CXXXVIII. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS--Continued…

CXXXVIII. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS--Continued

RELIGION--SUPERSTITION.

THE TERRIBLE ORDEAL OF THE MANDANS -- LEGEND OF THE FLOOD -- APPROACH OF THE FIRST MAN -- THE GREAT MEDICINE LODGE, AND ITS CONTENTS -- APPROACH OF THE CANDIDATES, AND DEPARTURE OF THE FIRST MAN -- BUFFALO DANCE, AND THE BIG CANOE -- APPROACH OF THE EVIL SPIRIT -- POWER OF THE MEDICINE PIPE -- COMMENCEMENT OF INITIATION -- TRIAL BY SUSPENSION -- SWOON AND RECOVERY -- THE LAST RACE -- TWO COURAGEOUS INITIATES -- LOOKING AT THE SUN -- RAIN MAKING -- THE WHITE BUFFALO HAIR, AND HIS PROWESS -- THE MEDICINE BAGS AND THE TOTEMS -- THE MEDICINE MAN AT WORK -- THE WOUNDED MAN AND SICK GIRL -- INITIATION OF THE MIDÉ ORDER -- THE PIPES OF PEACE AND WAR -- SACRIFICES.

We now come to the religious ceremonies of these remarkable tribes, and will begin with the terrible ordeal through which the youths have to pass before they can be acknowledged as men. Among the Mandans, this ordeal, for length and for severity, throws into the shade all the various ordeals of which we have read. Even the terrible gloves of the Mundurucú are mild when compared with the horrors of the Mandan initiation.

Until late years this ceremony was quite unknown. Every one who knew the people was aware that the Mandan youths had to pass through some terrible scenes of torture before they could take their place, among the warriors, but the details of the whole ceremony were kept a profound secret, and were never betrayed until Mr. Catlin, in his character of medicine man (which he had gained by his skill in painting), was permitted to be present. It is most fortunate that he did so, for the Mandan tribe has utterly perished, and thus the records of a most extraordinary superstition would have vanished. The ceremony is a very long and complicated one, and the following is a condensed account of it.

The ceremony has a religious aspect, and is, in fact, performed for the sake of propitiating the Great Spirit in favor of the young men who undergo it, so that he may make them valiant warriors and successful hunters. It has also another important object. Being conducted in the presence of the great chief and medicine man, it enables the leader of the tribe to watch the behavior of the young men who pass through the ordeal, and to decide upon their ability to sustain the various privations of Indian warfare.

The reader must first be told that among the Mandans there survived the legend of a flood which covered the earth, and from which only one man escaped in a large canoe. In the centre of the village there is a large open space, in which is a conventional representation of the “big canoe,” in which the First or Only Man escaped. It is not the least like a canoe, and in fact is nothing more than a sort of tub standing on one end. It is bound with wooden hoops, and is religiously preserved from injury, not the least scratch being allowed to defile its smooth surface.

The ceremony only takes place once in the year, the time being designated by the full expansion of the willow leaves under the banks of the river. The Mandans possess the legend of the bird flying to the big canoe with a leaf in its mouth, only with them the leaf is that of the willow, and not of the olive. The bird itself is held sacred, and, as it may not be injured, it may often be seen feeding on the tops of the Mandan huts.

Early on the morning of the appointed day, a figure is seen on a distant bluff, approaching with slow and stately steps. As soon as he is seen, the whole village becomes a scene of confusion, as if the enemy were attacking it. The dogs are caught and muzzled, the horses that are feeding on the surrounding pastures are driven into the village, the warriors paint their faces for battle, seize their spears, string their bows, and prepare their arrows.

In the midst of the confusion the First Man, or Nu-mohk-muck-a-nah, as he is called in the Mandan tongue, stalks into the central space, where the chief and principal warriors receive him and shake hands. He is a strange object to the eye. His nearly naked body is painted white, a white wolf-skin mantle is thrown over his shoulders, his head is decorated with plumes of ravens’ feathers, and in his left hand he bears his mystery pipe, which he treats with the greatest veneration.

After greeting the chief, he proceeds to the great medicine lodge, which is kept closed during the year, and has it swept and the floor strewn with fresh green boughs and aromatic herbs. Several skulls of men and bisons are laid on the floor, a number of new ropes are thrown over the beams, a quantity of strong wooden skewers are placed under them, and in the centre is built a slight platform, on the top of which is laid the chief medicine or mystery of the tribe. This is so sacred that no one is allowed to approach it except the conductor of the ceremony, and none but he ever knows what it is.

He next goes to every hut in succession, stands before the gate, and weeps loudly. When the owner comes out, the First Man narrates the circumstances of the flood and of his own escape, and demands an axe or a knife as a sacrifice to the Great Spirit. Every hut furnishes an edged tool of some kind; and when the tale is completed, they are carried into the medicine lodge. There they rest until the last day of the ceremonies when they are thrown into a deep pool in the river. No one is allowed to touch them, and there they lie until at some future day they will be discovered, to the great bewilderment of antiquarians.

From the moment that the First Man enters the village a dead silence reigns, a circumstance quite in opposition to the usual noisy habits of a native village. Where he sleeps no one knows, but at dawn of the following morning he again enters the village, as he had done before, and walks to the medicine lodge, whither he is followed by the candidates for initiation walking in Indian file, and each painted fantastically, and carrying his bow and arrows, his shield, and “medicine bag.” Of this article we shall learn more in a future page. In silence they seat themselves round the lodge, each having his weapons hung over his head.

Here they have to sit for four days, during which time they may not communicate with those on the outside of the hut, and are not allowed to eat, drink, or sleep. When they have taken their places, the First Man lights his pipe from the fire that is kept burning in the centre of the lodge, and makes an oration to the candidates, exhorting them to be courageous and enduring, and praying that the Great Spirit may give them strength to pass satisfactorily through the ordeal.

He then calls to him an old medicine man, and appoints him to be master of the ceremonies, handing him the mystery pipe as a symbol of office. Addressing the assembled company, he takes leave of the chiefs, saying that he will return in another year to re-open the lodge, and stalks slowly out of the village, disappearing over the bluffs whence he came. The master of the ceremonies then takes his place in the centre of the lodge, and relights the pipe, uttering with every whiff of smoke a petition to the Great Spirit in behalf of the candidates. For three full days they sit silently round the lodge, but outside it a strange series of ceremonies takes place.

Chief among them is the buffalo dance, in which the eight actors wear the entire skins of bisons, and carry on their backs a large bundle of slight twigs. They also carry a mystery rattle in one hand, and a slender staff in the other. They arrange themselves in four pairs round the Big Canoe, each pair corresponding with one of the cardinal points of the compass. Between each group dances a young man, two of them painted black and covered with white stars, so as to represent the night, and the other two painted red, to represent the day.

Beside the Big Canoe sit two medicine men, wearing the skins of grizzly bears, and threatening to devour the whole village. In order to appease their hunger, the women bring continual relays of meat in dishes, which are at once carried off to the prairie by men painted entirely black, except their heads, which are white. They are thus colored in imitation of the bald-headed eagle. As they run to the prairie they are pursued by a host of little boys painted yellow, with white heads, and called antelopes. After a severe chase they catch the eagle-men, seize the food, and devour it.

These dances occur several times daily, the performers being summoned by the master of the ceremonies, who comes out of the medicine lodge, followed by his immediate assistants, and proceeds to the Big Canoe, against which he leans, and weeps aloud as if in dire distress. The dance takes place four times on the first day, eight times on the second, twelve times on the third, and sixteen times on the fourth; the sound of the old man’s wailing cry being the signal for the dancers to issue from the hut in which they dress.

During each performance, the old medicine men who are beating their drums address the bystanders, telling them that the Great Spirit is pleased with their invocations, and that he has given them peace; that even their women and children can hold the mouths of grizzly bears; and that the evil spirit who is challenged by these rites has not dared to make his appearance. Thirty-two times during the four days this vaunt is made, and no evil spirit appears; but after the last day he comes, and a horrible-looking object he is.

On a distant bluff the evil spirit makes his appearance, rushing toward the village in a wild and devious course. Presently he enters the circle, perfectly naked, with his body painted black and covered with white rings, his mouth decorated with white indentations like great teeth, and holding in his hand a long magic staff tipped with a red ball. As he runs along, he slides this ball before him on the ground, and suddenly makes a rush at the groups of women who are witnessing the ceremony.

They fall back on each other in terror, and shriek for aid, which is given by the master of the ceremonies. As soon as he hears their cries, he runs from the Big Canoe, where he has been weeping, and holds his magic pipe in front of the intruder. The demon is instantly checked by its wondrous influence, and he stands as if petrified, each limb remaining in the attitude which it had taken when the pipe was held before him.

“This check gave the females an opportunity to get out of reach, and when they were free from their danger, though all hearts beat yet with the intensest excitement, their alarm was cooled down into the most exorbitant laughter and shouts of applause at his sudden defeat, and the awkward and ridiculous posture in which he was stopped and held. The old man was braced stiff by his side, with his eyeballs glaring him in the face, whilst the medicine pipe held in its mystic chain his satanic majesty, annulling all the powers of his magical wand, and also depriving him of the power of locomotion.

“Surely, no two human beings ever presented a more striking group than these two individuals did for a few moments, with their eyeballs set in direst mutual hatred upon each other; both struggling for the supremacy, relying on the potency of their medicine or mystery; the one held in check, with his body painted black, representing, or rather assuming to be, O-kee-hee-de (the Evil Spirit), frowning everlasting vengeance on the other, who sternly gazed him back with a look of exultation and contempt, as he held him in check and disarmed under the charm of his sacred mystery-pipe.”

This scene is repeatedly enacted, until the powers of the magic pipe are proved against the assaults of the evil one, and the people have gained confidence in its protection. The women then begin in their turn to assail their persecutor with jeers and laughter, until at last one of them snatches up a handful of mud and dashes it in his face. He is at once vanquished by this attack, and begins to weep piteously. Emboldened by this confession of weakness, another woman snatches away his magic staff, and breaks it across her knee. The fragments are seized by the surrounding women, who break them to pieces and fling them at the head of the demon. Being now deprived of all his power, he runs off across the prairie, followed for half a mile or so by the women, who pelt him with sticks, stones, and mud, until at last he effects his escape, and the village is rid of the evil spirit for another year.

Now the remainder of the initiation may proceed.

The little scaffold with its mystic burden is removed from the centre of the great medicine lodge, the hide ropes are passed through apertures in the roof to men who stand outside, and the master of the ceremonies, and his assistants, together with the chiefs and braves of the tribe, re-enter the lodge, and take up their positions.

The first candidate is now called, and, wasted by four days of abstinence from food, drink, or sleep, places himself in front of two of the operators. One of these, who is armed with a double edged knife, purposely blunted and notched, pinches up an inch or so of flesh of the shoulder or breast, and pushes the knife through it, between his finger and thumb and the body of the candidate. The knife is then withdrawn, and one of the wooden skewers forced through the aperture. This operation is repeated on the other shoulder or breast, on each arm just below the shoulder and below the elbow, upon each thigh, and upon each leg just below the knee.

While this operation is being performed, the candidates do not allow the slightest symptom of pain to escape them, and they even invite the spectators to watch their countenances, so as to ascertain that they betray no signs of suffering. They may well do so, for upon the verdict of these chiefs depends the consideration in which they will be held in after life, and no man has a chance of being appointed the leader of a war party if he has been seen to flinch during the ordeal.

As soon as these preparations are completed, two of the hide ropes are lowered from the roof, and hitched round the skewers on the breast or shoulders. To the others are hung the weapons of the candidate, while to those of the lower arm and leg are suspended the skulls of bisons. A signal is then given, and the poor wretch is hauled up into the air, when he swings suspended only by the two skewers, and sustaining not only his own weight but that of the heavy skulls, his feet being some six or eight feet from the ground. In this terrible position he has to remain until nature finally gives way, and he faints. The artist has represented this stage of the fearful ordeal on the following page.

“Surrounded,” writes Mr. Catlin, “by imps and demons, as they appear, a dozen or more, who seem to be concocting and devising means for his exquisite agony, gather around him, when one of the number advances toward him in a sneering manner, and commences turning him round with a pole which he brings in his hand for that purpose. This is done in a gentle manner at first, but gradually increased, until the poor fellow, whose proud spirit can control its agony no longer, bursts out in the most lamentable and heart-rending cries that the human voice is capable of producing, crying forth a prayer to the Great Spirit to support and protect him in this dreadful trial, and continually repeating his confidence in his protection.

“In this condition he is continued to be turned faster and faster, and there is no hope of escape for him, nor the chance for the slightest relief, until, by fainting, his voice falters, and his strugglings cease, and he hangs a still and apparently lifeless corpse. When he is by turning gradually brought to this condition, which is generally done within ten or fifteen minutes, there is a close scrutiny passed upon him among his tormentors, who are checking and holding each other back as long as the least struggling or tremor can be discovered; lest he should be removed before he is, as they term it, entirely dead.”

When they are satisfied, a signal is given to the rope-holders, and the senseless man is lowered to the ground, the skewers which passed through his breast are removed, and the ropes attached to another candidate. Just as he falls, he is allowed to lie, no one daring to touch him, for he has put himself under the protection of the Great Spirit, and to help him would be a sacrilege.

When he recovers a little strength, he crawls to another part of the lodge, where sits a medicine man with a bison skull before him, and an axe in his hand. Holding up the little finger of his left hand as a sacrifice to the Great Spirit, the initiate lays it upon the skull, when it is severed by a blow from the axe. Sometimes the fore-finger of the same hand is also offered, so that there are only left the thumb and the two middle fingers, which are all that are needed to hold the bow.

It is a point of honor with the initiates to recover as quickly as possible from their swoon, and the chief warriors all watch them narrowly on this point, inasmuch as rapidity of recovery is a proof that the individual is strong, and capable of enduring the hardships which every war party is nearly certain to undergo before their return.

The final scene of the initiation is called the Last Race, and is, if possible, even a more dreadful trial than any which the candidates have yet undergone. An illustration of it is also given the reader on the next page.

The reader will remember that, although the skewers by which the young men were suspended are removed as soon as they are lowered to the ground, there yet remain eight more, two in each arm, and two in each leg. To each of these is attached a heavy weight, such as the bison skull, and none of them may be drawn out. They must absolutely be torn out through the flesh by main force, and that this object may be accomplished the Last Race is run. Hitherto the ordeal has been confined to the interior of the medicine lodge, but the Last Race is run in the open air, and the whole of the inhabitants are spectators.

The master of the ceremonies leaves the medicine lodge, goes to the Big Canoe, leans his head against it, and sets up his wailing cry. At the sound of his voice twenty young men issue from the dressing hut, all of the same height, and all wearing beautiful war dresses of eagle quills. Each carries in one hand a wreath of willow boughs, and on reaching the Big Canoe they arrange themselves round it in a circle, holding the wreaths as connecting links. They then run round the canoe, from left to right, screaming and yelping at the top of their voices, and going as fast as their legs can carry them.

The candidates are now brought out of the medicine lodge, each trailing the heavy weights attached to his limbs, and are placed at equal intervals outside the ring of runners. As each takes his place, he is given into the charge of two powerful young men, who pass round each of his wrists a broad leathern strap, which they grasp firmly without tying.

As soon as all are ready, a signal is given, and the candidates are set running round the Big Canoe, outside the inner circle, each man being dragged along by his supporters, until the skulls and other weights tear out the skewers to which they are fastened. The bystanders yell and applaud at the tops of their voices, so as to drown the groans of the sufferers, should the force of nature extract a sound from them, and to encourage them to endure this last trial. It often happens that the flesh is so tough that the skewers cannot be dragged out, and in such cases the friends of the sufferers jump on the skulls as they trail along the ground so as to add their weight to them.

The candidates mostly faint before they have run very far, but they are still dragged round the circle, and not released until the last weight has been torn away. As soon as this occurs, the two men who have dragged their senseless charge loosen their holds, and run away as fast as they can, leaving the body lying on the ground. No one may touch the poor wretch; and there he lies, a second time in the keeping of the Great Spirit. After a few minutes he recovers his senses, rises, and staggers through the crowd to his own hut, where his friends meet him, and do their best to succor him.

The rule is absolute that the man may not be released until the skewers have been fairly torn through the flesh. Mr. Catlin relates two remarkable anecdotes illustrative of this fact. In the one case the skewer had been unfortunately passed under a sinew. The poor lad was in vain dragged round the ring, and in vain did his friends throw themselves on the elk skull that was hung to him. At last the spectators set up a cry of distress, and the master of the ceremonies stopped the runners, leaving the senseless body lying on the ground. Presently the lad recovered himself, looked at the cause of his torment, and with a pleasant smile crawled on his hands and knees to the prairie, where he remained for three days longer without food or drink, until suppuration took place, and enabled him to release himself from his encumbrance. He crawled on his hands and knees to his home, and, in spite of his sufferings, recovered in a few days.

In the other case, two of the weights attached to the arms could not be removed. The unfortunate wretch crawled to the precipitous bank of the river, and drove a stake into the ground. To this stake he fastened the weights by two ropes, and let himself down half-way to the water. In this terrible position he hung for more than two days, until the too stubborn flesh at last gave way, and let him fall into the water. He swam to the side, made his way up the steep bank, and recovered.

Such instances as these, terrible as they are at the time, are never regretted by those to whom they occur, as they offer means of proving their valor and endurance, and any one who has overcome them is held in much consideration by the rest of the tribe.

Dreadful as is the whole scene of suffering, and sufficient to kill an ordinary white man, several of the warriors have undergone it more than once, and Mr. Catlin saw by the scars left on the body and limbs that some of the chief Mandan braves had submitted to the torture no less than five times. Some part of the estimation in which such men are held is owing to the belief of the Mandans that the annual supply of bisons depends on the proper fulfilling of these ceremonies, and that the Great Spirit is gratified in proportion to the number of times that the rites are performed. Thus those who have undergone them repeatedly are benefactors to the tribe in general, and as such receive their gratitude.

A somewhat similar system prevails among the Dacotah or Sioux Indians, as they are generally called. This, however, is a voluntary proceeding very rarely seen, and one which is intended simply to raise the candidate to the rank of medicine man. A tall and slender pole is set firmly in the ground, and to the top of it is fastened one end of a rope, the other being made into a loop. The candidate for mystic honors takes his place at the pole before dawn, painted gaily, and holding his medicine bag in his hand. Just before the sun rises, two skewers are passed through his breast, as is done by the Mandans, and the loop of the rope is passed over them.

The man now stands opposite the spot where the sun will rise, fixes his eyes upon it, and leans backward so as to throw the whole weight of his body on the rope, his feet serving more to balance than sustain him. As the sun passes over the heavens, he moves gradually round, never speaking nor taking his eyes from it; and if he can endure this torture from sunrise to sunset without fainting, he earns the rank to which he aspires, together with all the valuable presents which are laid at the foot of the pole by his admirers.

There is great risk attending this practice. Should the man faint in spite of the shouts and cheering cries of his friends, and the prayers and songs of the medicine men who sit around the pole, chanting and beating their magic drums, his reputation is lost, and he will ever afterward be held up to ridicule as one who had the presumption to set up for a medicine man, and had no power to sustain the character.

The Mandans have a curious mode of obtaining the rank of medicine man, resembling in many points the rain making ceremonies of Africa. As they depend much for their subsistence on the maize which they grow, a drought is always a great calamity, and must be averted if possible. When such an event occurs, the women, whose business it is to till the ground, come to the chiefs and doctors, and beg them to make rain, lest the corn should die. A council is then held, and the medicine men assemble in the council-house, and go through their preliminary ceremonies. No one is allowed to enter the house except the medicine men and those candidates who aspire to that rank.

There are generally ten or fifteen young men who prize that rank so highly that they are willing to run the risk of failure, and to lose all reputation in their tribe if they fail in drawing down the rain from the sky. They are called one by one out of the lodge, and take their position on the roof, when they go through the ceremonies which they think will produce the desired rain. They stand there from sunrise to sunset, and if no rain falls, they go to their houses disgraced, and debarred from all hope of being admitted into the Council of the tribe. Should, however, the rain descend, the reputation of the rain maker is assured, and he is at once admitted into the council among the chiefs and greatest braves.

Mr. Catlin relates a curious account of rain making of which he was a witness. There had been a drought for some time in the land, and the rain makers had been at work for three days. On the first day a man named Wah-kee, or the Shield, essayed his fortune, and failed. The same fate befell Om-pah, or the Elk, in spite of his headdress made of the skin of the raven, the bird that soars amid the storm. Wa-rah-pa, or the Beaver, also tried and failed; and on the fourth day Wak-a-dah-ha-hee, the White Buffalo Hair, took his stand on the lodge. He placed his chief reliance on the red lightnings with which he had painted his shield, and the single arrow which he carried in his hand.

He made an oration to the people, saying that he was willing to sacrifice himself for the good of the tribe, and either to bring rain or live with the dogs and old women all his life. He explained that one candidate had failed because the shield warded off the rain clouds; that the second failed because the raven was a bird that soared above the storm, and so did not care whether it rained or not; and the third failed because the beaver was always wet, and did not require rain. But as for himself, the red lightnings on his shield should bring the black thunder-cloud, and his arrow should pierce the cloud and pour the water on the fields.

Now it happened that just at that time a steamboat, the first that had ever been up the Missouri, fired a salute from a twelve-pounder gun, as she came in sight of the Mandan village. The sound of the gun was naturally taken for thunder, and the village was filled with joy. Valuable gifts were presented on all sides to the successful candidate, mothers were bringing their daughters to offer them as his wives, and the medicine men were issuing from their lodge in order to admit him formally among themselves.

Suddenly, from his elevated post, Wak-a-dah-ha-hee saw the steamboat ploughing her way up the river, and emitting the thunder from her sides. He turned to the chiefs and the assembled multitude, and told them that, though the sounds were not those of thunder, his medicine was strong, and had brought a thunder-boat to the village. The whole population thronged to the bank in silent wonder, and in the excitement of the time even the rain maker was forgotten. The passengers landed among the Mandans, and for the rest of the day all was turmoil and confusion. Just before sunset the White Buffalo Hair spied a black cloud creeping up from the horizon, unnoticed by the excited crowd. In a moment he was on the roof of the council-house again, his bow strung and the arrow brandished in his hand. He renewed his boastings and adjurations, and as the cloud came over the village, he bent his bow and shot his arrow into the sky. Down came the rain in torrents, drenching the fortunate rain maker as he stood on the roof, still brandishing his thunder shield and vaunting its power.

The storm continued during the night, but unfortunately a flash of lightning entered a lodge, and killed a young girl. Consternation reigned throughout the village, and no one was more frightened than the newly-made medicine man, who feared that the Council would hold him responsible for the girl’s fate, and condemn him to a cruel death. Moreover, he really considered that he was in some way responsible, as he had left the top of the council-house before he had brought rain.

So, early in the morning, he sent his friends to bring him his three horses, and, as the sun rose, he again mounted the lodge and addressed the people. His medicine was too strong, he said. “I am young, and I was too fast. I knew not where to stop. The wigwam of Mah-sish is laid low, and many are the eyes that weep for Ko-ka (the Antelope). Wak-a-dah-ha-hee gives three horses to gladden the hearts of those that weep for Ko-ka. His medicine is great. His arrow pierced the black cloud, and the lightning came, and the thunder boat also. Who says that the medicine of Wak-a-dah-ha-hee is not strong?” This ingenious address was received with shouts of applause, and from that time to his death Wak-a-dah-ha-hee was known by the honorable title of the “Big Double Medicine.”

We will now glance at the medicine bag, which plays so important a part among all the tribes of North America.

When a boy is fourteen or fifteen years old, he is sent into the woods to find his medicine. He makes a couch of boughs, and then lies without food or drink for several days, the power of his medicine being in proportion to the length of his fast. So severe is this discipline that instances have been known when the lad has died from the long abstinence to which he subjected himself. When he has endured to the utmost, he yields himself to sleep, and the first beast, bird, or reptile of which he dreams becomes his “medicine.”

He then returns home, and as soon as he has recovered a little strength, he goes out in search of his medicine, and, having killed it, preserves the skin in any shape which his fancy may dictate. It is mostly sewed up in the form of a bag, and contains one or two other charms. The reader will see that the size of the medicine bag is exceedingly variable, according to the size of the creature from whose skin it is formed. Sometimes it is three feet or more in length, and often it is so small that it can be concealed under the garments of the owner.

From the medicine bag the Indian never parts. He considers its presence absolutely indispensable to ensure success in any undertaking, and even carries it into battle, where he trusts to it for protection. Should he lose it in battle, he is utterly disgraced, and there is only one way of restoring himself to reputation. An Indian can only “make his medicine” once, so that he may not restore it by another probation of fasting and dreaming. But if he can slay an enemy in open battle, and take his medicine bag, his status in the tribe is restored, and he thenceforth assumes the medicine of the slain man in exchange for his own. If a man who has not lost his own medicine succeeds in capturing one from an enemy in fair battle, he is entitled to assume a “double-medicine,” and never loses an opportunity of displaying both the medicine bags as trophies of his prowess. Taking a medicine bag is as honorable as taking a scalp, and the successful warrior has the further advantage of being doubly protected by the two charms.

Very few instances have been known where an Indian has voluntarily parted with his medicine bag, and in such cases scarcely any display of valor will reinstate him in the opinion of his tribe. Sometimes he can be induced by the solicitation of white men to bury it, but he treats the grave as if it were that of a revered relation, hovering about it as much as possible, lying over the sacred spot, and talking to the bag as if it were alive. Sometimes he offers sacrifices to it; and, if he be a wealthy man, he will offer a horse.

Such a sacrifice as this takes rank as a public ceremony. A long procession goes to the prairie, the lead being taken by the owner of the medicine bag, driving before him the horse, which must always be the best he possesses. The animal is curiously painted and branded, and is held by a long lasso. When the procession arrives at the appointed spot, the sacrificer makes a long prayer to the Great Spirit, and then slips the lasso from the animal, which from that time takes its place among the wild horses of the prairie, and if at any time caught by the lasso, is at once recognized by the brand, and set free again. Such a sacrifice as this is appreciated very highly by the tribe, and gives the man the privilege of recording the circumstance on his mantle and tent. One Mandan chief sacrificed in this way no less than seventeen horses.

In connection with the medicine bag may be mentioned the “totem,” or mark by which each family is known. This is mostly an animal, such as a wolf, a bear, a dog, a tortoise, &c. If a chief wishes to show that he and his party have passed a given spot, he strikes with his axe a chip off a tree and draws on the white surface his totem. Or, if he sends an order to a distance, he draws his totem on a piece of bark, and gives it to his messenger as a token.

To return to the medicine man. He is best seen to advantage when exercising his art upon a sick person. He wears for this purpose one of the most extraordinary dresses which the mind of man ever conceived. No two medicine men wear a similar costume, but in all it is absolutely essential that every article shall be abnormal. Mr. Catlin saw one of these men called in to practise on a Blackfoot Indian, who had been shot through the body with two bullets. There was not the least chance of his recovery, but still the medicine man must be summoned. His strange, grotesque appearance, and the wild ceremony over the sick man are vividly represented on page 1311.

A ring was formed round the dying man, and a lane was preserved through them, by which the mystery man would make his appearance. In a few minutes a general hush-h-h ran through the assembly as the tinkling and rattling of his ornaments heralded the approach of the wise man. As he entered the ring, nothing could surpass the wild grotesqueness of his costume. By way of a coat, he wore the skin of a yellow bear--an article exceedingly rare in North America, and therefore in itself a powerful medicine. The skin of the head was formed into a mask, which entirely hid the features of the enchanter. The skins of various animals dangled from his dress, and in one hand he held his magic wand, and in the other the mystery drum, which contained the arcana of his order.

His actions were worthy of his appearance. He came in with a series of wild jumps and yells, accompanied with the rattling and beating of his magic drum as he approached the dying man. Having reached his patient, he began to dance round him to the accompaniment of his drum, to leap over him, to roll him from side to side, and in every imaginable way to render his last hours unendurable. In fact, the man might well die, if only to be rid of his physician. In a short time he did die; but the man, not in the least disconcerted at the failure of his efforts, danced out of the circle as he had entered it, and went off to his lodge to take off and pack up his official dress.

A somewhat similar scene was witnessed by Mr. P. Kane, in which the mode of manipulation was almost identical, though the medicine man, instead of disguising himself in a strange dress, went just to the opposite extreme. The story is narrated in Mr. Kane’s “Wanderings of an Artist,” being as follows:--

“About ten o’clock at night I strolled into the village, and on hearing a great noise in one of the lodges, I entered it, and found an old woman supporting one of the handsomest Indian girls I had ever seen. She was in a state of nudity. Cross-legged and naked, in the middle of the room, sat the medicine man, with a wooden dish of water before him; twelve or fifteen other men were sitting round the lodge. The object in view was to cure the girl of a disease affecting her side. As soon as my presence was noticed, a space was cleared for me to sit down.

“The officiating medicine man appeared in a state of profuse perspiration, from the exertions he had used, and soon took his seat among the rest, as if quite exhausted; a younger medicine man then took his place in front of the bowl, and close beside the patient. Throwing off his blanket, he commenced singing and gesticulating in the most violent manner, whilst the others kept time by beating with little sticks on hollow wooden bowls and drums, singing continually. After exercising himself in this manner for about half an hour, until the perspiration ran down his body, he darted suddenly upon the young woman, catching hold of her side with his teeth, and shaking her for a few minutes, while the patient seemed to suffer great agony. He then relinquished his hold, and cried out he had got it, at the same time holding his hands to his mouth; after which he plunged them in the water, and pretended to hold down with great difficulty the disease which he had extracted, lest it might spring out and return to its victim.

“At length, having obtained the mastery over it, he turned round to me in an exulting manner, and held something up between the finger and thumb of each hand, which had the appearance of a piece of cartilage; whereupon one of the Indians sharpened his knife, and divided it in two, leaving one in each hand. One of the pieces he threw into the water and the other into the fire, accompanying the action with a diabolical noise, which none but a medicine man can make. After which he got up perfectly satisfied with himself, although the poor patient seemed to me anything but relieved by the violent treatment she had undergone.”

Mr. Mulhausen relates an amusing anecdote of a native doctor’s practice upon himself. He had suffered so much in a long march that he was at last compelled to ask for a day’s rest. One of his companions, a medicine man, immediately tried the effect of his art. First he kneaded the body, and especially the stomach, of the prostrated traveller with all his force. This was to drive out the evil spirit; and, in order to effectually exorcise him, he procured his drum, and seated himself on the ground.

Placing the drum close to the ear of his patient, he kept up a continual rub-a-dub for two whole hours, singing the magic chant the while, until, in spite of his wounded feet, Mr. Mulhausen crawled out of the tent in sheer despair. The triumphant doctor wiped his streaming brows, and, declaring that no evil spirit could withstand such a medicine as that, gave the signal for resuming the march.

Among the Ojibbeways there is a remarkable ceremony by which an infant is received into the order of the Midés, a society in some degree resembling the Freemasons, the members of which consider themselves as related to each other, and addressing each other by the names of uncle, aunt, brother, sister, cousin, &c.

A temple, forty feet in length, was constructed for the express purpose, and built of boughs, like the bowers of the Feast of Tabernacles. It was built east and west, and had the entrance door at the eastern end, and the exit door at the western. In the middle sit the great Midés, each with his mystery bag, and opposite them sits the father of the child, dressed in his full paraphernalia of feathers, furs, and scalp-locks, and holding in his arms the child, lying tied on its board after the manner of Indian babies. On either side of him are the witnesses of the reception, and eastward of the chief Midés lies a large rough stone, which prevents the evil spirit.

The ceremony begins with an address of the principal Midé, and then the chiefs rise, and after walking in procession, each of them runs at one of the guests, presenting his medicine bag at him, and yelling in quickening accents, “Ho! ho! hohohoho! O! O! O! O! O!” As he presents the bag, the breath proceeding from it is supposed to overcome the person to whom it is presented, who falls down and lies there motionless. Having struck one person down, the Midé runs round the temple, to allow the medicine bag to recover its strength, and then presents it to another victim. This process is repeated until all the inmates of the hut, with the exception of the officiating Midés, are lying prostrate on the ground, where they lie until a touch from the same bag restores them to life and activity. This ceremony is repeated several times during the day, and is intended to show the virtue of the medicine bag.

The father then presents his child to the Midés, after which there is another speech from the chief Midé, and then follows a curious dance, consisting of two leaps to the right and two to the left alternately. After this, every one produces his medicine bag, and tries to blow down everybody else. And, as the bags are covered with tinkling bells, bits of metal, and shells, and the principal Midés are beating their drums and shaking their rattles with all their might, it may be imagined that the noise is deafening.

This completed the first part of the ceremony. In the next act, a pile of boughs covered with a cloth lay in front of the evil stone, and the chief Midé summoned all the initiated. They formed a procession of men, women, and children, and walked round the lodge, each stooping over the cloth as he passed, and looking at it. The second time they stooped closer, and the third time they were seized with convulsive movements as they approached the cloth, and each ejected from the mouth a little yellow shell upon the cloth. By the ejection of the shell (which typifies the sinful nature of man) the convulsions are healed, and, after going once more round the lodge, each performer takes one of the shells and places it in the medicine bag.

The last scene was a general feast, and gifts of amulets and charms presented by the chief Midés to the child.

One of the most pleasing traits in the character of these tribes is the strong religious feeling which pervades the general tenor of their lives, and which has raised them above the rank of mere savages. However imperfect may be their ideas on this subject, they are not idolaters, and give all their worship, either directly or indirectly, to one Great Spirit, whose aid and protection they continually invoke.

They believe in future existence and a future recompense according to their character in this life. Whatever their superstitions and ignorance, the mysteries enveloping their belief, there is running clearly through them all, these great doctrines accepted by the civilized Christian races.

To the Great Spirit they ascribe the possession of all the necessaries and pleasures of life, and to him they offer their prayers and return their thanks on almost every occasion. For example, the bisons, on which many of the tribes depend for food, clothing, and lodging, are held to be direct gifts of the Great Spirit to the red men, and asked for accordingly. The same is the case with the maize, or Indian corn, and religious ceremonies are held both at the planting and at the harvest time.

Tobacco is placed in the same category, and the smoke of the plant is considered to be a sort of incense, which is offered to the Great Spirit whenever a pipe is lighted, one wreath of smoke being blown silently to each quarter of the heavens, and to the sun, as an acknowledgment that the tobacco is a gift of the Great Spirit. Indeed, to the Indian mind there is something peculiarly sacred about tobacco smoke, probably on account of the soothing, and at the same time exhilarating, properties which have caused its use to extend to every portion of the globe.

Every religious ceremony is begun and ended with the pipe; war is declared, volunteers enlisted, negotiations conducted, and peace concluded, by its means. The character of the pipe varies with the occasion, the most valued being the sacred calumet, or medicine pipe, by which are settled the great questions of war and peace.

Among the Cree Indians the calumet is borne by a man who is solemnly elected to the office, and who has to pay rather dearly for the honor, from fifteen to twenty horses being the usual fee which each pipe bearer presents to his predecessor on receiving the insignia of office. These, however, are of considerable intrinsic value. They include a bear skin, on which he lays the pipe-stem when uncovered, a beautifully painted skin tent, in which he is expected to reside, a medicine rattle of singular virtue, a food bowl, and other articles so numerous that two horses are needed to carry them.

During his term of office, the pipe bearer is as sacred as the calumet itself. He always sits on the right side of the lodge, and no one may pass between him and the fire. He is not even allowed to cut his own food, but this is done by his wives, and the food placed in the official bowl which has just been mentioned. The pipe, with its innumerable wrappers, hangs outside the lodge, and is finally enclosed in a large bag, embroidered with the most brilliant colors which native art can furnish.

When it is uncovered, great ceremony is shown. No matter how severe may be the weather,--sometimes far below zero,--the bearer begins his operations by removing all his garments with the exception of his cloth, and then pours upon a burning coal some fragrant gum, which fills the place with smoke. He then carefully removes the different wrappers, fills the bowl with tobacco, and blows the smoke to the four points of the compass, to the sky, and to the earth, at each puff uttering a prayer to the Great Spirit for assistance in war against all enemies, and for bison and corn from all quarters. The pipe is replaced with similar ceremonies. No woman is allowed to see it, and if during the beginning of the ceremony a single word is spoken, it is looked upon as a very bad omen, and all the ceremony has to be begun again.

The bowl of the calumet is made of a peculiar stone, found, I believe, only in one place in the world, namely, in the Great Pipe-stone Quarry. This is situated in the Côteau des Prairies, about three hundred miles west of the Falls of St. Anthony, on the southern summit of the dividing ridge between the Minnesota and Missouri rivers, in the very middle of the Sioux territory. On this sacred spot the Great Spirit is said to have stood in the ancient times, and to have called together all the Indian nations. He broke from the rock a piece of stone, moulded it in his hands into a huge pipe bowl, and smoked it toward the four quarters of the compass. Then he told them that the ground was sacred, and that no weapon of war should be raised in it, for the red stone was their flesh, and belonged equally to them all. At the last whiff of the pipe the Great Spirit disappeared in the cloud, and the whole ground was melted, and became polished as at the present time.

In consequence of this legend, the Indians have the greatest reverence for this place. They will not allow any white man to touch the stone, or even to approach the place, if they can keep him away, saying that the stone is their flesh, and that if a white man takes the red men’s flesh, “a hole will be made in their flesh, and the blood will never stop running.”

Even the natives themselves never take a piece without asking permission of the Great Spirit, depositing tobacco in the hole whence they dug it, and promising that it shall be made into a pipe. When Mr. Catlin succeeded in reaching this sacred spot, one of the chief obstacles lay in the fact that a native had once given a piece of the red stone to a white man in order to be made into a pipe, and he had made it into a dish, thereby offending the Great Spirit, and “making the heart of the Indians sick.”

Mr. Catlin’s opinion is, that the red pipes, found among almost every tribe of Indians on the continent, were obtained at this place. His reasons are that every tribe he visited alleged this as their source; and furthermore, the stone from which they are made is different from any mineral yet discovered in America or Europe. He expresses the conviction substantiated by striking proof that the various tribes had for centuries visited this quarry, laying aside the war club and scalping knife, and smoking together in amity upon this neutral ground by command, as they thought, of the Great Spirit.

This stone is of a soft, creamy red color, rather variable in point of tint, and taking a peculiar polish. It has been analyzed, and is said to be a kind of steatite. It is cut into various fanciful shapes, those shown in the illustration on the next page being ordinary examples, though in some cases the bowls are adorned with figures of men and various animals. Some of these pipe heads have two bowls, one in front of the other.

These bowls are fitted with stems worthy of their sacred character. They are generally made of the stalk of the young ash, and are often adorned in the most elaborate manner. They are mostly flat, and sometimes are twisted spirally and perforated with open patterns in such a way that the observer cannot but marvel how the aperture for the smoke is made. After all, the mode of boring is simple enough. As every one knows who has cut a young ash sapling, the centre is occupied with pith. This is easily burned out with a hot wire, or bored out with a piece of hard wood, and the aperture is completed.

Afterward the wood is cut away on two sides, so as to leave only a flat stem, with the bore occupying the centre. The perforated patterns are next cut at either side of the bore, being carefully kept clear of it; and if the stem be then softened in boiling water, it can be made to assume almost any shape. One valued but rather rare form is a screw, or spiral, and several of the pipes in Mr. Catlin’s collection have this form.

The stems are very seldom left bare, but are almost invariably decorated with colored porcupine quills, woven into various patterns, sometimes representing the forms of men and animals. The calumet is always decorated with a row of eagle feathers, sometimes stained scarlet, and being tufted at their ends with slight plumes of hair. Indeed, this portion of the calumet is formed on exactly the same principle as the headdress of the chief, of which a drawing is given on page 1277. An example of this kind of pipe is shown in the upper figure, on page 1315. Many pipes, instead of feathers, have long tufts of hair dyed scarlet. This hair is taken either from the tail of a white horse or that of a white bison, as in the lower figure of the same illustration. The woodpecker furnishes many ornaments for these pipes, and sometimes the stem passes through the preserved skin of a bird, or through that of a particularly beautiful ermine. But whatever may be the ornament of a medicine pipe, it is always the very best and most valuable that can be procured. The stem of the pipe varies from two to four feet.

The natives do not restrict themselves to tobacco, but smoke many narcotic vegetables, whether leaves, roots, or bark. These are generally mixed with tobacco, and go by the general name of k’neck-k’neck.

The custom of sacrifice obtains among all Indian tribes and is performed in various ways and upon many occasions. Cruel as the Indian is reputed to be, none of the tribes, except the Pawnees, have ever made human sacrifices; and these many years since abandoned the inhuman custom.

Their offerings to the Great Spirit must consist of the best of their possessions: the choicest piece of buffalo meat, the finest arrow, the most costly piece of cloth, the favorite horse or dog, and sometimes their own fingers. Such offerings are erected over the great medicine lodge in the centre of the village. When Mr. Catlin was among the Mandans there was placed there beside other gifts a beautiful skin of a buffalo, the history of which he gives as follows:--“A few weeks since a party of Mandans returned from the mouth of the Yellow Stone with information that a party of Blackfeet were there on business with the American Fur Company, and that they had with them a white buffalo robe. Such a robe is a great curiosity, even in the country of buffaloes, and will always command an incredible price. Being the most costly article in the region it is usually converted into a sacrifice, being offered to the Great Spirit as the rarest and most acceptable gift that can be procured. Among the vast herds of buffaloes there is not one in a hundred thousand, perhaps, that is white; and when such is obtained it is considered a great medicine or mystery.

“Receiving the intelligence above mentioned the chiefs convened in council and deliberated on the propriety of procuring this valuable robe. At the close of their deliberation eight men were fitted out on eight of their best horses, who took from the Fur Company’s store, on the credit of the chief, goods exceeding the value of the horses. They arrived in due time, made the purchase, and leaving their horses and all the goods carried, returned on foot, bringing the coveted robe, which was regarded as vastly curious and containing (as they express it) something of the Great Spirit. This wonderful anomaly lay several days in the chief’s lodge, till public curiosity was gratified; then it was taken by the high priests, and with a great deal of ceremony consecrated and raised on the top of a long pole over the medicine lodge, where it stands and will stand as an offering to the Great Spirit, until it decays and falls to the ground.”

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CXXXIX. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS--Continued

SOCIAL LIFE.

MARRIAGE -- AN ENTERPRISING BRIDEGROOM, AND HIS SUDDEN ELEVATION TO RANK -- TREATMENT OF WOMEN -- TREATMENT OF CHILDREN -- PORTRAIT OF PSHAN-SHAW -- OF INDIAN BOY -- THE CRADLE -- THE FLAT-HEADED TRIBES -- AFFECTION OF THE MOTHERS -- THE COUCH OF MOURNING -- ABANDONING THE SICK AND OLD -- DANCES OF THE TRIBES -- GAMES -- THE SPEAR AND RING GAME -- PAGESSAN, OR THE BOWL GAME -- THE BALL PLAY -- THE BALL DANCE -- STARTING THE GAME, AND EXCITING SCENES -- THE WOMEN’S BALL PLAY -- HORSE-RACING -- CANOE-MAKING -- THE CANOE RACE -- PRIMITIVE SAILS -- SWIMMING -- THE LEAPING ROCK -- QUILL ORNAMENTS -- BARK-BITING -- WIGWAMS -- MUSIC -- PLEDGE OF FIDELITY -- DISPOSAL OF THE DEAD -- BURIAL OF BLACKBIRD -- REFLECTIONS UPON CHARACTER AND DESTINY OF THE INDIANS.

The ordinary social life of these interesting tribes now comes before us. As to marriage, there is little to distinguish it from the same ceremony among other uncivilized tribes, the girl being in fact purchased from her father, and her affections not necessarily, though generally, considered. A man may have as many wives as he can afford to keep, and when he can purchase four or five, their labor in the field is worth even more to the household than his exertions in the hunting field.

Mr. Catlin relates one rather amusing wedding.

There was a young lad, the son of a chief, whom his father started in life with a handsome wigwam, or tent, nine horses, and many other valuable presents. On receiving these presents, the young man immediately conceived a plan by which he could perform an act which would be unique. He went to one of the chiefs, and asked for the hand of his daughter, promising in return two horses, a gun, and several pounds of tobacco. The marriage was fixed for a certain day, but the transaction was to be kept a profound secret until the proper time. Having settled the business, he went to three other chiefs, and made exactly the same bargain with each of them, and imposed silence equally upon all.

On the appointed day, he announced to the tribe that he was to be married at a certain hour. The people assembled, but no one knew who was to be the bride, while each of the four fathers stood proudly by his daughter, inwardly exulting that he alone was in the secret. Presently the young bridegroom advanced to the chief to whom he had made the first offer, and gave him, according to his promise, the two horses, the gun, and the tobacco. The other three fathers immediately sprang forward, each denouncing the whole affair, and saying that the offer was made to his daughter, and to his alone. In the midst of great confusion, which was partially quelled by the chiefs and doctors, the young bridegroom addressed the assembly, saying that he had promised each of the claimants two horses, a gun, and a certain amount of tobacco in exchange for his daughter, and that he expected them to fulfil their part of the contract. There was no gainsaying the argument, and in the sight of the admiring spectators, he delivered the stipulated price into the hands of the parents, and led off his four brides, two in each hand, to his wigwam.

The action was so bold, and so perfectly unique, that the doctors immediately determined that a lad of nineteen who could act in this manner must have a very strong medicine, and was worthy to be ranked among themselves. So they at once installed him a member of their mystery, thereby placing him on a level with the greatest of the tribe, and by that bold coup the lad raised himself from a mere untried warrior to the height of native ambition, namely, a seat in the Council, and a voice in the policy of the tribe.

The Indian women are the slaves of their husbands. They have to perform all the domestic duties and drudgeries of the tribe, and are never allowed to unite in their religious ceremonies or amusements.

That the reader may form a better idea of the appearance and dress of the women, I have given on the preceding page the portrait of a beautiful girl of the Riccarees (a part of the Pawnee tribe), whose name is Pshan-shaw (the Sweet-scented Grass). “The inner garment, which is like a frock, is entire in one piece, and tastefully ornamented with embroidery and beads. A row of elk’s teeth passes across the breast, and a robe of young buffalo’s skin, elaborately embroidered, is gracefully thrown over her shoulders, and hangs down to the ground behind her.”

On the same page the reader may find, as illustrative of Indian childhood, a portrait of the grandson of a chief of the Blackfeet, a boy of six years of age. He is represented at full length, with bow and quiver slung, and his robe of raccoon skin thrown over his shoulder. This young chief, his father dying, was twice stolen by the Crows, and twice recaptured by the Blackfeet, and then placed in the care of a Mr. M’Kenzie until he should be old enough to assume the chieftainship of his tribe, or be able to defend himself against his foes.

The Indian mothers do not have many children, possibly owing to the early age at which they marry. For example, the ages of the four brides just mentioned ranged from twelve to fifteen. Two or three is the average, and a family of five is considered quite a large one.

The children are carried about much in the same way as those of the Araucanians. A sort of cradle is made by bandaging the infant to a flat board, the feet resting on a broad hoop that passes over the end of the cradle. Another hoop passes over the face of the child, and to it are hung sundry little toys and charms; the one for the amusement of the infant, and the other for its preservation through the many perils of infantile life. When the mother carries the child, she hangs the cradle on her back by means of a broad strap that passes over her forehead. Both the cradle and band are ornamented with the most brilliant colors which native art can furnish, and are embroidered in various patterns with dyed porcupine quills.

Among the tribes which inhabit the banks of the Columbia River, and a considerable tract that lies contiguous to it, the cradle is put to a singular use, which has earned for the tribes the general title of Flat-heads. To the upper part of the cradle is fastened a piece of board, which lies on the child’s forehead. To the other end of the board are fastened two strings, which pass round the foot or sides of the cradle. As soon as the infant is laid on its back, the upper board is brought over its forehead, and fastened down by the strings. Every day the pressure is increased, until at last the head is so flattened that a straight line can be drawn from the crown of the head to the nose. One of these cradles with a child undergoing this process of head flattening, is illustrated below. The mother’s head is a type of its permanent effect.

This is perhaps the most extraordinary of all the fashionable distortions of the human body, and the wasp waist of an European belle, the distorted leg of the female Carib, and even the cramped foot of the Chinese beauty, appear insignificant when compared with the flattened head of a Chinnook or Klick-a-tack Indian. Mr. Catlin states that this custom was one far more extended than is the case at present, and that even the Choctaw and Chickasaw tribes of Mississippi and Alabama were accustomed to flatten their heads, their burial-places affording incontrovertible evidence that such must have been the case, and at no very distant date.

The reader, especially if he dabble in phrenology, might well imagine that such a practice must act injuriously upon the mental capacities of those who are subjected to it. Let us, for example, fancy a skull which has been so ruthlessly compressed that it only measures an inch and a half, or at the most two inches, in depth, at the back; that it is in consequence much elongated, and forced outward at the sides, so that it is nearly half as wide again as it would have been if it had been permitted to assume its normal form. The hair, combed down in one place, and expanding in others, would seem to have its natural capabilities much altered, even if not in many cases destroyed. Yet those who have mixed with the Flat-headed tribes say that the intellect is in no way disturbed, much less injured, and that those members of the tribe who have escaped the flattening process are in no way intellectually superior to those who have undergone it. Indeed, as Mr. P. Kane observes, in his “Wanderings of an Artist,” the Chinnooks despise those who retain the original shape of their heads. They always select their slaves from the round-headed tribes, the flattened head being the sign of freedom.

There is another point about the head flattening which deserves attention. Seeing that it is begun almost in the same hour that the infant is born, and is continued for eight months to a year or more, it might naturally be imagined that it would cause considerable pain to the child, and in many cases be dangerous to life. This, however, is not the case; and that it should not be so is one of the many proofs of the extent to which the human frame may be distorted without permanent injury. Mr. Kane’s remarks are as follows:--

“It might be supposed, from the extent to which this is carried, that the operation would be attended with great suffering to the infant, but I have never heard the infants crying or moaning, although I have seen the eyes seemingly starting out of the sockets from the great pressure. But on the contrary, when the lashings were removed, I have noticed them cry until they were replaced. From the apparent dulness of the children while under pressure, I should imagine that a state of torpor or insensibility is induced, and that the return to consciousness occasioned by its removal must be naturally followed by the sense of pain.”

Should a child die before it is old enough to be released from the cradle, the mother is not released from her maternal duties, but, on the contrary, continues to perform them as assiduously as if the little creature were living.

After the child is buried, she makes a “mourning-cradle,” i. e. in the place which the child had formerly occupied she places a large bundle of black feathers, by way of representative of the deceased infant, and treats it in all respects as if the little one still occupied the cradle. She carries it on her back wherever she goes, and when she rests, stands it upright against a tree or the side of the hut, and talks to it as if to a living child. This custom is continued for at least a year, and in many cases is extended even beyond that period. And, though a bereaved mother may be so poor as scarcely to have sufficient clothing for herself, she will contrive to decorate the cradle of her lost child with the appropriate ornaments.

As a rule, the North American Indians are affectionate parents. Mr. Catlin mentions an instance where he had painted a portrait of a married woman, the daughter of a chief. Some time afterward she died, and the father, happening to see and recognize the portrait of his lost daughter, offered ten horses--an enormous price for an American Indian to pay. Of course the portrait was presented to him at once.

Parental affection is fully reciprocated by the children, and the greatest respect paid by the younger to the elder men. Yet we find even among them, as among so many tribes which lead a semi-nomad existence, the custom of abandoning the sick and aged when they are obliged to make a forced march of any distance.

This is generally done at the instance of the victims themselves, who say that they are old and useless, and can be only an encumbrance to the rest of the tribe. Accordingly, a rude shelter is formed of a bison hide stretched over four upright rods, under which the sick man is laid; a basin of water and some food are placed by his side; and he is left to perish, if not by privation or disease, by the ranging flocks of wolves that roam the prairies.

* * * * *

We will now pass to a more agreeable phase in the life of these tribes, and take a glance at their dances and games.

It has been the prevalent impression that the Indian is taciturn, unsocial, and morose. Mr. Catlin, whose testimony cannot be impeached, takes considerable pains to correct this opinion; and states as the result of his travels among the Indian tribes, that “they are a far more talkative and conversational race than can easily be seen in the civilized world. No one can look into the wigwams of these people, or into any little momentary group of them, without being at once struck with the conviction that small talk, garrulity, story-telling and amusements, are leading passions with them.” To watch their games, and hear their shouts of exultation, in any of their villages, to sit down in their lodges and listen to their jokes, repartee, anecdote and laughter, would effectually banish this erroneous opinion so generally held in regard to the Red Men. With no anxieties for the future--no necessities goading them, it is natural that they should be a merry people, and most of their life be spent in sports and games.

The Indian fondness for amusement is shown in the great variety of their dances, most of which are very fanciful and picturesque, though some of them have a religious significance. There are the ball-play dance, pipe dance, buffalo and scalp dances (already described), beggar’s, bear, and dog dances. But the most pleasing of all are the eagle dance, dance of the braves which is peculiarly attractive, and the green corn and snow-shoe dances. The latter is exceedingly picturesque, and the artist has represented it on the preceding page.

Before the first snow shoe hunt, the Indians always perform a dance by way of thanksgiving to the Great Spirit for sending the snow which will enable them to live in plenty so long as it lasts. Several spears are stuck upright in the snow covered ground, on one of which are tied a pair of snow shoes, and on the others sundry sacred feathers and similar objects. The dancers, clad in hunting dress, and wearing snow shoes, go round and round the spears, imitating the while all the movements of the chase, and singing a song of thanksgiving.

Nearly all the tribes, however remote from each other, have a season of festivity annually, when the ears of corn are large enough for eating. Green corn is regarded a great luxury, and is dealt out with most improvident profusion--the festivities lasting eight or ten days. The whole tribe feast and surfeit upon it so long as it lasts, making sacrifices, singing songs of thanksgiving to the Great Spirit, and celebrating the green corn dance. Every occupation is suspended during these festivities, and all unite in the carnival of gluttony and merriment. Mr. Catlin thus describes this dance:--“At the time when the corn is thought to be nearly ready for use, several of the old women, who have fields or patches of corn (the men disdain such degrading occupations as cultivating the field or garden), are appointed by the medicine men to examine the cornfields at sunrise every day, and bring to the council house several ears of corn, which they must on no account break open or look into. When the doctors, from their examination, decide that the corn is suitable, they send criers to proclaim to every part of the village or tribe that the Great Spirit has been kind, and they must meet next day to return thanks to Him. In the midst of the assembled tribe, a kettle filled with corn is hung over a fire. While this corn is being boiled, four medicine men, each with a stalk of corn in one hand and a rattle in the other, their bodies painted with white clay, dance around it chanting a thanksgiving to the Great Spirit, to whom the corn is to be offered. In a more extended circle around them, a number of warriors dance, joining in the same song. During this scene, wooden bowls are laid upon the ground, in which the feast is to be dealt out.”

When the doctors decide that the corn is sufficiently boiled, the dance assumes a different form, and a new song is sung, the doctors in the meantime placing the corn on a scaffold of sticks built over the fire, where it is consumed. This fire is then removed, the ashes are all buried, and a new fire is originated on the same spot, and in the same way as by the Hottentots, described on page 100. Then corn is boiled for the feast, at which the doctors and warriors are seated. An unlimited license is given to the whole tribe, who mingle excess and amusement until the fields of corn are stripped, or it has become too hard for eating.

The dance of the braves is beautiful and exciting in the highest degree:--“At intervals the dancers stop, and one of them steps into the ring and vociferates as loudly as possible the feats of bravery which he has performed during his life.... He boasts of the scalps he has taken, and reproduces the motions and actions of the scenes in which his exploits were performed. When his boasting is concluded, all assent to the truth of his story, and express their approval by the guttural ‘waugh!’ Then the dance commences again. At the next interval another makes his boast, and so another and another, till all have given a narrative of their heroic deeds, and proved their right to be associated with the braves of the nation.”

The dog dance, though a favorite with the Sioux, is not an attractive one.

The hearts and livers of two or more slain dogs are placed entire and uncooked upon two crotches, about as high as a man’s head, and are cut into strips so as to hang down. The dance then commences, which consists in each one proclaiming his exploits in loud, almost deafening gutturals and yells. At the same time the dancers, two at a time, move up to the stake, and bite off a piece of the heart and swallow it. All this is done without losing step or interrupting the harmony of their voices. The significance of the dance is that none can share in it but the braves who can boast that they have killed their foe in battle and swallowed a piece of his heart.

Among the Sacs and Foxes there are several singular dances, besides some already mentioned, viz: the slave dance (a very curious one), dance to the Berdashe, which is an amusing scene, and dance to the medicine of the brave. There is a tender and beautiful lesson conveyed in this latter dance. In the illustration of it on page 1322, a party of Sac warriors are represented as returned victorious from battle, with the scalps they have taken as trophies. Having lost one of their party, they appear and dance in front of his wigwam fifteen days in succession, about an hour each day, the widow having hung his medicine bag on a green bush, which she erects before her door, and under which she sits and cries whilst the warriors dance and brandish the scalps they have taken. At the same time they recount the heroic exploits of their fallen comrade, to solace the grief of his widow, and they throw her presents as they dance before her, that she may be kept from poverty and suffering.

There is little in these dances that resembles the “light fantastic toe” and giddy maze of the dance among the civilized. The former consist very much of jumps and starts--oftentimes the most grotesque, and even violent exertions--united with songs and yells, sometimes deafening by their sound or fearful by the wildness and intense excitement that are manifested.

To a looker on not familiar with the peculiar significance of these displays, they seem only a series of uncouth and meaningless motions and distortions, accompanied with harsh sounds, all forming a strange, almost frightful medley. Yet Mr. Catlin says “every dance has its peculiar step and every step has its meaning. Every dance has also its peculiar song, which is so intricate and mysterious oftentimes, that not one in ten of the young men who are singing know the meaning of the songs. None but medicine men are allowed to understand them.” There are dances and songs, however, not so intricate, which are understood and participated in by all the tribe.

The beating of drums, the yells, stamping, and bellowing, the noisy demonstrations forming so great a part of Indian amusements, will remind the reader of similar manifestations among some of the African tribes, recorded in the first part of this work.

The game which is perhaps the most popular and widely spread is almost unintelligible to an uninstructed bystander. Its title is Tchung-chee, that being the name of the spear which will be presently described. It is played with a ring about three inches in diameter, made of bone or wood wrapped with cord, and a slight spear, on which are several little projections of leather. The players roll the ring along the ground, and as it is about to fall, project the spear so that, as the ring falls, it may receive within it one of the pieces of leather. If it does so, the player scores one or more points, according to the particular projection which is caught in the ring, and the mode in which it flies.

Another variation of this game, called Al-kol-lock, has the spear without the leathern projections, but in their stead six colored beads are fixed inside the ring. At each end of the smooth clay course, which is about fifty feet in length, a slight barrier is erected. The players bowl the ring from one end of the course, run after it, and as it falls after striking the barrier, throw their spears as described above, the points being reckoned according to the color of the bead which lies on them.

The absorption of the players in this game is beyond description. They will play at it all day, gamble away their horses, their tents, their clothes, and, when they have lost all their property, will stake themselves, the loser becoming the slave of the winner.

Another game, called Pagessan, or the bowl game, is very popular, though it is a sedentary one, and lacks the graceful action that gives so great a charm to the preceding game. It is played with a wooden bowl, containing a number of pieces of wood carved into various forms; some, which we may call the pieces, having round pedestals on which to stand, and others, which we will term the pawns, being round, and painted on one side and plain on the other. The players take the bowl alternately, give it a shake, and set it in a hole in the ground. The contents are then examined, and the points are scored according to the number of pieces which stand on their pedestals. If the pawn has its colored side upward, the player scores one point; if it has the plain side uppermost, he deducts a point from his score. The position of the pawns is entirely a question of chance, but considerable skill is exerted in getting the pieces to stand on their pedestals.

The game which is most characteristic of the American Indians is the celebrated ball game, a modification of which has been introduced into England under the name of La Crosse. The principle on which it is played is exactly that of foot-ball and hockey, namely, the driving of a ball through a goal defended by the opposite party. We will first take the game as it is played by the Choctaws. The reader will find it illustrated on page 1311.

A ball is carefully made of white willow wood, and ornamented with curious designs drawn upon it with a hot iron. The ball-sticks, or racquets, are much like our own racquets, but with larger and more slender handles, and with a very much smaller hoop. Each player carries two of these sticks, one in each hand. The dress of the players is very simple, being reduced to the waist-cloth, a tail made of white horsehair or quills, and a mane of dyed horsehair round the neck. The belt by which the tail is sustained may be as highly ornamented as possible, and the player may paint himself as brilliantly as he likes, but no other article of clothing is allowed, not even moccasins on the feet.

On the evening of the appointed day, the two parties repair to the ground where the goals have been already set up, some two hundred yards apart, and there perform the ball-play dance by torchlight. Exactly in the middle between the goals, where the ball is to be started, sit four old medicine men, singing and beating their drums, while the players are clustered round their respective goals, singing at the top of their voices, and rattling their ball-sticks together. This dance goes on during the whole of the night, so that the players are totally deprived of rest--a very bad preparation, as one would think, for the severe exertion of the ensuing day. All the bets are made on this night, the article staked, such as knives, blankets, guns, cooking utensils, tobacco, and even horses and dogs, being placed in the custody of the stakeholders, who sit by them and watch them all night.

About nine o’clock on the next morning the play begins. The four medicine men, with the ball in their custody, seat themselves as before, midway between the goals, while the players arrange themselves for the attack and defence. At a given signal, the ball is flung high in the air, and as it falls, the two opposing sets of players converge upon it. As there are often several hundred players on each side, it may be imagined that the scene is a most animated one.

“In these desperate struggles for the ball,” writes Mr. Catlin “where hundreds are running together, and leaping actually over each other’s heads, and darting between their adversaries’ legs, tripping, and throwing, and foiling each other in every possible manner, and every voice raised to its highest key, in shrill yelps and barks, there are rapid successions of feats and incidents that astonish and amuse far beyond the conception of any one who has not had the singular good luck to witness them.

“In these struggles, every mode is used that can be devised to oppose the progress of the foremost, who is likely to get the ball; and these obstructions often meet desperate individual resistance, which terminates in a violent scuffle, and sometimes in fisticuffs. Then their sticks are dropped, and the parties are unmolested, whilst they are settling it between themselves, except by a general stampedo, to which those are subject who are down, if the ball happen to pass in their direction. Every weapon, by a rule of all ball players, is laid by in the respective encampments, and no man is allowed to go for one; so that the sudden broils that take place on the ground are presumed to be as suddenly settled without any probability of much personal injury, and no one is allowed to interfere in any way with the contentious individuals.

“There are times when the ball gets to the ground, and such a confused mass is rushing together around it, and knocking their sticks together, without a possibility of any one getting or seeing it for the dust that they raise, that the spectator loses his strength, and everything but his senses; when the condensed mass of ball sticks and shins and bloody noses is carried around the different parts of the ground, for a quarter of an hour at a time, without any one of the masses being able to see the ball, which they are often scuffling for several minutes after it has been thrown off and played over another part of the ground.

“For each time that the ball was passed between the goals of either party, one was counted for their game, and they halted for about one minute; when the ball was again started by the judges of the play, and a similar struggle ensued; and so on until the successful party arrived at 100, which was the limit of the play, and accomplished at an hour’s sun, when they took the stakes.”

In this game the players are not allowed to strike the ball with their sticks, or catch it in their hands; though to do so between the netted ends of the sticks, and then to run away with it, is a feat which each player tries his best to accomplish. Ball-play among the Sioux is exactly the same in principle as that of the Choctaws, but the players only carry one stick, which is wielded with both hands.

Sometimes the men are kind enough to indulge the women with a ball-play, and to present a quantity of goods as prizes, hanging them across a horizontal pole, in order to stimulate the players by the sight. Such inferior beings as women are not, however, allowed to use the ball and racquet of their superiors, the men, but play with a couple of small bags filled with sand, and attached to each other by means of a string about eighteen inches in length. Each of the players is furnished with two slight sticks, about two feet in length, and with these sticks they dexterously catch the sand bags, and fling them toward the goals. The women play with quite as much enthusiasm as the men, and the game often assumes the appearance of a general battle rather than of a pastime.

Since the introduction of horses, the American Indians have become very fond of horse racing, and bet so recklessly on the speed of their animals that they often lose everything which they possess. In these races neither the horse nor the rider are allowed to be costumed in any way, not even a saddle or a girth being allowed. They also have boat races, in which the spectators take as much interest as those who witness the Oxford and Cambridge races. The canoes are mostly propelled by one man only.

The canoes are of various forms and materials, according to the tribe to which they belong. For example, the Mandans have an odd, circular vessel, made from a bison hide, stretched over a wooden framework. This is called a “bull boat,” and is propelled in a very singular manner. A woman is the usual paddler, and she stands or kneels with her face toward the direction in which she intends to proceed, and, thrusting the paddle into the water as far forward as she can reach, draws it smartly toward her, and thus propels the boat with considerable speed.

On one occasion, Mr. Catlin and two companions were desirous of crossing the river, and were packed into one of these bull boats by the wife of a chief. She then went into the water, and swam across the river, towing the boat after her. As, however, she neared the opposite bank, a number of young girls surrounded the canoe, took it into their own management, and kept it in mid-stream, until the passengers, utterly powerless in such a craft, ransomed themselves with bead necklaces and other decorations. Then there is another kind of canoe, which is simply a hollowed tree-trunk, and which is graphically called a “dug-out.” No very particular care is taken about the shaping of this simple boat, which is more like a punt than a canoe.

The best and most characteristic form of native canoe is that which is made of the bark of the birch tree. The mode of making these canoes is briefly as follows. Canoe building is a work in which both sexes take a part. The men first select the largest and finest birch trees, with the smoothest skins, and strip off large pieces of the bark. The women then take charge of the bark, and, while it is still fresh and moist, clean and scrape it as if it were leather, and then sew the pieces together, so as to make the “cloak” of the future canoe.

While the women are at this work, the men are busily preparing the skeleton of the canoe. This is made of the white cedar, the ribs being cut and scraped until they are quite thin and light, and held in their places by smaller cross-pieces, and a long thin piece of wood, which runs round the entire edge of the boat, and is, in fact, the chief support of the canoe. This is technically called the “maître.” No nails are used, the whole of the junctions being effected by means of thongs of bass, obtained from the inner bark of the white cedar.

The skeleton being completed, it is laid upon the cloak, which is brought over the ribs, firmly lashed to the “maître,” and then by degrees brought into its proper shape. A strengthening piece, called the “faux maître,” is next tied along the whole of the gunwale in order to protect it from injury, and the interior is lined with cedar boards, scarcely thicker than pasteboard. When the canoe is finished and dry, the holes through which the lashings have passed, as well as all the junctions of the bark, are carefully stopped with pitch obtained from the pine or fir-tree, and the weaker parts of the bark are also strengthened with a coat of pitch.

The bark canoe of the Chippeways is, unquestionably, the most beautiful model of all the water crafts ever invented. It is usually made complete, from the rind of one birch tree, and so ingeniously formed and put together, that it is water-tight, and will ride upon the water with singular grace and swiftness.

These canoes are wonderfully light, as indeed is necessary for the navigation of the rivers. The many rapids would effectually prevent a boat from passing up the river, were it not for the plan called “portage.” When the canoe arrives at the foot of a rapid, it is taken ashore, the crew land, take all the goods out of the canoe, and carry them to the opposite side of the rapid. They then go back for the canoe itself, launch it in the smooth water above the rapid, and load it, and proceed on their journey. The figure at the head of page 1322 will give the reader a good idea of the form of the birch bark canoe.

These vessels can be propelled with wonderful speed, as they sit on the surface like ducks, and, when empty, scarcely draw two inches of water. The number of paddlers varies according to the size of the boat, but the course is regulated by the two who sit respectively in the bow and stern, whom we may for convenience call the “bow” and “stroke.” It is the duty of the “bow” to look carefully ahead for any rocks or any other obstacles, and, by movements well understood, to indicate their presence to the “stroke,” who, with a sweep of the paddle, brings the canoe round in the direction indicated by the “bow.”

The canoes which are used in races are made of birch bark, and are almost always of small size--so small, indeed, that a man can easily carry his canoe on his head from his house to the water’s edge, and then launch it without assistance. Mr. Catlin gives a very animated description of a canoe race, the competitors being accompanied by large canoes, full of their respective friends, who yell encouragements to the antagonists, fire guns in the air, and render the scene a singularly exciting one, even to a stranger.

Toward the right hand of the illustration which depicts the canoe race, on the following page, the reader may see a curious mode of propelling canoes, which is often adopted when there is no necessity for speed and the wind is favorable. The man who acts as “bow” stands up in the front of the canoe, extends a robe or a blanket in his two hands, and then he presses the two other corners at the bottom of the boat with his feet. The robe thus becomes an extemporized sail, of which the man is the mast. In this manner a canoe is often carried for a considerable distance, to the great relief of the paddlers.

An European would instantly upset the fragile canoe if he tried to stand erect in it; but the natives are absolutely perfect masters of their little vessels, and seem to move about in them as easily and firmly as if on dry land. They will load a canoe within an inch and a half of the water’s edge, and paddle it for a whole day, without dreaming of danger. And an accomplished canoe man will take a fish spear in his hand, place a foot on each gunwale of the boat, and, propelled by a friend in the stern of the boat, dart down rapids, spearing fish as he shoots along, hauling the struggling fish out of the water, and shaking them into the boat behind him.

Among most Indian tribes, when mourning for the death of relatives, the women are required to cut their hair entirely off, and the period of mourning is until it has grown to its former length. As long tresses are so highly valued by most of the tribes this is no small sacrifice. But long hair being of much more importance to the men they cut off only a lock or two, to indicate grief or affliction for their departed kindred.

There is a game which has in it somewhat of a religious aspect. On the border of the Great Pipe-stone Quarry a solitary rock rises from the plain. It resembles a large pillar, being only a few feet in diameter, though more than thirty feet in height. It is situated within a short distance from the edge of the precipice, and the Indians who come to procure red stone for their pipes often try to leap upon it and back again. The mere leap to the rock is comparatively easy, but there are two terrible dangers which threaten the leaper. In the first place, the small, flat surface of the rock is so polished and smooth, that if the leaper should exert too much power, he must slip off, and be killed on the sharp rocks below. Should he retain his foot-hold he has still a difficult task in regaining the spot whence he sprang, as he can take no run, and the slippery surface of the rock affords but a slight fulcrum from which he can take his spring.

Before an Indian essays this terrible leap, he offers up many prayers to the Great Spirit for help and protection, and he has at all events the satisfaction of knowing that, if he should fail, his body will be buried in the sacred ground of the nation. Those who succeed leave an arrow sticking in the rock, and have a right to boast of it at every public meeting when they are called upon to speak. No man would dare to boast of this feat without having performed it, as he would at once be challenged to visit the Leaping Rock and to point out his arrow.

If the reader will refer to the figure of the canoe on page 1322, he will see that its sides are decorated with a pattern. This is made by fastening dyed porcupine quills to the sides of the little vessel. Porcupine quills are used very largely for ornaments, and, even though they have been partly superseded by beads, are still in use for decorating the dresses and utensils of the natives.

These quills are never so long or thick as those of the porcupine of the Old World, and are naturally white or gray, so that they can easily take any desired dye. They are first sorted very carefully into their different sizes, the largest rarely exceeding three inches in length, while the smaller are quite thread-like, and can be passed through the eye of an ordinary needle. Both ends are sharp. When the native artist desires to produce a pattern, the design is first drawn on the right side of the bark or leather; the two ends of the quill are then pushed through the fabric, and fastened on the wrong side, the quill acting both as needle and thread.

Perhaps the most ingenious mode of making ornaments is that which is practised by the Ojibbeway women, and called Bark-biting. The following description of this curious art is given by Mr. Kohl in his “Kitchi-Gami:”--

“This is an art which the squaws chiefly practise in spring, in their sugar plantations. Still, they do not all understand it, and only a few are really talented. I heard that a very celebrated bark-biter resided at the other side of St. Mary’s River, in Canada, and that another, of the name of Angélique Marte, lived in our cataract village. Naturally, I set out at once to visit the latter.

“Extraordinary geniuses must usually be sought here, as in Paris, on the fifth floor, or in some remote faubourg. Our road to Angélique Marte led us past the little cluster of houses representing our village far into the desert. We came to morasses, and had to leap from stone to stone. Between large masses of scattered granite block, the remains of the missiles which the Indians say Menaboju and his father hurled at each other in the battle they fought here, we at length found the half-decayed birch-hut of our pagan artiste, who herself was living in it like a hermit.

“The surrounding landscape seemed better adapted for a renversi than for an atélier. When we preferred our request for some specimen of her tooth carving, she told us that all her hopes as regarded her art were concentrated in one tooth. At least she had only one in her upper jaw properly useful for this operation. She began, however, immediately selecting proper pieces of bark, peeling off the thin skin, and doubling up the pieces, which she thrust between her teeth.

“As she took up one piece after the other, and went through the operation very rapidly, one artistic production after the other fell from her lips. We unfolded the bark, and found on one the figure of a young girl, on another a bouquet of flowers, on a third a tomahawk, with all its accessories, very correctly designed, as well as several other objects. The bark is not bitten into holes, but only pressed with the teeth, so that, when the designs are held up, they resemble, to some extent, those pretty porcelain transparencies made as light-screens.”

The mode of constructing the wigwam is very much the same among the various tribes. Generally it is made of dressed buffalo skins sewed together and arranged in the form of a tent, with a score or more of poles about twenty-five feet in height, as a support, and with an opening at the apex for the escape of smoke or the admission of light. The Crows, however, excel all others in the style of their lodge. They dress the skins almost as white as linen, embellish them with porcupine quills, and paint them in various ways so as to make their tents exceedingly beautiful and picturesque.

The Indian lodges may be removed in a few minutes. The taking down and the transportation is the work of the squaws. A tribe will generally remove six or eight times in a summer in order to find good hunting grounds among the herds of buffaloes.

The Indian tribes judging from their musical instruments, have little taste or skill in music. These are very rude, and consist of rattles, drums, the mystery whistle, war whistle and deer skin flute. The war whistle is from six to nine inches in length, made of the bone of the deer’s or turkey’s leg, with porcupine quills wound around it. The chief wears this to battle under his dress. It has only two notes--one, produced by blowing into one end of it, is shrill, and is the summons to battle; and the other sounds a retreat. Even in the noise of battle and amid the cries and yells of their fierce conflicts, this little instrument can be distinctly heard.

The chief pledge of friendship among these tribes, is a dog feast. If we consider that the dog is an object of special affection with the Indians; that he is more valued by them than anywhere else on the globe;--we can understand the significance of this feast. This sacrifice of what is dearest to them is therefore the very strongest evidence of friendship. On their coats of arms, on the rocks, they carve the image of the dog, and everywhere and always, he is the emblem of fidelity. Accordingly, to ratify friendship, to give the most unquestionable proof of honor and devotion, the Indian will take his beloved companion of the chase and wigwam, and offer it as the sacrifice to hospitality and affection.

These feasts are conducted in the most solemn and impressive manner, as if with the conviction that the pledge of friendship is a sacred thing. Those were tender words which Catlin gives at the conclusion of an Indian chief’s address to him and other white guests, to whom such a feast had been given: “we offer you to-day not the best we have got, for we have plenty of good buffalo hump and marrow--but we give you our hearts in this feast--we have killed our faithful dogs to feed you, and the Great Spirit will seal our friendship. I have no more to say.”

* * * * *

We come now to consider the customs of the Indians in regard to death and the disposal of the dead.

The Mandans take the body of the deceased, clothe it in his best robes and ornaments, furnish it with food, pipes, tobacco, and arrows, and wrap it up in skins previously soaked in water, so as to render them pliant, and cause them to exclude the air as much as possible. The body is then placed upon a slight scaffold, some seven feet in height, and left to decay. In process of time, the scaffold gives way and falls, when the relations of the deceased bury the whole of the remains, with the exception of the skull, which they place on the ground, forming circles of a hundred or more, all with the faces looking inward, and all resting on fresh bunches of herbs. In the centre of each circle is a little mound, on which are placed the skulls of a male and female bison, and on the mound is planted a long pole, on which hang sundry “medicine” articles, which are supposed to aid in guarding the remains of the dead.

No people are more fond of swimming than the Indians, the youth of both sexes learning the art at a very early age. Such knowledge is indispensable to them, especially liable as they are to accidents with their light canoes, and in their marches compelled to cross the widest rivers. The squaws will fasten their children to their backs, and easily cross any river that lies in their way.

The Indian mode of swimming, however, is quite different from ours. They do not make a horizontal stroke outward from the chin, but throw the body alternately from one side to the other, and raising one arm out of the water, reach as far forward as possible, while the other arm having made the same motion, goes down and becomes a propelling power. And this, though an apparently awkward, is yet a most effective mode of swimming, and less likely to be attended with injury to the chest, or with fatigue.

* * * * *

The relatives constantly visit the skull circles, and the women may often be seen sitting by the skulls of their dead children for hours together, going on with their work, and talking to the dead skull as if it were a living child. And, when tired, they will lie down with their arms encircling the skull, and sleep there as if in company with the child itself. The Sioux and many other tribes lodge their dead in the branches or crotches of trees, enveloped in skins, and always with a wooden dish hanging near the head of the corpse, for the purpose, doubtless, to enable it to quench its thirst on the long journey they suppose awaits it after death. The Chinnooks place them in canoes, which, together with the warrior’s utensils accompanying the dead, are so shattered as to be useless.

The most singular funeral of which a record has been preserved was that of Blackbird, an Omaha chief. The artist has reproduced the strange scene on page 1341.

Upon the bank of the Missouri, and in the district over which he ruled, there is a lofty bluff, the top of which can be seen for a vast distance on every side. When the chief found that he was dying, he ordered that he should be placed on the back of his favorite war horse, and buried on the top of the bluff.

The request was carried out to the letter. On the appointed day, the whole tribe, together with a vast concourse of spectators, repaired to the bluff, leaving an open space in the middle, where the chief was to be buried.

Presently, the body of the dead chief was borne up the sides of the bluff, and after him was led his war horse, a noble milk-white steed which he had valued exceedingly. When the funeral procession reached the top of the bluff, the dead chief was clothed in full panoply of war, the feather plumes on his head, the strung bow, quiver, arrows, shield, and medicine bag slung on his back, his scalps, which no other man might take, hung to his horse’s bridle and to his weapons, and his favorite spear in his hand. He was also furnished with food and drink, to sustain him in his passage to the spirit land, and with his pipe and filled tobacco pouch, flint, and steel, so that he might solace himself with the luxury of smoking.

This done, he was mounted on the back of his horse, and all the chiefs advanced in their turn to make their farewell speeches to their dead leader. Each, after delivering his address, rubbed his right hand with vermilion, pressed it against the white coat of the horse, and left there the scarlet imprint of his hand. Then began the burial. The warriors brought in their hands pieces of turf, and with them began to raise a huge mound, in the middle of which the chief and his horse were to be enclosed. One by one they placed their turves around the feet of the devoted horse, and so, by degrees, they built the mound over the animal while yet alive.

The mound, when completed, rose high above the head of the chief thus strangely buried in its centre, and there he and his horse were left to decay together. On the top of the mound a cedar post was erected; and this mound has been, ever since it was built, a familiar landmark to all the surrounding country. This green, flower spotted mound is visited by great numbers of travellers, both white and red. The former ascend the bluff partly out of curiosity to see so strange a tomb, and partly for the sake of the magnificent view from its summit, while the latter visit it for the sake of paying their respects at the burial-place of one of their most renowned chiefs and greatest medicine men.

The custom of burying wives and other victims with the deceased husband seems now to be extinct among the North American tribes, but such an event has happened within comparatively late years. There was a Nachez chief, called the Stung Serpent, who died; and as he was the head chief of the tribe, a considerable number of victims were devoted for sacrifice. The French, however, remonstrated, and induced the friends of the dead chief to limit the number to eight or ten. Among them was a beautiful girl, who, though not his wife, had loved him greatly, and desired to share his grave.

On the day appointed a procession was formed, in which the victims were led in great state, accompanied by eight relatives of the deceased, who were to act as executioners, and who bore the fatal cord, the deer-skin which was thrown over the head of the victim, the tobacco pills which were to be taken before the ceremony, and the other implements required. When they were all placed at the grave, the chief wife made a speech, in which she took leave of her children; and the victims, after being strangled, were deposited in the grave.

* * * * *

As the object of this work is to present the manners and customs of tribes and races in their primitive state, and not those semi-civilized, it will be enough to merely introduce the names of the Cherokees, Choctaws, Creeks, Chickasaws, Senecas, Delawares, etc. Nor is it necessary to consider those, now extinct, that occupied the country when first settled by white men. For the same general characteristics, now presented, pertain to all the North American races. The Indian tribes are rapidly retreating or vanishing before the steady, irresistible march of civilization, and the growing grandeur of the great Republic in North America. The line, where the echoes of the Indian’s yell blends with the shout of advancing pioneers and the sound of the wood-chopper’s axe, is continually moving westward. In a few years we have seen it pass from the Mississippi River, to the base of the Rocky Mountains. The settler’s cabin is unceasingly encroaching upon the wigwams of the Red Men. With sadness, having smoothed the graves of their fathers, and taken a last look of their hunting grounds, they retreat before a power which they vainly strive to resist. Pressed backward in two centuries and a half, across three-quarters of the continent, from Massachusetts Bay almost to the Pacific, except a few decaying remnants of tribes, their history and doom cannot but awaken sympathy for an unfortunate and overpowered race.

Even though we do not form our estimate of the Indian from the romantic creations of Cooper, every right-thinking person will accord them the tribute of many qualities that constitute a real grandeur of character. Their marvellous bravery, their ardent rage, their steadfast, fiery enthusiasm in the fight or in the chase, their manly sports, their grave, philosophic demeanor in the council, their stern, stoical endurance in misfortune, their disdain of death, are traits that have given to the Indian a character unique and noble, a character and history that the annalist, poet, and novelist, have transferred to their immortal pages, and over which multitudes of old and young alike have bent with eager, breathless interest. As Mr. Mangin in his “Desert World” says:--“There was poetry in their faith, in their customs, in their language, at once laconic and picturesque--and even in the names they bestowed on each tribe, each chief and warrior, on mountain and river. One can hardly suppress a feeling of regret that so much of wild romance and valor should have been swept from the face of the earth, unless we call to mind the shadow of the picture--the Indian’s cruelty, perfidiousness and savage lust. Even then, our humanity revolts from the treatment to which he has been subjected by the white man.” Tracked and hunted like wild beasts, driven from their hunting grounds and the territory of their ancestors, imbruted by drink, decimated and dying by epidemics and vices contracted from white men, the poor Indians vainly struggling to avert their doom of extermination have elicited the sympathy and commiseration of the civilized world. The theory advocated in the preceding part of this work, (see page 790), in regard to the decay and extinction of savage races, does not forbid regrets that such a people should have suffered so grievously at the hands of the United States Government, by the greed of its agents, the frauds of traders and the fatal contagion of the vices of a civilized people. What with American rifles and American whiskey, their extinction has been rapid, and their doom certain.

These tribes, contending in a most unequal strife with the forces of modern civilization, more readily falling victims to the vices of white men than accepting their virtues, are entitled to the just consideration and protection of the government, as its wards, from whom, or their ancestors, have been taken their soil and their homes.

It is gratifying to know that a more humane policy is about being inaugurated, and though the wrongs of the past may not be redressed, that their rights in future may be recognized and maintained. Major-General Thomas, of the U. S. army, whose name and history are the guarantee of candid and wise judgment, says, in respect to an instance of cold-blooded, unprovoked, unpunished outrage upon an Indian boy (it is given only as a representative fact of many more and bitter wrongs):--“I see no better way than to extend civil authority over the Indians and enable them to appear as witnesses in all cases affecting their own status and that of the whites toward them. This is a fair instance of the cause of the Indian troubles; and until white murderers and robbers of the Indians are punished, a large force of troops will be necessary to protect peaceful white settlers from Indian avengers.” And Gen. Sherman, in whose opinion the utmost confidence can be reposed, makes the following indorsement to General Thomas’ view:--“This case illustrates the origin of most of the Indian wars on the frontier. A citizen may murder an Indian with impunity, but if the Indian retaliate, war results, and the United States must bear the expense.”

Here we have the secret of many of the barbarities of the Indian tribes. Inflamed and imbruted by the whiskey sold them, their ignorance imposed upon by the greed of traders and even government agents, having little or no chance for securing justice in their real or imagined injuries, there is certainly some extenuation if this wild son of the forest go forth with tomahawk and scalping knife, as the self-appointed avenger of his own and his people’s wrongs. This is not the place, if there were room, for a thorough discussion of the wrongs of the Red Men, but I cannot forego the duty, in treating of the manners, customs and character of tribes so interesting, so noble and superior, by many traits, to most savage races, of recording at the same time, this tribute and testimony. It will unquestionably be the verdict of the future, as coming generations shall study the memorials and character of the North American Indians.[1]

[1] These reflections, with much relating to the customs of the Indians, have been introduced into the work by the American editor.

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CXL. THE ESQUIMAUX

APPEARANCE--DRESS--DWELLINGS.

APPEARANCE OF THE PEOPLE -- THEIR COMPLEXION, AND DIFFICULTY OF SEEING IT -- AN ESQUIMAUX CHILD WASHED AND COMBED -- BODILY STRENGTH -- DRESS OF THE MEN -- THE TAILED COAT -- “MILLING” BOOTS -- DRESS OF THE WOMEN -- THE LARGE HOOD AND BOOTS -- THE TATTOO, AND MODE OF PERFORMING IT -- HAIR-DRESSING -- PREPARING SKINS -- THE SNOW HOUSES, AND MODE OF BUILDING THEM -- CAPTAIN LYON’S DESCRIPTION -- INTERNAL ARRANGEMENTS OF THE HUT -- ICE AND BONE HOUSES -- THE TUPIC, OR SUMMER DWELLING -- FOOD OF THE ESQUIMAUX -- A WISE TRAVELLER.

We now come to those extraordinary people, called by Europeans the ESQUIMAUX (their own name being Innuit), who, placed amid perpetual ice and snow, have bent those elements to their own purposes, and pass as happy lives in their inclement country as do the apparently more favored inhabitants of the tropics amid their perpetual verdure. Indeed, the Esquimaux has a perfect yearning for his beloved country, should he be away from it. Captain Hall relates the circumstances attendant upon the “death of Kudlago, a singularly intelligent man, who had visited the United States, and fully learned to appreciate the advantages of the high civilization which he saw there. But all his wishes were for home, and he was taken back. As the ship neared his native land, he fell ill and died, his last words being the eager inquiry, ‘Do you see ice? Do you see ice?’”

* * * * *

In appearance, the Esquimaux are a peculiar people. Their stature is short, when compared to that of an ordinary European, the average being about five feet three inches for the men, and two or three inches less for the women.

The complexion is in some cases rather dark, but, as a rule, is not much darker than that of the inhabitants of Southern Europe. It looks, however, many shades darker, in consequence of the habits of the Esquimaux, who never wash from their birth to their death. It is not that they neglect their ablutions, but the very idea of washing never enters the mind of an Esquimaux, who, unless he has met with white men, has not even heard of such an operation. When, however, an Esquimaux has been induced to allow his skin to be cleansed, he is found to lose many shades of his original darkness. There is an amusing passage in the journal of Captain Hall, given in his “Life with the Esquimaux,” a work to which frequent reference will be made in the next few pages.

“Kimnaloo has just been Americanized. Captain B----’s good wife had made and sent to her a pretty red dress, a necktie, mittens, belt, &c.

“Mr. Rogers and I, at a suggestion from me, thought it best to commence the change of nationality with soap and water. The process was slow, that of arriving at the beautiful little girl, whom we at length found, though deeply imbedded layer after layer in dirt. Then came the task of making her toilet. With a very coarse comb I commenced to disentangle her hair. She had but little, the back part from behind her ears having been cut short off on account of severe pains in her head. How patiently she submitted to the worse than curry-comb process I had to use! This was the first time in her life that a comb had been put to her head. Her hair was filled with moss, seal and reindeer hairs, and many other things, too numerous to call them all by name. Poor little thing! Yet she was fat and beautiful, the very picture of health. Her cheeks were as red as the blown rose; Nature’s vermilion was upon them.”

The skin is smooth, soft, and yet wonderfully tough, with a sort of unctuous surface, probably occasioned by the enormous amount of oil and fat which forms the principal part of their diet. The features are not very pleasing, the face being broad, and the cheek-bones so high that in many cases, if a flat ruler were laid from cheek to cheek, it would not touch the nose. As is the case with the Chinese section of this vast race, the eyes slope rather downward, and the face is often covered with wrinkles to a wonderful extent, extending from the eyes down each cheek.

In bodily strength, the Esquimaux present a great contrast to the Andamaners, who, though short, are possessed of gigantic muscular powers. Captain Lyon found that the natives could not raise burdens that were easily lifted by his sailors, whereas an ordinary Andamaner is often a match for two powerful sailors. The neck is strangely thin and feeble, however well-proportioned the chest may be, and it is a curious fact that the Esquimaux are almost wholly ignorant of running and jumping. There is but little beard, and the hair is black, coarse, straight, and lanky.

The general character of the dress is alike in both sexes, so that at a little distance it is not easy to tell whether the spectator be looking at a man or a woman, both sexes wearing trousers, and jackets with a large hood, which can either be drawn over the head or allowed to fall on the shoulders. The jacket of the man is made something like a broad-tailed dress coat, hanging behind as far as the middle of the calf, and cut away in front just below the waist. It is mostly made of deer-hide, and the hood is lined and turned up with white fur, which forms a curious contrast to the dark, broad face within it. The edge of the coat is generally bordered with a lighter-colored fur, and is often decorated with little strips of fur hanging like tassels.

Under this coat is another of similar shape, but of lighter material, and having the furry side turned inward. The legs are clothed in two pairs of trousers, the outer pair being often made of strips of differently colored deer-skins arranged in parallel stripes, and having the fur outward, while the other has the fur inward, as is the case with the coats. They only come as low as the knee, so that the joint is often frost-bitten; but nothing can induce the Esquimaux to outrage fashion by adding a couple of inches to the garment.

The boots are made of the same materials as the other parts of the dress. In winter time the Esquimaux wear first a pair of boots with the fur inward, then slippers of soft seal-skin so prepared as to be waterproof, then another pair of boots, and, lastly, strong seal-skin shoes. In the summer time one pair of boots is sufficient protection. The soles are made of thicker material than the rest of the garment, and it is the duty of the women to keep the soles flexible by chewing or “milling” them, an operation which consumes a considerable part of their time.

Mittens are made of various skins, the hairy side being inward; and if the wearer be engaged in fishing, he uses mittens made of watertight seal-skin. During the summer, light dresses are worn, made of the skins of ducks, with the feathers inward. Over all there is sometimes a very thin and light waterproof garment made of the intestines of the walrus.

The jackets worn by the women have a much longer and narrower tail than those of the men, and a tolerably deep flap in front. The hood is of enormous size, being used as a cradle as well as a hood, in which a child of nearly three years old is carried. The trousers, or rather leggings, are tied to a girdle that passes round the waist, and are so cut away at the top, that they allow a portion of the skin to be visible between them and the sides of the jacket, an exposure from which the wearers do not seem to suffer. The oddest article of the female apparel is, however, the boots, which more resemble sacks or buckets than boots, and are simply tied to the girdle by a broad strap that passes up the front of the leg. The boots are used as receptacles for all kinds of portable property, food included, and in consequence impart a most singular walk, or rather waddle, to the wearers, who are obliged to keep their feet widely apart, and, as they walk, to swing one foot round the other, rather than to use the ordinary mode of walking.

The Esquimaux women use the tattoo, called by them the kakeen, and in some places cover their limbs and a considerable portion of their persons with various patterns. There are some who mark the forehead, cheeks, and chin, these being mostly proof that the woman is married, though they are sometimes worn by unmarried females. The mode in which the kakeen is performed is amusingly told by Captain Lyon, who courageously submitted to the operation.

“My curiosity determined me on seeing how the kakeen was performed, and I accordingly put myself into the hands of Mrs. Kettle, whom I had adopted as my amama, or mother.

“Having furnished her with a fine needle, she tore with her teeth a thread off a deer’s sinew, and thus prepared the sewing apparatus. She then, without a possibility of darkening her hands beyond their standard color, passed her fingers under the bottom of the stove pot, from whence she collected a quantity of soot. With this, together with a little oil and much saliva, she soon made a good mixture, and taking a small piece of whalebone well blackened, she then drew a variety of figures about my arm, differing, as I easily saw, from those with which she herself was marked; and, calling her housemates, they all enjoyed a good laugh at the figures, which perhaps conveyed some meaning that I could not fathom.

“I had, however, only determined on a few strokes, so that her trouble was in some measure thrown away. She commenced her work by blackening the thread with soot, and taking a pretty deep but short stitch in my skin, carefully pressing her thumb on the wound as the thread passed through it, and beginning each stitch at the place where the last had ceased. My flesh being tough, she got on but slowly, and, having broken one needle in trying to force it through, I thought fit, when she had completed forty stitches, or about two inches, to allow her to desist; then, rubbing the part with oil in order to stanch the little blood which appeared, she finished the operation. I could now form an idea of the price paid by the Esquimaux females for their embellishments, which for a time occasion a slight inflammation and some degree of pain. The color which the kakeen assumes when the skin heals is of the same light blue as we see on the marked arms of seamen.”

The dress of the children is alike in both sexes. None at all is worn until the infant is nearly three years old, up to which age it is kept naked in its mother’s hood. A dress is then made of fawn skin, having the jacket, trousers, boots, and hood in one piece, the only opening being at the back. Into this odd dress the child is put, and the opening being tied up with a string, the operation of dressing is completed. The hood or cap is generally made in the shape of the fawn’s head, so that the little Esquimaux has the strangest appearance imaginable, and scarcely looks like a human being.

As to the hair, the men cut it short over the forehead, and allow the side locks to grow to their full length, tying them, when very long, over the top of the head in a large knot projecting over the forehead. The women part the hair in the middle, and make it into two large tails. A piece of bone or wood is introduced into each of the tails by way of a stiffener, and they are then bound spirally with a narrow strip of deer-hide, with the fur outward. Those women who can afford such a luxury pass the hair through two brass rings, which are then pressed as closely as possible to the head.

The whole of the operations of preparing the skin and making the clothes are done by the women, the men having completed their task when they have killed the animals. The fat, blood, and oil are first sucked from the skins, and the women then scrape the inner surface with an ingenious instrument, sometimes furnished with teeth, and at other times plain, like blunt knives. The skins are then rubbed and kneaded, and are dried by being stretched by pegs to the ground in summer, and laced over a hoop in winter and exposed to the heat of the lamp, which constitutes the only fire of the Esquimaux.

Bird skins are prepared in a somewhat similar fashion, and are stripped from the bodies of the birds in a marvellously expeditious manner. With their knife, which exactly resembles a cheese cutter, they make an incision round the head and round the outer joint of each wing. The cut part is then seized between the teeth, and with a pull and a jerk the skin comes off in one piece, and turned inside out. These skins are considered a great luxury by the Esquimaux, who bite and suck off the fat which adheres liberally to them.

* * * * *

In a country where the thermometer remains many degrees below zero for many months together, and in which ice and snow are the prevailing features, it is evident that houses cannot be built after the fashion of those in most countries. No trees can grow there, so that wooden houses are out of the question, and in a land where ice has been known to choke up the iron flue of a stove always kept burning neither clay could be made into bricks, nor stones cemented with mortar. There is only one substance of which houses can be made, and this is frozen water, either in the form of snow or ice, the former being the usual material. These snow houses, called igloos, are made in a dome-like shape, and are built with a rapidity that is perfectly astonishing. The reader will find the form and mode of building these houses illustrated on page 1327.

The general appearance of these strange houses is thus described by Captain Lyon, in his “Private Journal.” “Our astonishment was unbounded, when, after creeping through some long passages of snow, to enter the different dwellings, we found ourselves in a cluster of dome shaped edifices, entirely constructed of snow, which, from their recent erection, had not been sullied by the smoke of the numerous lamps that were burning, but admitted the light in most delicate hues of verdigris green and blue, according to the thickness of the slab through which it passed.... There were five clusters of huts, some having one, some two, and others three domes, in which thirteen families lived, each occupying a dome or one side of it, according to their strength. The whole number of people were twenty-one men, twenty-five women, and eighteen children, making a total of sixty-four.

“The entrance to the building was by a hole about a yard in diameter, which led through a low arched passage of sufficient breadth for two to pass in a stooping posture, and about sixteen feet in length; another hole then presented itself, and led through a similarly shaped but shorter passage, having at its termination a round opening about two feet across. Up this hole we crept one step, and found ourselves in a dome about seven feet in height, and as many in diameter, from whence the three dwelling-places with arched roofs were entered. It must be observed that this is the description of a large hut; the smaller ones, containing one or two families, have the domes somewhat differently arranged.

“Each dwelling might be averaged at fourteen or sixteen feet in diameter, by six or seven in height; but as snow alone was used in their construction, and was always at hand, it might be supposed that there was no particular size, that being of course at the option of the builder. The laying of the arch was performed in such a manner as would have satisfied the most regular artist, the key piece on the top being a large square slab. The blocks of snow used in the buildings were from four to six inches in thickness, and about a couple of feet in length, carefully pared with a large knife. Where two families occupied a dome, a seat was raised either side two feet in height. These raised places were used as beds, and covered, in the first place, with whalebone, sprigs of Andromeda, or pieces of seal-skin; over these were spread deer-pelts and deer-skin clothes, which had a very warm appearance. The pelts were used as blankets, and many of them had ornamental fringes of leather sewed round their edges.

“Each dwelling-place was illuminated by a broad piece of transparent fresh-water ice, of about two feet in diameter, which formed part of the roof, and was placed over the door. These windows gave a most pleasing light, free from glare, and something like that which is thrown through ground glass. We soon learned that the building of a house was but the work of an hour or two, and that a couple of men--one to cut the slabs and another to lay them--were sufficient laborers.

“For the support of the lamps and cooking apparatus a mound of snow is erected for each family; and when the master has two wives or a mother, both have an independent place, one at each end of the bench.”

In the middle of the hut is erected a slight scaffold, which supports a rudely made net, and under the net is placed the one essential piece of furniture of the house, namely, the lamp. This is a very simple contrivance. It is merely an oval shaped dish of stone, round the edge of which is arranged a long wick made of moss. Oil is poured into it, and a quantity of blubber is heaped in the centre of the lamp, so as to keep up the supply. Over the lamp is hung the cooking pot, the size of each being proportioned to the rank of the possessor. It sometimes happens that two wives occupy the same hut. In this case, the chief or “igloo-wife” has the large lamp and the supporting scaffold, while the other has to content herself with a little lamp and a small pot, which she must support as she can.

The value of the lamp is simply incalculable, not so much for its use in cooking, as the Esquimaux like meat raw quite as well as cooked, but for its supply of warmth, for the water which is obtained by melting snow over it, and for its use in drying clothes. All garments, the snow being first beaten off them, are placed on the “dry-net” over the lamp, where they are gradually dried, and, after being chewed by the women, are fit for wear again: otherwise they become frozen quite hard, and are of no more use than if they were made of ice. Oil is supplied by chewing blubber, and the women, who always perform the task, have the curious knack of expressing the oil without allowing a drop of moisture to mix with it. In one minute a woman can obtain enough oil to fill a lamp two feet in length.

Sometimes, when snow is scarce, the igloo is made of ice. The walls are formed of this material, and are generally of an octagonal form, the ice slabs being cemented together with snow. The domed roof is usually made of snow, but the tunnel, or passage to the interior, is of ice. Such a house is, when first made, so transparent that, even at the distance of some paces, those who are within it can be recognized through its walls.

It may seem strange that such materials as snow and ice should be employed in the construction of man’s dwelling-place, as nothing seems more opposed to comfort; yet these houses, instead of being cold, are so warm that the inhabitants throw off the greater part, and sometimes the whole, of their clothes when within them; and the bed of snow on which they recline is, when covered with the proper amount of skins, even warmer than an European feather bed. In the summer time the Esquimaux prefer the skin hut, or “tupic.” This is a mere tent made of deer-skins thrown over a few sticks, though the supports are sometimes formed from the bones of whales.

* * * * *

The food of the Esquimaux is almost wholly of an animal character. In the first place, the country supplies scarcely any vegetation; and, in the next place, an abundant supply of animal food is required in order to enable the inhabitants to withstand the intense cold. The seal and the reindeer form their favorite food, and in both cases the fat is the part that is most highly valued.

In the reindeer, the fat of the hinder quarters, called by the Esquimaux “toodnoo,” is the portion that is most valued. Captain Hall, who very wisely lived as the Esquimaux while staying with them, says that it is as much superior to butter as is the best butter to lard; and when the deer is in good condition, the meat is so tender that a steak almost falls to pieces if lifted by its edge. Another part of the reindeer is almost as valuable as the fat. This is the contents of the deer’s paunch, eaten raw with slices of raw venison. It has a slightly acid flavor, like that of sorrel, and if the consumer were not to know what he was eating, he would be delighted with it.

This was the case with Captain Hall, while partaking of a deer feast in an igloo. He tried the deer flesh, and found it excellent; he then took a morsel of the unknown substance, and describes it as ambrosial. After eating the greater part of it, he took it to the light, and was horrified to find the nature of the feast. However, he soon came to the wise conclusion that epicurism of any kind was nothing but the effect of education, and that, in consequence, he would ignore his previous prejudices on the subject, and eat whatever the Esquimaux ate, and as they ate it. As to the quantity consumed, neither he nor any other white man would be a match for an Esquimaux, who will consume nine or ten pounds of meat at a sitting, and lie leisurely on his back, being fed by his wife with pieces of blubber when he is utterly unable to help himself. An Esquimaux finds a sort of intoxicating effect in utter repletion, which stands him in the stead of fermented liquors.

Putting aside the gourmandizing propensity of the Esquimaux, Captain Hall found that if he were to live with them, as he intended to do, he must sooner or later come to the same diet. He determined in making a bold plunge, and eating whatever he saw them eat. At first it was rather repugnant to his feelings to eat a piece of raw meat that had been carefully licked by a woman, in order to free it from hairs and other extraneous matters. But he reflected that, if he had not known of the licking, he would not have discovered it from the flavor of the meat, and he very wisely ignored the mode in which it had been cleaned. Similarly, fresh seal’s blood just drawn from the animal seemed rather a strange kind of soup, and the still warm entrails a remarkable sort of after-dinner delicacy. But finding that the Esquimaux considered them both as very great dainties, he tried them, and pronounced that the Esquimaux were perfectly right, and that his preconceived ideas were entirely wrong.

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CXLI. THE ESQUIMAUX--Continued

HUNTING--RELIGION--BURIAL.

MODES OF HUNTING -- SEAL HUNTING IN THE SNOW -- THE INFANT DECOY -- THE SEAL’S IGLOO -- AN IVORY FLOAT -- SEAL “TALK” -- THE HARPOONS AND SPEARS -- SPEARING THE WALRUS -- THE ICE RAFT -- THE BOW AND ARROWS AND WRIST GUARD -- DEER HUNTING -- GROUSE SHOOTING -- THE WOLF AND FOX TRAPS -- THE BIRD SLING -- BEAR HUNTING -- THE MEN’S AND WOMEN’S BOATS -- CONSTRUCTION OF THE KIA, AND MODE OF USING IT -- AQUATIC FEATS -- THE WOMEN’S BOAT AND ITS USES -- THE SLEDGE -- THE VARIOUS RUNNERS -- SLEDGE DOGS AND THEIR TRAINING -- EXAMPLES OF THEIR CLEVERNESS -- BARBEKARK AND THE CAPELINS -- MARRIAGE AND EDUCATION OF CHILDREN -- GAMES AND DANCING -- RELIGION -- THE ANGEKO AND HIS MYSTERIES -- “IN VINO VERITAS” -- HONESTY -- HOSPITALITY -- DISPOSAL OF THE DEAD.

Depending wholly upon the products of the chase for their food, the Esquimaux are most accomplished hunters, and in their peculiar way are simply unequalled by any other people on earth. Take, for example, their mode of seal catching. The reader is doubtless aware that the seal, being a mammal, breathes atmospheric air, and that in consequence it cannot remain very long under water, but is obliged to come up at certain intervals for the purpose of breathing. When it dives under the ice, it would therefore be drowned did it not form for itself certain breathing holes in the ice. These are very small, not more than an inch and a half, or at the most two inches, in diameter, and do not penetrate through the coating of snow that lies on the ice.

The hunter’s dog, which is specially trained for this purpose, detects the breathing hole, and the master then reverses his harpoon, which has a long, spindle shaped butt, and thrusts it through the snow in search of the concealed hole, which often lies under some two feet of snow. When he has found it, he seats himself by the hole, with his harpoon ready; and there he will sit until he hears the blowing sound of the seal, when he drives the harpoon into the hole, and invariably secures his prey. This is the more difficult, as, if the stroke be wrong by even a quarter of an inch, the seal will not be struck, and the man is often wearied with waiting and need of sleep.

The patience with which the Esquimaux hunter will watch a seal hole far surpasses that of a cat at a mouse hole. Captain Hall mentions one case, where an Esquimaux, a notable seal hunter, actually sat watching a seal hole for two and a half days and two nights without either sleep or food. Considering the nature of the climate, such a feat as this is almost incredible. The poor man, after all his trouble, failed to secure the seal, but was not disheartened, and, after taking some food, went off again to the seal hole to renew his watch.

Some of the Esquimaux seal hunters use a singularly ingenious instrument for enabling them to detect the approach of the animal. It consists of a very slender ivory rod, about twelve inches in length, pointed at one end, and having a round knob at the other. It is about as thick as a crow quill. When the hunter has found a seal hole, he ties to the upper end a very fine thread made of sinew, and lowers it into the seal hole, where it is allowed to dangle by the thread. When the seal comes to breathe, it takes no notice of so small an object, but rises as usual for air, pushing the little rod before it. As soon as the hunter sees the rod rise, he knows that the seal is there, and drives his spear down the hole. Even a larger float--if we may so call it--might be unseen by the seal, but it would interfere with the passage of the spear.

There is another mode of catching seals, in which the young acts as a decoy for its mother. The seal, when she is about to produce her young, scratches away the ice until she comes to the snow, which lies deep upon it. She then scratches away a quantity of the snow until she has made a dome-like chamber, in form exactly like the snow hut of the Esquimaux. The tunnel through the ice is just large enough to allow the passage of the seal, while the chamber is about five feet in diameter, so that a tolerably large platform of ice is left, on which the creature can rest. Here its young is produced, and here it remains until the sun melts away the snow covering of the chamber, or igloo, as it is called, by which time the young animal is able to take care of itself.

At the proper season, the Esquimaux set off in search of these seal igloos, and when they are detected by the dogs, the hunter flings himself on the snow, thus beating down the roof of the igloo. He then thrusts his sealing hook into the igloo, and drags out the young seal. It is remarkable, by the way, that the polar bear acts in precisely the same manner, crushing down the walls of the igloo, and dragging out the young one with its paws.

When the Esquimaux has secured the young seal, he ties a long line to one of the hind flippers, and allows it to slip into the sea through the tunnel, while he creeps into the igloo with his hook, in hopes of catching the mother as she comes to help her young one. The Esquimaux always kill young seals by putting the foot on their shoulders, and pressing firmly down, so as to suffocate it. This is done for the purpose of preserving the blood.

Sometimes the seal hunter actually stalks the wary animal on the ice. The seal has a strange way of sleeping when lying on the ice. It takes short naps of only a few seconds’ duration, and between them raises its head and looks round to see if any enemy be approaching. The Esquimaux takes advantage of this habit, and, lying down on the ice, he waits for these short naps, and hitches himself along the ice toward the animal, looking himself very much like a seal as he lies on the ice, covered with seal skin garments. Whenever the seal raises its head, the hunter stops, begins to paw with his hands, and utters a curious droning monologue, which is called “seal talk,” and is supposed to act as a charm. Certain it is, that the seal appears to be quite gratified by the talk, is put off its guard, and allows the hunter to approach near enough to make the fatal stroke.

The same kind of “talk” is used when the sealer goes out in his boat, and some of the hunters are celebrated for the magical power of their song. In seal hunting from a boat, a different kind of harpoon is employed. It is longer and slighter than that which is used for ice hunting, and is furnished with a float made of a leathern bag inflated with air. This is fastened to the shaft, and just below it one end of the harpoon line is secured, the other end being made fast to the head of the weapon.

When the seal is struck, the shaft is shaken from the head, so that there is no danger of its working the weapon out of the seal by its leverage, and it acts as a drag, impeding the movements of the animal, so that the hunter is able to overtake it in his boat, and to pierce it with another harpoon. When the seal is dead, the float serves another purpose. Seals, when killed in the water, almost invariably sink so rapidly that they cannot be secured. The float, however, remains at the surface, so that the successful hunter has only to paddle to it, take it into the canoe, and haul the seal on board. Perhaps the most curious part of the business lies in the skill with which the hunter carries the seal home. The boat in which he sits is entirely covered with skin, except a small aperture which admits his body, and yet he lays the body of the seal upon this slight platform, and manages to balance it as he paddles homeward, regardless of the waves upon which his light little canoe trembles like a cork.

Of these boats we shall presently see something, and will now merely look at the weapons which are employed by the Esquimaux in hunting.

It is worthy of remark that war is totally unknown among the Esquimaux, who are perhaps the only people in the world who possess no war weapons, and have no desire to do so. Generally, when a savage obtains for the first time possession of fire-arms, he uses them in warfare, and by the superiority of his weapons raises himself to eminence. The Esquimaux cares for none of these things. He is essentially a family man, and when he is fortunate enough to procure a musket, he simply uses it for hunting purposes, never wasting the precious powder and lead upon the bodies of his fellow-men. Of fame he is totally ignorant, except that sort of local fame which is earned by skill in hunting. He finds that all his energies are required to procure food and clothing for his household, and therefore he does not expend them upon any other object.

The weapon which is to the Esquimaux what the rifle is to the backwoodsman, the boomerang to the Australian, the sword to the Agageer, the lasso to the South American, and the sumpitan to the Dyak, is the harpoon, a weapon which undergoes various modifications, according to the use to which it is put, but is essentially the same in principle throughout.

The first example is the typical harpoon. It consists of a long wooden shaft, with a float attached to it, as has already been described on page 1339. Owing to the great scarcity of wood in Esquimaux land, the greater part being obtained from the casual drift-wood that floats ashore from wrecks, such a weapon is exceedingly valuable. The shaft is generally made of a number of pieces of wood lashed together in a most ingenious fashion.

The barbed head is but loosely fitted to the shaft, a hole in the base of the head receiving a point at the end of the shaft. It is held in its place by leathern thongs, so arranged that, as soon as the wounded animal darts away, the shaft is shaken from the head. The arrangement of the leathern thongs varies according to the kind of weapon. The illustration on page 1337, shows the head of the harpoon which is used for spearing the walrus.

It is about nine inches in length, and is made of ivory, either that of the walrus or the narwhal, probably the former, as it partakes of the curve of the walrus tooth. It consists of two pieces, which we call, for convenience’ sake the body and the head. The upper part of the body is slightly pointed and rounded, and is meant to be fixed to the shaft of the harpoon. About an inch and a half from the end two holes are bored, through which is passed a double thong of leather about as thick as a goose quill. Next comes the head, which is a triangular and deeply barbed piece of ivory, armed with a thin, flat plate of iron, almost exactly like the armature of the Bosjesman’s war arrow. Through this head is bored a hole, and through the hole passes the loop of the double thong already mentioned. At the butt of the head there is a hole, into which is fitted the conical termination of the body.

By reference to the illustration, the reader will easily comprehend the arrangement. Fig. 1 shows the entire instrument, the head fitted on the body, and held in its place by the double thong. Fig. 2 shows the head disjointed from the body. The reader will now see what a perfect barb this instrument forms. When the harpoon is hurled at the walrus, the head penetrates through the tough skin, and, becoming disjointed from the body, sets at right angles across the little wound which it made on entering, and effectually prevents the weapon from being withdrawn. Fig. 3 shows the upper view of the head, and fig. 4 shows the hole at its base, into which the conical end of the body is loosely fitted.

The line attached to the shaft of this harpoon is very long and of great strength, and, when the hunter goes out to catch walrus, is coiled round and round his neck in many folds, very slightly tied together so as to prevent the successive coils from being entangled with one another. When the hunter launches his harpoon with the right hand, he with the left hand simultaneously jerks the coils of rope off his neck, and throws them after the harpoon. The jerk snaps the slight ligatures, and the animal is “played” like a salmon by an angler, until it is utterly wearied with pain, loss of blood, and its struggles to escape, and can be brought near enough to receive the fatal wound from a spear.

Casting off the rope in exact time is a most important business, as several hunters who have failed to do so have been caught in the coils of the rope, dragged under the ice, and there drowned. On the end of the harpoon line is worked a loop, and, as soon as the weapon is hurled, the hunter drives a spear deeply into the ice, slips the loop over it, and allows the walrus to struggle against the elastic rope until it is quite tired. He then hauls up the line until he has brought the animal to the ice, snatches up his spear, and with it inflicts a mortal wound. On the next page the reader may find an illustration showing the Esquimaux in his usual dress, and engaged in walrus hunting.

One mode of employing this harpoon against the walrus is singularly ingenious. When the Esquimaux hunters see a number of the animals sleeping on a sheet of ice, they look out for an ice fragment small enough to be moved, and yet large enough to support several men. Paddling to the ice, they lift their canoes upon it, bore holes in it, and make their harpoon lines fast to the holes. They then gently paddle the whole piece of ice, men, canoes, and all, to the spot where are lying the drowsy animals, who do not suspect any danger from a piece of ice floating by.

Having made their selection, the hunters tell off two men to each walrus, and, at a given signal, all the harpoons are hurled. The whole herd instantly roll themselves into the sea, the wounded animals being attached to the piece of ice by the harpoon lines. The hunters allow them to tow their ice craft about until they are exhausted, when they launch their canoes, and kill the animals with their spears. As soon as the walrus is dead, the hunters plug up the holes with little pegs of ivory, for the purpose of preserving the blood, which is so highly valued by the Esquimaux.

The Esquimaux have another kind of spear. The shaft is made of wood, but the point and the barbed projections are of ivory. This spear is chiefly used for catching fish, and is flung by means of a throwing stick, almost in the same manner as the spears of the Australians. The throwing stick is made of wood, flattish, and near one end has a hole, into which the butt of the spear is passed. This is altogether a much slighter and lighter weapon than that which has been described.

Bows and arrows are also employed by the Esquimaux. The former are made of horn, bone, or wood, and are almost always composed of several pieces lashed firmly together. As is the case with the bows of the North American tribes, the chief strength is obtained, not so much from the material of the bow, as from a vast number of sinew strings which run down its back. There are often a hundred or more of these sinews, which are put on sufficiently tight to give the bow a slight curvature against the string. The shape of the bow is rather peculiar. And though the weapon is so powerful, it is seldom used at a greater distance than twelve, or at most twenty yards. The length of the bow is on an average three feet six inches.

The arrows are extremely variable. Some have wooden shafts tipped with bone, but the shafts of the best specimens are half bone and half wood, and the points are armed with a little piece of iron. The arrows are contained in a quiver, and the bow is kept in a case. This quiver and bow-case are generally made of seal skin, as being impervious to wet, though they are frequently made of other materials. My own specimen is formed from the hide of the reindeer. When the Esquimaux shoots, he always holds his bow horizontally. The bow-string is made of some fifteen or twenty sinew strings, which are loosely twisted, but not made into a cord.

The bow and arrows are chiefly used in the capture of the reindeer and in shooting rabbits, birds, and other small game. The mode of deer hunting is very ingenious. When the hunter sees some deer feeding on the level plain, he takes his bow and arrows, draws his hood well over his head, and creeps as close as he can to the spot where the deer are reposing. Here he begins to bellow in imitation of the cry with which the deer call each other, and thus attracts the animals within the short distance at which an Esquimaux archer shoots.

Even if he should not use the bellowing call, he has only to lie patiently on the ground to be sure that, sooner or later, some of the deer will come and look at him. They are most inquisitive animals, and when they see any strange object, they cannot resist satisfying their curiosity by inspecting it. Providing the object of their curiosity does not move after them, they approach in a series of circles which they gradually narrow, capering and tossing their heads capriciously, and at last will come within a yard or two of the motionless hunter, and so fall a victim to the arrow which he has already fitted to his bow.

Sometimes the deer hunters adopt an ingenious ruse. Two of them walk near the deer, and purposely show themselves. When the animals’ attention is fixed upon them, they walk slowly away, knowing that the innate curiosity of the deer will induce them to follow. They direct their course past some stone or similar object, when one of them quickly steps behind it, while the other walks onward as before. The deer do not notice that one of the men has disappeared, and so follow the other, thus coming within a yard or two of the deadly arrow.

The arrow is also used for shooting birds, which are always killed when sitting. The arctic grouse are killed in great numbers by the arrow. They pack closely together, so that an arrow shot at random among them can scarcely avoid hitting one of them; and the birds are so apathetic that, when the missile falls among them, they only fly a few yards further and then settle, so that the hunter can pick up his arrow and shoot it at them again, until he has shot the greater number of the covey.

In order to save the wrist from the recoil of the bow-string, the Esquimaux wears a very ingenious guard, composed of several pieces of bone tied together and fastened on the wrist by a bone button and loop. The pieces of bone are about four inches in length. Below the wrist-guard, which is shown on the 1353d page, some curiously formed hooks are represented. No bait is required with them. They are simply moved up and down in the water so as to attract the attention of the fish, and then are jerked sharply upward, so as to catch the fish on one of the projecting points. There are many varieties of this curious hook, but those which are illustrated are the most characteristic.

There is also an instrument called the kakeeway, or little nippers, which is used in a similar manner by the Esquimaux boys. They take a model of a fish made of ivory, tie a string to it, and troll it about in the water in order to attract the fish, when they are struck with the kakeeway, and hauled out of the water. The artificial fish are about three inches long, and are very neatly made, with eyes of iron pyrites. This is a very slow process of fish catching, but the boys, to whom time is of no object, are very fond of it, and will sit on their heels all day for the chance of catching two or three little fish.

The foxes and wolves are generally taken in traps. There are several kinds of traps, but they are mostly made on one or the other of two principles. The usual trap is very like a common mouse trap, except that it is made of ice instead of wood. It is so long and narrow that a wolf cannot turn himself in it, but, if he wishes to retreat, must do so backward. The door is a heavy slab of ice, which moves up and down in two grooves. The door being raised, it is held in position by a line which passes over the top of the trap, through a hole at the end, and is then slightly hitched over a peg. A bait is then attached to the end of the line, and when the wolf pulls it, the door is released, and effectually secures the animal in the icy prison. A hole is then made in the side of the trap, and the wolf is speared where he lies.

Foxes are also taken in these traps, but the usual kind of fox trap is made on a different plan. It is built in a form somewhat resembling a lime-kiln, and the aperture is covered with a piece of whalebone, along which the animal must walk to get at the bait. As it steps on the whalebone, the elastic material gives way, lets the fox into the trap, and then resumes its former position, ready for another victim.

It has already been mentioned that birds are often shot with arrows as they are sitting. The Esquimaux have a singular instrument by which they can capture birds on the wing, provided that they do not fly at any great height from the ground. It consists of seven or eight pieces of bone or ivory, or stone, the latter being preferred on account of its weight. To each of the weights is attached a sinew cord about two feet six inches in length, and all the ends of the cords are tied together, their junction being usually ornamented by a tuft of feathers. When the Esquimaux sees a bird flying so that it will pass tolerably near him, he whirls the sling round his head and flings it at the bird. As it leaves his hand, all the weights fly apart, on account of the rotatory motion which has been communicated to them, so that the weapon covers a space of five feet. Should one of the weights or strings strike the bird, the whole of the sling becomes wrapped round it, and the bird falls helpless to the ground. The reader will doubtless see that this sling is in fact a modification of the Patagonian bolas.

In bear hunting the Esquimaux use either the walrus harpoon or the spear, and often both. They set their dogs at the bear, and while he is engaged in repelling their attacks, which are always made at his back and hind-quarters, the hunter drives the harpoon at him, and fastens the end of the line to the ice, so as to prevent the bear from escaping. He then attacks the animal with another harpoon and with his lance, and, avoiding skilfully the repeated attacks which the bear makes upon him, drives the sharp weapon into the animal’s heart.

The Esquimaux are always very careful not to kill a young bear without previously killing its mother. Should one of them, pressed by hunger, commit so rash an act, the whole party to which he belongs are obliged to take the strictest precautions lest they should be assailed by the mother, who will assuredly follow on their track. They therefore proceed for some five or six miles in a straight line, and then suddenly turn off at right angles, so that the bear may overrun their track as she presses eagerly forward. This manœuvre is several times repeated. When the houses are reached, the weapons are laid ready for use by the bedside, and the sledges are stuck upright outside the house. This is intended by way of a warning to the sleepers. The bear is suspicious about the erect sledge, and always knocks it down before attacking the house, so that the noise of the falling sledge awakens the sleepers, and puts them on their guard.

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The two means of transport used by the Esquimaux are the boat and the sledge, both of which deserve description.

There are two kinds of boats, those of the men and those used by women. The man’s boat is called kajak or kia, according to the dialect of the people, and is a very remarkable piece of workmanship. It is shuttle shaped, both ends being sharply pointed. It is made of a very slight framework of wood and whalebone, over which is stretched a covering of skin. In the middle there is a hole just large enough to admit the body of the rower, and when he takes his seat, he gathers his skin together and ties it round his waist, so that the boat is absolutely impervious to water. The average length is twenty-five feet, and so light are the materials of which it is made, that a man can carry his kia on his head from the house to the water.

These slight canoes have no keel, and sit so lightly on the water that they can be propelled over, rather than through, it with wonderful speed. The paddle is a double one, held in the middle, and used in a manner which is now rendered familiar to us by the canoes which have so largely taken the place of skiffs. It is between nine and ten feet in length, small in the middle, which serves as a handle, and gradually widening to the blades, which are about four inches in width, and edged with ivory, not only for ornament but for strength.

The paddle acts much the same part as the balance pole to the rope-dancer, and by its aid the Esquimaux canoe man can perform really astonishing feats. For example, if two kias are out together, one of them will remain still, the canoe man keeping his boat exactly in the same place, by delicate management of his paddle. The other goes to a distance at right angles to him, and then, urging his kia to the utmost speed, drives it fairly over that of his friend. In performing this remarkable feat, the skill of both is equally tried, for it is quite as difficult to preserve the balance of the stationary kia as to drive the other over it.

There is one feat which is sometimes performed in order to show the wonderful command which an Esquimaux has over his little vessel. He does not, however, attempt it unless another kia is close at hand. After seeing that the skin cover is firmly tied round his waist, and that his neck and wrists are well secured, the man suddenly flings himself violently to one side, thus capsizing the kia, and burying himself under water. With a powerful stroke of his paddle he turns himself and canoe completely over, and brings himself upright again. A skilful canoe man will thus turn over and over some twenty times or so, almost as fast as the eye can follow him, and yet only his face will be in the least wet.

In the illustration on page 1347 both these feats are shown.

The paddler is so tightly tied to the kia, that he is unable to change his position without assistance, or even to lift a heavy weight, such as a seal. In such a case, he asks assistance from a companion. The two kias are placed near each other, and paddles are laid from one to the other, so that for the time they are formed into a double canoe, which cannot be upset. Small lines of whalebone are stretched across the end of the kia, and under them are thrust the points of the spears and harpoons, so that they cannot roll off the boat, and yet are always ready to hand. An inflated seal’s bladder is always attached to the canoe. When the kia is not in use, it is taken out of the water, and rested in a reversed position upon the snow houses, as is seen on page 1327.

The second kind of boat is that which is called the oomiak, and is used by the women. It is evident that the slight and fragile kia, useful as it is for hunting purposes, cannot be employed for the conveyance of baggage, or for the transport of more persons than one, and that therefore some other kind of boat must be made. This is a large, clumsy, straight sided, square ended, flat bottomed vessel, more like a skin trough than a canoe, to which it bears about the same analogy as a punt does to a racing skiff. The framework of the oomiak is made of wood and whalebone, and the covering is of seal skin, from which the hair has been removed. When wet, these skins are nearly transparent, so that the forms of the persons sitting in the boat can be indistinctly seen.

The sides of the boat are about three feet in height, and the weight which a well-made oomiak will carry is really wonderful. Captain Lyon mentions that in one of these boats, measuring twenty-five feet in length by eight in width and three in depth, more than twenty human beings were conveyed. There are two very clumsy paddles by which the boat is slowly propelled, and it is steered by another paddle in the stern. The post of steerer is usually occupied by an old man, who is unable any more to manage the kia, but is still capable of guiding the oomiak, and of flinging a knife, a harpoon, a seal hook, or anything that may come to hand, at the women, if they neglect their paddling.

To each oomiak there can be attached a very primitive mast, with its sail. The mast is but a short one, and is stepped in the fore-part of the boat. Toward the top it is pierced, and in the hollow is placed a sheave, or deeply grooved wheel of ivory, on which the halyards run. The sail is that simplest of all sails, the lug, and is made of the intestines of the walrus, split open so as to form strips of some four inches in width. These strips are sewed together, and produce a sail which is remarkable both for its strength and its extreme lightness. The reader will doubtless have noticed the singular contrast between the canoes of the hot and cold parts of the world. In the former, the canoe and sails are entirely of vegetable materials, without a particle of hide, sinew, or any animal product; while, in the latter, the animal world furnishes almost the whole of the materials.

We now come to the sledge, which is quite as important to the Esquimaux as the canoe. The materials and form of the sledge differ exceedingly, so that in these respects no two sledges are alike, while the principle is identical in all. A sledge is nothing more than two runners, connected with each other by a number of cross-pieces, on which the driver can sit and the goods be packed.

The best sledges are those in which the runners are made from the jaw-bone of a whale, sawn into narrow planks and cut into the proper shape. They are always shod with a strip of the same material. Others are made of wood, shod with bone, and in these cases the wooden part is usually in several pieces, which are lashed together with hide thongs. In the winter, the hide of the walrus is often used for runners. It is fully an inch in thickness, and, when frozen, is very much stronger than a board of the same thickness.

When neither wood, bone, nor walrus skin can be procured, the Esquimaux is still at no loss for runners. He cuts long strips of seal skin, and sews the edges of each strip together, so as to make two long tubes. The tubes are next filled with moss and earth, and water is then poured into them. In a minute or two they are frozen as hard as stone, and are then ready to form the runners of a sledge. The lower edge of the runner, whether it be of bone, wood, or skin, is always shod with a coating of ice, which is renewed as soon as it is worn off by friction, which not only causes the sledge to glide faster over the frozen surface, but preserves the valuable material of the runners from being rubbed to pieces.

The cross-bars of the sledge are generally of bone. They project a little beyond the runners on either side, and are so arranged that the sledge is narrower in front than behind. They are not lashed too tightly, as they are required to yield to the jerks and continual strain which the sledge undergoes in its travels.

The sledge is drawn by a team of dogs, varying from seven to ten, or even more, according to the weight to be carried. They are very simply harnessed to it by a strong cord, or trace, made of seal hide, the trace of the leading dog being considerably longer than that of any of the others. Being accustomed to the work of the sledge, as soon as they can walk, their training is very complete, and a good team will do almost anything but speak.

A team of seven dogs drew a heavy sledge, full of men, a mile in four minutes and a half; and Captain Lyon mentions that three dogs drew him the same distance in six minutes, the weight of the sledge being one hundred pounds. Several times, when returning to the ships, the sagacious animals brought him and his companions safely to the vessels, though the night was pitchy dark and the snow-drift blowing about in clouds. They kept their noses to the ground, and galloped on at full speed, in absolute certainty of their proper line.

The dogs are guided, not by reins, but by a whip, the lash of which is from eighteen to thirty feet in length, and the handle only one foot in length, much like the stock-whip of Australia. A skilful driver makes but little use of the whip when he has a good team of dogs, but guides the animals partly by his voice, and partly by flinging the lash of the whip on one side or other of the leader, who perfectly understands the signal. When they are required to stop, the driver gives a cry almost exactly like the “Woa!” of our own country. He then throws the lash gently over their backs, when they all lie down, and will remain couched in the snow for hours even, during their master’s absence.

The worst of these dogs is that they are very quarrelsome, and are apt to snap and snarl at each other as they gallop along. Sometimes a dog will be exasperated with a bite, and turn furiously on his assailant, when a general fight takes place, the whole of the dogs tumbling over each other, and entangling the traces in a manner that none but an Esquimaux could hope to disentangle. A plentiful application of whip is then made, which is always resented by the dog that receives the stroke. He chooses to think that his next neighbor has hurt him, and so bites his ear. Sometimes a dog is so unruly that the driver is obliged to use his last argument. Making a little hole in the snow with the toe of his boot, he presses the dog’s snout into it, and pounds away at it with the ivory handle of his whip. The dog never howls, nor tries to release himself, but only utters a low whine. Such a punishment never has to be repeated, and the dog always goes quietly for the rest of the day.

The endurance of these animals is wonderful. They are kept in the open air when the temperature is from thirty to forty degrees below zero. They are very ill fed, being forced to content themselves with the bones of fish and seals, scraps of hide, and such very few fragments as their masters cannot devour. Consequently they are always hungry, and can eat almost anything. Captain Hall mentions that in one night they ate a whiplash thirty feet long, and that on one occasion a single dog ate in seven seconds a piece of walrus hide and blubber six feet long and an inch and a half square.

Yet, in spite of all the hardships which they undergo, they can endure almost any amount of fatigue without appearing to be the worse for it, and a team has been known to eat nothing for at least forty-eight hours, to traverse some seventy miles of ground, and yet to return to their homes apparently as fresh as when they set out.

Many of them are possessed of singular intelligence, especially those which are trained to chase the seal, the bear, or the deer. One of these dogs, named Barbekark, belonging to Captain Hall, actually killed a deer himself, took one morsel from the neck, and then went home and fetched his master to the spot where he had left the dead deer. He had a brother that equally distinguished himself in seal catching. He was the leading dog in the team, and once, while drawing a sledge, he caught sight of a seal on the ice. He immediately dashed forward at full speed, and just as the seal was plunging into the water, caught it by the hind flippers. The seal struggled frantically to escape, but the dog retained his hold, and, aided by his fellows, dragged the seal firmly on the ice, when it was secured by his master.

A very amusing example of the intelligence of these dogs is related by Captain Hall. He fed the dogs on “capelins,” a small dried fish, and used to make them stand in a circle round him, so that each received a capelin in turn. “Now Barbekark, a young and shrewd dog, took it into his head that he would play a white man’s trick. So every time he received his fish he would back square out, move a distance of three or four dogs, and force himself in line again, thus receiving double the share of any other dog. But this joke of Barbekark’s bespoke too much of the game many men play upon their fellow-beings, and, as I noticed it, I determined to check his doggish propensities. Still, the amusing and the singular way in which he evidently watched me induced a moment’s pause in my intention.

“Each dog thankfully took his capelin as his turn came round, but Barbekark, finding his share came twice as often as his companions, appeared to shake his tail twice as thankfully as the others. A twinkle in his eyes as they caught mine seemed to say, ‘Keep dark; these ignorant fellows don’t know the game I’m playing. I am confoundedly hungry.’ Seeing my face smiling at his trick, he now commenced making another change, thus getting three portions to each of the others’ one. This was enough, and it was now time for me to reverse the order of Barbekark’s game by playing a trick upon him.

“Accordingly, every time I came to him he got no fish, and though he changed his position three times, yet he got nothing. Now, if ever there was a picture of disappointed plans--of envy at others’ fortunes, and sorrow at a sad misfortune--it was to be found in that dog’s countenance as he watched his companions receiving their allowance. Finding that he could not succeed by any change of his position, he withdrew from the circle to where I was, and came to me, crowding his way between my legs, and looked up in my face as if to say, ‘I have been a very bad dog. Forgive me, and Barbekark will cheat his brother dogs no more. Please, sir, give me my share of capelins.’ I went the rounds three times more, and let him have the fish, as he had shown himself so sagacious, and so much like a repentant prodigal dog.”

* * * * *

Marriage among the Esquimaux is of the very simplest description, and is generally arranged by the parents of the bride and bridegroom, the latter having nothing to do with the affair. There is no marriage ceremony, the parties merely going to live in the same igloo. A man may, and often does, have several wives, and in this case one of them takes the position of the chief, or igloo wife, and is supreme under her husband. She has the largest lamp, the best bed, and the best provision. But she also has the entire management of the household, such as cooking the food, and drying the clothes on the “dry-net.” This is by no means a sinecure, as it forces her to rise many times in the night for the purpose of turning the clothes and drying them equally. She also has to see that the boots are properly “milled.”

After a child is born, the mother is obliged to confine herself to her own igloo for some months, and when the allotted time has expired, she throws off all the clothing which she has worn, and never wears it again. She then dresses herself in a totally new suit of clothes, and visits in succession the inhabitants of every igloo. If a second or third child be born, a separate igloo is always built for the mother, to which she repairs before the birth of the child, and in which she remains until the customary time has elapsed and she is able to call upon her neighbors.

The children begin their education at a very early age; the boys being taught to paddle the kia, to hunt and to fish, and to build igloos; while the girls learn to row the women’s boat, to dress skins, to manage the lamp, to cook, and perform the multitudinous tasks that fall to their lot. The carving of the Esquimaux women is wonderfully good. They make spirited, though conventional, imitations of fish, ducks, dogs, and various animals, from ivory, using in the manufacture nothing but a knife. In the earlier days, before white men visited them, the Esquimaux were obliged to rely entirely upon flint as a material for their knives, which were exactly like those of the ancient and perished races. In chopping the flakes off the flint, the Esquimaux employed a very simple instrument, the use of which showed an exact knowledge of the fracture-line of flint. It is made of bone and ivory, and is about six inches in length. Iron, indeed, is of so late introduction, that when Captain Lyon visited the natives, in 1821, he could purchase a complete harpoon, with its ivory head, float, and line, for a nail; while a knife would purchase a kia, or indeed anything that was asked in exchange for it.

As may be inferred from the climate, the games of the Esquimaux are but few. They are wonderful experts at a sort of “cat’s-cradle,” producing with a piece of string imitations of seals, reindeer, ducks, canoes, and other objects. The little ivory models of ducks and other animals, which have already been mentioned, are used in several of the native games.

Their dances are remarkable for their simplicity, the dancer inventing the steps according to his own taste. There is a dance in which a number of women stand in a ring, with their hands under the front flaps of their jackets, and sing, with half-closed eyes, the inevitable Amna-aya song: these are the band. The dancers are represented by one man, who takes his place in the middle of the ring, swings his head and arms from side to side, his long, lank hair flapping in the wind, while he utters sharp yells at intervals, and occasionally flings one leg as high as his thick garments permit.

The women have a special dance of their own, which consists in kneeling on the ground, leaping to their feet as fast as they can. This is really a difficult task when the heavy and clumsy boots are taken into consideration. Sometimes the men challenge each other to dance, and in that case the challenge is accepted by employing the “koonik,” or national salutation, which is given by rubbing the noses together, and inhaling strongly through the nostrils.

With regard to religion, the Esquimaux seem to have no very definite idea of the subject, except that they believe in a future existence, in a heaven and a hell--the latter being, according to their ideas, dark, full of ice, with snow-storms always blowing, and no seals. They have also a hazy description of a Supreme Being, and a secondary female divinity, the special protector of the Esquimaux.

By way of worship, they have sundry medicine men, or “angekos,” as they are called, who go through a series of strange ceremonies on various occasions, such as illness, or when a party is setting out on a hunting expedition. They make the people pay heavily for their services, and rule with a rod of iron, so that no Esquimaux is likely to retain possession of any valuable piece of property if an angeko should happen to be in the neighborhood. They act upon a very simple and intelligent principle, namely, that the amount of success in “ankooting,” or divining, is in exact ratio with the amount of pay.

Sometimes, in order to impress awe upon their victims, the angekos go through a series of imposing ceremonies, the performance of which infers a vast amount of practice. By the present of a knife and some beads, Captain Lyon induced a celebrated angeko, named Toolemak, to have an interview with a Tornga, or familiar spirit, in the cabin of the ship.

“All light excluded, our sorcerer began by chanting to his wife with great vehemence, and she, in return, answered by singing the Amna-aya (the favorite song of the Esquimaux), which was not discontinued during the whole ceremony. As far as I could learn, he afterward began turning himself rapidly round, and, in a loud, powerful voice, vociferated for Tornga with great impatience, at the same time blowing and snorting like a walrus. His noise, impatience, and agitation increased every moment, and he at length seated himself on the deck, varying his tones, and making a rustling with his clothes.

“Suddenly the voice seemed smothered, and was so managed as to sound as if retreating beneath the deck, each moment becoming more distant, and ultimately giving the idea of being many feet below the cabin, where it ceased entirely. His wife, now, in answer to my queries, informed me very seriously that he had dived, and that he would send up Tornga.

“Accordingly, in about half a minute, a distant blowing was heard very slowly approaching, and a voice which differed from that which we at first had heard was at times mixed with blowing, until at length both sounds became distinct, and the old woman informed me that Tornga was come to answer my questions. I accordingly asked several questions of the sagacious spirit, to each of which inquiries I received an answer by two loud slaps on the deck, which I was given to understand was favorable.

“A very hollow yet powerful voice, certainly much different from the tones of Toolemak, now chanted for some time, and a strange jumble of hisses, groans, shouts, and gabblings like a turkey succeeded in rapid succession. The old woman sang with increased energy, and, as I took it for granted that this was all intended to astonish the Kabloona, I cried repeatedly that I was very much afraid. This, as I expected, added fuel to the fire, until the form immortal, exhausted by its own might, asked leave to retire. The voice gradually sank from our hearing, as at first, and a very indistinct hissing succeeded. In its advance, it sounded like the tone produced by the wind upon the bass-cord of an Æolian harp; this was soon changed to a rapid hiss, like that of a rocket, and Toolemak, with a yell, announced his return. I held my breath at the first distant hissing, and twice exhausted myself; yet our conjuror did not once respire, and even his returning and powerful yell was uttered without a previous stop or inspiration of air.

“Light being admitted, our wizard, as might be expected, was in a profuse perspiration, and certainly much exhausted by his exertions, which had continued for at least half an hour. We now observed a couple of bunches, each consisting of two strips of white deer-skin and a long piece of sinew, attached to the back of his coat. These we had not seen before, and were informed that they had been sewed on by Tornga while he was below.” A similar exhibition has been seen by several travellers, and they have expressed their astonishment at the length of time during which an angeko can howl, hiss, and gabble without taking breath.

While he is below the earth, the angeko is supposed to visit the habitation of the particular spirit whom he is addressing, and sometimes gives a detailed account of the places in which he has been, and of their inhabitants. One female spirit, for example, is called Aywilliayoo. She commands all the bears, whales, seals, and walruses by means of her right hand. So, when there is a scarcety of provisions, the angeko makes a visit to Aywilliayoo and attacks her hand. If he can cut off her nails, the bears immediately are set free, the loss of one finger joint liberates the small seals, the second joint sends the large seals, the knuckles free the whole herds of walrus, while the entire hand liberates the whale.

In figure this spirit is very tall, and has only one eye and one pigtail, but this is as large as a man’s leg, and descends to her knee. Her house is a very fine one, but Toolemak did not venture to enter it, because it was guarded by a huge dog with black hind-quarters and no tail. Her father is no larger than a boy of ten years old, and he has but one arm, which is always covered with a large bear’s-skin mitten. His house is also handsome, but its entrance is guarded by troops of bears and walruses, who keep up a continual growling.

Unfortunately for his own credit, Toolemak got drunk one evening, as he might well be, having consumed in succession nearly ten glasses of rum, or “hot water,” as he was pleased to call it. During his intoxication he became very good-natured, and betrayed the secrets of his magic art, showing how he altered his voice by covering his face with his hands and then with his jacket, so as to make the voice appear as if it came from a continually increasing depth. He finished this singular exhibition by drinking in succession eleven pints and one gill of water, and within a few minutes became sober enough to leave the ship and walk to his sledge.

Sometimes the Esquimaux say that they are annoyed by spirits. On one occasion when a man nicknamed Kettle was eating in Captain Lyon’s cabin, he became uneasy, and frequently ceased eating, a very remarkable circumstance in a hungry Esquimaux. Presently he said that there was a spirit sitting on the opposite side of the cabin, making grimaces at him, and preventing him from eating. He asked leave to drive his tormenter away, which he did by raising a long, bellowing sound, and then blowing sharply on the ends of his fingers. He resumed his meal quietly, and nothing would induce him to blow on his fingers or raise the exorcising yell again, on the ground that the spirit was no longer to be seen.

* * * * *

The Esquimaux possess wonderful powers of drawing. They know scarcely anything of perspective, but they can make their sketches tell their own tale; while in drawing from memory a chart of a coast, their skill is really admirable. In Captain Hall’s book there are fac-similes of several native charts and sketches, the most curious of which is one which was not only drawn but engraved on wood by the native draughtsman. It represents a woman with a child nestling in the hood behind her back, and is quite equal in execution to wood-cutting in the earlier stages of the art. The point about it which most strikes a practised eye is the force and fidelity with which the artist has marked the texture of the different parts of the dress; the fur coat and trowsers edged with leather, and the white-edged, fur-lined hood, are most admirably managed.

Of music and musical instruments the Esquimaux know little. They have the Amna-aya song, which has already been mentioned, and they possess one national musical instrument, called the “keeloun.” This is something like a tambourine, being formed of a very thin deer skin, or the envelope of the whale’s liver, stretched over one side of a wooden hoop. A handle is attached to the hoop, and the instrument is struck, not upon the membrane, but upon the hoop.

As a nation they are remarkable for two good qualities, honesty and hospitality. There are, of course, exceptions to every rule, and such is the case with the Esquimaux. But the early voyagers found that they might leave their knives and axes on shore, and that not one of them would be touched. Now, to an Esquimaux a steel knife or axe is more valuable than a box full of sovereigns would be to us, and the honesty of the Esquimaux was as much tried by the sight of these articles as would be that of our London poor if a heap of sovereigns were left lying on the pavement.

As to hospitality, their food is considered to be merely common property, so that if one of the Esquimaux should kill a seal, all his friends and neighbors assemble as a matter of course to assist in eating it; and even though the family of the successful hunter should be starving, he will nevertheless invite all his friends to partake of the food. In this way, it often happens that an entire seal barely affords a single meal to all who come to share it.

* * * * *

Funerals among the Esquimaux are rather variable in their forms. Generally, when a sick person is on the point of death, a new igloo is built, and carefully fitted with lamp, provisions, and other furniture. The dying person is carried in--not through the regular doorway, but through a breach in the wall--placed on the couch, the lamp lighted, and the provisions laid ready to hand. The attendants then leave the igloo, build up the openings, and never trouble themselves again about the sick person. The principal reason why the dying are left alone is, that if the relatives are in the igloo at the moment of death, they are obliged to throw away the dresses which they were wearing, and never to wear them again. None of them can tell the reason for this strange belief, but it is so strongly ingrained that no argument can induce them to abandon it.

Sometimes the body of a dead person is simply buried in a hole scooped in the snow, and sometimes it is laid upon a ledge of rock, accompanied by the lamp, kettle, knives, spears, and dresses which the deceased used while in life. When a child dies, all its toys are placed with it in the grave, that it may be supplied with them in the next world.

The demeanor of the Esquimaux with regard to their dead is a most extraordinary mixture of affection and unconcern. After having buried the body, whether alive or dead does not matter, they care nothing about it, and this strange insensibility is even displayed before the burial. For example, a man’s wife had died, leaving a child of a few weeks old, which in a short time followed its mother. The father was very sorrowful for his dying child, and was seen in the night lifting the curtains of its bed as it lay ill on board ship, and sighing deeply. But, on the next day, when he came to the ship, he made no scruple of laying his meat on the body of the child, and using it as a table at breakfast.

Once, when Captain Lyon visited the grave where an Esquimaux named Pekooya had been laid, he found that the wolves and dogs had uncovered the body, and had eaten a considerable portion of it. He was naturally shocked at the scene, but the natives treated it with absolute indifference, and though the father and a brother of Pekooya were witnesses of the desecration, they would not cover up the mangled body, and only laughed when Captain Lyon remonstrated with them. Moreover, when the body was buried, it was covered so slightly with snow that the first day’s thaw would melt off all the snow, and leave it to the mercy of the dogs.

Judging from such a fact as this, it might be thought that the Esquimaux have but little natural affection, and that they are indifferent to the loss of their nearest relatives. Such, however, is not the case. An Esquimaux never passes the grave of an acquaintance without depositing a piece of meat as an offering, and the surviving relatives often visit the burying-place of their dead, and sit there for hours, talking to them as if they were still alive. On comparing all the conflicting accounts respecting the Esquimaux and their dead, it seems likely that they consider the dead body as something that the deceased once possessed, but cast away at death, and that, as their departed friend abandoned the body, they need take no trouble about so worthless an article.

* * * * *

If the reader will refer to the illustration on page 1347, he will see that the horizon is illuminated by strange and wild-looking dashes of light. These represent the Aurora Borealis, as it often appears in those parts,--not pale and flickering as we see it in these comparatively southern regions, but blazing with all imaginable hues, and giving out a light that stands the natives in stead of the sun, which in those latitudes is absent for months at a time. The glory and magnificence of these displays can only be described by those who have seen them, and very inadequately even by such.

There is an account given by Captain Hall of one of these marvellous exhibitions:--“I had gone on deck several times to look at the beauteous scene, and at nine o’clock was below in my cabin, when the captain hailed me with these words, ‘Come above, Hall, come at once! THE WORLD IS ON FIRE.’

“I knew his meaning, and quick as thought I re-dressed myself, scrambled over several sleeping Innuits close to my berth, and rushed to the companion stairs. In another moment I reached the deck, and as the cabin door swung open, a dazzling and overpowering light, as if the world were really ablaze under the agency of some gorgeously colored fires, burst upon my startled senses. How can I describe it? Again I say, No mortal hand can truthfully do so. Let me however, in feeble, broken words, put down my thoughts at the time, and try to give some faint idea of what I saw.

“My first thought was, ‘Among the gods there is none like unto Thee, O Lord; neither are any works like unto Thy works!’ Then I tried to picture the scene before me. Piles of golden light and rainbow light, scattered along the azure vault, extended from behind the western horizon to the zenith; thence down to the eastern, within a belt of space, 20° in width, were the fountains of beams, like fire-threads, that shot with the rapidity of lightning hither and thither, upward and athwart the great pathway indicated. No sun, no moon, yet the heavens were a glorious sight, flooded with light. Even ordinary print could easily have been read on deck.

“Flooded with rivers of light! Yes, flooded with light; and such light! Light all but inconceivable. The golden hues predominated, but in rapid succession prismatic colors leaped forth. We looked, we saw, and trembled; for as we gazed, the whole belt of aurora began to be alive with flashes. Then each pile or bank of light became myriads; some were dropping down the great pathway or belt; others springing up, others leaping with lightning flash from one side, while more as quickly passed into the vacated space; some twisting themselves into folds, entwining with others like enormous serpents, and all these movements as quick as the eye could follow.

“It seemed as if there were a struggle with these blazing lights to reach and occupy the dome above our heads. Then the whole arch above became crowded. Down, down it came; nearer and nearer it approached us. Sheets of golden flame, coruscating while leaping from the auroral belt, seemed as if met in their course by some mighty agency that turned them into the colors of the rainbow, each of the seven primary colors 3° in width, sheeted out to 21°.

“While the auroral fires seemed to be descending upon us, one of our number could not help exclaiming,--

“‘Hark! hark! such a display! almost as if a warfare were going on among the beauteous lights above--so palpable--so near--it seems impossible without noise.’

“But no noise accompanied this wondrous display. All was silence....

“I would here make the remark that the finest displays of the aurora only last a few moments. Though it may be playing all night, yet it is only now and then that its grandest displays are made. As if marshalling forces, gaining strength, compounding material, it continues on its silent workings. At length it begins its trembling throes; beauty anon shoots out here and there, when all at once the aurora flashes into living hosts of powdered coruscating rainbows, belting to the heavenly dome with such gorgeous grandeur that mortals sometimes tremble to behold.”

These wonderful aërial phenomena are characteristic of the Arctic regions. One of the most extraordinary appearances in the sky is called the Parhelion, or Mock Sun. It assumes various and most astounding forms, the sun appearing in the middle, and being surrounded with dimmer imitations of itself, round which run circular bands of light. There seems, indeed, to be no end to the extraordinary modifications of aërial effects which take place in these regions. Captain Hall described many of them, among which may be mentioned a moon distorted beyond all recognition, its lower limb all crushed and shapeless, and the whole appearance of the planet like that of a man under the influence of liquor.

Then the refractive powers of the atmosphere produce most wonderful effects, destroying all perspective, and bringing into sight all kinds of objects which, by the ordinary laws of optics, are far out of sight. All sailors are familiar with the appearance of a vessel high in the air, sailing, as it were, through the sky with her keel in the clouds, and the tops of her masts pointing downward. In these regions the refractive powers are even terrible to accustomed eyes, so wonderful are the sights presented to them.

In one of these strange exhibitions, witnessed by Captain Hall, a vast white inverted pyramid seemed to form in the sky, and at every roll of the vessel to dip into the sea. Presently “some land that was seventy-five miles distant, and the top of it only barely seen in an ordinary way, had its rocky base brought full in view. The whole length of this land in sight was the very symbol of distortion.

“Pendant from an even line that stretched across the heavens was a ridge of mountains. Life hangs upon a little thread, but what think you of mountains hanging upon a thread? In my fancy I said, ‘If Fate had decreed one of the Sisters to cut that thread while I witnessed the singular spectacle, what convulsions upon the land and sea about us might not have followed!’ But Nature had an admirable way of taking down these rock-giants, hanging between the heavens and the earth. Arch after arch was at length made in wondrous grandeur from the rugged and distorted atmospheric land; and, if ever man’s eye rested upon the sublime, in an act of God’s creative power, it was when He arcuated the heavens with such a line of stupendous mountains.

“Between those several mountain arches in the sky were hung icebergs, also inverted, moving silently and majestically about as the sea-currents shifted those along of which they were the images. In addition to all this there was a wall of water, so it appeared, far beyond the apparent horizon. This wall seemed alive with merry dancers of the most fantastic figures that the imagination could conceive, and its perpendicular columns were ever playfully changing. Oh, how exquisitely beautiful was this God-made, living wall! A thousand youthful forms of the fairest outline seemed to be dancing to and fro, their white arms intertwined, bodies incessantly varying, intermixing, falling, rising, jumping, skipping, hopping, whirling, waltzing, resting, and again rushing to the mazy dance--never tired--ever playful--ever light and airy, graceful, and soft to the eye.”

Such, then, is a brief account of the remarkable and interesting Innuit people--a people which, according to the observation of Captain Hall, are gradually dying out, and in a few more years will cease to exist.

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CXLII. VANCOUVER’S ISLAND

THE AHTS AND NEIGHBORING TRIBES.

DEFINITION OF THE AHT TRIBES -- APPEARANCE OF THE NATIVES -- STRENGTH OF GRASP -- PECULIARITY OF THE LEGS -- GAIT OF THE WOMEN -- SPEED OF THE MEN -- DANCE -- THE LIP ORNAMENT OF THE WOMEN -- CLOTHING -- THE BOAT CLOAK AND HAT -- WEAPONS -- THE BOW AND ARROW -- INGENIOUS CONSTRUCTION OF THE BOW -- ITS BACKING OF ELASTIC STRINGS -- THE ARROWS AND THEIR SPIRAL FEATHERING -- THE FISH SPEAR AND HARPOON ARROWS -- THE HALIBUT HOOK -- VARIOUS MODES OF HUNTING -- SALMON SPEARING BY TORCHLIGHT -- THE HERRING RAKE -- HOW TO KEEP THE BOAT FROM SINKING -- THE WHALE FISHERY.

Before leaving this part of the world, we will cast a brief glance at the tribes which inhabit Vancouver’s Island. They are singularly interesting, inasmuch as they combine some of the habits which distinguish the Esquimaux with others of the North American tribes, and add to them several of the customs which have been already noticed among the Polynesians, their insular position and peculiar climate no doubt affording the cause for this curious mixture.

* * * * *

As a type of these tribes, we will take the AHTS, though other tribes will be casually mentioned. The Ahts may rather be called a nation than a tribe, being divided into some twenty tribes, the names of which all end in “aht,” as, for example, Ohyaht, Muchlaht, Ayhuttisaht, Toquaht, etc. Altogether they number about seventeen hundred. They do not, however, act together as a nation, and each tribe is perfectly distinct, and often at war with another.

They are not a tall people, the men averaging a little less than five feet six inches, and the women being just above five feet. Possibly, from the continual paddling which they practise almost from childhood, the upper limbs of an Aht are exceedingly strong, so strong, indeed, that a slight-looking native can carry with ease on his extended fingers a weight which a white man can scarcely lift. Their power of grasp, probably from the same cause, is more like the grip of a machine than the grasp of a man; and those who have had to fight with them have found that if once an Aht be allowed to seize either the clothing or the hair, the only way to loosen his grasp is to knock him down with a blow in the throat or in the ribs--he cares nothing for a blow on the head.

When he comes to such close quarters in a quarrel, he has an awkward habit of grasping the enemy with one hand, and using with the other a knife which he has kept concealed in his long hair. Fortunately for his white opponent, so extraordinary a proceeding as a blow from the fist, which deprives him for a time of breath, bewilders and alarms him to such an extent that he seldom risks its repetition.

The legs of the Aht tribes are, as a rule, short, ill-made, bowed, and apparently deficient in power. This peculiarity is especially noticeable in the women, whose legs are so bowed, and whose toes are so turned inward, that they waddle rather than walk, and at every step they are obliged to cross their feet as a parrot does. The legs of the inland tribes are, as a rule, better developed than those of the inhabitants of the coast. Yet these unsightly limbs are by no means deficient in power. An Aht, powerfully built above, will step out of his canoe, and exhibit a pair of legs scarcely as thick as his arms, and yet he will walk in the woods for a whole day without showing any signs of fatigue.

Owing to this form of limb, the natives, though enduring enough, are not swift of foot, and can be easily overtaken by a white man on the open ground, notwithstanding the impediments of clothing, and especially of shoes, which hinder the progress of the pursuer, the pursued usually throwing off the only garment that he wears. Should he once reach the woods, pursuit is useless, as no white man can follow a naked native in them.

The color of the Ahts is a dull, but not dark, brown. Their face is broad and flat, the nose tolerably well formed when it is not dragged out of shape by rings and other ornaments, and the cheek-bones are strongly marked and broad, but not high. There is very little hair on the faces of the men, but that of the head is long, straight, and is generally allowed to hang loosely over the shoulders, though it is sometimes gathered into a knot at the back of the head, merely covered by a cap or a wreath of grass. They are very proud of their hair, so that when an Aht has been guilty of some offence which is not very serious, the best punishment is to cut off his hair, inasmuch as he will be an object of constant ridicule until it has grown again. The women divide their hair in the middle, and tie it in two plaits, one of which hangs at each side of the face, and often has a piece of lead suspended to the end to keep it straight. Mr. Sproat thinks that the physical characteristics of the Ahts have been modified by means of a large importation of Chinese, which took place about the end of the last century, and remarks that the peculiar Chinese eye is sometimes seen among these natives. Still, even if this be the fact, the modification can be but slight, as both people are undoubtedly members of the same great race, though altered by the conditions in which they have respectively been placed.

Some of the women have a hideously ugly ornament which they wear in their under lip, just as do the Botocudos of Tropical America. This practice exists only among the northern tribes, where it is carried out to an enormous extent. As the size of the ornament is gradually increased from childhood, the lip of an old woman will contain an oval ornament three inches long by two wide. There is a shallow groove round the edge so as to keep it in its place, and both sides are slightly concave. Sometimes it is used as a spoon, the woman putting on it a piece of meat that is too hot, and, when it is cool, turning it into her mouth by a contraction of the lip.

The value that is set upon this horrible disfigurement is almost ludicrous, a woman’s rank being due to the size of her lip ornament. Possibly, on account of the long time which must be occupied in stretching the orifice in the lip to the required size, the opinion of a woman with a large lip is always held in respect; and, if she should be opposed by a younger person of her own sex, she will contemptuously decline to enter into argument with a woman who has so small a lip. Some of them wear a shell ornament, like the stem of a clay tobacco-pipe, one or two inches long, stuck through the lip and projecting forward at a considerable angle with the chin. This ornament is called the hai-qua.

As for clothing, the men wear a sort of robe made by themselves, for which they have in later days substituted an European blanket. They are not at all particular as to the disposal of this robe, and even if it should fall off do not trouble themselves. The women also wear the blanket, but always have a small apron in addition to it. In their canoes they wear a cape. It is made of cedar-bark string, and is woven in nearly the same manner as the mat of the New Zealander, which has already been described; namely, by stretching the warp threads parallel to each other on a frame, and tying them together at intervals with a cross-thread which represents the woof. A specimen in my collection has the cross-threads at intervals of half an inch.

It is shaped exactly like the cross section of a boat, straight above, and rounded below. It measures five feet three inches in width, and three feet six inches in depth in the centre. As is usual with such robes, the upper edge is adorned with a strip of marten fur a quarter of an inch wide, wound spirally round the selvage so as to form quite a thick rope of fur. These capes are the work of the women, who have the manufacture of all the clothing. Fur bags are made by the simple process of skinning the marten, the body being then extricated through a cut made across the abdomen just below the tail. As the skin comes off it is reversed, and when dry and properly dressed it is turned with the fur outward, and the bag is complete, the tail serving as a handle. One of these bags in my collection was presented to me by Lieut. Pusey.

The woof thread is also made of the white pine bark, and the needle is nothing more than a sharpened twig. The same useful materials are also employed for the curious hats which the natives wear in their canoes. These hats are made on the principle of the sailors’ “sou’-westers,” and are fashioned so as to shoot rain off the shoulders. The outside of the hat is made of cedar bark, and the inside of white pine bark.

* * * * *

Depending largely upon animal food for their nourishment, the Aht tribes are expert hunters, and make very ingenious weapons, some of which are shown in the illustrations on page 1357, drawn from my own specimens.

The bow and arrows used by these people are worthy of a brief description. The bow is an admirable specimen of savage art, and must be the result of long experience. It is four feet three inches in length, and made of one piece of wood. In general shape it resembles the bow of the Andamans, though it is not of such gigantic dimensions. In the middle the wood is rounded, so as to form a handle which is nearly four inches in circumference. From the handle to the tips, the wood is gradually flattened and widened for about fourteen inches, where it is just two inches wide. From this point it gradually lessens again to the tip, which is rounded and thickened, so as to receive the notch for the string.

Were no addition made to the bow it would still be a very powerful weapon, but the maker has not been satisfied with the simple wood, and has strengthened it with a wonderfully complex arrangement of strings made of twisted sinews. In my specimen there are rather more than fifty of these strings, which are laid on the bow and interwoven with each other in a manner so strong and neat, that the most skilful sailor might be envious of such a piece of handiwork. Each of these strings is double, the two strands being about as large as thin whipcord, and when seen against the light they are quite translucent.

They are put on in the following manner. Two deep notches, parallel to the line of the bow, are made at each lip, these notches serving two purposes: first, the reception of the bow-strings, and next the support of the strengthening strings. Eight of the strings, measuring about eleven feet in length, have been doubled, the loop passed over the tip of the bow, and the strings led along the back over the corresponding notch at the other tip, and brought back to the middle. These strings lie parallel to each other, and form a flat belt from one end of the bow to the other. About an inch below the tip, three other sets of strings are fastened in a somewhat similar manner, so that four distinct layers of strings run throughout the length of the weapon.

Even these have not sufficed the maker, who has added six more layers starting from the widest and flattest part of the bow, so that nearly three feet of the centre of the weapon are strengthened by no less than twelve layers of sinew strings. By referring to the illustration, the reader will perceive the extreme ingenuity with which the strings are laid on the bow, so that whether the weapon be bent or unstrung, they all keep their places. So firmly are they lashed to the bow, that even when it is unstrung they are all as tight as harp strings.

The string of the bow is made of the same material as those which strengthen the back, and in consequence of the very great strength of the material, it is much thinner than the string of an ordinary archer’s bow. It is made of two strands, each strand being about as large as the back strings.

By referring to illustration No. 3, on the next page, a good idea can be gained of this singularly ingenious weapon. At first the bow is seen as it appears when strung, fig. 3 giving a section of the wood. At fig. 2 is an enlarged representation of one end of the bow, so as to show the manner in which the various sets of strings are fastened. At the upper part are seen the strings which form the first layer, passing over the end of the bow, and filling up the notch in which they lie. Just below the tip come the second and third sets, which pass down the bow, where they are met by, and interwoven with, the remainder of the strings, the whole of them being gathered in the rope with its spiral building. This beautiful weapon was added to my collection by Lieut. Pusey, R. N.

The arrows are of various kinds, according to the object for which they are intended. That which is used for ordinary occasions is shown in the uppermost figure of the illustration. It is two feet three inches in length, and is headed with bone.

There is a peculiarity about these arrows which is worthy of notice. Some time ago an arrow was patented in England, which had the feathers placed spirally upon the end of the shaft, so as to give it a rapidly revolving movement when discharged from the bow. The principle was exactly that of the screw which is applied to steam vessels; and those who used the arrow acknowledged that the spiral setting of the feathers not only increased the power of flight, but enabled the archer to drive his arrow through the wind with greater ease and certainty than could be obtained with the ordinarily feathered arrow. There is a very old saying that there is nothing new under the sun, and this is the case with the arrow in question, the savages of Northern America having adopted the same principle long ago. In their arrows the feathers are set spirally, with a bold curve, and there is really no difference between the weapon of the savage and the toy of civilization, than the greater neatness and higher finish of the latter.

The lower figure represents the arrow which is used for killing fish. In this weapon the point is also of bone, but is very much longer, and is double, the two halves diverging considerably from each other, and being barbed on the inner surface. It is firmly lashed to the shaft, and their divergence is given by means of two pegs, which are driven between the shaft and the two portions of the point. If a fish be struck by this ingenious weapon, it cannot possibly escape, the elastic points contracting violently and holding the fish between them.

It is worthy of notice that a police spear made exactly on the same principle is used by the Malays. It consists of a handle some seven feet long, from the end of which project two diverging points. The inner side of each point is armed with a row of very sharp barbs, all directed backward. Thorns are often used for this purpose. Should a criminal try to escape, the police officer has only to thrust his spear against the back of the man’s neck, when he is at once a prisoner, the barbed points effectually preventing him from escaping, even should the officer drop his weapon. The zoölogical reader will remember that the teeth of the snake and of many fish--the pike, for example--are set on exactly the same principle.

In some specimens the head is fitted loosely on the shaft, and connected with it by means of a string, which is wound spirally round it, and when the fish is struck the head is shaken off the shaft, which serves both as a drag to aid in tiring the fish, and as a float by which its presence may be indicated.

The most ingenious of these arrows is used for shooting seals and the larger fish, and is very elaborately constructed. It measures about four feet in length, and is almost deserving of the name of harpoon rather than arrow.

The shaft is made of very light wood, and is about as thick as a man’s finger. At the butt-end it is feathered in the usual manner, and at the other it is terminated by a pear-shaped piece of bone an inch in diameter at the thickest part. Into the end of this bone is bored a small conical hole, which receives the head. This is also made of bone, and is very small in comparison with the arrow, and is furnished with two deeply cut barbs. As is the case with all harpoon weapons, the head is connected with the shaft by a line, but in this case there is a peculiarity about the line and its mode of attachment.

Instead of being a mere double-strand string, it is made of a number of fibres arranged in three strands, and plaited, not twisted together, so as to form a flat line, which possesses enormous strength combined with great elasticity and small size. The mode of attachment is as ingenious as the method of manufacture. The line is a double one, measuring twelve feet in length. The line is first doubled, the loop is put through a hole in the point and over the head, so as to secure it, and the two halves of the line are then lashed together about eighteen inches from the point. One end is then fastened to the arrow just below the feathers, and the other to the shaft just above the bone tip. The object of this arrangement is evident. As soon as a seal is struck, it dashes off, shaking the shaft from the barbed head, which remains in its body. Were the line simply tied to the end of the shaft, the wounded creature would easily drag it through the water. But, as the line is fastened to each end of the shaft and to the head besides, when the latter transfixes a seal it is separated from the shaft, and the shaft is drawn crosswise through the water, presenting so great a resistance that the seal becomes exhausted with its unavailing struggles, and comes to the surface, where it is despatched with a second or third weapon.

Besides the harpoon and fish arrow, these people also use the hook (see page 1357), which is quite as ingenious in its way as the implements which have been described. The body of the hook is of wood, and is exactly in the shape of the capital letter U. The point bends slightly outward, and is charred at the tip to render it harder. It is also defended and strengthened by a band of very tough vegetable fibre, which covers it for about three inches. The barb is a piece of bone, about five inches in length, sharpened like a needle at the point. This barb is not attached to the point, as is the case with the generality of hooks, but is fastened to the shank, and is so long that its tip reaches to the middle of the hook.

At first sight this seems a very inadequate arrangement for securing fish, and looks as if the creature could easily slip off the unguarded point. If, however, the hook, which is a very large one, be tested, it will be found astonishingly efficacious. If the point be inserted between the fingers, as it would be inserted into the jaws of a fish, and then brought upward, it will be found that the sharp barb effectually prevents the hook from being withdrawn.

There is one effect of this mode of fixing the barb which may or may not have been intended. Should, by any accident, the line become entangled with the hook, and reverse it, the fish is quite as secure, the long, straight barb forming a second hook, to which it is transferred. The body of this hook is made of the Douglas pine, and it is brought into shape by steaming. The hook is chiefly used for catching the halibut, as, for some reason, the Ahts will not use a steel hook in the capture of this fish.

There is plenty of game, both large and small, in these regions, though the chase is in all cases a severe one, and tests not only the skill but the endurance of the hunter. There is, for example, the black bear, which is a most valuable animal, its fur being used for clothing, and its flesh for food. Bear hunting is not carried on at all times of the year, but is generally followed toward the end of autumn, when the bears are fat, and about to enter their winter quarters. Sometimes the Ahts wait until the bear has gone into retirement, and then spear it in its winter home. Traps are in great favor, because they do not spoil the skin. They are very simple; the trap consisting of a tree trunk heavily loaded with stones, and suspended at one end over the animal’s track. It is kept in position by a trigger, to which is attached a slight rope crossing the track. It is always placed in some spot where a large stump or the root of a fallen tree allows the trap to be set without disturbing the appearance of the track.

Then there are one or two deer, the largest of which is the wapiti, commonly but erroneously called the elk. The hunter generally takes it by following its track, and stalking it as it feeds, when the powerful bow drives an arrow to its heart. The skill of the hunter is shown as much after the deer is dead as during the actual chase. Captain Mayne mentions that he has seen a wapiti killed, and in a quarter of an hour it has been skinned, the whole of the flesh removed from the bones, and the skin converted into moccasins. The natives have rather a strange way of carrying the meat. At their first halt after killing a deer, they cut the meat into pieces two or three inches square, transfix them with a long stick, and carry the stick upon their shoulder, every now and then pulling off a piece and eating it as they go along. In this manner the flesh of a deer vanishes in a wonderfully short time. Very little meat is preserved, the Ahts generally eating it as soon as the animal is killed.

As to the fish, there are so many that only one or two can be mentioned. The salmon is the fish that seems to be the most valued by these fish-eating tribes, and it is caught, as with us, in a variety of ways. Sometimes the natives use a rather curious fish spear, about fifteen feet long in the shaft, and with a double head, made of wapiti bone. The head is only slightly fixed in the shaft, to which it is attached by a line, as in the harpoon arrow already described. Should the fish be a very heavy one, the hunter merely ties to the line a number of inflated bladders, and causes it to tire itself by useless struggles before he risks the fracture of the line or loss of the barbed head, one or both of which events would probably happen if he were to try to secure a fresh and powerful fish.

Sometimes, when the fish are plentiful, they are caught by dropping among them a stick armed with barbed points, and jerking it upward sharply, until it impales a fish on one or other of these points.

“Burning the water” is employed in catching salmon, and is carried on by two natives, one of whom paddles the canoe, while the other stands in the bow, where a torch is kept burning, and strikes the fish as they glide through the water. Mr. Sproat mentions that a single canoe has been known to bring back forty fine salmon as the result of a day’s fishing. Salmon traps are also employed. These are made after a fashion closely resembling that of the eel-traps used in this country. They are double baskets, externally cylindrical, and are set with their mouths directed down the stream. When the fish try to pass up the stream they enter the basket, and, as the inner basket is very much shorter than the other, shaped like a sugar-loaf, the salmon finds itself imprisoned between them. Some of these baskets measure as much as twenty feet in length, and five feet in diameter, so that they will contain a considerable number of fish.

One of the oddest fishing instruments is that by which the herring is caught. This is a pole about ten feet in length, flattened at one end like the blade of an oar, and armed along the edge with projecting spikes. When the fisherman gets among a shoal of herrings, he plunges his pole into the mass of fish, draws it through them with a peculiar movement of the arms, so as to transfix the herrings on the spikes, and then shakes them into his boat. By this mode of fishing, which is called “herring-raking,” great numbers of fish are taken, as well as by the net, which is ingeniously made from fibre obtained from a native nettle, which reaches eight or ten feet in height.

The Ahts are such keen fishermen that they will often endanger the safety of their canoes by the quantity of fish with which they will heap them, so that the gunwales are sunk within an inch or so of the water’s edge. In calm weather they can manage well enough, even with such a burden as this; but if the wind should get up before they can reach the shore, the danger is very great. Should such an event happen, these enterprising fishermen will not throw their cargo overboard to save the boat, but will fasten all the spare floats round the canoe, so as to keep it from sinking even if it be filled with water.

There is scarcely any end to the use which is made by the Ahts of these floats, and with their aid they will attack and conquer even the gigantic whale. The following account of their mode of whale fishing is written by Mr. G. M. Sproat:--“A whale-chase is an affair of some moment. The kind of whale commonly seen on the coast was described by an old whaling skipper as ‘finner,’ in which there is not much oil. The season for fishing whales commences about the end of May or in June. Many whales are killed every season by the Nitinahts, who live principally on the seaboard near Barclay or Nitinaht’s Sound. This tribe has a custom, which I have not observed elsewhere, of separating during spring and summer into small parties, each under a separate head, but all still continuing under the chieftaincy of the principal chief of the tribe.

“Months beforehand preparations are made for the whale fishing, which is considered almost a sacred season. I particularly noticed this circumstance from having, in my boyhood, heard of the Manx custom, in which all the crews of the herring fleet invoke a blessing before ‘shooting’ their herring-nets. The honor of using the harpoon in an Aht tribe is enjoyed but by few,--about a dozen in the tribe,--who inherit the privilege. Instances, however, are known of the privilege having been acquired by merit.

“Eight or nine men, selected by the harpooner, form the crew of his canoe. For several moons before the fishing begins, these men are compelled to abstain from their usual food; they live away from their wives, wash their bodies morning, noon, and night, and rub their skins with twigs or a rough stone. If a canoe is damaged or capsized by a whale, or any accident happens during the fishing season, it is assumed that some of the crew have failed in their preparatory offices, and a very strict inquiry is instituted by the chief men of the tribe. Witnesses are examined, and an investigation made into the domestic affairs of the accused persons. Should any inculpatory circumstance appear, the delinquent is severely dealt with, and is often deprived of his rank and placed under a ban for months.

“When the whales approach the coast, the fishermen are out all day, let the wind blow high or not. The canoes have different cruising grounds, some little distance apart. The Indian whaling gear consists of harpoons, lines, inflated seal-skins, and wooden or bone spears. The harpoon is often made of a piece of the iron hoop of an ale cask, cut with a chisel into the shape of a harpoon blade, two barbs fashioned from the tips of deer-horns being affixed to this blade with gum. Close to the harpoon the line is of deer sinews. To this the main line is attached, which is generally made of cedar twigs laid together as thick as a three-inch rope. Large inflated skins are fastened to this line about twelve feet from the harpoon. The weapon itself is then tied slightly to a yew handle ten feet long.

“On getting close, the harpooner, from the bow of his canoe, throws his harpoon at the whale with full force. As soon as the barb enters, the fastening of the wooden handle, being but slight, breaks, and becomes detached from the line. The natives raise a yell, and the whale dives quickly, but the seal-skins impede his movements. Very long lengths of line are kept in the canoes, and sometimes the lines from several canoes are joined. On the re-appearance of the whale on the surface, he is attacked from the nearest canoe; and thus, finally, forty or fifty large buoys are attached to his body. He struggles violently for a time, and beats and lashes the water in all directions, until, weakened by loss of blood, and fatigued by his exertions, he ceases to struggle, and the natives despatch him with their short spears. The whale is then taken in tow by the whole fleet of canoes, the crews yelling and singing, and keeping time with their paddles.

“Sometimes, after being harpooned, the whale escapes, and takes ropes, harpoons, seal-skins, and everything with him. Should he die from his wounds, and be found by another tribe at sea, or on shore within the territorial limits of the finders, the instruments are returned to the losers, with a large piece of the fish as a present. Many disputes arise between tribes on the finding of dead whales near the undefined boundaries of the tribal territories. If the quarrel is serious, all intercourse ceases, trade is forbidden, and war is threatened. By and by, when the loss of trade is felt, negotiation is tried. An envoy is selected who is of high rank in his own tribe, and, if possible, connected with the other tribe by marriage. He is usually a quiet man of fluent speech. Wearing white eagle feathers in his headdress as a mark of peace, he departs in a small canoe. Only one female attendant, generally an old slave, accompanies him, to assist in paddling, as the natives never risk two men on such occasions. The envoy’s return is anxiously awaited. As a general rule, the first proposition is rejected. Objections, references, counter proposals, frequently make three or four embassies necessary before the question can be settled. By that time the blubber must be very rancid.”

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