Garrick Mallery

The most surprising fact relating to the North American Indians, which until lately had not been realized, is that they habitually lived in and by religion to a degree comparable with the old Israelites under the theocracy. This was sometimes ignored, and sometimes denied in terms, by many of the early missionaries and explorers. The aboriginal religion was not their religion, and therefore was not recognized to have an existence or was pronounced to be satanic. Many pictorial representations are given in this chapter of concepts of the supernatural, as operative in this world, which is popularly styled religion when it is not condemned as superstition. The pictographic examples presented from the Siouan stock are generally explained as they appear. Those from the Ojibwa and other tribes are not so fully discussed. It is therefore proper to mention explicitly that, in the several localities where the tribes are now found which have been the least affected by civilization, they in a marked degree live a life of religious practices, and their shamans have a profound influence over their social character. A careful study of these people has already given indication of facts corresponding in interest with those which have recently surprised the world as reported by Mr. Cushing from among the ZuÑi and Dr. Matthews from among the Navajo.

The most extensive and important publications on the subject have been made by Maj. J. W. Powell (a), Director of the Bureau of Ethnology. These have been made at many times and in various shapes, from the Outlines of the Philosophy of the North American Indians, read in 1876, to the present year.

A considerable amount of detail respecting religion appears in Chap. IX, Sections 4 and 5, in the present work.

The discussion of the religions and religious practices of the tribes of America is not germane to the present work, except so far as it elucidates their pictographs. In that connection it may be mentioned that the tribes of Indians in the territory of the United States, which have been converted to Christianity, seem not to have spontaneously turned their pictographic skill to the representation of objects connected with the religion to which they have been converted. This might be explained by the statement, often true, that the converts have been taught to read and write the languages of their teachers in religion, and therefore ceased to be pictographers. But where they have not been so instructed, indeed have been encouraged to retain their own language and to write it in a special manner supposed to be adapted to their ancient methods, the same result is observed. The Micmacs still with delight draw on bark their stories of Glooscap and Lox, and scenes from the myths of their old faith, but unless paid as for a piece of work, do not produce Christian pictures. This assertion does not conflict with the account of the “Micmac hieroglyphs” in Chap. XIX, Sec. 2. All the existing specimens of these were made by Europeans, and the action of the first Indian converts, which was imitated by Europeans, was the simple use of their old scheme of mnemotechny to assist in memorizing the lessons required of them by missionaries. It is also to be noted that some tribes for convenience have adopted Christian emblems into their own ceremonial pictographs (see Fig. 159).

It has been found convenient to divide this chapter into the following sections: (1) Symbols of the supernatural. (2) Myths and mythic animals. (3) Shamanism. (4) Charms and amulets. (5) Religious ceremonies. (6) Mortuary practices.

SECTION 1.
SYMBOLS OF THE SUPERNATURAL.

This group shows the modes of expressing the idea of the supernatural, holy, sacred, or, more correctly, the mystic or unknown (perhaps unknowable), that being the true translation of the Dakota word wakaⁿ. The concept of “crazy,” in the sense of influenced by superior powers or inspired, is in the same connection. Not only the North American Indians, but many tribes of Asia and Africa, consider a demented person to be sacred and therefore inviolable. The spiral line is but a pictorial representation of the sign for wakaⁿ, which is: With its index finger extended and pointing upward, or all the fingers extended, back of hand outward, move the right hand from just in front of the forehead spirally upward nearly to arm’s length from left to right.

Fig. 640.

Fig. 640.—Crazy-Dog, a Dakota, carried the pipe around and took the war path. Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1838-’39.

The waved or spiral lines denote crazy or mystic, as above explained.

Fig. 641.

Fig. 641.—Crazy-Horse says his prayers and goes on the war-path. Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1844-’45.

The waved lines are used again for crazy. “Says his prayers,” which are the words of the interpreter, would be more properly rendered by referring to the ceremonies of organizing a war party.

In many parts of the United States and Canada rocks and large stones are found which generally were decorated with paint and were regarded as possessing supernatural power, yet, so far as ascertained, were not directly connected with any special personage of Indian mythology. One of the earliest accounts of these painted stones was made by the AbbÉ de GallinÉe and is published in Margry (d). The AbbÉ, with La Salle’s party in 1669, found on the Detroit river, six leagues above Lake Erie, a large stone remotely resembling a human figure and painted, the face made with red paint. All the Indians of the region—Algonquian and Iroquoian—believed that the rock-image could give safety in the passage of the lake, if properly placated, and they never ventured on the passage without offering to it presents of skins, food, tobacco, or like sacrifices. La Salle’s party, which had met with misfortune, seems to have been so much impressed with the evil powers of the image that they broke it into pieces.

Keating’s Long (e) tells:

Mrs. Eastman (a) also describes a stone painted red, which the Dakotas called grandfather, in reverence, at or near which they placed as offerings their most valuable articles. They also killed dogs and horses before it as sacrifices.

In “A study of Pueblo Architecture,” by Victor Mindeleff, in the Eighth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, is an account of the cosmology of the Pueblos as symbolized in their architecture and figured devices, as follows:

SECTION 2.
MYTHS AND MYTHIC ANIMALS.

Among the hundreds of figures and characters seen by the present writer on the slate rocks that abound on the shores and islands of Kejimkoojik Lake, Queen’s county, Nova Scotia, described in Chap. II, Sec. 1, there appears a class of incised figures illustrating the religious myths and folk lore of the Indian tribes which inhabited the neighborhood within historic times. It is probable that in other parts of America, and, indeed, in all lands, the pictographic impulses and habits of the people have induced them to represent the scenes and characters of their myths on such rocks as were adapted to the purpose, as they are known to have done on bark, skins, and other objects. But these exhibitions of the favorite or prevalent myths in the shape of petroglyphs, though doubtless existing, have seldom been understood and deciphered by modern students. Sometimes they have not originally been sufficiently distinct or have become indefinite by age, and frequently their artists have been people of languages, religions, and customs different from the tribes now or lately found in the localities and from whom the significance of the petroglyphs has been sought in vain. The conditions of the characters at Kejimkoojik, now mentioned, are perhaps unique. They are drawn with great distinctness and sufficient skill, so that when traced on the rocks they immediately struck the present writer as illustrative of the myths and tales of the Abnaki. Many of these myths had been recently repeated to him by Mrs. W. Wallace Brown, of Calais, Maine, the highest authority in that line of study, and by other persons visited in Maine, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and in Cape Breton and Prince Edwards Islands, who were familiar with the Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, Amalecite, and Micmac tribes. A number of these myths and tales had before been collected in variant forms by Mr. Charles G. Leland (a). It is a more important and convincing fact that the printed impressions of the figures now presented were at once recognized by individual Indians of the several Abnaki tribes above mentioned to have the signification explained below. It is also to be noted that these Abnaki have preserved the habit of making illustrations from their stories by scratchings and scrapings on birch bark. The writer saw several such figures on bark ornaments and utensils which exhibited parts of the identical myths indicated in the petroglyphs but not the precise scenes or characters depicted on the rocks. The selection of themes and their treatment were not conventional and showed some originality and individuality both in design and execution. From the appearance and surroundings of the rock drawings now specially under discussion they were probably of considerable antiquity and suggested that the Micmacs, who doubtless were the artists, had gained the idea of practicing art for itself, not merely using the devices of pictography for practical purposes, such as to record the past or to convey information.

Fig. 654 is one of the drawings mentioned, and indicates one episode among the very numerous adventures of Glooscap, the Hero-God of the Abnaki, several of which are connected with a powerful witch called by Mr. Leland Pook-jin-skwess, or the Evil Pitcher, and by Mrs. W. Wallace Brown, Pokinsquss, the Jug Woman. She is also called the toad woman, from one of her transformations, and often appeared in a male form to fight Glooscap after he had disdained her love proffered as a female. Among the multitude of tales on this general theme, one narrates how Glooscap was at one time a Pogumk, or the small animal of the weasel family commonly called Fisher (Mustela Canadensis), also translated as Black Cat, and was the son of the chief of a village of Indians who were all Black Cats, his mother being a bear. Doubtless these animal names and the attributes of the animals in the tales refer to the origin of totemic divisions among the Abnaki. Pokinsquss was also of the Black Cat village, and hated the chief and contrived long how she could kill him and take his place. Now, one day when the camp had packed up to travel, the witch asked the chief Pogumk to go with her to gather gull’s eggs; and they went far away in a canoe to an island where the gulls were breeding and landed there, and then she hid herself to spy, and having found out that the Pogumk was Glooscap, ran to the canoe and paddled away singing:

Nikhed-ha Pogumk min nekuk,
Netswil sagamawin!

Which being translated from the Passamaquoddy language means—

I have left the Black Cat on an island,
I shall be chief of the Fishers now!

The continuation of the story is found in many variant shapes. In one of them Glooscap’s friend the Fox came to his rescue, as through Glooscap’s m’toulin or magic power he heard the song of appeal though miles away beyond forests and mountains. In others the Sea Serpent appears in answer to the Hero-God’s call, and the latter, mounting the serpent’s back, takes a load of stones as his cargo to throw at the serpent’s horns when the latter did not swim fast enough. In the figure the island is shown at the lower right hand as a roundish outline with Glooscap inside. The small round objects to the left are probably the gull’s eggs, but may be the stimulating stones above mentioned. Pokinsquss stands rejoicing in the stern of a canoe, which points in the wavy water away from the island. The device to the left of the witch may be the dismantled camp of the Black Cats, and the one to her right is perhaps where the Fox “beyond forests and mountains” heard Glooscap’s song of distress.

Fig. 655, another specimen of the same class, refers to one of the tales about At-o-sis, the Snake, who was the lover of a beautiful Abnaki woman. He appeared to her from out the surface of a lake as a young hunter with a large shining silvery plate on his heart and covered with brilliant white brooches as fish are covered with scales. He provided her with all animals for food. The bow attached to the semi-human head in the illustration may refer to this expertness in the chase. The head of the female figure is covered or masked by one of the insignia of rank and power mentioned in Chap. XIII, Sec. 2. She became the mother of the Black Snakes.

Fig. 656, from the same locality, shows simply a crane, and a woman who bears in her hand two branches; but this is a sufficient indication of the tale of the Weasel girls, who had come down from Star-land by means of a diminishing hemlock tree, and flying from Lox had come to a broad river which they could not cross. But in the edge of the water stood motionless a large crane, or the Tum-gwo-lig-unach, who was the ferryman. “Now, truly, this is esteemed to be the least beautiful of all the birds, for which cause he is greedy of good words and fondest of flattery. And of all beings there were none who had more bear’s oil ready to annoint every one’s hair with—that is to say, more compliments ready for everybody—than the Weasels. So, seeing the Crane, they sang:

“This charmed the old ferryman very much, and when they said: ‘please, grandfather, hurry along,’ he came quickly. Seeing this, they began to chant in chorus sweetly as the Seven Stars themselves:

“Hearing this the good crane wanted more; so when they asked him to give them a lift across he answered, slowly, that to do so he must be well paid, but that good praise would answer as well. Now they who had abundance of this and to spare for everybody were these very girls. ‘Have I not a beautiful form?’ he inquired; and they both cried aloud: ‘Oh, uncle, it is indeed beautiful!’ ‘And my feathers?’ ‘Ah, pegeakopchu.’ ‘Beautiful and straight feathers, indeed!’ ‘And have I not a charming long, straight, neck?’ ‘Truly our uncle has it straight and long.’ ‘And will ye not acknowledge, oh maidens, that my legs are fine?’ ‘Fine! oh, uncle, they are perfection. Never in this life did we see such legs!’ So, being well pleased, the crane put them across, and then the two little weasels scampered like mice into the bush.”

Though but one woman figure is drawn, the two boughs borne by her suggest the two weasel girls, who had come down the hemlock tree and had also been water fairies until their garments were stolen by the marten, and thereupon they had lost their fairy powers and become women in a manner at once reminding of the Old World swan-maiden myth.

Fig. 657 is a sketch of the Giant Bird Kaloo, or, in the literation of Mr. Leland, Culloo. He was the most terrible of all creatures. He it was who caught up the mischievous Lox in his claws and, mounting to the top of the sky among the stars, let him drop, and he fell from dawn to sunset. Lox was often a badger in the Micmac stories, and was more Puck-like than the devilish character he showed among the Passamaquoddy, being then generally in the form of a wolverine, though sometimes in that of a lynx. In the illustration Kaloo is soaring among the stars, and appears to possess an extra pair of legs armed with claws. Perhaps one of the objects beneath his beak represents Lox or some other victim falling through the air. There is another story of Lox’s two feet talking and acting independently of the rest of his body, and the two feet and legs without any body may be a symbol of the tricksy demigod.

The Sable and the Black Cat wanted some maple sugar, and went to a wood where the maple trees grew. Toward night they lost their way and separated from each other to find it, agreeing to call to each other by m’toulin power. These animals were as frequently in human form as in that designated by their names, and could change to the forms of other animals. It is not certain, from anything in the present version of the myth, which one of the daimons was represented by the Sable, but the Black Cat afterward appears as Glooscap. Sable, in his wanderings, came to a wigwam in which was a large fire with a kettle boiling over it, tended by a great Snake. The Snake said he was glad the Sable had come, as he was very hungry and would eat him, but in gratitude for his coming would put him to as little pain as was possible. The Snake told him to go into the woods and get a straight stick, so that when he pierced him he would not tear open his entrails. Sable then went out and sang in a loud voice a m’toulin song for the Black Cat to hear and come to his aid. The Black Cat heard him and came to him. Then the Sable told the Black Cat how the Snake was going to kill him. The Black Cat told Sable not to be afraid, but that he would kill the big Snake. He told him that he would lie down behind the trunk of a hemlock tree which had fallen and that Sable should search out a stick that was very crooked, only pretending to obey the commands of the great Snake. After finding such a stick he should carry it to the Snake, who would complain that the stick was not straight enough, and then Sable should reply that he would straighten it in the fire, holding it there until the steam came out of the end. Then while the Snake watched the new mode of straightening sticks Sable should strike the Snake over the eyes. The Sable sought out the most crooked stick he could find and then returned to the wigwam where the Snake was. The Snake said the stick was too crooked. The Sable replied as directed and held it in the fire. When it was burning he struck the Snake with it over the eyes, blinded him, and ran away. The Snake followed the Sable, and as he passed over the hemlock trunk the Black Cat killed him and they cut him into small pieces.

The two human figures on the left show the animals under the forest trees in human form bidding good-bye before they parted in search of the right trail. Their diminutive size gives the suggestion of distance from the main scene. Next comes the great Snake’s wigwam, the stars outside showing that night had come, and inside the kettle hung over a fire, and on its right appear the wide-open jaws and an indication of the head of the great Snake. The very crooked stick is on the other side. Farther on the Black Cat comes responsive to the Sable’s call. Next is shown, the Black Cat and the Sable, who is in human form, near the hemlock tree. The fact that the tree is fallen is suggested, without any attempt at perspective, by the broken-off branches and the thick part of the trunk being upturned. The illustration ends with the Black Cat sitting upon the Snake, clawing and throwing around pieces of it.

The illustration above presented gives an excellent example of the art of the Passamaquoddy in producing pictures by the simple scraping of birch bark.

The characters in Fig. 660 are reproduced from Schoolcraft (k).

The second device is drawn by the Ojibwa for a “wabeno” or shaman.

The third is the Ojibwa “symbol” for an evil or one-sided “meda” or higher-grade shaman.

The fourth is the Ojibwa general “symbol” for a meda.

Mr. William H. Holmes, of the Bureau of Ethnology, gives the following account (condensed from the American Anthropologist, July, 1890) of a West Virginia rock shelter (shown in Pl. XXXI). The copy is in two rows of figures, but in the original there is only one row, the parts marked a and a being united:

Regarding the origin and purpose of these sculptures, it seems probable that they are connected with religious practices and myths. If the inscriptions were mnemonic records or notices it is reasonable to suppose that they would have been placed so as to meet the eye of others than those who made or were acquainted with them. But these works are hidden in a mountain cave, and even yet, when the forest is cleared and the surrounding slopes are cultivated, this secluded recess is invisible from almost every side. The spot was evidently the resort of a chosen few, such as a religious society. Such sequestered art gives evidence of a mystic purpose.

In this connection it may be noted that a rock drawing in the Canyon Segy, Arizona (Fig. 661), shows Baho li-kong-ya, a god, the genius of fructification, worshipped by living Moki priests. It is a great crested serpent with mammÆ, which are the source of the blood of all the animals and of all the waters of the land.

The serpents in the last-mentioned plate and figure may be compared with two Ojibway forms published by Schoolcraft (l).

The upper design of Fig. 662 undoubtedly represents a mythical animal, referred to in the myths of some of the Innuits. It is reproduced from a drawing on walrus ivory, bearing Museum No. 40054, obtained at Port Clarence, Alaska. This form is not so close in detail to that form usually described and more fully outlined in the lower design of the same figure, which is reproduced from a specimen of reindeer horn drill-bow, from Alaska, marked No. 24557, collected by L. Turner.

Ensign Niblack, U.S. Navy (d), gives the following description of the illustration reproduced here as Fig. 663.

The same author, Pl. XLIX, gives an explanation of Fig. 665, which is a copy of a Haida slate carving, representing the “Bear-Mother.”

Dr. F. Boas (d) gives the following account of a myth of the Kwakiut Indians illustrated on a house front at Alert Bay, copied here as Fig. 666.

Mrs. Eastman’s explanation of the drawing would have been better if she had known more about the mystery lodges. It is given here in her own words.

Fig. 668, from Copway (c), shows the representations, beginning from the left, of spirits above, spirits under water, and animals under ground, all of which are called ma'nidos.

Fig. 669 is a reproduction of a drawing made by NiÓpet, chief of the Menomoni Indians, and represents the white bear spirit who guards the deposits of native copper of Lake Superior. According to the myth the animal is covered with silvery hair, and the tail, which is of great length and extends completely around the body, is composed of bright, burnished copper. This spirit lives in the earth, where he guards the metal from discovery.

In a mide' song, given by James Tanner (f), is the representation of an animal resembling the preceding, viz, the middle character of Fig. 670, to which is attached the Ojibway phrase and explanation as follows:

The “underground wild-cat” is again mentioned in the same work, page 377, with an illustration now presented as the left-hand character of the same Fig. 670, slightly different from the above, described as follows:

In another song from Tanner, p. 345, sung only by the mide', is the drawing, the right hand character of the same figure, of a similar animal with a bar across the throat, signifying, no doubt, its emerging or appearance from the surface of the ground.

Nah-ne-bah o-sa ann neen-no ne-mah-che oos-sa ya-ah-ne-no. [Twice.]

I walk about in the nighttime.

This first figure represents the wild-cat, to whom, on account of his vigilance, the medicines for the cure of diseases were committed. The meaning probably is that to those who have the shrewdness, the watchfulness, and intelligence of the wild-cat, is intrusted the knowledge of those powerful remedies, which, in the opinion of the Indians, not only control life and avail to the restoration of health but give an almost unlimited power over animals and birds.

Schoolcraft, part II, p. 224, describes Fig. 671 as follows:

The four preceding figures are to be compared with those relating to the Piasa rock. See Figs. 40 and 41, supra.

Fig. 672.—A Minneconjou Dakota, having killed a buffalo cow, found an old woman inside of her. The-Swan’s Winter Count, 1850-’51.

For remarks upon this statement see Lone-Dog’s Winter Count for 1850-’51, supra.

Graphic representations of Atotarka and of the Great Heads are shown in Mrs. Erminie A. Smith’s Myths of the Iroquois, in the Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology. Several illustrations of myths and mythic animals appear in the present work in Chap. IX, Secs. 4 and 5.

THUNDER BIRDS.

Some forms of the thunder bird are here presented:

Figs. 673 and 674 are forms of the thunder bird found in 1883 among the Dakotas near Fort Snelling, drawn and interpreted by themselves. They are both winged, and have waving lines extending from the mouth downward, signifying lightning. It is noticeable that Fig. 673 placed vertically, then appearing roughly as an upright human figure, is almost identically the same as some of the Ojibwa meda or spirit figures represented in Schoolcraft, and also on a bark Ojibwa record in the possession of the writer.

Fig. 678 is “Skam-son,” the thunder-bird, a tattoo mark copied from the back of an Indian belonging to the Laskeek village of the Haida tribe, Queen Charlotte islands, by Mr. James G. Swan.

Fig. 679 is a Twana thunder-bird, as reported by Rev. M. Eells in Bull. U.S. Geol. and Geog. Survey, III, p. 112.

The three following figures, taken from Red-Cloud’s Census, are connected with the thunder-bird myth:

Fig. 680.—Medicine bird. Red-Cloud’s Census. The word medicine is in the Indian sense, before explained, and would be more correctly expressed by the word sacred or mystic, as is also indicated by the waving lines issuing from the mouth.

Fig. 681.—Five thunders. Red-Cloud’s Census. The thunder-bird is here drawn with five lines (voices) issuing from the mouth, which may mean many voices or loud sound, but is connected with the above mentioned wavy or spiral lines, which form the conventional sign for wakaⁿ.

Fig. 682.—Thunder pipe. Red-Cloud’s Census. This is a pipe to which are attached the wings of the thunder-bird.

Fig. 683, one of the drawings from the Kejimkoojik rocks of Nova Scotia, may be compared with the other designs of the thunder-bird and also with the Ojibwa type of device for woman. As regards the head, which appears to have a non-human form, it may also be compared with the many totemic designations in Chapter XIII, on Totems, Titles, and Names.

Marcano (d), describing Fig. 684, reports:

Mr. A. Ernst (b) describes the same figure:

Fig. 685 is a copy of four specimens of Indian workmanship in the collection of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. The objects are depicted by porcupine quills worked on pieces of birch bark, and represent various forms of the thunder-bird. The specimens are reported as having been obtained from a northwestern tribe, which may safely be designated as the Ojibwa, because the figures relate to one of the most important mythic animals of that tribe, and also because birch bark is used, a material exceedingly scarce in the country of the Sioux, among whom also the thunder-bird has a prominent religious position.

a. Made of neutral-tinted quills upon yellow bark, as is also b, which is without the projecting pieces to designate wings. In c, made of yellow quills on faded red bark, the head is shown with the wings and legs beneath, while in the two preceding figures the head takes the place of the bird’s body. d. Here is still more abbreviation, the body and legs being absent, leaving only the head and wings. This is made of neutral-tint quills on straw-yellow bark.

Fig. 686 is a copy of a painting on a jar, probably of old Moki work, thus described in the manuscript catalogue of Mr. T. V. Keam:

Sir George Grey, between 1836 and 1839, saw on a sandstone rock a most extraordinary large figure. Upon examination this proved to be a drawing at the entrance to a cave, which he found to contain besides many remarkable paintings. On the sloping roof the principal character, i.e., the upper one of Fig. 689, was drawn. In order to produce the greater effect the rock about it was painted black and the figure itself colored with the most vivid red and white. It thus appeared to stand out from the rock, and Sir George Grey says he was surprised at the moment that he first saw this gigantic head and upper part of a body bending over and staring grimly down at him. He adds that it would be impossible to convey in words an adequate idea of this uncouth and savage figure, and therefore he only gives such a succinct account as will serve as a sort of description.

Its head was encircled by bright red rays, something like the rays one sees proceeding from the sun, when depicted on the signboard of a public house; inside of this came a broad stripe of very brilliant red, which was crossed by lines of white; but both inside and outside of this red space were narrow stripes of a still deeper red, intended probably to mark its boundaries; the face was painted vividly white and the eyes black, being, however, surrounded by red and yellow lines; the body, hands, and arms were outlined in red, the body being curiously painted with red stripes and bars.

Upon the rock which formed the left-hand wall of this cave, and which partly faced you on entering, was a very singular painting, the lower character of the same figure, vividly colored, representing four heads joined together. From the mild expression of the countenances they appeared to represent females, and to be drawn in such a manner, and in such a position, as to look up at the principal figure, before described; each had a very remarkable head-dress, colored bright blue, and one had a necklace on. Both of the lower figures had a sort of dress painted with red in the same manner as that of the principal figure, and one of them had a band round her waist. In Sir George Grey’s opinion each of the four faces was marked by a totally distinct expression of countenance, and none of them had mouths.

SECTION 3.
SHAMANISM.

The term “shaman” is a corrupted form of the Sanscrit word meaning ascetic. Its original application was to the religion of certain tribes of northern Asia, but now shamanism is generally used to express several forms of religion which are founded in the supposed communion with and influence over supernatural beings by means of magic arts. The shaman or priest pretends to control by incantations and ceremonies the evil spirits to whom death, sickness, and other misfortunes are ascribed. This form or stage of religion was so prevalent among the North American Indians that the adoption of the term “shaman” here is substantially correct, and it avoids both the stupid expression “medicine man” of current literature and the indefinite title “priest,” the associations with which are not appropriate to the Indian religious practitioner. The statement that the Indians worship, or ever have worshiped, one “Great Spirit” or single overruling personal god is erroneous. That philosophical conception is beyond the stage of culture reached by them, and was not found in any tribe previous to missionary influence. Their actual philosophy can be expressed far more objectively and therefore pictorially.

The special feature of the notes now collected under the present heading relates to the claims and practices of shamans, but the immediately succeeding headings of “Charms and Amulets” and of “Religious Ceremonies” are closely connected with the same topic. It must be confessed that, as now presented, they have been arranged chiefly for mechanical convenience, to which convenience also in other parts of the present work scientific discrimination has sometimes been forced to yield without, it is hoped, much injury. Individual intercomparison, with or without cross references, is besought from any critical reader of this paper.

Feats of jugglery or pretended magic rivaling or surpassing the best of spiritualistic sÉances have been recounted to the present writer in many places by independent and intelligent Indian witnesses, not operators, generally of advanced age. The cumulated evidence gives an opportunity for spiritualists to argue for the genuineness of their own manifestations or manipulations as, in accordance with the degree of credence, they may be styled. Others will contend that these remarkable performances in which this hemisphere was rich before the Columbian discovery—the occidental rivaling the oriental Indians—belong to a culture stage below civilization. They will observe that the age of miracles among barbaric people has not expired, and that it still exists among outwardly civilized persons who are yet subject to superstition in its true etymologic sense of “remaining over from the past.”

The most elaborate and interesting of these stories which are known relate to a time about forty years ago, shortly before the Davenport brothers and the Fox sisters had excited interest in the civilized portions of the United States; but exhibitions of a magic character are still given among the tribes, though secretly, from fear of the Indian agents and missionaries. It is an important fact that the first French missionaries in Canada and the early settlers of New England described substantially the same performances when they first met the Indians, all of whom belonged to the Algonquian or Iroquoian stocks. So remarkable and frequent were these performances of jugglery that the French, in 1613, called the whole body of Indians on the Ottawa River, whom they met at a very early period, “The Sorcerers.” They were the tribes afterwards called Nipissing, and were the typical Algonquians. No suspicion of prestidigitation or other form of charlatanry appears to have been entertained by any of the earliest French and English writers on the subject. The severe Puritan and the ardent Catholic both considered that the exhibitions were real, and the work of Satan. It is also worth mentioning that one of the derivations of the name “Micmac” is connected with the word meaning sorcerer. The early known practices of this character, which had an important effect upon the life of the people, extended from the extreme east of the continent to the Great Lakes. They have been found later far to the south, and in a higher state of evolution.

It was obvious in cross-examining the old men of the Algonquians that the performances of jugglery were exhibitions of the pretended miraculous power of an adventurer whereby he obtained a reputation above his rivals and derived subsistence and authority by the selling of charms and pretended superhuman information. The charms and fetiches which still are bought from the few shamans who yet have a credulous clientele are of three kinds—to bring death or disease on an enemy, to lure an enemy into an ambush, and to excite a return to sexual love.

Among the Ojibwa three distinct secret societies are extant, the members of which are termed, respectively and in order of their importance, the Mide', the Jes'sakid, and the WÂbeno. The oldest and most influential society is known as the Mide'wiwin', or Grand Medicine, and the structure in which the ceremonies are conducted is called the Mide'wigÂn, or Grand Medicine lodge.

The following statement of the White Earth Mide' shaman presents his views upon the origin of the rite and the objects employed in connection with ceremonies, as well as in the practices connected with medical magic and sorcery:

It is desirable to explain the mode of using the Mide' and other bark records of the Ojibwa and also those of other tribes mentioned in this paper. A comparison made by Dr. Tyler of the pictorial alphabet to teach children, “A was an archer,” etc., is not strictly appropriate in this case. The devices are not only mnemonic, but are also ideographic and descriptive. They are not merely invented to express or memorize the subject, but are evolved therefrom. To persons acquainted with secret societies a good comparison for the charts or rolls is what is called the trestle board of the Masonic order, which is printed and published and publicly exposed without exhibiting any of the secrets of the order, yet through its ideography it is practically useful to the esoteric members by assisting memory in details of ceremony and it also prevents deviation from the established ritual.

Fig. 171, supra, is a reproduction, with description, of a birch-bark record illustrating the alleged power of a Jessakki'd, one who is also a Mide' of the four degrees of the Medicine Society.

Fig. 172, supra, represents, with explanations, a Jessakki'd named Niwi'kki, curing a sick woman by sucking the demon through a bone tube.

When the method of procedure of a Mide' goes beyond the ordinary ceremonies, such as chanting prayers and drumming, the use of the rattle, and the administration of magic medicines and exorcisms, it overlaps the prescribed formulÆ of the Mide'win and partakes of the rites of the Jessakki'd or “Juggler.”

The following group, including Figs. 693 to 697, gives several modes of illustrating the “making buffalo medicine” by the Dakotas and other tribes of the Great Plains. The main object was to bring the buffalo to where they could be hunted successfully, and incantations, with dancing and many ceremonies, were resorted to, as upon the buffalo the tribes depended not only for food but for most of the necessaries and conveniences of their daily life. The topic is referred to elsewhere in this paper, especially in Lone-Dog’s Winter Count for the year 1810-’11.

Fig. 703 was copied from a piece of walrus ivory in the museum of the Alaska Commercial Company, of San Francisco, California, in 1882, by Dr. Hoffman, and the interpretation is as obtained from a native Alaskan.

The rod of the bow upon which the characters occur is here represented in three sections, A, B, and C. A bears the beginning of the narrative, extending over only one-half of the length of the rod. The course of the inscription is then continued on the adjacent side of the rod at the middle, and reading in both directions (sections B and C), toward the two files of approaching animals. B and C occupy the whole of one side.

The following is the explanation of the characters:

A. a, baidarka or skin boat resting on poles; b, winter habitation; c, tree; d, winter habitations; e, storehouse; f, tree. Between this and the storehouse is placed a piece of timber, from which is suspended fish for drying. g, storehouse. The characters from a to g represent a group of dwellings, which signifies a settlement, the home of the person to whom the history relates. h, the hunter sitting on the ground, asking for aid, and making the gesture for supplication. i, the shaman to whom application is made by the hunter desiring success in the chase. The shaman has just finished his incantations, and while still retaining his left arm in the position for that ceremony, holds the right toward the hunter, giving him the success requested. j, the shaman’s winter lodge; k, trees; l, summer habitation of the shaman; m, trees near the shaman’s home.

B. n, tree; o, a shaman standing upon his lodge, driving back game which had approached against his wish. To this shaman the hunter had also made application for success in the chase, but was denied, hence the act of driving back. p, deer leaving at the shaman’s order; q, horns of a deer swimming a river; r, young deer, apparently, from the smaller size of the body and unusually long legs.

C. s, a tree; t, the lodge of the hunter (A. h), who, after having been granted the request for success, placed his totem upon the lodge as a mark of gratification and to insure greater luck in his undertaking; u, the hunter in the act of shooting; v-w, the game killed, consisting of five deer; x, the demon sent out by the shaman (A. i), to drive the game in the way of the hunter; y-bb, the demon’s assistants.

The following description and illustration, Fig. 705, is kindly contributed by the Rev. M. Eells, of Skokomish, Washington:

In Kingsborough (d) is the following: “In the year of Eleven Houses, or in 1529, NuÑo de Guzman set out for Yalisco on his march to subdue that territory. They pretend that a serpent descended from the sky, exclaiming that troubles were preparing for the natives, since the Christians were directing their course hither.” The illustration for this account is presented as Fig. 1224, Chap. XX, on Special Comparisons.

SECTION 4.
CHARMS AND AMULETS.

The use of material objects for the magic purposes suggested by this title is well known. Their graphic representation is not so familiar, though it is to be supposed that the objects of this character would be pictorially represented in pictographs connected with religion. The following is an instance where the use of a charm or fetich in action was certainly portrayed in a pictograph.

Fig. 706.—Mdewakantawan fetich.

Fig. 706, drawn by the Dakota Indians, near Fort Snelling, Minnesota, exhibits the use as a charm or talisman of an instrument fashioned in imitation of a war club, though it is not adapted to offensive employment. The head of the talisman is a grooved stone hammer from an inch and a half to 5 inches in length. A withe is tied about the middle of the hammer, in the groove binding on a handle of from 2 to 4 feet in length. The latter is frequently wrapped with buckskin or rawhide to strengthen it, as well as for ornamental purposes. Feathers attached bear designs indicating marks of distinction, perhaps sometimes fetichistic devices not understood.

It is believed that these objects possess the charm of warding off an enemy’s missiles when held upright before the body, as shown in the pictograph. The interpretation was explained by the draftsman himself.

“Medicine bags,” as they are termed by frontiersmen, are worn as amulets. They are sometimes filled by the owner in obedience to the suggestions of visions, but more frequently are prepared by the shaman. They are carried suspended from the neck by means of string or buckskin cords, as shown in Fig. 707, drawn in 1889 by I-teup'-de-ti, No-Shin-Bone, a Crow Indian, to represent himself with his insignia, and was extracted from a record kindly communicated by Dr. R. B. Holden, physician at the Crow Agency, Montana.

Fig. 708, drawn by the same hand, shows the same medicine bag temporarily hung on a forked stick. When the bag is carried on a war party it is never allowed to touch the ground. Also among the Ojibwa some of the bags which are considered to have the greatest fetichistic power are not kept in the lodges, as too dangerous, but are suspended from trees.

Capt. Bourke (d) gives the following account of the medicine hat of the Apache:

The same author says, op. cit., p. 587:

Four of the several winter counts described in the present work unite in specifying for the year 1843-’44 the recapture of a fetich called the great medicine arrow.

Another account of a magic arrow and illustrations of other fetichistic objects are in Chap. IX.

Lewis and Clarke (b) say that the Chilluckittequaw, a Chinook tribe, had a “medicine” bag colored red 2 feet long, suspended in the middle of the lodge. It was held sacred, containing pounded dirt, roots, and such mysterious objects. From the chief’s bag he brought out fourteen forefingers of enemies—Snakes—whom he had killed.

A remarkable drawing in an Australian cave, described by Sir George Grey, in Worsnop, op. cit., was an ellipse, 3 feet in length and 1 foot 10 inches in breadth. The outside line of the painting was of deep blue color, the body of the ellipse being of a bright yellow dotted over with red lines and spots, whilst across it ran two transverse lines of blue. The portion of the painting above described formed the ground, or main part of the picture, and upon this ground was painted a kangaroo in the act of feeding; two stone spear heads, and two black balls; one of the spear heads was flying to the kangaroo, and one away from it; so that the whole subject probably constituted a sort of charm by which the luck of an inquirer in killing game can be ascertained. This cave drawing is copied in Fig. 712.

SECTION 5.
RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES.

Many examples of masks, dance ornaments, and fetiches used in ceremonies are reported and illustrated in the several papers of Messrs. Cushing, Holmes, and Stevenson in the Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology. Paintings or drawings of many of them have been found on pottery, on shells, and on rocks.

An admirable article by Mr. J. Walter Fewkes (b) on Tusayan Pictographs explains many of the petroglyphs of that region as depicting objects used in dances and ceremonies.

According to Stephen Powers (in Contrib. to N. A. Ethnol., III, p. 140), there is at the head of Potter valley, California, “a singular knoll of red earth which the Tatu or Huchnom believe to have furnished the material for the erection of the original coyote-man. They mix this red earth into their acorn bread, and employ it for painting their bodies on divers mystic occasions.”

Descriptions of ceremonies in medicine lodges and in the initiation of candidates to secret associations have been published with and without illustrations. The most striking of these are graphic ceremonial charts made by the Indians themselves, a number of which besides those immediately following appear in different parts of the present work.

Fig. 714 was drawn and interpreted by Naumoff, a Kadiak native, in San Francisco, California, in 1882. It represents the ground plan of a shaman’s lodge, with the shaman curing a sick man.

The following is the explanation:

a, the entrance to the lodge; b, the fireplace; c, a vertical piece of wood upon which is placed a crosspiece, upon each end of which is a lamp; d, the musicians upon the raised seats drumming and producing music to the movements of the shaman during his incantations in exorcising the “evil spirit” supposed to have possession of the patient; e, visitors and friends of the afflicted seated around the walls of the lodge; f, the shaman represented in making his incantations; g, the patient seated upon the floor of the lodge; h represents the shaman in another stage of the ceremonies, driving out of the patient the “evil being”; i, another figure of the patient—from his head is seen to issue a line connecting it with j; j, the “evil spirit” causing the sickness; k, the shaman in the act of driving the “evil being” out of the lodge—in his hands are sacred objects, his personal fetich, in which the power lies; l, the flying “evil one”; m, n, are assistants to the shaman stationed at the entrance to hit and hasten the departure of the evil being.

The writer in examination at three reservations in Wisconsin obtained information concerning the Mide' ceremonies additional to the details described by Dr. Hoffman (a) and by others quoted in the present work. The full ceremonies of the Mide' lodges, which the more southern Ojibwa, who speak English, translate as “grand medicine,” were performed twice a year—in the fall and in the spring. Those in the spring were of a rejoicing character, to welcome the return of the good spirits; those in the fall were in lamentation for the departure of the beneficent and the arrival of the maleficent spirits. The drums were beaten four days and nights before the dance, which lasted for a whole day. After the dance twelve selected persons built a lodge, about the center of which they placed stones which had been heated, and dancing went on around it until the stones were moistened and cooled by the sweat of the performers. Singing, or more properly chanting, regulated the rhythm of the dances, although, perhaps, in the order of evolution the dance was prior to the chant. These ceremonies were performed by the body of the people, and were independent of the initiations in the secret order. With regard to the candidates who passed the initiations, it was mentioned as an undisputed fact that they always became stronger and better men, perhaps because only those succeeded who had the requisite strength of mind and body to endure the various ordeals and to pass examination in the mysteries. In pictography the spring and the fall, the drums and the steaming stones, the dancing forms and the open chanting mouth are shown.

Catlin (a) gives an account of Kee-an-ne-kuk, the foremost man, who, though a Kickapoo, was commonly called the Shawnee Prophet, and also the following description relating to Fig. 715, painted by that author in 1831:

Fig. 716, from the same volume, opposite page 100, is a portrait of On-sÁw-kie, The-Sac, a Pottawatomie, using one of these prayer sticks, which had been procured from the Shawnee Prophet.

Figs. 715 and 716 with their descriptions exhibit an intermediate condition between the aboriginal mnemonic method and the Christian formula of prayer by the use of printed books. They should be considered in comparison with the remarks on the “Micmac Hieroglyphs,” Chap. XIX, Sec. 2.

Fig. 717, incised on the Kejimkoojik rocks in Nova Scotia, suggests the mide' lodge, sometimes called the medicine lodge, of the Ojibwa, which is described above. The ground plan indicated in this figure seems to be divided by partitions, which, together with the human figures and designs, probably refer to the rites of initiation and celebration performed in them. Some of the Micmacs examined had a vague recollection of these ceremonies, which, at the time of the European discovery of the northeastern part of North America, probably were as widely prevalent, as they continued to be much later, among the regions farther in the interior, also occupied by the Algonquian tribes.

Fig. 718, from the same locality, is a drawing of the ground plan of another description of ceremonial wigwam or lodge which is remarkably similar to that now called by the Ojibwa “the jessakÂn.” Its distinguishing feature is the branch of a tree erected on the outside, and it is the wigwam of a juggler or wizard, and not the lodge belonging to the regular order of the Mide'. Such wigwams of jugglers, who performed wonderful feats similar to those of modern spiritualistic exhibitions, are frequently mentioned by the early French and English writers, who gave accounts of the provinces of New France and New England. The figure now presented is not suggestive without comparison, and would not have been selected for the foregoing description without the authority of living Micmac and Abnaki Indians, to whom it was significant.

Figs. 717 and 718, however, when studied, recall the use of branches and prayer plumes in the descriptions of the houses, and especially of the kivas of the Pueblos and the forms of their consecration mentioned in the study of the Pueblo Architecture, by Mr. Victor Mindeleff, in the Eighth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, as follows:

The characters in Fig. 719 are copied from a drawing on the rocks in the Canyon Segy. They have been submitted to the most intelligent of the old Moki priests, and are said to represent the primitive sun priests. They watched for the sunrise every morning and the chief sun priest kept a reckoning of the equinoxes. The chief sun priest, a, made the daily sacrifices to the sun by scattering consecrated meal and singing a prayer to the sun just as it rose. His assistant, b, lit a pipe of tobacco at the same time, and exhaled puffs of smoke, one toward each of the cardinal points, one to the zenith, and one to the nadir. The three other figures are flageolet priests, and the skins of different kinds of foxes were attached to their reed flageolets. c played to the morning star, typified by the skin of the gray fox. d played to the dawn, typified by the skin of the red fox. e played to the daylight, typified by the skin of the yellow fox.

Dr. Franz Boas (e) reported as follows:

Mr. James W. Lynd (d) says:

Wiener (d) gives a description of Peruvian ceremonies, with an illustration reproduced here as Fig. 720.

A. W. Howitt, in MS. Notes on Australian Pictographs, contributes the following:

The same author (f) remarks as follows:

Figs. 721, 722, and 723 are copies of the designs upon Tartar and Mongol drums, taken from G. N. Potanin (b). They are used in religious ceremonies with the belief that the sounds emanating from the surface upon which the designs are made, or, to carry the concept a little further, the sounds coming from the designs themselves, produce special influences or powers. Some of these designs are notably similar to some of those found in America and reproduced in the present paper.

The lower left-hand design (c) on the same figure on a drum of the telengit shaman is the external delineation of a head without eyes and nose. The lower end of the line coming from the head represents a bifurcation. Under the head is a short horizontal line like an extended arm. Above a line extending from side to side of the drum are two circles, and below six circles, all empty. According to the owner of the drum these circles are representations of drums, and the three human figures are masters or spirits of localities.

The lower right-hand design (d) in the same figure has in the upper section five zigzag lines represented similar to those with which lightning is often represented. According to the shaman these are serpents.

The upper right-hand design (b) in the same figure has on the upper half two circles, the sun and moon; on the left side four horsemen; under them a bowman, also on horseback. The center is occupied by a picture of a net and a sieve for winnowing the nuts and seeds of the cedar tree. On the right side are two trees, baigazuin (literally the rich birch), over which two birds, the karagush, are floating. Under a division on the right and on the left side are oval objects with latticed-figured or scaly skin. These are two whales. In the middle, between them, are a frog and a deer, and below a serpent. Above, toward the hoop of the drum, is fastened an owl’s feather.

The lower left hand design (c) in the same figure has represented in the upper half seven figures reminding one of horses. These are the horses, bura, going to heaven, i.e., their sacrifice. Above them are two circles emitting light, the sun and the moon; on the right of the horses are three trees; under a horizontal line on the left is a serpent; on the right a fish, the kerbuleik, the whale according to Verbitski, literally the bay-fish.

The lower right-hand design (d) in the same figure has a drawing on the outside, a circle divided by horizontal bars into halves. The field of the upper half is divided into three strata, the first stratum of which is heaven, the second the rainbow, and in the lower stratum the stars. On the left side the sun, and the crescent moon on the right side; the goat, trees, and an undefined figure, which is not given in the drawing, underneath. The kam, a kind of shaman, called it the bura. Some said that it meant a cloud; others that it meant heavenly horses.

The same author, in 1613, writing of the Algonquins of the Ottawa river, at the Isle des Alumettes, gives more details of the pictures on their grave posts:

Some northern tribes—probably Cree—according to the Jesuit Relations (a), gave a notice of death to absent relations or dear friends of the deceased by hanging the object signifying his name on the path by which the traveler must return, e.g., if the name of the deceased was PirÉ (Partridge) the skin of a partridge was suspended. The main object of the notice was that the traveler, thereby knowing of the death, should not on his return to the lodge or village ask after or mention the deceased. Perhaps this explains the custom of placing pictographs of personal names and totemic marks on some prominent point or on trails without any apparent incident.

The same Relation describes a custom of the same Indians of shaping out of wood a portraiture of the more distinguished dead and inserting it over their graves, afterwards painting and greasing it as if it were the live man.

In Keating’s Long (g) it is told that the Sac Indians are particular in their demonstrations of grief for departed friends. These consist in darkening their faces with charcoal, fasting, abstaining from the use of vermillion and other ornaments in dress, etc. They also make incisions in their arms, legs, and other parts of the body; these are not made for the purposes of mortification, or to create a pain which shall by dividing their attention efface the recollection of their loss, but entirely from a belief that their grief is internal and that the only way of dispelling it is to give it a vent through which to escape.

This is an explanation of the practice which has been verified in the field work of the Bureau of Ethnology and corresponds with the concept of finding relief from disease and pain by similar incisions, to let out the supposed invading entity that causes distress.

The same authority, p. 332, gives the following account of Dakota burial scaffolds:

Maximilian, Prince of Wied (d), tells that as a sign of mourning the Sioux daub themselves with white clay.

According to Powers, (d) “A Yokaia widow’s style of mourning is peculiar. In addition to the usual evidence of grief she mingles the ashes of the dead husband with pitch, making a white tar or ungent with which she smears a band about two inches wide all around the edge of her hair (which is previously cut off close to the head), so that at a little distance she appears to be wearing a white chaplet.”

Mr. Dorsey reports that mud is used by a mourner in the sacred-bag war party among the Osages. Several modes of showing mourning by styles of paint and markings are presented in this paper under the headings of Color and of Tattooing. Other practices connected with the present topic, and which may explain some pictographs, are described in the work of Dr. H. C. Yarrow, acting assistant surgeon, U.S. Army, on The Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians, in the First Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology.

Fig. 724.—Votive offering. Alaska.

Fig. 724 is copied from a piece of ivory in the museum of the Alaska Commercial Company, San Francisco, California, and was interpreted by an Alaskan native in San Francisco in 1882.

First is a votive offering or “shaman stick,” erected to the memory of one departed. The “bird” carvings are considered typical of “good spirits,” and the above was erected by the remorse-stricken individual, who had killed the person shown.

The headless body represents the man who was killed. In this respect the Ojibwa manner of drawing a person “killed” is similar.

The right hand Indian represents the homicide who erected the “grave-post” or “sacred stick.” The arm is thrown earthward, resembling the Blackfeet and Dakota gesture for “kill.”

That portion of the Kauvuya tribe of Indians in Southern California known as the Playsanos, or lowlanders, formerly inscribed characters upon the gravestones of their dead, relating to the pursuits or good qualities of the deceased. Dr. W. J. Hoffman obtained several pieces or slabs of finely-grained sandstone near Los Angeles, California, during the summer of 1884, which had been used for this purpose. Upon these were the drawings, in incised lines, of the fin back whale, with figures of men pursuing them with harpoons. Around the drawings were close parallel lines with cross lines similar to those made on ivory by the southern Innuit of Alaska.

Figs. 725 to 727 were procured from a native Alaskan by Dr. Hoffman in 1882, and explained to him to be drawings made upon grave posts.

Schoolcraft (m) gives a good account, with illustration, of the burial posts used by the Sioux and Chippewas. It has been quoted so frequently that it is not reproduced here. The most notable feature connected with the posts is that the totems depicted on them are reversed, to signify the death of the persons buried.

The next two figures come from the Dakotas.

Lewis and Clarke (c) mention the Chilluckittequaws, a division of the Chinooks of the Columbia river, as having for burial purposes vaults made of pine or cedar boards, closely connected, about 8 feet square and 6 in height. The walls as well as the door were decorated with strange figures cut and painted on them; besides these there were several wooden images of men, some of them so old and decayed as to have almost lost their shape, which were all placed against the sides of the vaults. These images do not appear to be at all the objects of adoration, but were probably intended as resemblances of those whose decease they indicate.

Hewitt (g) says of the Dieri, a tribe of Central Australia: