USA > Wisconsin > Buffalo County > History of Buffalo County Wisconsin 10847607 > Part 9
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cine men performed their function in similar habiliments. The material for all their dresses was skins prepared by the well known method of smoke-tanning, if the hair was off, and by some other process if the hair or fur was left on. Moccasins and other art- icles of clothing were ornamented by the quills of the porcupine dyed in various colors. The inside of their robes of ceremony were painted with figures, usually in a red color, possibly some charm for the protection of the wearer, or a picture record of some of his deeds among the enemies of the tribe. Among the Iroquois the council, at least that of a clan or family was not a ceremonial affair, as Father Isaac Joques assures us that they were lying on their bellies, or on their backs or squatting on their haunches, al: most naked, and smoking their pipes, calmly deliberating on af- fairs of state. He adds that even the Roman senate would not be insulted by the Iroquois council being compared with it. As the Roman senate departed this world about a thousand years before the worthy Father wrote that comparison, and as the Iroquois would not read it, the assertion was safe and harmless. We find, however, that the Iroquois wore beaver skin robes in battle, even in summer time, since in one of Champlain's battles with them, it is remarked that after the defeat of the Iroquois certain traders, who had not done much fighting, robbed the carcasses of the dead warriors of their robes, amid the derision of the surrounding sav- ages.
The dress of the women, (among Hurons,) according to the Jesuits, was more modest than that " of our most pious ladies of France." We will not doubt it, but might reasonably dispute the authority of the " Fathers " in this matter. An exception to this modesty in dress was made by young girls on festal occasions when they wore nothing but a kilt from the waist to the knee and wampum decorations on breast and arms. The long black hair was gathered behind the neck and sometimes decorated with disks of native copper, probably polished by scouring for the occasion; some gay pendants obtained from the French were used for the same purpose. They all slept in the cloths they wore during the day, and as in winter time they crouched closely around the fire during the night, we may readily conclude, that their clothing was none too warm.
The making of these pieces of clothing out of skins was as
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difficult a performance as any that might be required in connec- tion with this article. The cutting. for instance, of the tunic of the males from such parts of the skins as would prove strongest and require least sewing, the connection of the different parts and the placing of the seams so as not to chafe, were considerations of importance. Very little more than straight cutting and plain sewing would be required for female dresses, except regarding the sleeves. There was one essential point which lightened the diffi- culty; the tunics, robes and such things were inade loose, and held together by a belt or girdle about the waist. There is no doubt but that ornaments of painting and embroidery were employed, but as the material of the dresses was very durable, and these often laid aside for a considerable time, it was not very difficult to find time for making new ones. The material for sewing was in most cases the sinews of the animals killed in the chase, and the process must have resembled the work of the saddler rather than that of the tailor, at least before the introduction of steel needles. It may also be suggested that the heavier leather was softened by soaking and greasing before being sewed together. The sinews used for thread had to be dried in most cases before they could be used and the filaments were probably separated by soaking, or else by heat- ing while dry. Champlain mentions the use of a fibre, which, on account of its being the envelope of some seed, he calls cotton, but it is for obvious reasons not probable that it was employed in sew- ing garments of skins. Whether it was worked into garments or parts of such by itself or perhaps in connection with bast or tough rushes, or possibly fibrous roots, we may suppose, but it is not proven. More probable is its use for netting. The Indians of our day or the next preceding generation did not to any great extent adopt the fashions of the White Man, but used the materials for clothing which might be procured by traffic. There is, in fact but little left of the original Indian in the remnant that tramps about among us, and whatever they did not have to abandon of their habits in the way of living, clothing and other things, they divested themselves of voluntarily. Their coppery skin, their love of whiskey and their constitutional laziness still adheres to them, but whether they alone are to blame for that, we may leave to others to decide.
Among Indians family life was a result of necessity for both
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116
THE INDIANS.
women at the same moment, by introducing him to them. Family ties and marital obligations seem to have been more close and strict among western Indians than among the eastern, especially the stationary tribes. The Hurons, for instance, were openly pro- fligate, the Neutrals even disgustingly so, and as there was no respect, there could not be love in any sense, except the lowest. That there was punishment for adultery seems to be true, but this only proves that the Aborigines did not need to learn of the White Men the purpose of making laws: i. e. for being violated, evaded and disregarded. The children born to any family belonged to the mother, or in case of her death to her oldest sister, and in gen- eral to her relations. Something, of course, was done to bring them up and to educate them, such as it was. That they enjoyed all the freedom compatible with their bodily security is a matter of course. It appears from the experiences with Indian women as wives of white men, that they were usually good house-wives, lov- ing mothers and faithful to their marriage obligations. This seems to argue that the long continued usages of life were discarded with- out regret by the weaker sex, as soon as the compulsion main- tained by the stronger was withdrawn. It also seems to argue that Indian mothers were always tenderhearted enough to their off- spring, since the reverse would have been engrafted upon their na- ture indelibly, if it had really existed for so long a time.
From the family, which differed from that of civilized peoples most essentially in the fact that children were relations only to the relations of their mother and not to those of their father, we proceed to what, in our time, we would call the state or common- wealth, which among Indians was based on kinship, and that based on the woman, not on the man. Chieftainship, among other things, might be hereditary, but it did not go to the sons of a chief, it went to the son, or successively to the sons, of his oldest or next oldest sister. In the language of Champlain it is expressed as fol- lows:
"A boy might not be the son of his reputed father, but he must be the son of his mother," an observation of peculiar force in an Indian community.
In the article on "Wyandot Government," a short Study of Tribal Society," J. W. Powell sets forth the general principles of Indian society, family life, relationship and government as found among
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those tribes, that were at least in some degree organized. . Differ- ences and modifications can not be specified, for want of room and other reasons. Definitions will only be given, when he uses a new word, or one used by myself in a different sense. Only the most pregnant sentences will be given.
"In the social organizations of the Wyandots four groups are recognized, the family, the gens, the phratry, and the tribe.
THE FAMILY.
The head of a family is a woman.
THE GENS.
' The gens is an organized body of consanguineal kindred in the female line.
The woman carries the gens.
Each gens has the name of some animal, so that in speaking of an individual he is said to be a Wolf, a Bear, etc., and of the whole gens, that they are Wolves, Bears, etc., that is relatives of such a name.
THE PHRATRY.
This is the name given to the voluntary agglomeration of two or more gentes into a recognized unit for religious performances, festivals or games, and the preparation of medicines.
THE TRIBE.
The tribe is the aggregate of all recognized kindred. Of the four groups thus described, the gens, the phratry, and the tribe constitute a series of organic units; the family or household is not a unit of the gens, as the father must belong to one gens and the mother and the children to another.
GOVERNMENT.
Society is maintained by the establishment of government, for rights must be recognized and duties performed.
In the Wyandot tribe there is a complete separation of the military from the civil government.
CIVIL GOVERNMENT.
It consists in a system of councils and chiefs. The council of a gens consists of four women and a male chief, whom they elect. The council of a tribe consists of the aggregated council of the gentes, four fifths being women and one fifth men.
The sachem, or head-chief of a tribe, is chosen by the chiefs of the gentes.
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THE INDIANS.
For special purposes grand councils of the gens and tribe are convened, consisting of the regular councils and the heads of households together with the leading men in the gens or the tribe.
CHOOSING AND INSTALLING COUNCILORS AND CHIEFS.
The heads of households choose the councilors, the sachem installs them. The women choose the chief of the gens and endow him with an elaborately ornamented tunic and point the totem of the gens upon his face; the sachem announces his election. The rank of sachem usually belongs to the same gens for a succession of elections, but the custom may be changed. -
One gens claims the office of herald and sheriff of the tribe as hereditary. Among the Wyandots the gens of the Wolf claimed this distinction for its own chief.
Councils of the gens are called whenever necessary, but may be adjourned from day to day, or from week to week.
Tribal councils occur at the night of the full moon, but may be called by the sachem at discretion.
The following is so characteristic that I copy it verbatim:
" Meetings of the gentile council are very informal, but the meetings of the tribal councils are conducted with due ceremony. When all the persons are assembled, the chief of the Wolf gens calls them to order, fills and lights a pipe, sends one puff of smoke to the heavens and another to the earth. The pipe is then handed to the sachem, who fills his mouth with smoke, and, turning from left to right with the sun, slowly puffs it out over the heads of the councilors, who are sitting in a circle. He then hands the pipe to the man on his left, and it is smoked in turn by each person, until it has been passed around the circle. The sachem then explains the object for which the council is called. Each person in the way and manner he chooses tells what he thinks should be done in the case. If a majority of the council is agreed as to action, the sachem does not speak, but may simply announce the decision. But in some cases there may be protracted debate, which is car- ried on with great deliberation. In case of a tie, the sachem is expected to speak. It is considered dishonorable for any man to reverse his decision after having spoken."
This description applies more directly to the proceedings in such cases among the Wyandots, but all reports agree that coun- cils of and with the Indians were always very formal.
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THE INDIANS.
face, a distinctive chaplet to be worn by the chief and councilor women of the gens when inaugurated, and subsequently at festival occasions, and distinctive ornaments of all its members, to be used at festivals and religious ceremonies.
REGULATIONS OF ORDER IN ENCAMPMENT AND MIGRATIONS.
The camp of the tribe was an open circle or horseshoe. The place of each gens was designated, beginning from the left, and the same order obtained for the households in each gens, the old- est on the left, the youngest on the right. The order of march was analogous.
PROPERTY RIGHTS.
The council of the tribe portioned out the land for cultivation to each gens, the council of the gens to each household.
Cultivation is communal, that is the heads of households are responsible, and the able bodied women of each gens are convoked for the cultivation of the land of every household. It is practically . a working-bee, which closes with a feast given to the participants.
The wigwam or lodge is the property of the woman and de- scends to her oldest daughter in case of death. The property of the husband descends to his oldest brother or the oldest son of his sister, except what is buried with him.
His property consists of his clothing, hunting and fishing im- plements, weapons and other articles used personally by himself, including usually a small canoe. Large canoes were the property of the gens.
RIGHTS OF PERSON.
Each individual had the right to freedom of person and se- curity from personal and bodily injury, unless duly convicted of crime.
COMMUNITY RIGHTS. ..
The gens had the right to the services of all its women in the cultivation of the soil, and of all its male members in avenging wrongs. The tribe had the right to the service of all its male mem- bers in time of war.
RIGHTS OF RELIGION.
The phratry was recognized for its purposes. Each gens had the right to worship its tutelar god, and each individual to pos_ sess and use his particular amulet.
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CRIMES AND PUNISHMENT.
Crimes are violations of rights. Seeing from the above that there were numerous recognized rights, we might conclude that the following list of crimes is insufficient, but I can not bring my- self to believe that the Tionnontates, of which the Wyandots were a remnant, really meant to punish all the crimes enumerated. These crimes are:
1. Adultery. 2. Theft. 3. Maiming. 4. Murder. 5. Trea- son. 6. Witchcraft.
If, for instance, the reports of the missionaries among the Hur- ons are to be trusted, and they are certainly as authentic as Mr. Powell's assertions, the whole nation would have deserved punish- ment for crime No. 1, in a qualified degree. It is improbable that such a wholesale proceeding ever was, as could have been at- tempted. As to No. 2, the case was simple enough; restitution could be enforced, and unless enforced, it was not made. Maim- ing and murder could not have been considered very serious offen- ses among people that were intent on fighting their enemies "to a finish" as the sporting phrase is, any hour in the day or night, and they were probably not often committed on members of the same tribe by such. Treason was of much more importance, and the punishment by death certainly deserved and unsparingly ad- ministered, if the offender did not escape, but traitors are every- where timid and cautious.
Witchcraft was rampant among all Indians in their primitive condition, and they were almost as eager to punish it as Cotton Mather and the Massachusetts Provincial Government, besides the governments of church and state in many a proud country of civ- ilization. The punishment was death by stabbing, tomahawking or burning. The accused, if found gullty, might clear herself by the ordeal of walking uninjured through a circle of fire.
OUTLAWRY.
It consisted of two degrees:
1. Conditional permission to kill the outlawed individual, and refusal to avenge his death, whether he be killed rightfully or wrongfully.
2. Making it the duty of every member of the tribe to kill the outlaw at the first opportunity.
The trial was by the council of the tribe and very formal.
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MILITARY GOVERNMENT.
The military affairs were subject to the military council which consisted of all men subject to military duty, who chose their chief, and his successors in case of death in battle. Gentile chiefs were responsible for military instruction of youths in their gens. Prisoners of war were either killed or adopted into the tribe in the usual way, the captor having the first chance for such adoption. FELLOWSHIP.
This was a peculiar intimacy, and mutual obligation of two individual warriors of the same tribe in every concern of life, inde- pendent of consanguinity, and to end only with the death of one or both. At the death of one, the other was chief mourner.
REFLECTIONS ON THE . ABOVE.
Mr. Powell himself sums up the substance of his article on Tribal Society in the following:
"Tribal society in North America is based on kinship."
Nowhere in North America have a people been discovered, who have passed beyond tribal society to national society based on property, i. e., that form of society which is characteristic of civili- zation. Some people may not have reached kinship society; none have passed it, Considering his statement of the government of the Wyandots we must not overlook the fact, that the ancient writers, the missionaries of the first half of the seventeenth cen- tury, although they are singularly silent on the subject of govern- ment, and in their meagre accounts of it do not contradict his own statements, do sometimes by a description of other traits of the nation, of which the Wyandots were the organized remnant, cast a doubt upon the probability of such a close and well organized government, and especially upon the efficiency of it.
But admitting his theories, we must come to the inevitable conclusion, that this government was a very complicated affair, imposing restrictions, which the savage mind can not be supposed to have endured without violent opposition. It was too formal and conservative. We can not dispute the authenticity of his in. formation, but must remember, that it was given when the tribe had long been driven from its original abode or settlement, sub- jected to numerous alterations of habitat, and the influence of in- tercourse with other tribes and the Whites. He may have learned
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THE INDIANS.
person? Recollecting the wretched accommodation, the crowded state of dwellings and sleeping places, we had best leave out the idea of comfort altogether. In some cases, however, we may cre- dit the Indian women with tenderness enough to do the most that could be done in such an emergency. But the means for actually combating the sickness by removing its cause, by eradicating it from the system, were very scarce, and the credit given the Indians for a superior knowledge of medicinal virtues of certain plants, de- coctions and combinations, is usually but the trick of a quack to sell his own preparations to the ignorant. Many persons have been imposed upon by thinking that the Indian medicine-man was a physician. Some of that class may have known a few sim- ples and applied them empirically, but that was not their actual vocation. The cure they were expected to effect, was not by their own knowledge, but by the interference of those occult powers, which among Indians were omnipresent, and the cause of every- thing. Invocations by any means, mostly by unearthly noises, extraordinary distortions of limbs and body, and similar perform- ances, formed that part of their duty, that was most appreciated by the relatives and comrades of the sick person. The Jesuits and other missionaries called these medicine-men sorcerers. In fact that was what they were expected to be, but unfortunately their supposed powers of interference with the okis and manitous, and other unknown spirits, or natural forces, were no greater than those of other men who pretended to similar things with just as little warrant or actual vocation. ' If the patient recovered, the medicine- man claimed the credit, if he died, the fee was probably not less. All, of course must die, at some time, and there was no exception to that rule even among Indians. So we come to the question; What did the Indians do with their dead? They buried them. But if we would suppose that they always dug a grave and put the body into it, we would be much mistaken. The word burial is derived from the Anglo-Saxon word burgian, that is to hide and to save from destruction. This word is the same as the German bergen, which in combination with the prefix ver means to hide, without prefix however means to save, as goods from a shipwreck. In the conjugation of the word bergen we meet the word geborgen, that is saved or placed in safety. In that sense the Indians did bury their dead. Mr. H. C. Yarrow, in the " First Annual Report of the Bu-
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reau of Ethnology of the Smithsonian Institution," enumerates seven distinct classes of burial.
1st. By inhumation, in pits, graves or holes in the ground, stone graves or cists, in mounds, beneath or in cabins, wigwams, houses or lodges, or in caves.
2d. By embalinment, or a process of mummifying, the remains being afterwards placed in the earth, caves, mounds, boxes on scaffolds, or in charnelhouses.
3d. By deposition of remains in urns.
4th. By surface burial, the remains being placed in hollow trees or logs, pens, or simply covered with earth, or bark, or- rocks, forming cairns.
5th. By cremation, or partial burning, generally on the sur- face of the earth, occasionally beneath, the resulting bones or ash- es being placed in pits in the ground, in boxes placed on scaffolds or trees, in urns, and sometimes scattered.
6th. By ærial sepulture, the bodies being left in lodges, houses, cabins, tents, deposited on scaffolds or trees, in boxes or canoes, the two latter receptacles supported on scaffolds or posts, or placed on the ground. Occasionally baskets have been used to contain the remains of children, these being hung to trees.
7th. By aquatic burial, beneath the water or in canoes, which were turned adrift.
These heads might, perhaps, be further subdivided, but the above seem sufficient for all practical needs.
So far Mr. Yarrow. But in the further elaboration, he gives an- other mode of burial, which, however, does not seem to be any burial at all, though he styles it "Living Sepulchres". He says: "This is a term quaintly used by the learned M. Pierre Muret to express the devouring of the dead by birds and animals, or the surviving friends and relatives. Mr. Yarrow is probably correct in the opinion, that this practice was not prevalent among North American Indians. It is nevertheless, true that the Hurons, the Tionnontates, Eries and Neutrals and the Iroquois in general prac- ticed cannibalism on their prisoners of war. The testimony in re- gard to this comes from the earlier Jesuit missionaries, from Champlain and other reliable sources. ' "I will eat your heart" was not at all a metaphorical expression among those nations, and re- sulted but too often in the literal execution of the threat. From
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what I have been able to learn it appears that inhumation was the practice prevailing among the Eastern Indians, the Algonquins and Iroquois-Huron relationship. But they did not bury their dead immediately. They preserved their bones for a number of years, and at the feast of the dead, which occurred at stated periods' every five, seven or ten y ears, the bones were' together with articles of different kinds, weapons, kettles, robes of beaver etc. deposited in one great hollow or grave, covered with boughs of trees and with logs and then with earth. The Jesuit missionaries were more than once eye-witnesses to these proceedings and have left minute de- scriptions of the same. Surface burial and aerial sepulture, on the other hand seem to have been the more common practice of the Western Indians, the Dakotas, the Winnebagoes, Chippewas, Sacs and Foxes and Illinois.
The practice is, at least in those parts where the Indians are yet not converted or otherwise civilized, still continued to some extent. .
From Mr. Yarrow's paper I here insert the translations of Schiller's "Nadowessiers Todtenlied". This translation is said to be by[Bulver, and is as close as could be expected.
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