Американские индейцы

number—sometimes hundreds - of square-built rooms of various sizes, of

stone or adobe laid in clay mortar, with flat roof, court-yards, and

intricate passage ways, suggestive of oriental things.

The Piute wikiup of Nevada was only one degree above the brush shelter of

the Apache. California, with its long stretch from north to south, and its

extremes from warm plain to snowclad sierra, had a variety of types,

including the semi-subterranean.

Along the whole north-west coast, from the Columbia to the Eskimo border,

the prevailing type was the rectangular board structure, painted with

symbolic designs, and with the great totem pole carved with the heraldic

crests of the owner, towering above the doorway.

Not even pueblo architecture had evolved a chimney.

Food and its Procurement

In the timbered regions of the eastern and southern states and the

adjacent portions of Canada, along the Missouri and among the Pueblos,

Pima, and other tribes of the south-west, the chief dependence was upon

agriculture, the principal crops being corn, beans, and squashes, besides a

native tobacco. The New England tribes understood the principal of

manuring, while those of the arid south-west built canals and practiced

irrigation. Along the whole ocean-coast, in the lake region and on the

Columbia, fishing was an important source of subsistence. On the south

Atlantic seaboard elaborate weirs were in use, but elsewhere the hook and

line, the seine or the harpoon, were more common. Clams and oysters were

consumed in such quantities along the Atlantic coast that in some

favourable gathering-places empty shells were piled into mounds ten feet

high. From central California northward along the whole west coast, the

salmon was the principle, and on the Columbia, almost the entire, food

dependence. The northwest-coast tribes, as well as the Eskimo, were

fearless whalers. Everywhere the wild game, of course, was an important

factor in the food supply, particularly the deer in the timber region and

the buffalo on the plains. The nomad tribes of the plains, in fact, lived

by the buffalo, which, in one way or another, furnished them with food,

clothing, shelter, household equipment, and fuel.

In this connection there were many curious tribal and personal taboos

founded upon clan traditions, dreams, or other religious reasons. Thus the

Navajo and the Apache, so far from eating the meat of a bear, refuse even

to touch the skin of one, believing the bear to be of human kinship. For a

somewhat similar reason some tribes of the plains and the arid South-West

avoid a fish, while considering the dog a delicacy.

Besides the cultivated staples, nuts, roots, and wild fruits were in use

wherever procurable. The Indians of the Sierras lived largely upon acorns

and piсons. Those of Oregon and the Columbia region gathered large stores

of camass and other roots, in addition to other species of berries. The

Apache and other south-western tribes gathered the cactus fruit and toasted

the root of the maguey. The tribes of the upper lake region made great use

of wild rice, while those of the Ohio Valley made sugar from the sap of the

maple, and those of the southern states extracted a nourishing oil from the

hickory nut. Pemmican and hominy are Indian names as well as Indian

inventions, and maple sugar is also an aboriginal discovery. Salt was used

by many tribes, especially on the plains and in the South-West, but in the

Gulf states lye was used instead. Cannibalism simply for the sake of food

could hardly be said to exist, but, as a war ceremony or sacrifice

following a savage triumph, the custom was very general, particularly on

the Texas coast and among the Iroquoian and Algonquian tribes of the east.

The Tonkawa of Texas were know to all their neighbours as the "Man-Eaters".

Apparently the only native intoxicant was tiswin, a sort of mild beer

fermented from corn by the Apache and neighbouring tribes.

Domesticated Animals

The dog was practically the only domesticated animal before the advent of

the whites and was found in nearly all tribes, being used as a beast of

burden by day and as a constant sentinel by night, while with some tribes

the flesh was also a favourite dish. He was seldom, if ever, trained to

hunting. There were no wild horses, cows, pigs, or chickens. Therefore, the

Indians knew nothing about these animals. In Massachusetts, they began to

domesticate the turkey. Eagles and other birds were occasionally kept for

their feathers, and the children sometimes had other pets than puppies. The

horse, believed to have been introduced by the Spaniards, speedily became

as important a factor in the life of the plains tribes as the buffalo

itself. In the same way the sheep and goats, introduced by the early

Franciscans, have become the chief source of wealth to the Navajo,

numbering now half a million animals from which they derive an annual

income of over a million dollars.

Industries and Arts

In the fabrication of domestic instruments, weapons, ornaments,

ceremonial objects, boats, seines, and traps, in house-building and in the

making of pottery and baskets, the Indian showed considerable ingenuity in

design and infinite patience of execution. In the division of labour, the

making of weapons, hunting and fishing requirements, boats, pipes, and most

ceremonial objects fell to the men, while the domestic arts of pottery and

basket-making, weaving and dressing of skins, the fashioning of clothing

and the preparation and preservation of food commonly devolved upon the

women.

Among the sedentary or semi-sedentary tribes house-building belonged

usually to the men, although the women sometimes assisted. On the plains

the entire making and keeping of the tipi were appointed to the women. In

many tribes the man cut, sewed, and decorated his own buckskin suit, and in

some of the Pueblo villages the men were the basket-weavers.

While the house, in certain tribes, evinced considerable architecture

skill, its prime purpo se was always utilitarian, and there was usually but

little attempt at decorative effect, excepting the Haida, Tlingit, and

others of the north-west coast, where the great carved and painted totem

poles, sometimes sixty feet in height, set up in front of every dwelling,

were a striking feature of the village picture. The same tribes were

notable for their great sea-going canoes, hollowed out from a single cedar

trunk, elaborately carved and painted, and sometimes large enough to

accommodate forty men. The skin boat or kaiak of the Eskimo was a marvel of

lightness and buoyancy, being practically unsinkable. The birch-bark canoe

of the eastern tribes was especially well-adapted to its purposes of inland

navigation. In the southern states we find the smaller "dug-out" log canoe.

On the plains the boat was virtually unknown, except for the tub-shaped

skin boat of the Mandan and associated tribes of the upper Missouri.

The Eskimo were noted for their artistic carvings of bones and walrus

ivory; the Pueblo for their turquoise-inlaid work and their wood carving,

especially mythologic figurines, and the Atlantic and California coast

tribes for their work in shell. The wampum, or shell beads, made chiefly

from the shells of various clams found along the Atlantic coast have become

historic, having been extensively used not only for dress ornamentation,

but also on treaty belts, as tribal tribute, and as a standard of value

answering the purpose of money. The ordinary stone hammer or club, found in

nearly every tribe, represented much patient labour, while the whole skill

of the artist was frequently expended upon the stone-carved pipe. The black

stone pipes of the Cherokee were famous in the southern states, and the red

stone pipe of catlinite from a single quarry in Minnesota was reputed

sacred and was smoked at the ratification of all solemn tribal engagements

throughout the plains and the lake-region. Knives, lance-blades, and arrow-

heads were also usually of stone, preferably flint or obsidian. Along the

Gulf Coast, keen-edged knives fashioned from split canes were in use. Corn

mortars and bowls were usually of wood in the timber region and of stone in

the arid country. Hide-scrapers were of bone, and spoons of wood or horn.

Metal-work was limited chiefly to the fashioning of gorgets and other

ornaments hammered out from native copper, found in the southern

Alleghenies, about Lake Superior, and about Copper River in Alaska. The art

of smelting was apparently unknown. Under Franciscan and later Mexican

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

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

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

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

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

prairies, All of these arts belonged to the men.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mississippi tribes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The simple hand process by coiling was universally used.

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

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

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

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

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

stretching, and anointing with various softening or preservative mixtures,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

since the introduction of sheep by the Franciscan missionaries in the

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

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

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

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

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

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

feathers were simply overlaid upon the skin garment.

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

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

standardized and hereditary in particular tribes and societies.

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

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

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

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

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

day.

Games and Amusements

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

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

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

athletic contests, and gambling games.

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

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

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

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

stick somewhat resembling a tennis racket.

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

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

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

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

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

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