Preface.

This book about American Indians is intended as a reading book for boys and girls in school. The native inhabitants of America are rapidly dying off or changing. Certainly some knowledge of them, their old location, and their old life ought to be interesting to American children.

Naturally the author has taken material from many sources. He has himself known some thirty different Indian tribes; still he could not possibly secure all the matter herein presented by personal observation. In a reading book for children it is impossible to give reference acknowledgment to those from whom he has drawn. By a series of brief notes attention is called to those to whom he is most indebted: no one is intentionally omitted.

While many of the pictures are new, being drawn from objects or original photographs, some have already appeared elsewhere. In each case, their source is indicated. Special thanks for assistance in illustration are due to the Bureau of American Ethnology and to the Peabody Museum of Ethnology at Cambridge, Mass.

II. Houses.

The houses of Indians vary greatly. In some tribes they are large and intended for several families; in others they are small, and occupied by few persons. Some are admirably constructed, like the great Pueblo houses of the southwest, made of stone and adobe mud; others are frail structures of brush and thatch. The material naturally varies with the district.

An interesting house was the “long house” of the Iroquois. From fifty to one hundred or more feet in length and perhaps not more than fifteen in width, it was of a long rectangular form. It [pg 008] consisted of a light framework of poles tied together, which was covered with long strips of bark tied or pegged on. There was no window, but there was a doorway at each end. Blankets or skins hung at these served as doors. Through the house from doorway to doorway ran a central passage: the space on either side of this was divided by partitions of skins into a series of stalls, each of which was occupied by a family. In the central passage was a series of fireplaces or hearths, each one of which served for four families. A large house of this kind might have five or even more hearths, and would be occupied by twenty or more families. Indian houses contained but little furniture. Some blankets or skins served as a bed; there were no tables or chairs; there were no stoves, as all cooking was done over the open fire or the fireplace.

The eastern Algonkins built houses like those of the Iroquois, but usually much smaller. They, [pg 009] too, were made of a light framework of poles over which were hung sheets of rush matting which could be easily removed and rolled up, for future use in case of removal. There are pictures in old books of some Algonkin villages.

These villages were often inclosed by a line of palisades to keep off enemies. Sometimes the gardens and cornfields were inside this palisading, sometimes outside. The houses in these pictures usually have straight, vertical sides and queer rounded roofs. Sometimes they were arranged along streets, but at others they were placed in a ring around a central open space, where games and celebrations took place.

Many tribes have two kinds of houses, one for summer, the other for winter. The Sacs and Foxes of Iowa, in summer, live in large, rectangular, barn-like structures. These measure perhaps twenty feet by thirty. They are bark-covered and have two doorways and a central passage, somewhat like the Iroquois house. But they are not divided by partitions into sections. On each side, a platform about three feet high and six feet wide runs the full length of the house. Upon this the people sleep, simply spreading out their blankets when they wish to lie down. Each person has his proper place upon the platform, and no one thinks of trespassing upon another. At the back of the platform, against the wall, are boxes, baskets, and bundles containing the property of the different members of the household. As these platforms [pg 010] are rather high, there are little ladders fastened into the earth floor, the tops of which rest against the edge of the platform. These ladders are simply logs of wood, with notches cut into them for footholds.

The winter house is very different. In the summer house there is plenty of room and air; in the winter house space is precious. The framework of the winter lodge is made of light poles tied together with narrow strips of bark. It is an oblong, dome-shaped affair about twenty feet long and ten wide. Some are nearly circular and about fifteen feet across. They are hardly six feet high. Over this framework are fastened sheets of matting made of cat-tail rushes. This matting is very light and thin, but a layer or two of it keeps out [pg 011] a great deal of cold. There is but one doorway, usually at the middle of the side. There are no platforms, but beds are made, close to the ground, out of poles and branches. At the center is a fireplace, over which hangs the pot in which food is boiled.

The Mandans used to build good houses almost circular in form. The floor was sunk a foot or more below the surface of the ground. The framework was made of large and strong timbers. The outside walls sloped inward and upward from the ground to a height of about five feet. They were composed of boards. The roof sloped from the top of the wall up to a central point; it was made of poles, covered with willow matting and then with grass. The whole house, wall and roof, was then covered over with a layer of earth a foot and a half thick. When such a house contained a fire sending out smoke, it must have looked like a smooth, regularly sloping little volcano.

In California, where there are so many different sorts of climate and surroundings, the Indian tribes differed much in their house building. Where the climate was raw and foggy, down near the coast, they dug a pit and erected a shelter of redwood poles about it. In the snow belt, the house was conical in form and built of great slabs of bark. In warm low valleys, large round or oblong houses were made of willow poles covered with hay. At Clear Lake there were box-shaped houses; the walls were built of vertical posts, with poles [pg 012] lashed horizontally across them; these were not always placed close together, but so as to leave many little square holes in the walls; the flat roof was made of poles covered with thatch. In the great treeless plains of the Sacramento and San Joaquin they made dome-shaped, earth-covered houses, the doorway in which was sometimes on top, sometimes near the ground on the side. In the Kern and Tulare valleys, where the weather is hot and almost rainless, the huts are made of marsh rushes.

Many persons seem to think that the Indian never changes; that he cannot invent or devise new things. This is a mistake. Long ago the Dakotas lived in houses much like those of the Sacs and Foxes. At that time they lived in Minnesota, near the headwaters of the Mississippi River. From the white man they received horses, [pg 013] and by him they were gradually crowded out of their old home. After getting horses they had a much better chance to hunt buffalo, and began to move about much more than before. They then invented the beautiful tent now so widely used among Plains Indians. The framework consists of thirteen poles from fifteen to eighteen feet long. The smaller ends are tied together and then raised and spread out so as to cover a circle on the ground about ten feet across. Over this framework of poles are spread buffalo skins which have been sewed together so as to fit it. The lower end of this skin covering is then pegged down and the sides are laced together with cords, so that everything is neat and tight. There is a doorway below to creep through, over which hangs a flap of skin as a door. The smoke-hole at the top has a sort of collar-like flap, which can be adjusted when the wind changes so as to insure a good draught of air at all times.

This sort of tent is easily put up and taken down. It is also easily transported. The poles are divided into two bunches, and these are fastened by one end to the horse, near his neck—one bunch on either side. The other ends are left to drag upon the ground. The skin covering is tied up into a bundle which may be fastened to the dragging poles. Sometimes dogs, instead of horses, were used to drag the tent poles.

Among many tribes who used these tents, the camp was made in a circle. If the space was too [pg 014] small for one great circle, the tents might be pitched in two or three smaller circles, one within another. These camp circles were not chance arrangements. Each group of persons who were related had its own proper place in the circle. Even the proper place for each tent was fixed. Every woman knew, as soon as the place for a camp was chosen, just where she must erect her tent. She would never think of putting it elsewhere. After the camp circle was complete, the horses would be placed within it for the night to prevent their being lost or stolen.

III. Dress.

In the eastern states and on the Plains the dress of the Indians was largely composed of tanned and dressed skins such as those of the buffalo and the deer. Most of the Indians were skilled in dressing skins. The hide when fresh from the animal was laid on the ground, stretched as tightly as possible and pegged down all around the edges. As it dried it became still more taut. [pg 015] A scraper was used to remove the fat and to thin the skin. In old days this scraper was made of a piece of bone cut to proper form, or of a stone chipped to a sharp edge; in later times it was a bone handle, with a blade of iron or steel attached to it. Brains, livers, and fat of animals were used to soften and dress the skin. These materials were mixed together and spread over the stretched skin, which was then rolled up and laid aside. After several days, when the materials had soaked in and somewhat softened the skin, it was opened and washed: it was then rubbed, twisted, and worked over until soft and fully dressed.

The men wore three or four different articles of dress. First was the breech-clout, which consisted of a strip of skin or cloth perhaps a foot wide and several feet long; sometimes its ends were decorated with beadwork or other ornamentation. This cloth was passed between the legs and brought up in front and behind. It was held in place by a band or belt passing around the waist, and the broad decorated ends hung down from this something like aprons. Almost all male Indians on the continent wore the breech-clout.

The men also wore buckskin leggings. These were made in pairs, but were not sewed together. They fitted tightly over the whole length of the leg, and sometimes were held up by a cord at the outer upper corner, which was tied to the waist-string. [pg 016] Leggings were usually fringed with strips of buckskin sewed along the outer side. Sometimes bands of beadwork were tied around the leggings below the knees.

A jacket or shirt made of buckskin and reaching to the knees was generally worn. It was variously decorated. Buckskin strip fringes bordered it; pictures in black or red or other colors were painted upon it; handsome patterns were worked into it with beads or porcupine quills, brightly dyed; tufts of hair or true scalps might be attached to it.

Over all these came the blanket or robe. Nowadays these are got from the whites, and are simple flannel blankets; but in the old times they were made of animal hides. In putting on a blanket, the male Indian usually takes it by two corners, one in each hand, and folds it around him with the upper edge horizontal. Holding it thus a moment with one hand, he catches the sides, a [pg 017] little way down, with the fingers of the other hand, and thus holds it.

Even where the men have given up the old style of dress the women often retain it. The garments are usually made, however, of cloth instead of buckskin. Thus among the Sacs and Foxes the leggings of the women, which used to be made of buckskin, are now of black broad-cloth. They are made very broad or wide, and reach only from the ankles to a little above the knees. They are usually heavily beaded. The woman's skirt, fastened at the waist, falls a little below the knees; it is made of some bright cloth and is generally banded near the bottom with tape or narrow ribbon of a different color from the skirt itself. Her jacket is of some bright cloth and hangs to the waist. Often it is decorated with brooches or fibulÆ made of German silver. I once saw a little girl ten years old who was dancing, in a jacket adorned with nearly three hundred of these ornaments placed close together.

All Indians, both men and women, are fond of necklaces made of beads or other material. Men love to wear such ornaments composed of trophies, showing that they have been successful in war or in hunting. They use elk teeth, badger claws, or bear claws for this purpose. One very dreadful necklace in Washington is made chiefly of the dried fingers of human victims. Among the Sacs and Foxes, the older men use a neck-ring [pg 018] that looks like a rope of solid beads. It consists of a central rope made of rags; beads are strung on a thread and this is wrapped around and around the rag ring, until when finished only beads can be seen.

Before the white man came, the Indians used beads made of shell, stone, or bone. Nowadays they are fond of the cheap glass beads which they get from white traders. There are two kinds of beadwork now made. The first is the simpler. It is sewed work. Patterns of different colored beads are worked upon a foundation of cloth. Moccasins, leggings, and jackets are so decorated; sometimes the whole article may be covered with the bright beads. Almost every one has seen tobacco-pouches or baby-frames covered with such work. The other work is far more difficult. It is used in making bands of beads for the arms, legs, and waist. It is true woven work of the same sort as the famous wampum belts, of which we shall speak later. Such bands look like solid beads and present the same patterns on both sides.

The porcupine is an animal that is covered with spines or “quills.” These quills were formerly much used in decorating clothing. They were often dyed in bright colors. After being colored they were flattened by pressure and were worked into pretty geometrical designs, color-bands, rosettes, etc., upon blankets, buckskin shirts, leggings, and moccasins. Very little of this work [pg 019] has been done of late years: beadwork has almost crowded it out of use.

The moccasin is a real Indian invention, and it bears an Indian name. It is the most comfortable foot-wear that could be devised for the Indian mode of life. It is made of buckskin and closely fits the foot. Moccasins usually reach only to the ankle, and are tied close with little thongs of buckskin. They have no heels, and no part is stiff or unpleasant to the foot. The exact shape of the moccasin and its decoration varies with the tribe.

In some tribes there is much difference between the moccasins of men and those of women. Among the Sacs and Foxes the woman's moccasin has two side flaps which turn down and nearly reach the ground; these, as well as the part over the foot, are covered with a mass of beading; the man's moccasin has smaller side flaps, and the [pg 020] only beading upon it is a narrow band running lengthwise along the middle part above the foot.

The women of the Pueblos are not content with simple moccasins, but wrap the leg with strips of buckskin. This wrapping covers the leg from the ankles to the knees and is heavy and thick, as the strips are wound time after time around the leg. At first, this wrapping looks awkward and ugly to a stranger, but he soon becomes accustomed to it.

Not many of the tribes were real weavers. Handsome cotton blankets and kilts were woven by the Moki and other Pueblo Indians. Such are still made by these tribes for their religious ceremonies and dances. Nowadays these tribes have flocks of sheep and know how to weave good woollen blankets. Some of the Pueblos also weave long, handsome belts, in pretty patterns of bright colors. Their rude loom consists of just a few sticks, but it serves its purpose [pg 021] well, and the blankets and belts are firm and close.

The Navajo, who are neighbors of the Pueblos, learned how to weave from them, but are to-day much better weavers than their teachers. Every one knows the Navajo blankets, with their bright colors, pretty designs, and texture so close as to shed water.

Some tribes of British Columbia weave soft capes or cloaks of cedar bark, and in Alaska the Chilcat Indians weave beautiful blankets of mountain-sheep wool and mountain-goat hair. These are a mass of odd, strikingly colored, and crowdedly arranged symbolic devices.

Among some California Indians the women wore dresses made of grass. They were short skirts or kilts, consisting of a waist-band from which hung a fringe of grass cords. They had nuts and other objects ornamentally inserted into the cords. They reached about to the knees.

IV. The Baby And Child.

Indian babies are often pretty. Their big black eyes, brown, soft skin, and their stiff, strong, black hair form a pleasing combination. Among many tribes their foreheads are covered with a fine, downy growth of black hair, and their eyes appear to slant, like those of the Chinese. The little fellows hardly ever cry, and an Indian parent rarely strikes a child, even when it is naughty, which is not often.

Most Indian babies are kept strapped or laid on a papoose-board or cradle-board. While these are widely used, they differ notably among the tribes. Among the Sacs and Foxes the cradle consists of a board two feet or two and a half feet long and about ten inches wide. Near the lower end is fastened, by means of thongs, a thin board set edgewise and bent so as to form a foot-rest and sides. Over the upper end is a thin strip of board bent to form an arch. This rises some eight inches above the cradle-board. Upon the board, below this arch, is a little cushion or pillow. The baby, wrapped in cloths or small blankets, his arms often being bound down to his sides, is laid down upon the cradle-board, with his head lying on the pillow and his feet reaching almost to the foot-board. He [pg 023] is then fastened securely in place by bandages of cloth decorated with beadwork or by laces or thongs. There he lies “as snug as a bug in a rug,” ready to be carried on his mother's back, or to be set up against a wall, or to be hung up in a tree.

When his mother is busy at work, the little one is unwrapped so as to set his arms and hands free, and is then laid upon the blankets and cloths, and left to squirm and amuse himself as best he can.

The mother hangs all sorts of beads and bright and jingling things to the arch over the baby's head. When he lies strapped down, the [pg 024] mother sets all these things to jingling, and the baby lies and blinks at them in great wonder. When his little hands are free to move, the baby himself tries to strike and handle the bright and noisy things.

In the far north the baby-board is made of birch bark and has a protecting hood over the head; among some tribes of British Columbia, it is dug out of a single piece of wood in the form of a trough or canoe; among the Chinooks it has a head-flattening board hinged on, by which the baby's head is changed in form; one baby-board from Oregon was shaped like a great [pg 025] arrowhead, covered with buckskin, with a sort of pocket in front in which the little fellow was laced up; among some tribes in California, the cradle is made of basket work and is shaped like a great moccasin; some tribes of the southwest make the cradle of canes or slender sticks set side by side and spliced together; among some Sioux the cradle is covered completely at the sides with pretty beadwork, and two slats fixed at the edges project far beyond the upper end of the cradle.

But the baby is not always kept down on the cradle-board. Sometimes among the Sacs and Foxes he is slung in a little hammock, which [pg 026] is quickly and easily made. Two cords are stretched side by side from tree to tree. A blanket is then folded until its width is little more than the length of the baby; its ends are then folded around the cords and made to overlap [pg 027] midway between them. After the cords are up, a half a minute is more than time enough to make a hammock out of a blanket. And a more comfortable little pouch for a baby could not be found.

Among the Pueblos they have a swinging cradle. It consists of a circular or oval ring made of a flexible stick bent and tied together at the ends. Leather thongs are laced back and forth across it so as to make an open netting. The cradle is then hung from the rafters by cords. In it the baby swings.

The baby who is too large for his baby-board is carried around on his mother's or sister's, or even his brother's, back. The little wriggler is laid upon the back, and then the blanket is bound around him to hold him firmly, often leaving only his head in sight, peering out above the blanket. With her baby fastened upon her back in this way the mother works in the fields or walks to town.

Among some tribes, particularly in the southern states and in Mexico, the baby strides the mother's back, and a little leg and foot hang out on either side from the blanket that holds him in place. Among some tribes in California the women use great round baskets tapering to a point below; these are carried by the help of a carrying strap passing around the forehead. During the season of the salmon fishing these baskets are used in carrying fish; at such times [pg 028] baby and fish are thrown into the basket together and carried along.

The Indian boys play many games. When I used to meet Sac and Fox boys in the spring-time, each one used to have with him little sticks made of freshly cut branches of trees. These had the bark peeled off so they would slip better. They were cut square at one end, and bluntly pointed at the other. Each boy had several of these, so marked that he would know his own. When two boys agreed to play, one held one of his sticks, which was perhaps three feet long and less than half an inch thick, between his thumb and second finger, with the forefinger against the squared end and the pointed end forward. He then sent it sliding along on the grass as far as it would go. Then the other boy took his turn, trying of course to send his farther.

The young men have a somewhat similar game, but their sticks are carefully made of hickory and have a blunt-pointed head and a long slender tail or shaft. These will skim a long way over snow when it has a crust upon it.

One gambling game is much played by big boys and young men among the Sacs and Foxes. It is called moccasin. It is a very stupid game, but the Indians are fond of it. Some moccasins are turned upside down, and one player conceals under one of them a small ball or other object. Another tries then to guess where the ball lies.