History of Richardson County, Nebraska : its people, industries and institutions, Part 7

Author: Edwards, Lewis C
Publication date: 1917
Publisher: Indianapolis : B.F. Bowen
Number of Pages: 1742

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SHELL NECKLACE FOUND ON PREHISTORIC SKELETON NEAR YANCTON.

INDIAN RELICS UNEARTHED IN RICHARDSON COUNTY, NEBRASKA, BY L. C. EDWARDS AND A. P. KEIM.

RICHARDSON COUNTY, NEBRASKA.

was a real river about the time of the ice age ended and the great lake that occupied the whole south half of Nebraska drained off in this direction. Since the stream dwindled down to its present size, it has been overflowing, but not as much as formerly, as within the period of the white man's settle- ment and the breaking of the prairies and the plowing of the fields soon filled the narrow, deep stream and caused overflows that carried the suspended soil out upon the bottom lands and all of these places have been filled up by the new soil deposits, in many places as much as five feet, since 1870. The belief is prevalent that any ten years since 1870 have seen as much filling on an average over the flood plain as was made in one hundred, before the sod was broken. The olla was brought to Falls City.

PREHISTORIC SHELL NECKLACE.

On January 14, 1914, in company with a party of well-known Falls City, Nebraska, citizens, I examined a "burial" about one and one-half miles north of the village of Rulo, Nebraska, in Richardson county, not far north of the Kansas line. In the party were Rev. James Noble, rector of St. Thomas's Episcopal church; Lewis C. Edwards, register of deeds of Richardson county; A. R. Keim, editor of the Falls City Daily Journal; Robert Rule and Harry Jenne, Falls City business men, and Col. Charles Marion, a well-known auc- tioneer of that part of Nebraska.

Several weeks prior to my visit I had been informed of the fact that human bones had been found protruding from the south wall of a ravine, which had been cut into the hills by rains. As it is a common thing to find bones almost anywhere in the Missouri valley, I was not especially interested, but I learned later that "Spanish" coins of a "very ancient date" and many trinkets of "silver", had also been found with the remains. I decided to make a personal investigation in behalf of the state museum, University of Nebraska. As this paper is not intended as an expose of a "plant" of value- less "junk", it is only necessary to state that the job was a very bungling affair and has been pretty thoroughly aired through the investigations of Mr. Floyd Morehouse, a son of the tenant of the farm. It miglit be stated, how- ever, before disposing of that part of the matter, that the supposed Spanish coins were in reality emblems of the Catholic Knights of St. George, on which were inscriptions in Latin. The fact that Nebraska has had for a year a statute making such forgeries a crime, was one of the agencies in prevent- ing a very large traffic in the spurious "relics", planted with what were with- out question pre-Columbian remains.

RICHARDSON COUNTY, NEBRASKA.

The above article and photos appeared in the March-April, 1914, issue of "Records of the Past" Magazine, published at Washington, D. C. The author, Mr. Robert F. Gilder, of Omaha, has kindly consented to the use of the story in this History of Richardson County.

THE SAC OR SAUK INDIANS AS A PEOPLE.

The Indian, like his white brother, had a certain amount of caste or rank. They were divided into "gentes". They had as many as fourteen gentes : Trout, Sturgeon, Bass, Great Lynx, or Fire Dragon, Sea. Fox, Wolf. Bear, Bear-Potato, Elk, Swan. Grouse, Eagle and Thunder. In earlier periods there seemed to have been a more rigid order or rank, both socially and politically. For example, chiefs came from the Trout or Sturgeon tribes, and war chiefs from the Fox gens; and there were certain relationships between one gens and another, as when one acted the role of servant to another, seen on occasion of the gens ceremony. Marriage was restricted to men and women of the different gentes, and was generally attended with the exchange of presents between the family of the pair.

In the case of death, a man might marry the sister of his deceased wife. or the widow might become the wife of the brother of her dead husband.

Polygamy was practiced, but was not usual; it was the privilege that went with wealth and social prestige. A child followed the gens of his father, but it frequently happened that the mother was given the right to name : in that case the child took a name peculiar to the gens of the mother, but was yet in the gens of the father. But for this fact the gens of an indi- vidual could generally be known from the nature of the name. The name is intimately connected with the gens; for example, a name meaning "he that moves ahead flashing light," refers to lightning, and is a name peculiar to the Thunder gens. Besides the grouping into gentes, the tribe was further divided into two great social groups or phratries : Kishko and Oskrash. The painting color of the first was white clay and that of the second, was chiar- coal. A child entered into the group at birth, sometimes the father, some- times the mother, determining which group. The several groups engaged one another in all manner of contests, especially in athletics. The Sauk never developed a soldier society with the same degree of success as did the Foxes, but they did have a buffalo society; it is said that the first was due to contact with the Sioux, and it is reasonable to suppose that the second was due to influence also of the plains. There was a chief and a council.

INDIAN IMPLEMENTS OF WAR UNEARTHED IN RICHARDSON COUNTY. NEBRASKA.

INDIAN RELICS FOUND IN RICHARDSON COUNTY. NEBRASKA.

RICHARDSON COUNTY, NEBRASKA.

As stated, the chiefs came from the Trout and Sturgeon gentes, and the council consisted of these, the war chiefs, or heads of families, and all the warriors. Politically, the chief was little more than a figurehead, but socially he occupied the first place in the tribe. Not infrequently, however, by force of character and by natural astuteness in the management of tribal affairs, the chief might exercise virtually autocratic powers. Furthermore, his per- son was held sacred, and for that reason he was given royal homage.

RELIGION.

The religion of the Sauk is fundamentally in the belief in what are now commonly known as Manitos. The sense of the term is best given by the combined use of the two words "power" and "magic". The world is looked on as inhabited by beings permeated with certain magic force, not necessarily malicious and not necessarily beneficent, the manifestation of which might produce one or the other effect. Objects in nature held to be endowed with this force become the recipients of varying degrees of adoration. A child is early taught to get into personal relation with some Manito by means of fasting and vigil to secure his tutelary or genus. The Manitos of the Sauk mythology and religious worship are represented in all nature. They are human beings, animals, birds, fishes, reptiles, insects, plants, fire, water and all the elements personified. The mythology of the Sauk is rich with fables of anthropomorphic beasts and beings. The principal myth is concerned with the god of life, called Nanaboszo, by cognate tribes, with the flood and with the restoration of the earth.

The Sauk had numerous ceremonies, social and religious. Some of these they still retain. The chief two religious ceremonies still in existence are the gens festivals and the secret rite of the Midewiwin, or Grand Medi- cine Society. The gens festival is held twice a year-in the spring, when thanksgiving, is offered to the Manitos for the new season, and in the sum- mer after the fields ripen. The meeting of the Midewiwin is generally held but once a year, during the spring, when a ceremony is conducted by a group of men and women bound together by vows of secrecy. The society is entered by initiation and the payment of a fee, and the ceremony is con- ducted by an elaborate ritual on the occasion of the admittance of a new member, who takes the place of one who died during the preceding year.

Next in importance to these. are the rites connected with death and adoption. To express grief for dead kindred, they blackened their faces with charcoal, fasted, and abstained from the use of vermilion and orna-

RICHARDSON COUNTY, NEBRASKA.

ments in dress. The Sauk practiced four different methods of burial: (I) the corpse was laid away in the branches of a tree or upon a scaffold; (2) it was placed in a sitting posture, with the back supported, out on the open ground; (3) it was seated in a shallow grave, with all but the face buried and a shelter was placed over the grave; (4) there was complete burial in the ground. The ghost world is said to be in the West, beyond the setting sun, and thither it is said the people go after death. The brother of the culture-hero is master of the ghost world, while the culture-hero himself is said to be at the North, in the region of the snow and ice. The Sauk are looking for his return, when they believe the world will come to an end, and they and the culture-hero will go to join his brother. The Sauk was first known to history in 1650.

-From the "Hand Book of Americans." Bureau of Ethnology, Washing- ton. D. C.

EARLY INDIAN HISTORY.

The churches, as in these later days, were pioneers in the new country, and the great work done by these institutions is deserving of the highest commendation. Viewed in the light of more recent history, as it relates to the troublesome times encountered by those who would become settlers, it is almost unthinkable that they should have found men ready and willing to sacrifice themselves and who would have dared to enter this then deso- late, unsettled country and spend the greater portion of their lives among the early Indians of this region. Yet, we have the proof in reports made by those early missionaries to the missionary boards of the Baptist, Method- ist, Catholic, Episcopal and Presbyterian churches.

It appears that they were here long in advance of those whom we desig- nate as the pioneers of the county: The first missions were located to the south and east, in what is now known as northeast Kansas, but a short distance south of the Kansas-Nebraska state line. One of these missions is still maintained in Doniphan county, Kansas. Rev. Isaac McCoy, of the Bap- tist church, was one of the earliest of these missionaries and was well acquainted with conditions on the Iowa and Sauk reservations, both of which extended into this county. He was here in 1839, which, of course. was long before the erection of Nebraska Territory and found the Iowas at that time to number more than one thousand, while the Sauks, located but a little way to the west, had more than five hundred members in the parts of their tribe occupying this territory. In reports made by him he indicated that the conditions of these people were improving somewhat and that the

RICHARDSON COUNTY, NEBRASKA.

general government, under treaty stipulations, was affording them consid- erable assistance in the building of dwellings and mills; in fencing and plow- ing their lands, and in caring for live stock and the building of schools. . At this early time the Western Missionary Society of the Presbyterian church had established a mission, which was for a time in charge of Mr. and Mrs. Ballard. Upon their retirement it was taken over by Rev. William Hamil- ton and Messrs. and Mesdames Irving and Bradley. The assistance ren- dered by the government to the Indians in the building of houses was great- ly appreciated and some of the old houses so built were located south of the Great Nemaha, near Falls city, and the ruins of the same were found by the pioneers coming here in the early fifties.

The Methodists at this time had a small mission in charge of Reverend Berryman and the Catholics, likewise, were in the field with a small mission.

REV. WILLIAM HAMILTON, MISSIONARY.

The Rev. William Hamilton, who was as well known as any of the early missionaries after coming here in 1837, spent the remainder of his life in Nebraska.

He was born in Lycoming county, Pennsylvania, on the banks of the Susquehanna, West Branch, on August 1, 1811, and although his father was killed by the Indians, while peaceably engaged on his farm, the young man, upon offering himself as a foreign missionary, requested that he be sent among the Indians of this country.

After completing his studies at college Mr. Hamilton was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Northumberland, in the spring of 1837, and returned to a seminary to resume studies with his old class. During that summer he was accepted by the Presbyterian board of foreign missions as their missionary, and at the same time was married to Julia Ann N. McGiffin of Washington, Pennsylvania. He was ordained by the Presbytery of North- umberland in 1837, and immediately started to his field in the West. He left Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, October 30, 1837, and reached Liberty Land- ing on Saturday, November 18th, having been en route nearly a month from Pittsburgh, and traveled from St. Louis to a point, the present site of Glas- gow, Missouri, within eighty-six miles from the field to his future labors. Forty-five miles of this was on horseback to the old agency, nine miles below East Black Snake Hills, the present site of St. Joseph, Missouri. He reached this place on the 27th of December, and was detained at the agency on

RICHARDSON COUNTY, NEBRASKA.

account of there being no way to make a crossing of the Missouri river until it might freeze.

From the agency at St. Joseph he footed it, while his wife, a little Indian girl and a white girl in Mr. Ballard's family, rode horseback. The ice was only strong enough to cross on foot, and they waited until a trader bought a mule from an Indian, and hiring it and an Indian pony, his wife rode the mule and the two girls rode the pony, while he took it afoot. They had twenty-five miles to go to reach the Indians on Wolf creek, and night overtook them at Mosquito creek, seven or eight miles from their destination. As they had intended to get through, no provision had been made for camp- ing out, or for dinner, supper or breakfast. It was very dark and knowing nothing of the road they camped by that stream, and he spent most of that night cutting wood that the party might not freeze, having an extra axe in his saddle bags and succeeded in affixing a temporary handle. The follow- ing morning they started without breakfast and reached Wolf creek about eleven o'clock. The water at the ford lacked but three or four inches of overreaching the pony's back and the bank was very miry; not until four o'clock in the afternoon did they succeed in gaining the other bank, and all were wet to the skin. The weather for that time was quite warm or they might all have perished with cold, as it was the 29th day of December.

Mr. Irving and wife and other missionaries were there in a log shanty, and they were most kindly received by them and shared their hospitality until they could fix up the other end of the log house for their home. Irving had a small quantity of flour which he gave to the Hamilton party and with some corn and beef they were able to get from a trader at Iowa Point, some six miles away, when it was issued to the Indians, they were able to make out. Mr. Hamilton walked the six miles on one occasion and ground the corn on a hand mill, as long as it was prudent to stay, and carried the meal home on his back. On another occasion he went to Ft. Leavenworth, fifty- one miles, to take the borrowed mule home, expecting to cross there and go thirty miles further to St. Joseph, that is, over eighty miles, to get to a place only twenty-five miles from the mission, and return the same way; but when he got to the fort the cold of the preceding night rendered the river impassable on account of the ice. About sundown, when he was nearly twenty miles from the garrison, though he know nothing of the distance. there came up suddenly what would now be called a blizzard, and it seemed as though he should perish, if he had not had a buffalo robe on his saddle which a trader, who had traveled with them from St. Louis, when he parted with them at Fayette, gave to Mr. Hamilton, saying he might need it some

RICHARDSON COUNTY, NEBRASKA.

time. The next day he started back, having obtained a sack of flour at the garrison through the kindness of General Kearney, and arrived at his home on the third night near midnight, having had to break the ice to cross Wolf creek. It was February before they were able to get their trunks, and then in doing so he had to make another trip occupying ten days. During his absence his wife and Mr. Irving and wife had the pleasure of trying to live on the siftings of corn meal.

The Iowa Indians at that time numbered some eight hundred souls, and the Missouri Sacs about five hundred. They were much given to heavy drinking in those days, when they were able to obtain liquor, and sometimes the sprees might extend for days at a time, or until they had killed some of their number, when they would swear off, as it was called, for a certain number of days, but before the expiration of the allotted time some of them would break over the rule, and then, like one sheep going to water, it was a signal for all to follow. Mr. Hamilton spent more than fifteen years of his life among them, and Mr. Irving who had kept a diary, claimed that the Indians had at different times during their drunken sprees, murdered as many as sixty of their number, while not one of their people had been killed by any other tribe, though they had killed others. At first they were very jealous of the missionaries, thinking they had come to trade, and when told that this was not the object of the party, suggested that they might as well return home, as they could see no higher object for their being there. The Indians, however, in due time became very friendly with the missionaries.

MISSIONER'S LIFE THREATENED.

Reverend Hamilton was once waylaid, as the interpreter had told him, by the head chief, a very bad man, when he had gone to the mill and was returning after night. He, however, took a different road when nearing his home, with no apparent reason, and thus avoided him. The mission- aries had also been under consideration by the Indians when they were in a mood to commit murder, but they had crossed the river and shot a white man living on the bottoms. No-Heart (for whom No-Heart creek and an early village by that name south of Rulo was named), when a little drunk, told Mr. Irving that the missionaries should not die-a remark not under- stood at the time-but plain enough when they heard of the shooting on the east side of the Missouri river. All this happened before the purchase of the country in 1854. Mr. Hamilton's life was threatened at one time by a

(6)

RICHARDSON COUNTY, NEBRASKA.

man who had been a blacksmith, the latter drawing a pistol and a bowie knife on him. The culprit was at a later time burned in Texas for the shooting of a prosecuting attorney in a court room, and confessed at the stake the murder of several whites and an Indian.

Reverend Hamilton, after enduring the years of hardships among the Iowa and Sacs at the mission on Wolf river, was transferred to the Otoe and Omaha mission at Bellevue, Nebraska, in 1853, reaching this latter place on the 6th of June of that year.

Mr. Hamilton, who had spent most of his active life working among the tribes of Indians in this state, writing on the subject, on May 22, 1884, had the following to say :

"I could relate many things in connection with the treatment of the Indians, that ought to make us, as a nation, blush, but it would require a book to tell all I have witnessed of fraud practiced upon them, and by many persons ; things that I have personally known to be true, would now hardly be believed. The policy of teaching them English is well enough, but the idea of driving their own language out of their minds, may do to talk about, but will not be done in many generations. Even the few who seem to un- derstand our language as well as we do ourselves (only a few), prefer speaking their own. Their mode of thought is so different from the English, and I might say, from all modern European languages, that it is a great barrier to their acquiring our language perfectly. It must be the work of time, and while they are instructed in English, the great truths of the Gospel must be heard in their own language wherein they were born. With these instructions in religion and the education of the young, strict justice on the part of the government should be done them. They have rights that seen to have been little respected.

"Although I seemed to offend an agent forty-six years ago by saying the whites would have this country before long, and I could not believe what he so confidently asserted again and again, that they could not, for it was set apart forever for the Indians, yet time has shown what he could not then believe has literally come to pass. When the treaty was ratified. it was not long until great numbers were seeking a home in what was thought, not a century ago, to be a desert country, and not fit for the hunting grounds of the Indians. When I came West in 1837. most of Iowa was unsettled and owned by the Indians, and the buffalo roamed over it. there being a few settlements on the Mississippi. I have seen all of Missouri settled up, and I might say as far south as Arkansas. When asked in an early day

RICHARDSON COUNTY, NEBRASKA.

how far my diocese extended, I replied, I supposed north to the forty-ninth degree of latitude, and west to the summit of the Rocky mountains, as at that time I knew of no other Presbyterian minister within these bounds. Reverend Dunbar had been among the Pawnees, but had left. The popula- tion of the United States did not at that time exceed fifteen million of souls. Now what do we see? Churches and schools all over this then Indian coun- try and a population of fifty-five millions.

"When I came among the Indians fifty years ago I saw the red man riding on horseback, and his wife walking and carrying a load, and the little girls carrying something, and boys, if there were any, carrying bows and arrows. Before I left the Iowas, I saw the wife on the horse, and the man walking. The same may be said of the Omahas. Now, it is quite common to see the man and his wife riding together in a wagon. Then, the women packed the wood, often three miles, on their backs-that was in summer ; now it is hauled in wagons, the men generally doing the work, when able. Then, when not on the hunt, they were, when sober, either playing ball or cards, or some other game: now they are engaged in farming. True, they keep up their dances, i. e., the heathen part, hut generally take the Sabbath for them, as they pretend to work on the other days, but they also work on the Sabbath. It is over thirty years since I left the Iowas. and they have greatly diminished, as have the Otoes and Sacs. Whiskey has been their ruin.

"The Indians do not worship idols as many heathens, that is, carved idols or images, but are idolaters in the true sense of the word; but the idol is more in the mind and they apply the name of god to many things and ideas-different gods for different things. Wakanda in Omaha. Ponca, etc. ; Wankanta in Iowa, Otoe, etc .; Wa-ka-tangka in Sioux, which is really the great or war god; Tanga, Sioux; Tangga, Omaha; Tanra, Iowa, signify- ing great. Waka is a snake in Iowa and Otoe, and uda is good in Omaha ; perhaps, good snake, as pe is good in Iowa, and peskunya is bad, or not good; while uda is good, in Omaha, but pe-azhe in Omaha is not good, showing the pe retained in the negative Great Spirit is introduced, I have no doubt by the whites, as the only idea of that spirit is the spirit of the per- son. Moleto, or meneto, is the name of God in the Sac and kindred lan- guages, and a Sac interpreter told me it meant big snake. The Sac language is as musical as the Greek. The Winnebagoes use a term for God signifying the maker of the earth, but also the same nearly as the Iowas."

RICHARDSON COUNTY, NEBRASKA.

MISSIONERS AMONG THE PAWNEES.

In 1834 two Presbyterian workers, Rev. John Dunbar and Samuel Allis, began work among the Pawnees of Nebraska under the auspices of the American board, and were later joined by Doctor Satterlee. After some time spent in getting acquainted with the people and the language, a per- manent station was selected, in 1838, on Plum creek, a small tributary of the Loup river, by consent of the Pawnees, who in the meantime had acknowl- edged the authority of the government. Circumstances delayed the work until 1844, when a considerable mission and a government station were begun. and a number of families from the different bands took up a residence adja- cent thereto. In consequence, however, of destructive inroads of the Sioux, the ancient enemies of the Pawnee, the mission effort was abandoned in 1847 and the tribe returned to its former wild life.

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History of Richardson County, Nebraska : its people, industries and institutions, Part 7

Author: Edwards, Lewis C Publication date: 1917 Publisher: Indianapolis : B.F. Bowen Number of Pages: 1742

Author: Edwards, Lewis C
Publication date: 1917
Publisher: Indianapolis : B.F. Bowen
Number of Pages: 1742