North American Indian Life: Customs and Traditions of 23 Tribes
480
North American Indian Life: Customs and Traditions of 23 Tribes
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| ISBN-13: | 9780486148137 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Dover Publications |
| Publication date: | 01/23/2013 |
| Series: | Native American |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 480 |
| File size: | 12 MB |
| Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
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North American Indian Life
Customs and Traditions of 23 Tribes
By Elsie Clews Parsons, C. Grant La Farge
Dover Publications, Inc.
Copyright © 1992 Dover Publications, Inc.All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-486-14813-7
CHAPTER 1
Takes-the-pipe, a Crow Warrior
I
HORSES neighing, women scurrying to cover, the report of guns, his mother, Pretty-weasel, gashing her legs for mourning,—that was Takes-the-pipe's earliest memory. Later he learned that his own father, a famous warrior of the Whistling-water clan, had fallen in the fight and that his "father," Deaf-bull, was really a paternal uncle who had married the widow. No real father could have been kinder than Deaf-bull. If anything, he seemed to prefer his brother's son to his own children, always petting him and favoring him with the choicest morsels.
When Pretty-weasel needed·help in dressing a hide or pitching a tent, her sisters and cousins of the Sore-lip clan came as visitors, often bringing moccasins and gewgaws for their little clansman, Takes-the-pipe. One of the sisters stood out more clearly than the rest, a lusty wench who would pull Deaf-bull by the ear and pour water on his face when he took an afternoon nap. He in turn would throw her on the ground and tickle her till she bawled for mercy. Another salient figure was the grandmother, old Muskrat, who used to croon the boy to sleep with a lullaby: "The dog has eaten, he is smoking. Haha, huhu! Haha, huhu!" Whenever she came to the refrain she raised a wrinkled, mutilated hand, and snapped what remained of her fingers in the child's face.
The people were always traveling back and forth in those days. Now Takes-the-pipe was throwing stones into the Little Bighorn, then with other boys he was chasing moths in the Wolf Mountains. When he caught one he rubbed it against his breast, for they said that was the way to become a swift runner. One fall, the Mountain Crow traveled to the mouth of the Yellowstone to visit their kin of the River band. All winter was spent there. It was fun coasting down-hill on a buffalo-rib toboggan and spinning tops on the smooth ice. Each boy tried to upset his neighbor's with his own, and when he succeeded he would cry, "I have knocked you out!" Takes-the-pipe was a good player, but once he came home inconsolable because his fine new top was stolen, and another time a bigger lad had cheated, "knocking him out" with a stone deftly substituted for the wooden toy. His mother comforted him saying, "That boy is crazy! His father is of the Bad-honors clan, that's why he acts that way!"
Takes-the-pipe was still a little fellow when Deaf-bull made him a bow and arrows, and taught him to shoot. Now he ran about, letting fly his darts against birds and rabbits. There was ample chance to gain skill in archery. The boys would tie together a bundle of grass and set it on a knoll, then all shot at this target, and the winner took all his competitors' arrows. Whenever Takes-the-pipe brought home a sheaf of darts, his father would encourage him, saying, "You'll be like Sharp-horn, who always brings down his buffalo with the first shot." And when his son had killed his first cottontail, Deaf-bull proudly called Sliding-beaver, a renowned Whistling-water, feasted him royally and had him walk through camp, leading Takes-the-pipe mounted on his horse and proclaiming his success in a laudatory chant.
One spring there was great excitement. The supply of meat was exhausted, yet the buffalo remained out of sight. Scouts were sent to scour the country in search of game, but in vain. At last Sharp-horn offered to lure the buffalo by magic. At the foot of a cliff he had the men build a corral. He summoned Deaf-bull to be his assistant. "Bring me an old unbroken buffalo chip," he said. Takes-the-pipe found one, and together he and his father brought it to the shaman. "Someone is trying to starve us; my medicine is stronger than his; we will eat," said Sharp-horn. He smoothed the earth in his lodge and marked buffalo tracks all over. He put the chip on one of the tracks and on the chip a rock shaped like a buffalo's head, which he wore as a neck ornament. This rock he smeared with grease. "The buffalo are coming, bid the men drive them here," he said.
Deaf-bull went out and issued the orders received from Sharp-horn. On the heights above the corral, old men, women and children strung out in two diverging lines for the distance of a mile or two. The young men rode far out till they sighted the herd, got behind it and chased the game between the two lines nearer and nearer to the declivity. They drove them down into the corral. Some were killed in leaping, others stunned so they could be easily dispatched. That was a great day for Takes-the-pipe. He rode double with his father, and Deaf-bull was a person of consequence. Had he not assisted Sharp-horn? Then, too, he was a member of the Big Dog Society, and the Big Dogs were the police for that season with power to whip every man, woman or child who dared disobey Sharp-horn's orders.
After the hunt, the meat-racks sagged with the weight of the buffalo ribs, and the people made up for past want by gorging themselves with fat and tongues. One evening the Big Dogs held a feast and dance, the next evening the Fox society, then the Lumpwoods, and so on. There were promiscuous gatherings, too, where the valiant warriors rose to tell the assembled multitude about their exploits, while the old men exhorted the callow youths to emulate the example of their fathers and the camp reëchoed the ancient warriors' songs:—
Sky and earth are everlasting,
Men must die.
Old age is a thing of evil,
Charge and die!
On one of these occasions Takes-the-pipe was proudly listening to Deaf-bull's record. He would have been a chief, had he ever wrested a gun from an enemy in a hand-to-hand encounter; in every other essential he more than passed muster. Three times he had crawled into a Piegan camp and stolen horses picketed to their owners' tents; six times he had "counted coup" on enemies, touching them with his lance or bare hand; twice he had carried the pipe and returned with blackened face as leader of a victorious expedition.
While Takes-the-pipe was listening spell-bound to his father's narrative, he felt a sudden pinch. He turned round to smite his tormentor only to face Cherry-necklace, a boy somewhat older than himself. He was Sliding-beaver's son and that put a different complexion on the matter, for Sliding-beaver, like Deaf-bull, was a Whistling-water, so their sons might take what liberties they chose with each other and enjoy complete immunity. At present, however, Cherry-necklace had more important business than playing a trick on Takes-the-pipe. "Magpie," he whispered, "they are playing magpie." Off both boys dashed to a creek nearby, where some twenty lads were already assembled round a big fire. They smeared their faces with charcoal till one could hardly recognize his neighbor. "Now, we'll be magpies," they said, "Takes-the- pipe is a swift runner, he shall lead." They scampered back to camp. The women, seeing them approach in their disguise, snatched their meat from the racks to hide it inside their tents. But Takes-the-pipe had already fixed his eye on some prime ribs, pounced upon them and carried off his prize, followed by the other boys, each vanishing with what booty he could safely capture.
It was a great gathering about the fireplace by the stream. One of the lads strutted up and down as a crier and announced, "Takes-the-pipe has stolen the best piece!" Then he and a few others who had won like delicacies were granted their choice of the spoils, whereupon all feasted. When they had done eating, the oldest boy declared, "We'll remain seated here. If anyone gets up, we'll rub our hands with this grease and smear it over his body." So they sat still for a long time. At last Cherry-necklace forgot about the warning and got up. In an instant they were upon him like a pack of wolves. Here was a fine chance for Takes-the-pipe to get even for that pinch; he daubed Cherry- necklace's face all over with the fat. Others followed suit and soon his body glistened with grease. He leaped into the creek to wash it off, but the water glided off the fat.
II
The people were moving along the Bighorn, with the long lodge poles dragging along the ground. Some dozen girls with toy tents were transporting them in imitation of their mothers. Takes-the-pipe was riding with the Hammers, a boys' club patterned on the men's societies. The members treated dogs or deer as enemies and practised counting coup on them. Takes-the-pipe as one of the daredevils carried one of the emblems of the organization, a long stick with a wooden hammer-head pivoted some two feet from its top. Suddenly an idea struck him. "Hammers," he cried, "let us offer a seat on our horses to the girls we like!" No sooner said than done. He himself had had his eye on Otter for some time, and presently the two were riding double.
In the evening when the women of the camp pitched their lodges, the Hammer boys' sweethearts set up theirs a little way off. They played at married life. Takes-the-pipe sneaked into his mother's lodge, purloined some meat, brought it near Otter's tent, and bade her fetch the food, which she then cooked for him. Other boys and girls did likewise. Thus they played every day while on the march. Once Takes-the-pipe killed a young wolf and brought a lock of its hair to the young folks' camp. He pretended that it was an enemy's scalp and set it on a pole and all the girls had to dance the scalp dance around it. There followed a recital of deeds; the boys who had struck wolves were allowed to claim coups against the Dakota, and those who had touched deer might boast of having stolen picketed horses.
It was a gay journey. But one evening when Takes-the-pipe had bragged of his mock exploits, Cherry-necklace suddenly appeared on the scene and taunted him before all his playmates, "You think you are a man, because you are as tall as Deaf-bull," he cried, "you are nothing but a child fit to play with little girls. Have you ever been on the war-path? I went with Long-horse and struck a Piegan." Takes-the-pipe hung his head. It was only too true. Cherry- necklace was not so much older, yet he had already distinguished himself and might recite his coup in any public assembly. Takes-the-pipe had no answer for he knew nothing to fling back in his "joking-relative's" teeth, but he resolved forthwith to join a war party at the earliest opportunity.
Not long after this Shinbone let it be known that he was setting out on a horse-raid against the Dakota. Now Takes-the- pipe had his chance. Well-provided with moccasins by his clanswomen, he joined a dozen young men starting afoot on the perilous adventure,—perilous because, though Shinbone was a brave man, this was his first attempt at leading a party and it remained to be seen whether "his medicine was good." They walked for four days. As Takes-the-pipe was the youngest of the company, he had to fetch water and firewood, and one morning when he slept too late they poured water all over him.
Warily the party advanced. On the fourth evening Shinbone ordered them to halt on a little knoll. "Yonder are the Dakota lodges," he said, "early to-morrow morning we will go there." He took his sacred bundle, unwrapping a weasel skin stuffed with deer hair, and pointed it toward the camp. "The Dakota are tired," he said, "they will sleep late." Before dawn he roused the party. He appointed two young men as scouts. They came back. "Well," he asked, "how is it?"
"Where you pointed, there are the Dakota lodges," they replied.
"It is well," he said. He chose four others to drive all the loose horses out of the camp. They left. They had not gone far when they were overtaken by Takes-the-pipe. "What are you doing? Go back. He did not send you."
"I am going to the camp to cut a horse or strike a coup."
"You are crazy! We are older than you and are still without honors. We are here to steal horses, not to score deeds. The one who is carrying our pipe is a new leader, he may not be very powerful and you will spoil his luck. Go back!"
But though they threatened to beat him, Takes-the-pipe would not return and so all five approached the camp. There were the lodges ranged in a circle. The inmates seemed plunged in sleep. Near the edge a herd of horses were peacefully grazing. The scouts quietly stole up to them and began to drive them off toward the rest of their party. In the meantime Takes-the-pipe was getting his bearings in the strange encampment. He cast about for a picketed horse, but there was none to be seen. Then of a sudden, chance favored him. Out of a little tent on the outskirts of the circle a wizened old man came hobbling on a staff. Takes-the-pipe stole up behind him and dealt him a stunning blow. "Heha!" he cried, counting coup on the prostrate foe. Then he dashed towards his friends, who had watched him from a little distance. As yet there was no alarm, but no time was to be lost. They mounted and drove the horses before them. When they reached Shinbone, the rest of the party got on horseback. "Now we will run!" said the captain.
They had come and gone to the Dakota afoot and slowly enough; now they were mounted, and traveled at top speed, for they knew that before long the enemy would be in their wake. They rode on and on till they got to the brink of a rapid stream. Here, some of their stolen horses turned back, but the greatest number they saved, driving them through the ice-cold water, where they themselves felt as though they must die from the cold. They traveled that day and all through the night without stopping to eat. On the following morning they reached the Crow camp, sore and worn out, but with sixty head of horses. By rights they all belonged to Shinbone, but after the fashion of a good leader, he was generous to his followers and let them have nearly half of the herd. Takes-the-pipe won three horses.
His parents rejoiced when they heard of his coup and his booty. His mother and her sisters at once prepared a magnificent feast, to which all the Sore-lip women contributed. On such occasions it behooved a young man to give lavish entertainment to his father's kin, so that he might live to be an old man. So Deaf-bull invited all the eminent Whistling-water men, and Takes-the-pipe selected Sliding-beaver from among them, presenting him with a fine bay horse. Then Sliding-beaver trudged through camp, leading Takes-the-pipe's horse and singing the young man's praises.
III
He was rolling a hoop and another youth was hurling a dart at it when Shinbone clutched him by the arm. "Come, I'll make a man of you. You shall take the place of your elder brother." Takes-the-pipe knew what he meant: a cousin of his belonging to the Fox society had fallen in a skirmish with the Dakota, and his fellow-members had been casting about for a clubbable kinsman.
Now a new sort of life began for Takes-the-pipe. He no longer roamed about aimlessly or consorted with random companions. His fellow-members were now his constant associates. Spare time was whiled away in the lodges of eminent Foxes, beating the drum and singing the songs of the organization. Now and then the younger members took jaunts to the hills with their sweethearts. Again there was a philandering when the Foxes and their girls went berrying or up to the mountains to drag lodge poles to camp. Often enough a wealthy member had a herald invite all the Foxes to his lodges, where they were feasted, and held a dance. There, too, valiant men rose to expatiate on their prowess. The Foxes had done well that year. Shinbone had struck the first coup of the season, thus making his club take precedence of the rival Lumpwood society. By the rules of the game the Lumpwoods had lost the right to sing their own songs, and when they danced they were obliged to borrow those of the Big Dogs, exposing themselves to the mockery of the Foxes. That year Takes-the-pipe joined a number of war parties and succeeded in capturing an enemy's gun. Now he, too, would rise and tell about his martial experiences.
The following spring there were great doings. The Foxes were electing new officers in place of the last year's standard-bearers. Three or four of the elders had had a council and now they came to the club lodge where all the members were gathered. Two of the emblems of the society were straight staffs, two were hooked and wrapped with otterskin. Each was pointed at the bottom, for in sight of the enemy the bearer was obliged to plant it into the earth, and stand his ground regardless of danger or death, without budging an inch unless a companion plucked out the fatal lance. That was why the officers were called "men doomed to die." If they escaped unscathed by the end of the year, they retired with all the honors of distinguished service; if they died in battle, they were solemnly mourned by their fellow-members and other tribesmen; but if they failed in duty, they became the pariahs of the camp.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from North American Indian Life by Elsie Clews Parsons, C. Grant La Farge. Copyright © 1992 Dover Publications, Inc.. Excerpted by permission of Dover Publications, Inc..
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Table of Contents
Contents
DOVER BOOKS ON THE AMERICAN INDIAN,Title Page,
Copyright Page,
Preface,
Introduction,
Takes-the-pipe, a Crow Warrior,
A Crow Woman's Tale,
A Trial of Shamans,
Smoking-star, a Blackfoot Shaman,
Little-wolf Joins the Medicine Lodge,
Thunder-cloud, a Winnebago Shaman, Relates and Prays,
How Meskwaki Children Should Be Brought Up,
In Montagnais Country,
Hanging-flower, the Iroquois,
The Thunder Power of Rumbling-wings,
Tokulki of Tulsa,
Slender-maiden of the Apache,
When John the Jeweler was Sick,
Waiyautitsa of Zuñi, New Mexico,
Zuñi Pictures,
Havasupai Days,
Earth-tongue, a Mohave,
The Chief Singer of the Tepecano,
The Understudy of Tezcatlipoca,
How Holon Chan Became The True Man of His People,
The Toltec Architect of Chichen Itza,
Wixi of the Shellmound People,
All Is Trouble Along the Klamath,
Sayach'apis, a Nootka Trader,
Windigo, a Chipewyan Story,
Cries-for-salmon, a Ten'a Woman,
An Eskimo Winter,
APPENDIX - NOTES ON THE VARIOUS TRIBES,
ILLUSTRATOR'S NOTES,