our tobacco had so fine a flavor, nor our corn appeared so beautiful as we behold it today. Here is my son, that I give thee, that thou mayest know my heart. I pray thee to take pity on me and all my nation. Thou knowest the Great Spirit who has made us all ; thou speakest to Him and hearest His word; ask Him to give me life and health, and come and dwell with us, that we may know Him.' Saying this, he placed the little slave near us and made us a second present, an all- mysterious calumet, which they value more than a slave; by this present he showed us his esteem for our governor, after the account we had given of him; by the third, he begged us, on behalf of his whole nation, not to proceed further, on account of the great dangers to which we exposed ourselves.
"I replied, that I did not fear death, and that I esteemed no happiness greater than that of losing my life for the glory of Him who made all. But this these poor people could not understand.
"The council was followed by a great feast which consisted of four courses, which we had to take with all their ways; the first course was a great wooden
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dish full of sagamity, that is to say, of Indian meal boiled in water and seasoned with grease. The master of ceremonies, with a spoonful of sagamity, pre- sented it three or four times to my mouth, as we would do with a little child; he did the same to M. Jollyet. For the second course, he brought in a second dish containing three fish ; he took some pains to remove the bones, and having blown upon it to cool it, put it in my mouth, as we would food to a bird; for the third course, they produced a large dog, which they had just killed, but learning that we did not eat it, it was withdrawn. Finally, the fourth course was a piece of wild ox, the fattest portions of which were put into our mouths
"After this feast we had to visit the whole village, which consists of full three hundred cabins. While we marched through the streets, an orator was constantly haranguing, to oblige all to see us without being troublesome: we were everywhere presented with belts, garters, and other articles made of the hair of the bear and wild cattle, dyed red, yellow and gray. These are their rareties ; but not being of consequence, we did not burthen ourselves with them.
"We slept in the sachem's cabin, and the next day took leave of him, promis- ing to pass back through his town in four moons. He escorted us to our canoes with nearly six hundred persons, who saw us embark, evincing in every possible way the pleasure our visit had given them. On taking leave, I personally promised that I would return the next year to stay with them, and instruct them. But before leaving the Illinois country, it will be well to relate what I remarked of their customs and manners.
"To say Illinois is, in their language, to say 'the men' as if other Indians compared to them were mere beasts. And it must be admitted that they have an air of humanity that we had not remarked in the other nations that we had seen on the way. The short stay 1 made with them did not permit me to acquire all the information I would have desired. The following is what I remarked in their manners :
"They are divided into several villages, some of which are quite distant from that of which I speak, and which is called Peouarea. This produces a diversity in their language which in general has a great affinity to the Algonquin, so that we easily understood one another. They are mild and tractable in their dis- position, as we experienced in the reception they gave us. They have many wives, of whom they are extremely jealous; they watch them carefully, and cut off their nose or ears when they do not behave well; I saw several who bore the marks of their infidelity. They are well-formed, nimble, and very adroit in using the bow and arrow; they use guns also, which they buy of our Indian allies who trade with the French; they use them especially to terrify their enemies by the noise and smoke, the others lying too far to the west, have never seen them, and do not know their use. They are war-like and formidable to distant nations in the south and west, where they go to carry off slaves, whom they make an article of trade, selling them at a high price to other nations for goods.
"The distant nations against whom they go to war, have no knowledge of Europeans ; they are acquainted with neither iron nor copper, and have nothing but stone knives. When the Illinois set out on a war party, the whole village is notified by a loud cry made at the door of their huts the morning and evening before they set out. The chiefs are distinguished from the soldiers by their wearing a scarf ingeniously made of the hair of bears and wild oxen. The face is painted with red lead or ochre, which is found in great quantities a few days' journey from their village. They live by game, which is abundant in this coun- try, and on Indian corn, of which they always gather a good crop, so that they have never suffered from famine. They also sow beans and melons, which are excellent, especially those with a red seed. Their squashes are not of the best ; they dry them in the sun, to eat in the winter and spring.
"Their cabins are very large; they are lined and floored with rush mats. They make all their dishes of wood, and their spoons of the bones of the buffalo, which they cut so well that it serves them to eat their sagamity easily.
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"They are liberal in their maladies, and believe that the medicines given them operate in proportion to the presents they have made the medicine-man. Their only clothes are skins; their women are always dressed very modestly and decently, while the men do not take any pains to cover themselves. Through what superstition I know not, some Illinois, as well as some Nadouessi (Sioux or Dacotas), while yet young, assume the female dress, and keep it all their life. There is some mystery about it, for they never marry, and glory in de- basing themselves to do all that is done by women; yet they go to war, though allowed to use only a club, and not the bow and arrow, the peculiar arm of men ; they are present at all the juggleries and solemn dances in honor of the calumet ; they are permitted to sing, but not to dance; they attend the councils, and nothing can be decided without their advice; finally, by the profession of an extraordinary life, they pass for manitous (that is, for genii), or persons of consequence.
"It now only remains for me to speak of the calumet, than which there is nothing among them more mysterious or more esteemed. Men do not pay to the crowns and sceptres of kings the honor they pay to it; it seems to be the god of peace and war, the arbiter of life and death. Carry it about you and show it, and you can march fearlessly amid enemies, who even in the heat of battle lay down their arms when it is shown. Hence the Illinois gave me one, to serve as my safeguard amid all the nations that I had to pass on my voyage. There is a calumet for peace, and one for war, distinguished only by the color of the feathers with which they are adorned, red being the sign of war. They use them also for settling disputes, strengthening alliances, and speaking to strangers. It is made of a polished red stone, like marble, so pierced that one end serves to hold the tobacco, while the other is fastened on the stem, which is a stick two feet long, as thick as a common cane, and pierced in the middle ; it is ornamented with the head and neck of different birds of beautiful plumage ; they also add large feathers of red, green and other colors, with which it is all covered. They esteem it particularly because they regard it as the calumet of the sun; and, in fact, they present it to him to smoke when they wish to obtain calm, or rain, or fair weather. They scruple to bathe at the beginning of summer, or to eat new fruits, till they have danced it. They do it thus:
"The calumet dance, which is very famous among these Indians, is per- formed only for important matters, sometimes to strengthen a peace or to as- semble for some great war; at other times for a public rejoicing ; sometimes they do this honor to a nation who is invited to be present ; sometimes they use it to receive some important personage, as if they wished to give him the en- tertainment of a ball or comedy. In winter the ceremony is performed in a cabin, in summer in the open fields. They select a place surrounded with trees, so as to be sheltered beneath their foliage against the heat of the sun. In the middle of the space they spread out a large parti-colored mat of rushes; this serves as a carpet, on which to place with honor the god of the one who gives the dance; for every one has his own god, or manitou as they call it, which is a snake, a bird, or something of the kind, which they have dreamed in their sleep, and in which they put all their trust for the success of their wars, fishing, and hunts. Near this manitou and at its right, they put the calumet in honor of which the feast is given, making around about it a kind of trophy, spreading there the arms used by the warriors of these tribes, namely, the war-club, bow, hatchet, quiver, and arrows.
"Things being thus arranged, and the hour for dancing having arrived, those who are to sing take the most honorable place under the foliage. They are the men and the women who have the finest voices, and who accord perfectly. The spectators then come and take their places around under the branches ; but each one on arrival must salute the manitou, which he does by inhaling the smoke and then puffing it from his mouth upon it. as if offering incense. Each one goes first and takes the calumet respectfully, and supporting it with both hands,
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makes it dance in cadence, suiting himself to the air of the song; he makes it go through various figures, sometimes showing it to the whole assembly by turning it from side to side.
"After this, he who is to begin the dance appears in the midst of the as- sembly, and goes first; sometimes he presents it to the sun, as if he wished it to smoke; sometimes he inclines it to the earth; and at other times he spreads its wings as if for it to fly ; at other times, he approaches it to the mouths of the spectators for them to smoke, the whole in cadence. This is the first scene of the ballet.
"The second consists in a combat, to the sound of a kind of drum, which succeeds the songs, or rather joins them, harmonizing quite well. The dancer beckons to some brave to come and take the arms on the mat, and challenges him to fight to the sound of the drums; the other approaches, takes his bow and arrow, and begins a duel against the dancer who has no defence but the calumet. This spectacle is very pleasing, especially as it is always done in time, for one attacks, the other defends; one strikes, the other parries; one flies, the other pursues; then he who fled faces and puts his enemy to flight. This is all done so well with measured steps, and the regular sound of voices and drums, that it might pass for a very pretty opening of a ballet in France.
"The third scene consists of a speech delivered by the holder of the calumet, for the combat being ended without bloodshed, he relates the battles he was in, the victories he has gained; he names the nations, the places, the captives he has taken, and as a reward, he who presides at the dance presents him with a beautiful beaver robe, or something else, which he receives, and then he presents the calumet to another, who hands it to a third, and so to all the rest. till all having done their duty, the presiding chief presents the calumet itself to the nation invited to this ceremony in token of the eternal peace which shall reign between the two tribes.'
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