Американские индейцы

teaching the Navahos have developed a silver-working art which compares in

importance with their celebrated basket-weaving, the material used being

silver coins melted down in stone molds of their own carving. Mica was

mined in the Carolina mountains by the local tribes and fashioned into

gorgets and mirrors, which found their way by trade as far as the western

prairies, All of these arts belonged to the men.

Basket-weaving in wood splits, cane, rushes, yucca- or bark-fibre, and

various grasses was practiced by the same tribes which made pottery, and

excepting in a few tribes, was likewise a women's work. The basket was

stained in various designs with vegetable dyes. The Cherokee made a double-

walled basket. Those of the Choctaw, Pueblo tribes, Jicarillo, and Piute

were noted for beauty of design and execution, but the Pomo and other

tribes of California excelled in all closeness and delicacy of weaving and

richness of decoration, many of their grass baskets being water-tight and

almost hidden under an inter-weaving of bright-coloured plumage, and

further decorated around the top with pendants of shining mother-of-pearl.

The weaving of grass or rush mats for covering beds or wigwams may be

considered as a variant of the basket-weaving process, as likewise the

delicate porcupine quill appliquй work of the northern plains and upper-

Mississippi tribes.

Silver jewelry is probably the best known form of Native American art.

It is not an ancient art. Southwest Native Americans began working in

silver around 1850. Jewelry was the way many Native Americans showed their

wealth. Coins were used for silver in the early days. Navajo silverwork can

be made many ways. One way is to carve a stone with a knife and pour the

silver into the shape. This is called sandcasting. Another way is to cut

the shape out of silver and use a stamp to make a design. Stamps were made

from any bit of scrap iron, including spikes, old chisels and broken files.

Turquoise is used in jewelry. This didn't start happening until 1880's.

Turquoise is found in Colorado, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico.The color of

turquoise is from a pale chalky blue -almost white- to a very deep green.

The making of pottery belonged to the women and was practiced in nearly

all tribes, excepting those in the plains and interior basin, and the cold

north. The Eastern pottery is usually decorated with stamped patterns. That

of the Pueblo and other south-western tribes was smooth and painted over

with symbolic designs. A few specimens of glazed ware have been found in

the same region, but it is doubtful if the process is of native origin. The

Catawba and some other tribes produced a beautiful black ware by burning

the vessel under cover, so that the smoke permeated the pores of the clay.

The simple hand process by coiling was universally used.

The useful art of skin-dressing also belonged exclusively to the women,

excepting along the Arctic coasts, where furs, instead of denuded skins,

were worn by the Eskimo, while the entrails of the larger sea animals were

also utilized for waterproof garments. The skins in most general use were

those of the buffalo, elk, and deer, which were prepared by scraping,

stretching, and anointing with various softening or preservative mixtures,

of which the liver or brains of the animal were commonly a part. The timber

tribes generally smoked the skins, a process unknown on the plains. A

limited use was made of bird skins with the feathers intact.

The weaving art proper was also almost exclusively in the hands of the

women. In the east, aside from basket- and mat-making it was confined

almost entirely to the twisting of ropes or bowstrings, and the making of

belts, the skin fabric taking the place of the textile. In the South-West

the Pueblo tribes wove native cotton upon looms of their own device, and,

since the introduction of sheep by the Franciscan missionaries in the

sixteenth century, the Navaho, enlarging upon their Pueblo teaching have

developed a weaving art which has made the Navaho blanket famous throughout

the country, the stripping, spinning, weaving, and dyeing of the wool all

being their own. The Piute of Nevada and others of that region wore

blankets woven from strips of rabbit-fur. Some early writers mention

feather-woven cloaks among the gulf tribes, but it is possible that the

feathers were simply overlaid upon the skin garment.

It is notable that the Indian worker, man or woman, used no pattern,

carrying the design in the head. Certain designs, however, were

standardized and hereditary in particular tribes and societies.

According to Navajo beliefs, the Universe is a balanced place. Illness

and other disasters happen if the balance is upset. It is believed only

Humans can upset this balance, not animals or plants! To make the person

healthly again a ceremony is performed. The sandpaintings, called ikaah,

used in these ceremonies are made between sunrise and sunset of the same

day.

Games and Amusements

Naturally careless of the future, the Indian gave himself up to pleasure

when not under immediate necessity or danger, and his leisure time at home

was filled with a constant round of feasting, dancing, story-telling,

athletic contests, and gambling games.

The principal athletic game everywhere east of the Missouri, as well as

with some tribes of the Pacific coast, was the ballplay adopted by the

French of Canada under the name lacrosse and in Louisiana as racquette. In

this game the ball was caught, not with the hand, but with a netted ball-

stick somewhat resembling a tennis racket.

A special dance and secret ceremonial preceded the contest. Next in

tribal favour in the eastern region was the game known to the early traders

under the corrupted Creek name of chunkee, in which one player rolled a

stone wheel along the ground, while his competitor slid after it a stick

curved at one end like an umbrella handle with the design of having the

spent wheel fall within the curve at the end of its course. This game,

which necessitated much hard running, was sometimes kept up for hours. A

somewhat similar game played with a netted wheel and a straight stick was

found upon the plains, the object being to dart the stick through the

certain netted holes in the wheel, known as the buffalo, bull, calf,

etc.(remember ‘to catch the bull’s eye’).

Foot races were very popular with certain tribes, as the Pueblo, Apache.

Wichita and Crows, being frequently a part of great ceremonial functions.

On the plains horse-racing furnished exciting amusement. There were

numerous gambling games, somewhat of the dice order, played with marked

sticks, plum stones, carved bones, etc., these being in special favour with

the women. Target shooting with bow and arrow, and various forms of dart

shooting were also popular.

Among distinctly women's games were football and shinny, the former,

however, being merely the bouncing of the ball from the toes with the

purpose of keeping in the air as long as possible. Hand games, in which a

number of players arranged themselves in two opposing lines and alternately

endeavoured to guess the whereabouts of a small object shifted rapidly from

hand to hand, were a favourite tipi pastime with both sexes in the winter

evenings, to the accompaniment of songs fitted to the rapid movement of the

hands.

Story-telling and songs, usually to the accompaniment of the rattle or

small hand-drum, filled in the evening. The Indian was essentially musical,

his instruments being the drum, rattle, flute, or flageolet, eagle-bone

whistle and other more crude devices. Each had its special religious

significance and ceremonial purposes, particularly the rattle, of which

there were many varieties. Besides the athletic and gambling games, there

were games of diversion played only on rare occasions of tribal necessity

with sacred paraphernalia in keeping of sacred guardians. The Indian was

fond also of singing and had songs for every occasion — love, war, hunting,

gaming, medicine, satire, children's songs, and lullabies.

The children played with tops, whips, dolls, and other toys, or imitated

their elders in shooting, riding, and "playing house".

War

As war is the normal condition of savagery, so to the Indian warlike

glory was the goal of his ambition, the theme of his oratory, and the

purpose of his most elaborate ceremonial. His weapons were the knife, bow,

club, lance, and tomahawk, or stone axe, which last was very soon

superseded by the light steel hatchet supplied by the trader. To these,

certain tribes added defensive armour, as the body-armour of rawhides or

wooden rods in use along the northwest coast and some other sections, and

the shield more particularly used by the equestrian tribes of the plains.

As a rule, the lance and shield were more common in the open country, and

the tomahawk in the woods. The bow was usually of some tough and flexible

wood with twisted sinew cord, but was sometimes of bone or horn backed with

sinew rapping. It is extremely doubtful if poisoned arrows were found north

of Mexico, notwithstanding many assertions to the contrary.

Where the clan system prevailed the general conduct of war matters was

often in the keeping of special clans, and in some tribes, such as the

Creeks, war and peace negotiations and ceremonials belonged to certain

towns designated as "red" or "white". With the Iroquois and probably with

other tribes, the final decision on war or peace rested with a council of

the married women. On the plains the warriors of the tribes were organized

into military societies of differing degrees of rank, from the boys in

training to the old men who had passed their active period. Military

service was entirely voluntary with the individual who, among the eastern

tribes, signified his acceptance in some public manner, as by striking the

red-painted war-post, or, on the plains, by smoking the pipe sent round by

the organizers of the expeditions. Contrary to European practice, the

command usually rested with several leaders of equal rank, who were not

necessarily recognized as chiefs on other occasions. The departure and the

return were made according to the fixed ceremonial forms, with solemn

chants of defiance, victory, or grief at defeat. In some tribes there were

small societies of chosen warriors pledged never to turn or flee from an

enemy except by express permission of their fellows, but in general the

Indian warrior chose not to take large risks, although brave enough in

desperate circumstance.

To the savage every member of a hostile tribe was equally an enemy, and

he gloried as much in the death of an infant as in that of the warrior

father. Victory meant indiscriminate massacre, with most revolting

mutilation of the dead, followed in the early period in nearly every

portion of the East and South by a cannibal feast. The custom of scalping

the dead, so general in later Indian wars, has been shown by Frederici to

have been confined originally to a limited area east of the Mississippi,

gradually superseding the earlier custom of beheading. In many western

tribes, the warrior's prowess was measured not by the number of his scalp

trophies, but by the number of his coups (French term), or strokes upon the

enemy, for which there was a regular scale according to kind, the highest

honour being accorded not to one one who secured the scalp, but to the

warrior who struck the first blow upon the enemy, even though with no more

than a willow rod. The scalp dance was performed, not by the warriors, but

by the women, who thus rejoiced over the success of their husbands and

brothers. There was no distinctive "war dance".

Captives among the eastern tribes were either condemned to death with

every horrible form of torture or ceremonially adopted into the tribe, the

decision usually resting with the women. If adopted, he at once became a

member of a family, usually as representative of a deceased member, and at

once acquired full tribal rights. In the Huron wars whole towns of the

defeated nation voluntarily submitted and were adopted into the Iroquois

tribes. On the plains torture was not common. Adults were seldom spared,

but children were frequently spared and either regularly adopted or brought

up in a mild sort of slavery. Along the north-west coast, and as far south

as California slavery prevailed in its harshest form and was the usual fate

of the captive.

Languages

One of the remarkable facts in American ethnology is the great diversity

of languages. Nearly two hundred major languages, besides minor dialects,

were spoken north of Mexico, classified in fifty-one distinct linguistic

stocks, as given below, of which nearly one-half were represented in

California. Those marked with an asterisk are extinct, while several others

are now reduced to less than a dozen individuals keeping the language:

Algonquian, Athapascan (Dйnй), Attacapan, *Beothukan, Caddoan, Chimakuan,

*Chimarikan, Chimmesyan, Chinookan, Chitimachan, *Chumashan, *Coahuiltecan

(Pakawб), Copehan (Wintun), Costanoan, Eskimauan, *Esselenian, Iroquoian,

Kalapooian, *Karankawan, Keresan, Kiowan, Kitunahan, Kaluschan (Tlingit),

Kulanapan (Pomo), *Kusan, Mariposan (Yokuts), Moquelumnan (Miwok),

Muskogean, Pujunan (Maidu), Quoratean (Karok), *Salinan, Salishan,

Shahaptian, Shoshonean, Siouan, Skittagetan (Haida), Takilman, *Timucuan,

*Tonikan, Tonkawan, Uchean, *Waiilatpuan (Cayuse), Wakashan (Nootka),

Washoan, Weitspekan (Yurok), Wishoskan, Yakonan, *Yanan (Nosi), Yukian,

Yuman, Zuсian.

The number of languages and well-marked dialects may well have reached

one thousand, constituting some 150 separate linguistic stocks, each stock

as distinct from all the others as the Aryan languages are distinct from

the Turanian or the Bantu. Of these stocks, approximately seventy were in

the northern, and eighty in the southern continent. They were all in nearly

the same primitive stage of development, characterized by minute exactness

of description with almost entire absence of broad classification. Thus the

Cherokee, living in a country abounding in wild fruits, had no word for

grape, but had instead a distinct descriptive term for each of the three

varieties with which he was acquainted. In the same way, he could not

simply say "I am here", but must qualify the condition as standing,

sitting, etc.

The earliest attempt at a classification of the Indian languages of the

United States and British America was made by Albert Gallatin in 1836. The

beginning of systematic investigation dates from the establishment of the

Bureau of American Ethnology under Major J.W. Powell in 1879. For the

languages of Mexico and Central America, the basis is the "Geografнa" of

Orozco y Berra, of 1864, supplemented by the later work of Brinton, in his

"American Race" (1891), and corrected and brought up to the latest results

in the linguistic map by Thomas and Swanton now in preparation by the

Bureau of Ethnology. For South America, we have the "Catбlogo" of Hervas

(1784), which covers also the whole field of languages throughout the

world; Brinton's work just noted, containing the summary of all known up to

that time, and Chamberlain's comprehensive summary, published in 1907.

To facilitate intertribal communication, we frequently find the languages

of the more important tribes utilized by smaller tribes throughout the same

region, as Comanche in the southern plains and Navajo (Apache) in the South-

West. From the same necessity have developed certain notable trade jargons,

based upon some dominant language, with incorporations from many others,

including European, all smoothed down and assimilated to a common standard.

Chief among these were the "Mobilian" of the Gulf states based upon

Choctaw; the "Chinook jargon" of the Columbia and adjacent territories of

the Pacific coast, a remarkable conglomerate based upon the extinct Chinook

language; and the lingoa geral of Brazil and the Paranб region, based upon

Tupн-Guaranн. To these must be added the noted "sign language" of the

plains, a gesture code, which answered every purpose of ordinary

intertribal intercourse from Canada to the Rio Grande.

Religion and Mythology

The Indian was an animist, to whom every animal, plant, and object in

nature contained a spirit to be propitiated or feared. Some of these, such

as the sun, the buffalo, and the peyote plant, the eagle and the

rattlesnake, were more powerful or more frequently helpful than others, but

there was no overruling "Great Spirit" as so frequently represented.

Certain numbers, particularly four and seven, were held sacred. Colours

were symbolic and had abiding place, and sometimes sex. Thus with the

Cherokee the red spirits of power and victory live in the Sun Land, or the

East, while the black spirits of death dwell in the Twilight Land of the

West. Certain tribes had palladiums around which centered their most

elaborate ritual. Each man had also his secret personal "medicine". The

priest was likewise the doctor, and medicine and religious ritual were

closely interwoven. Secret societies were in every tribe, claiming powers

of prophecy, hypnotism, and clairvoyance. Dreams were in great repute, and

implicitly trusted and obeyed, while witches, fairies, and supernatural

monsters were as common as in medieval Europe. Human sacrifices, either of

infants or adults, were found among the Timucua of Florida, the Natchez of

Mississippi, the Pawnee of the plains, and some tribes of California and

the north-west coast, the sacrifice in the last-mentioned region being

frequently followed by a cannibal feast. From time to time, as among more

civilized nations, prophets arose to purify the old religion or to preach a

new ritual. Each tribe had its genesis, tradition, and mythical hero, with

a whole body of mythologic belief and folklore, and one or more great

tribal ceremonials. Among the latter may be noted the Green-Corn Dance

thanksgiving festival of the eastern and southern tribes, the Sun-Dance of

the plains, the celebrated snake dance of the Hopi and the Salmon Dance of

the Columbia tribes.

The method of disposing of the dead varied according to the tribe and the

environment, inhumation being probably the most widespread. The Hurons and

the Iroquois allowed the bodies to decay upon scaffolds, after which the

bones were gathered up and deposited with much ceremony in the common

tribal sepulchre. The Nanticoke and Choctaw scraped the flesh from the

bones, which were then wrapped in a bundle, and kept in a box within the

dwelling. Tree, scaffold, and cave burial were common on the plains and in

the mountains, while cremation was the rule in the arid regions father to

the west and south-west. Northward from the Columbia the body was deposited

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