Американские индейцы
spent wheel fall within the curve at the end of its course. This game,
which necessitated much hard running, was sometimes kept up for hours. A
somewhat similar game played with a netted wheel and a straight stick was
found upon the plains, the object being to dart the stick through the
certain netted holes in the wheel, known as the buffalo, bull, calf,
etc.(remember ‘to catch the bull’s eye’).
Foot races were very popular with certain tribes, as the Pueblo, Apache.
Wichita and Crows, being frequently a part of great ceremonial functions.
On the plains horse-racing furnished exciting amusement. There were
numerous gambling games, somewhat of the dice order, played with marked
sticks, plum stones, carved bones, etc., these being in special favour with
the women. Target shooting with bow and arrow, and various forms of dart
shooting were also popular.
Among distinctly women's games were football and shinny, the former,
however, being merely the bouncing of the ball from the toes with the
purpose of keeping in the air as long as possible. Hand games, in which a
number of players arranged themselves in two opposing lines and alternately
endeavoured to guess the whereabouts of a small object shifted rapidly from
hand to hand, were a favourite tipi pastime with both sexes in the winter
evenings, to the accompaniment of songs fitted to the rapid movement of the
hands.
Story-telling and songs, usually to the accompaniment of the rattle or
small hand-drum, filled in the evening. The Indian was essentially musical,
his instruments being the drum, rattle, flute, or flageolet, eagle-bone
whistle and other more crude devices. Each had its special religious
significance and ceremonial purposes, particularly the rattle, of which
there were many varieties. Besides the athletic and gambling games, there
were games of diversion played only on rare occasions of tribal necessity
with sacred paraphernalia in keeping of sacred guardians. The Indian was
fond also of singing and had songs for every occasion — love, war, hunting,
gaming, medicine, satire, children's songs, and lullabies.
The children played with tops, whips, dolls, and other toys, or imitated
their elders in shooting, riding, and "playing house".
War
As war is the normal condition of savagery, so to the Indian warlike
glory was the goal of his ambition, the theme of his oratory, and the
purpose of his most elaborate ceremonial. His weapons were the knife, bow,
club, lance, and tomahawk, or stone axe, which last was very soon
superseded by the light steel hatchet supplied by the trader. To these,
certain tribes added defensive armour, as the body-armour of rawhides or
wooden rods in use along the northwest coast and some other sections, and
the shield more particularly used by the equestrian tribes of the plains.
As a rule, the lance and shield were more common in the open country, and
the tomahawk in the woods. The bow was usually of some tough and flexible
wood with twisted sinew cord, but was sometimes of bone or horn backed with
sinew rapping. It is extremely doubtful if poisoned arrows were found north
of Mexico, notwithstanding many assertions to the contrary.
Where the clan system prevailed the general conduct of war matters was
often in the keeping of special clans, and in some tribes, such as the
Creeks, war and peace negotiations and ceremonials belonged to certain
towns designated as "red" or "white". With the Iroquois and probably with
other tribes, the final decision on war or peace rested with a council of
the married women. On the plains the warriors of the tribes were organized
into military societies of differing degrees of rank, from the boys in
training to the old men who had passed their active period. Military
service was entirely voluntary with the individual who, among the eastern
tribes, signified his acceptance in some public manner, as by striking the
red-painted war-post, or, on the plains, by smoking the pipe sent round by
the organizers of the expeditions. Contrary to European practice, the
command usually rested with several leaders of equal rank, who were not
necessarily recognized as chiefs on other occasions. The departure and the
return were made according to the fixed ceremonial forms, with solemn
chants of defiance, victory, or grief at defeat. In some tribes there were
small societies of chosen warriors pledged never to turn or flee from an
enemy except by express permission of their fellows, but in general the
Indian warrior chose not to take large risks, although brave enough in
desperate circumstance.
To the savage every member of a hostile tribe was equally an enemy, and
he gloried as much in the death of an infant as in that of the warrior
father. Victory meant indiscriminate massacre, with most revolting
mutilation of the dead, followed in the early period in nearly every
portion of the East and South by a cannibal feast. The custom of scalping
the dead, so general in later Indian wars, has been shown by Frederici to
have been confined originally to a limited area east of the Mississippi,
gradually superseding the earlier custom of beheading. In many western
tribes, the warrior's prowess was measured not by the number of his scalp
trophies, but by the number of his coups (French term), or strokes upon the
enemy, for which there was a regular scale according to kind, the highest
honour being accorded not to one one who secured the scalp, but to the
warrior who struck the first blow upon the enemy, even though with no more
than a willow rod. The scalp dance was performed, not by the warriors, but
by the women, who thus rejoiced over the success of their husbands and
brothers. There was no distinctive "war dance".
Captives among the eastern tribes were either condemned to death with
every horrible form of torture or ceremonially adopted into the tribe, the
decision usually resting with the women. If adopted, he at once became a
member of a family, usually as representative of a deceased member, and at
once acquired full tribal rights. In the Huron wars whole towns of the
defeated nation voluntarily submitted and were adopted into the Iroquois
tribes. On the plains torture was not common. Adults were seldom spared,
but children were frequently spared and either regularly adopted or brought
up in a mild sort of slavery. Along the north-west coast, and as far south
as California slavery prevailed in its harshest form and was the usual fate
of the captive.
Languages
One of the remarkable facts in American ethnology is the great diversity
of languages. Nearly two hundred major languages, besides minor dialects,
were spoken north of Mexico, classified in fifty-one distinct linguistic
stocks, as given below, of which nearly one-half were represented in
California. Those marked with an asterisk are extinct, while several others
are now reduced to less than a dozen individuals keeping the language:
Algonquian, Athapascan (Dйnй), Attacapan, *Beothukan, Caddoan, Chimakuan,
*Chimarikan, Chimmesyan, Chinookan, Chitimachan, *Chumashan, *Coahuiltecan
(Pakawб), Copehan (Wintun), Costanoan, Eskimauan, *Esselenian, Iroquoian,
Kalapooian, *Karankawan, Keresan, Kiowan, Kitunahan, Kaluschan (Tlingit),
Kulanapan (Pomo), *Kusan, Mariposan (Yokuts), Moquelumnan (Miwok),
Muskogean, Pujunan (Maidu), Quoratean (Karok), *Salinan, Salishan,
Shahaptian, Shoshonean, Siouan, Skittagetan (Haida), Takilman, *Timucuan,
*Tonikan, Tonkawan, Uchean, *Waiilatpuan (Cayuse), Wakashan (Nootka),
Washoan, Weitspekan (Yurok), Wishoskan, Yakonan, *Yanan (Nosi), Yukian,
Yuman, Zuсian.
The number of languages and well-marked dialects may well have reached
one thousand, constituting some 150 separate linguistic stocks, each stock
as distinct from all the others as the Aryan languages are distinct from
the Turanian or the Bantu. Of these stocks, approximately seventy were in
the northern, and eighty in the southern continent. They were all in nearly
the same primitive stage of development, characterized by minute exactness
of description with almost entire absence of broad classification. Thus the
Cherokee, living in a country abounding in wild fruits, had no word for
grape, but had instead a distinct descriptive term for each of the three
varieties with which he was acquainted. In the same way, he could not
simply say "I am here", but must qualify the condition as standing,
sitting, etc.
The earliest attempt at a classification of the Indian languages of the
United States and British America was made by Albert Gallatin in 1836. The
beginning of systematic investigation dates from the establishment of the
Bureau of American Ethnology under Major J.W. Powell in 1879. For the
languages of Mexico and Central America, the basis is the "Geografнa" of
Orozco y Berra, of 1864, supplemented by the later work of Brinton, in his
"American Race" (1891), and corrected and brought up to the latest results
in the linguistic map by Thomas and Swanton now in preparation by the
Bureau of Ethnology. For South America, we have the "Catбlogo" of Hervas
(1784), which covers also the whole field of languages throughout the
world; Brinton's work just noted, containing the summary of all known up to
that time, and Chamberlain's comprehensive summary, published in 1907.
To facilitate intertribal communication, we frequently find the languages
of the more important tribes utilized by smaller tribes throughout the same
region, as Comanche in the southern plains and Navajo (Apache) in the South-
West. From the same necessity have developed certain notable trade jargons,
based upon some dominant language, with incorporations from many others,
including European, all smoothed down and assimilated to a common standard.
Chief among these were the "Mobilian" of the Gulf states based upon
Choctaw; the "Chinook jargon" of the Columbia and adjacent territories of
the Pacific coast, a remarkable conglomerate based upon the extinct Chinook
language; and the lingoa geral of Brazil and the Paranб region, based upon
Tupн-Guaranн. To these must be added the noted "sign language" of the
plains, a gesture code, which answered every purpose of ordinary
intertribal intercourse from Canada to the Rio Grande.
Religion and Mythology
The Indian was an animist, to whom every animal, plant, and object in
nature contained a spirit to be propitiated or feared. Some of these, such
as the sun, the buffalo, and the peyote plant, the eagle and the
rattlesnake, were more powerful or more frequently helpful than others, but
there was no overruling "Great Spirit" as so frequently represented.
Certain numbers, particularly four and seven, were held sacred. Colours
were symbolic and had abiding place, and sometimes sex. Thus with the
Cherokee the red spirits of power and victory live in the Sun Land, or the
East, while the black spirits of death dwell in the Twilight Land of the
West. Certain tribes had palladiums around which centered their most
elaborate ritual. Each man had also his secret personal "medicine". The
priest was likewise the doctor, and medicine and religious ritual were
closely interwoven. Secret societies were in every tribe, claiming powers
of prophecy, hypnotism, and clairvoyance. Dreams were in great repute, and
implicitly trusted and obeyed, while witches, fairies, and supernatural
monsters were as common as in medieval Europe. Human sacrifices, either of
infants or adults, were found among the Timucua of Florida, the Natchez of
Mississippi, the Pawnee of the plains, and some tribes of California and
the north-west coast, the sacrifice in the last-mentioned region being
frequently followed by a cannibal feast. From time to time, as among more
civilized nations, prophets arose to purify the old religion or to preach a
new ritual. Each tribe had its genesis, tradition, and mythical hero, with
a whole body of mythologic belief and folklore, and one or more great
tribal ceremonials. Among the latter may be noted the Green-Corn Dance
thanksgiving festival of the eastern and southern tribes, the Sun-Dance of
the plains, the celebrated snake dance of the Hopi and the Salmon Dance of
the Columbia tribes.
The method of disposing of the dead varied according to the tribe and the
environment, inhumation being probably the most widespread. The Hurons and
the Iroquois allowed the bodies to decay upon scaffolds, after which the
bones were gathered up and deposited with much ceremony in the common
tribal sepulchre. The Nanticoke and Choctaw scraped the flesh from the
bones, which were then wrapped in a bundle, and kept in a box within the
dwelling. Tree, scaffold, and cave burial were common on the plains and in
the mountains, while cremation was the rule in the arid regions father to
the west and south-west. Northward from the Columbia the body was deposited
in a canoe raised upon posts, while cave burial reappeared among the Aleut
of Alaska, and earth burial among the Eskimo. The dread of mentioning the
name of the dead was as universal as destroying the property of the
deceased, even to the killing of his horse or dog, while the custom of
placing food near the grave for the spirit during the journey to the other
world was almost as common, Laceration of the body, cutting off of the
hair, general neglect of the person, and ceremonial wailing, morning and
evening, sometimes for weeks, were also parts of their funeral customs.
Beyond the directly inherited traditional Native American religions, a
wide body of modified sects abounds.The Native American Church claims a
membership of 250,000, which would constitute the largest of the Native
America religious organizations. Though the church traces the sacramental
use ofthe peyote cactus back ten thousand years, the Native American Сhurch
was only founded in 1918. Well into the reservation era, this organization
was achieved with the help of a Smithsonian Institute anthropologist. The
church incorporates generic Native American religious rites, Christianity,
and the use of the peyote plant. The modern peyote ritual is comprised of
four parts: praying, singing, eating peyote, and quietly contemplating.
The Native American Church, or Peyote Church illustrates a trend of
modifying and manipulating traditional Native American spirituality. The
Native American Church incorporates Christianity, as well as moving away
from tribal specific religion. Christianity has routinely penetrated Native
American spirituality in the last century. And in the last few decades, New
Age spirituality has continued the trend.
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