Dress
Men went naked in summer except for mocassins. At times a [breech cloth] was worn; in winter buffalo skin robes were added and belts, leg bands and leggings on occasion.
Women when working apparently wore only a girdle ([breech cloth]), at other times a wrap-around skirt of skin with a belt passing over one shoulder and under the opposite arm. The skirt dates back to Hopewellian times and was used during the [Mississippi] [period] in Indiana and probably in Illinois. The bosom was covered with a deerskin wrap. Hair was worn long and fastened behind the head.
[Economy]
Labor was divided between the men and the women (and children). Men did the hunting, fighting and made the weapons. The women (and children) did the other work—the housework, planting and harvesting the crops, dressing deer and buffalo skins, making twine from [bast], weaving cloth and, on the hunt, carrying the house parts and setting up the camp.
Buffalo meat was preserved by drying and smoking it over a fire in the hunting camp. Vegetable foods, corn, beans and squash were dried or parched and buried in containers or in lined pits in the ground and covered over. Watermelons, muskmelons (?), gourds and tobacco were also grown. Wild strawberries, paw paws, pecans, lotus roots, wild tubers, grapes and plums formed part of their diet.
The winter buffalo hunt usually took place a long way from the village. The hunting units each consisted of several families under a rigid police system and regulation to prevent the herd from being stampeded by an over-eager [family] before all were amply provided with meat. Violations of hunting regulations were punished by destruction of the offender’s property to which no resistance was ever attempted. The group surrounded the herd, at times encircling it with fires made at intervals near which the hunters stood and killed the stampeding animals. At times as many as 120 buffalo were killed in a day. The women cut out the tongues, skinned the animals, and, peeling off the sides of meat, dried and smoked them on wooden grates over a slow fire. The smoked sides were carried back to the village on the back, or when practicable in [dugout] boats. Carcasses and bones were left on the hunting grounds. Other animals were stalked by one or two hunters. Dog meat was considered a great delicacy.
Fish were caught in nets, by hook and line, speared or shot with bow and arrow. They were dried for preservation. Maple trees were tapped late in the winter, the sap caught in bark containers and made into a maple drink or reduced by boiling to syrup and sugar. Corn was ground into meal and baked into bread, or prepared as hominy.
Vessels and utensils were made of wood or clay, ladles from a section of the buffalo skull. Fire was produced by the hand drill in the usual manner.
The cabin type seems to have varied at different periods or in different tribes. In early times, cabins had rectangular floors and vaulted (barrel-shaped) roofs. They were roofed and floored with “double-mats” of flat rushes and were impervious to wind or rain. Occasionally they were erected on low mounds (two feet high) to keep the floors dry. Large cabins of the vaulted type had four fires, with one or two families at a fire.
Bark-covered hemispherical huts or wigwams may have been used on hunting trips. They were apparently common in some villages in 1723.
Overland travel was on foot. On streams the [dugout] boat was propelled by pole and possibly by paddle. Large boats were 40 to 50 feet long, capable of carrying 40 to 50 men. While dugouts were admirably suited for travel and trade between the Illini tribes along the Illinois and [Mississippi] rivers, they were, on account of their weight and unwieldiness in portaging, generally useless in raids against enemies.
Fig. 33. Native Illini [artifacts]. A, Indian-made gun [flint]; B, C, D, chipped flint [arrowheads]; E, flint scraper; F, grooved abrader of sandstone; G, expanded base drill (grip only, point broken off); H, I, polished [stone] pendants. From Illini village site near mouth of Kaskaskia River, Randolph County.
Marriage Customs and the [Family]
An Illini man, desiring to get married, sent presents to the girl’s parents. If the suitor was acceptable, the parents kept the gift and took the bride to the man’s hut the following evening. Apparently there was no wedding ceremony.
Women had somewhat lower social [status] than their husbands. Wives did not eat with their husbands. A man was permitted two or more wives and often married two sisters. Children were well-treated. Infants were bound to a cradle board that the mother carried around. The cradle was pointed at the lower end and was stuck in the ground when the woman wanted to rest. Divorce was accomplished by a simple agreement to separate.
[Political Organization]
The explorers and writers to whom we are indebted for our knowledge of Illini social and religious organization were, unfortunately, casual and untrained observers who, on the whole, held the Indian and his customs in contempt. Important activities were often dismissed with meaningless generalizations, or omitted entirely, as if generally known. Consequently great gaps are left in the information that has come down to us.
From the various accounts, the impression is given that the Illini tribes (and possibly before the 17th century, the Confederacy) had a political government (rather than [family social control]) with formally appointed officers or civil chiefs. The Confederacy had one or more coats-of-arms (“totems”) that may have been recognized abroad as symbolic of the Illini (as was customary among the Natchez and other southeastern Indians). It had a Grand [Chief], chosen in some manner not now known, from one of the constituent tribes. At one [period] “Prince Tamaroa” of the Tamaroas held the post, later Chief Ducoigne of the Kaskaskias. Whether or not the Confederacy acted as a nation after 1600 is doubtful. Each tribe had its own head chief and coat-of-arms, and the French appear to have treated directly with the tribal heads in matters of importance. Judging from other Indian Confederations, the individual tribe had probably retained its full powers, and concerted action by the Confederacy was possible only by unanimous consent.
Like most peoples in the simple plant-raising [status], the tribe dealt as a state with other similar units in intertribal affairs. These included alliances and treaties of peace. Ambassadors or tribal representatives were sent from Illini tribes to their neighbors. On such occasions, the [calumet] was carried and served as a safe conduct.[19] Tribal representatives met approaching strangers (and presumably the ambassadors of another tribe), raising the highly adorned calumet (and pipe) toward the sun as they advanced. Smoking the calumet—by the contracting tribal agents at the conclusion of an agreement—corresponded to our signatures and seals at the end of a written treaty.
Each village probably had a [chief], whose power (it was sometimes reported) was little. However, the chiefs wore, as badges of office, red scarfs woven of bear and buffalo hair. Their faces were painted red. The village men (or possibly the important men) met before the village chief’s cabin or in a large hut built especially for gatherings to deliberate on political or religious matters. The entire village often seems to have been in audience.
If there were social classes among the Illini, no mention is made of it in early reports. Men acquired prestige mainly through skillful hunting or success in fighting. The leader in a raid had to recompense the families of any followers killed in the fighting.
With so little description of the village and tribal assemblies and the chiefs in deliberation and judgment, it is difficult to determine the exact [status] of [political organization] of the tribe and its officers. It may well be that the powers of the chiefs immediately after European contact were small, and that in order to deal with the agency of a European state, the Illini found it necessary (as did the Delaware tribes) to grant greater authority and responsibility to their political leaders. It is probably also true that the chiefs would, under pressure from the whites, be reluctant to take responsibility for an unpopular concession and would declare that only the tribal council or [assemblage] could confirm the agreement under consideration. In any case, the Illini were on the threshold of true political control if they had not actually adopted it.