USA > Wisconsin > Buffalo County > History of Buffalo County, Wisconsin > Part 9
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53
101
THE INDIANS.
In the chase, in fishing, in the building and propelling of the canoe, and in the practice of their rude and limited agriculture the Indians were naturally compelled to use implements. The implements for the chase before the introduction of European art- icles of any kind, were bows and arrows, stone hatchets and stone knives, and lances, which like the arrows were tipped or headed with stone. The shape of these lance-heads and arrow-heads is familiar to the present generation in our part of the country; knives also, and hatchets, and axes were found at numerous pla- ces. The stone hatchet resembled the hatchets of our days only in having a sharp edge on one side and a hammer on the opposite, but was essentially different from them in the way of attaching or fastening the handle to it. In our hatehets the handle goes through the hatchet, in the stone hatchet the hatchet went through the handle, that is through an opening in the same, and the handle was fastened to the hatchet by the parts fitting into a rim all round the hatchet. Considering that the only implements for making a suitable opening in the handle consisted of stone knives, some of which might occasionally serve as saws, it is quite reason- able to think that the handle consisted of two parts for at least most of its length and that these parts were fastened by the cords or sinews of animals killed in the chase. To the hammer or the axe the handle liad to be fastened in the same way. The club, which might be as serviceable in the chase as in a fight, was a more secondary implement, which sometimes might be found ready- made, or requiring but little preparation.
For fishing the implements were the hook, the spear and the net. Hooks were made of bones. The bones of fishes and the antlers of deer furnish some natural shapes for these hooks and they were extensively used. As we do not find that the Indians used any fibres of other plants, except the bast of trees or roots finely divided, and possibly some long and fine grasses, we must come to the conclusion that the lines used for angling and for weaving or knitting nets were of the same materials. Hiawatha in his fishing used a line of cedar, which must have been exeeed- ingly strong, since it could not be broken by the pike, nor by the sunfish strong and heavy as they must have been, making the birch canoe stand on end as each in turn pulled on the line. But to come down to well authenticated facts, we find that the Hurons
102
THE INDIANS.
used nets for fishing in their lake, and may reasonably conclude that these nets were large. It is also certain that they had nets before the French came among them, for though the missionaries were the first to give the necessary testimony in the matter, they already found a custom among the Indians, which was immed- iately connected with the net-fishing and certainly very ancient. This custom, annually performed for the propitiation of the man- itou of the lake or of the fishes, was the marriage of two virgins to his mightiness. The missionaries, well aware of the almost promiscuous intercouse of the sexes among the Hurons very sagely intimate that the brides were always very young, in fact mere children, in order to make sure of the imperative condition of the charm. This marriage, however, was merely symbolical, the young brides each taking hold of one end or corner of the net until the address to their supposed bridegroom by some chief was over. The ceremony indicates the antiquity of the use of nets. The spear used by the Indians for fishing is at the present day, and seems to have always been a single one, not a pronged instru- ment, as used for similar purposes by white men. It was prob- ably made of the antlers of deer, and arranged in a manner to come off its pole, if the fish made unexpected resistance, the hook being then held by a very strong line or thong of tough leather, allowing the fish the necessary play to exhaust itself, until finally secured. It may be added that one authority says the Huron women manufactured out of the fiber of hemp the lines or the twine for nets, and most probably for angling, by. the most primitive way of spinning, that of rolling it on their exposed thighs. This may have been after their acquaintance with the French, or else the hemp here mentioned is a different plant. The common hemp, (Cannabis sativa,) is certainly a plant of eastern origin and of late introduction. There are, however, some species of urtica, or nettle, indigenous, and the toughness of their fibres may have been discovered accidentally.
In their agriculture the Indian women used the fire for clear- ing the space to be cultivated. Trees were felled by the same agency, and the ground partially loosened by the burning was worked by pronged limbs of trees, by hoes made of the breastbone of large quadrupeds, or of horns, pronged and otherwise, of such animals. Plowing was out of the question, though dogs, which
103
THE INDIANS.
they had in abundance, might have been trained for running some scratching wooden instrument in a line or furrow. The result of their labor was a crop of corn, some of which was roasted in the ear, while yet fit for eating in that way, the rest being garnered in different ways, among which the process of hanging the ears, prob- ably by the husks, to the poles imniediately under the ridge pole is mentioned to have been practiced by the Hurons, and was prob- ably common among northern nations. Much of this crop seenis to have been kept in barrels or similar vessels around the house, and some of it may have remained in the fields, when there was no apprehension of any warlike incursions. The Illinois, we find, buried their supplies in the earth for security. All these labors were done by women, and besides the exertions, required consid- erable skill and experience, and if it had not been for the want of working animals and cows and sheep, the Indians would have made a respectable figure among semi-civilized nations, even before the advent of Europeans. The corn which was dried had to be used in different ways. Hunters and war-parties took it along parched, to be used when needed. Some, and probably the most of it, had to be ground or pulverized in some way for use as mush, along with meat or vegetables. I can not find any positive state- ment that they made bread of it, at least not in earlier times.
The grinding, pounding or pulverization was done in wooden mortars, which were hollowed out by alternate burning and scrap- ing, sometimes perhaps on flat stones, with other stones that were thick and heavy on one end and rounded off by continued use. All the farmwork, the housekeeping, cooking and spinning and such knitting and weaving, and perhaps sewing, as might be re- quired, was done by the women, also the gathering of firewood. Besides the chase, the fishing, and the care for the arms and wea- pons, the building of the canoe was the work of the men. Most Indians built bark-canoes. The Algonquins especially used the bark of the white or paper birch for the body of the canoe, the Iroquois had to use the bark of elm trees; other tribes substituted the bark of the spruce. Besides the advantage of lightness and suppleness the bark of the birch presented the further one of ad- mitting of being stripped from the tree at almost any season, while other barks were very seldom to be had out of the season when the sap was in full circulation.
104
THE INDIANS.
Longfellow says in Hiawatha:
" Down the trunk, from top to bottom, Sheer he cleft the bark asunder, With a wooden wedge he raised it, Stripped it from the trunk unbroken."
But I have seen wedge shaped stones much better adapted and unquestionably used for the purpose. For a further descrip- tion of the proceedings, which must have been much the same in every case, the reader will please consult the chapter entitled " Hiawatha's Sailing." There is some doubt in my mind concern- ing the use of bark canoes in the hotter parts of the continent, on account of the softening and final melting of the balsam or pitch necessary to make the seams waterproof, and also, because the rapid and very large growth of some of the trees of that part of the country naturally suggested substitutes for the bark canoe. The latter had some advantages in the ease of management over wooden canoes or dug-outs, and where the paper birch existed and grew large enough, remained the favorite until now among the aborigines.
From the building of the canoe the most natural transition leads to the building of the tent, lodge, hut or house, which was a task for the men. But as this subject is closely connected with the family life or social habits of the Indians, I will postpone its consideration until I reach that topic.
Among the crops enumerated above we find one which would surprise us, did we not know, that the use of tobacco, met every- where on the continent and on the islands among Indians, when- ever Europeans first came in contact with them, was universal, both as an article of enjoyment, and as an indispensable requisite in the propitiation of the okis and manitous, for the councils of war and peace, and especially in the expression of a favorable dis- position to strangers, or other visitors in an Indian encampment. For that reason I will go back to the first observation of the use of tobacco made by Europeans among inhabitants of Cuba. Wash- ington Irving says in his " Life and Voyages of Christopher Col- umbus ": "On their way back, they for the first time witnessed the use of a weed, which the ingenious caprice of man has since con- verted into a universal luxury, in defiance of the opposition of the senses. They beheld several of the natives going about with
105
THE INDIANS.
fire brands in their hands, and certain dried herbs which they rolled up in a leaf, and lighting one end, put the other in their mouths, and continued exhaling and puffing out the smoke. A roll of this kind they called a tobacco, a name since transferred to the plant of which the rolls were made."
This is the general sense of what Las Casas says in Hist. Gen. Ind. as quoted by Irving. The first thought of any unprejudiced person in reading this would be, that smoking was invented to protect the face against the attacks of insects of the kind of mos- quitoes and gnats. But the smoker knows from experience, that after the nauseous feelings and the nervous prostration incident to the first attempts are overcome, the cigar, (as we may call the " tobacco " of the Cubans,) and the pipe afford a gentle excitement often quite welcome after hard labor of any kind, and a stimulus for mental labor to numerous persons. I can not enter into a dis- cussion of the merits and demerits of the weed, and the different uses it is applied to, but I must state, that the smoking of tobacco was common among all Indian tribes yet discovered, and that in consequence of this habit the planting and further manipulation of tobacco formed an important item in their agriculture and in- dustry, simple as they both were. Still more remarkable than the prevalence of the use of tobacco is the fact, that there was one nation of Northern Indians who not only smoked tobacco, and raised it for their own consumption, as probably all other tribes did, but cultivated it as a crop for export, as we might call it now-a-days, that is, for the purposes of barter and trade with friend and foe. This nation was called the Tobacco Nation, but in the Huron-Iroquois they were called Tionnontates. The French name " Nation du Petun," gave by literal translation the English appellation, but neither of them necessarily agrees with the one in their own language. The habitat of this nation was between Lake Ontario on the south and Nottawassaga Bay, the southern bay of Lake Manitoulin, now Georgian Bay, the eastern part of Lake Huron. Towards the northeast the Hurons were their neighbors, to the southwest the Neutrals held possession of the country between them and Lake Erie. The latitude is 44º to 46° north, but the climate is more equitable than in our own part of the country, which in some measure explains the success in culti- vating tobacco. The nation was, like the Hurons, the Neutrals
106
THE INDIANS.
and the Eries, all of them kindred by language, destroyed by the fury of the Iroquois, but the remains of the nation, exi ting at different places, among kindred and even hostile tribes, exercised a powerful influence among Indians, and were the most inflexible foes of the English in the Pontiac confederacy and to the United States at later times. They called themselves Wyandots. But to return to tobacco, we regret being unable to say how the Indians prepared the weed for smoking, though perhaps drying was the only process it was ever subjected to. We know it was smoked, and we find that it was smoked in pipes, and that the use of the pipe was a habit of the Indian men at their leisure, in the council and on different ceremonial occasions. Like most other people I imagined once, that the pipes of the Indians were made of the red pipestone, a notion in which I was confirmed by the descrip- tion in Hiawatha and different other writings. But I have come to the conclusion that all this was fabulous, and the reader will agree with me, when he considers the immense distance, the con- stant wars of the different nations, and the impossibility of ap- proaching the Pipestone Quarry by any mode of travel and trans- portation usual with the Indians. This, of course, applies more especially to Indians east of the Mississippi and most forcibly to those near to and even east of the Great Lakes. But more conclu- sive than any arguments are the ocular proofs consisting in an almost unlimited number of pipes found in Indian burial inounds. Most of them are of an entirely different kind of stone, some of them even of a sandstone, which looks gritty but scarcely hard enough; others are of baked clay. Of those that have come under my observation, some two or three were remarkable for not look- ing like common pipes, being rather blocks of sandstone, into the top end of which two holes were bored, the small ends of them meeting at a common point. Of these holes one may have been considered the bowl, the other may have served for the insertion of a stem. One can not but admire the workmanship of these im- plements of sacrifice or pleasure, the point of contact of the holes being exactly at the apex of the cone or conical hollow of each opening. The work is quite smooth, and considering the want of metal for the purpose of hollowing out the stone, must have taken considerable time and perseverance in its execution, But while contemplating it, I was struck with the smallness of the bowl and
107
THE INDIANS.
its very limited capacity, being from its conical shape the least compatible with the surface opening. I am almost tempted to think that the tobacco was inserted in it in the shape of a cigar, though that inay simply be a fancy of mine. William Finkelnburg, Esq., of Winona, Minn., who is an enthusiastic collector of Indian relics as well as of geological specimens, showed me two pipes of the kind here described, one of which was found in this county opposite Winona, the other somewhere in Minnesota. One of them was marked on one of its faces by a crude figure, probably intended as a bird or animal, and possibly the totem of the maker or owner. Mr. Finkelnburg ascribes this kind of pipe to the Moundbuilders, insisting that real Indian pipes were always of pipe- stone. As the pipestone quarry is between the Mississippi and the Missouri, my argument against that proposition is certainly not as valid as with the nations heretofore enumerated. His pro- positions are here given as by him stated, and as he is probably a better authority on the point, than I, it would be of no use to argue against them.
A third pipe of the same kind is certainly the most remarka- ble relic of ancient times ever found within this county, be it now of Indians or Moundbuilders. It was found in Bohri's Valley, on level ground, and accidentally picked up, not dug out by an ex- plorer. It has the shape of an animal sculptured with great exactness out of a hard sandstone. The hind part of the right side has been damaged by the plow, most probably at the time of the first breaking of the soil, as after that it would probably not have resisted enough to be torn. A few scratches, as if made by the tooth of a harrow, are also found, but nothing to mar the form and execution. The head is entirely free all round and the eyes and eye-slits are very clearly marked. The head is broad on its base and not very long, but sharply flattened at the snout, so that the face looks somewhat like that of a frog, for which the figure might be mistaken, were it not for the long tail, the position of the eyes, and the prominent, well formed, but short ears, which were, how- ever, somewhat longer at first, and are worn down. The position of the animal is standing; the legs are well carved, but the mate- rial between them is not entirely removed, yet enough of it to make them appear in good relief. On the right fore-foot the toes may be counted, and the execution of the work is as fine and cor-
108
THE INDIANS.
rect as the material would allow, which would hardly admit of much finer workmanship even with our perfect steel tools. The tail is quite prominent and though one side adheres to the total figure, the other sides are distinct and well rounded. The figure has been claimed to resemble a bear, on account of the thick head, and general massiness of appearance, but the length of the tail and the tapering of the fore-feet seem to contradict this notion. The comparative bulkiness is easily explained by considering that the holes for the bowl and stem of a pipe are on its back, which required not only room for themselves, but also enough material around them to make reasonably sure of durability.
This valuable relic is in possession of George Schwobel Esq. of Fountain City. The description may seem long to sonie peo- ple, but does no more than justice to the interesting object.
Other pipes might be described, but they are differing almost altogether from the kind above mentioned. The leading form is substantially the same as in our common clay-pipes, that is the suction tube or stem is joined at about a right angle to the center- line of the bowl which is an inverted hollow cone. Pipes of that shape would naturally be ascribed without reserve to the Indians, inasmuch as the pipes found in actual use among them were, and are now of this description. But in writing out this chapter I suddenly remembered that I had a collection of pictures of pipes, published in the "Illustrated World", (German, and printed in Stutt- gard and Leipzig) containing seventeen numbers or specimens of pipes, all in the main of the last described construction. The most remarkable is number one, of which a front, and a side-view are given. The bowl is a well carved human head with hat-like extension above, and the stem connected therewith at a right angle and being of the same piece, has a length of about three times the diameter of the bowl, tapering slightly towards the end opposite. The material is clay, the workmanship is said to be very artistic, but the most remarkable thing about the specimen is the fact, that it was found in a mound which had been opened by the command of the unfortunate Maximilian, the emperor of Mexico, who was shot at Queretaro in 1867, and it is said to have been in his own hands and possession. The collection in which this pipe was exhibited for sale by a Mr. Wareham at London, contained many specimens, and a short historical sketch was attached to each.
109
THE INDIANS.
Considering the publicity of this exhibit, it might reasonably be inferred that these sketches would not deviate too far from the facts in each case, and reasoning from this supposition, this pipe overthrows all theories of distribution of pipemodels among Moundbuilders and Indians. But it is enough of tobacco and pipes, and if it were not for the fact that a majority of our mascu- line population is in some way and degree or other addicted to the consumption of the weed, I would scarcely have said so much.
From the means of subsistence we turn to the means of shelter and bodily protection in use among Indians.
The most important means of shelter in all climates, but more particularly in our northern latitudes, is a house. But the idea of a house is susceptible of very great variations and its building dependent upon so many circumstances that the most important question will be: What kind of houses did the Indians build? From our standpoint we would deny that the Indians built houses. We would call them hovels, or perhaps tents or huts. There were, however a great variety of structures intended to do duty as houses among the Indians. Something all of them had in common; they were rude, frail and insufficient for the purpose of such shelter as human nature seems to demand in a climate in which the winter season is neither short nor mild. The houses of the strolling Mon- tagnais in their winter hunt in the mountain region between the waters of the St. Johns River running south and the tributaries of the lower St. Lawrence running north, were of the most unsatisfac- tory kind. Their construction is described by Paul Le Jeune, the first Superior of the Jesuit Mission at Quebec, who had joined a band of them on such an occasion, as follows:
"The Squaws, with knives and hatchets, cut long poles of birch and spruce saplings; while the men, with snow-shoes for shovels, cleared a round or square space in the snow, which formed an upright wall three or four feet high, inclosing the area of the wigwam. On one side a passage was cut for an entrance, and the poles were planted around the top of the wall of snow, sloping and converging. On these poles were spread the sheets of birch-bark; a bear-skin was hung in the passageway for a door; the bare ground within and the surrounding snow were covered with spruce boughs, and the work was done." These Montagnais Indians were of the Algonkin family and lived in a latitude corresponding to
110
THE INDIANS.
that of the country around Lake Superior, in a climate prover- bially severe. We may conclude that the temporary winter wig- wams of the tribes of their kindred were of the same description, and can imagine that their summer tents were not much more solid or comfortable.
The houses or dwellings of the Hurons, the Iroquois and all the tribes or nations of the Iroquois lineage were much more pre- tentious, more solid and permanent. Usually these structures were thirty or thirtyfive feet long and wide. That they were as high may be doubted, though it is asserted. But in some of the villages there were dwellings two hundred and forty feet long, though in width and height these did not exceed the others. In shape they resembled an arbor overarching a garden walk. Their frame was of tall and strong saplings set or stuck in opposite rows to form the opposite sides of the house, bent till they met, and lashed together at the top. To these other poles were bound transversely, and the whole was covered with large sheets of the bark of the oak, elm, spruce or white cedar, overlapping like shingles on a roof, upon which for better security, split poles were made fast with cords of linden bark. At the crown of the arch, along the whole length of the house an opening a foot wide was left for the admission of light and the escape of smoke. At each end was a close porch of similar construction; and here were stowed casks of bark filled with smoked fish, Indian corn, and other stores not liable to injury from frost. Within, on both sides, were wide scaffolds, four feet from the floor, and extending the entire length of the houses, like the seats of a collossal omnibus. These were formed of thick sheets of bark, supported by posts and transverse poles, and covered with mats and skins. Here in summer was the sleeping place of the inmates, and the space beneath served for storage of firewood. The fires were on the ground, in a line down the middle of the house. Each sufficed for two families, who, in winter, slept closely packed around them. Above, just under the vaulted roof, were a great number of poles, like perches of a henroost, and here were suspended weapons, clothing, skins and ornaments. Here, too, in harvest time, the squaws hung the ears of unshelled corn, till the rude abode, through all its length seemed decked with a golden tapestry. In general, however, its only lining was a thick coating of soot from the smoke of fires with neither draft, chimney,
111
THE INDIANS.
or window. So pungent was the smoke, that it produced inflam- mation of the eyes, attended in old age with frequent blindness. Another annoyance was the fleas; and a third, the unbridled and unruly children. Privacy there was none. The house was one chamber, sometimes lodging more than twenty families. This is Parkman's description, after the delineations given by the Jesuits in their " Relations. " The building and maintenance of such houses, rude and uncomfortable though they were, required con- siderable time and labor, and could only be undertaken by tribes, whose families, at least, were sedentary. Consequently we do not find such houses, or rather barracks, among the roving Ojibways nor among the Dakotas. The former lived in such a cold region that agriculture was but seldom successful, the latter in a country largely destitute of the heavy timber, which had to furnish, if not the wood, still the bark for the houses described. One point is remarkable; the Indians do not appear to have taken to digging into the ground for shelter, and had evidently not yet experienced the protection of stone walls. Hennepin described the habitations of those Sioux he had to stay with as bark-lodges of a conical shape, and his description of the hunting tents tallies well with the tipee of those vagabonds, known among us at the present day as Indians, most of which are of Dakota stock, more or less mixed with Caucasian of French and other nationalities. It seems that Nicolet did not find any surprising novelty in the way of build- ings among the Winnebagoes of Green Bay, but one hundred and thirty two years after his visit, Capt. Carver admired their log- houses in the region between the Wisconsin above its elbow and the Mississippi. We can account for this change by remembering that during that time the Indians had provided themselves with steel tools and grindstones, and if they had not yet introduced draught cattle, they had certainly witnessed the proceedings of white men in building log-houses, and had found them to be not only more comfortable, but also in the end much easier of mainten- ance. In fact, we must ascribe the construction of houses of up- right posts, as related above, to the inferior condition of the im- plements that had to be used for the purpose, since it is indisput- able, that a log laid flat, unless in a very damp place, lasts at least as long, and very often longer, than the fence post that might be made of the same tree.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.