“I speak again to my white brothers. You will not blame me, that I have spoken the truth. You have seen, brothers, since you came to Green Bay, that what I have just told the Menomenies and Winnebagoes, is truth. We have shewn you what promises were made to us by your great father and ours. You know it is truth. We make you witnesses this day—you shall witness to our great father and to his chiefs—you shall witness to God—that all we have said, is truth. We have been sorry, brothers, that it was not in your power to do us justice. We thank you for your good intentions. You say your instructions do not allow you to make the treaties a rule of settlement. We left our lands in the East country, and came here on the understanding of those treaties. We have trusted entirely to the faith they have pledged to us. If they cannot be depended on, we know not what to trust. You offer to make a new treaty in the name of our great father. Make the old treaty good, brothers, and then if there be any need, we shall have some reason to trust in a new one. Till then, we do not wish to make another. It is better to have none, brothers, if both parties will not keep them. We have been deceived. It is not good. We do not wish to be deceived again.
“Brothers, we have learnt one good thing from the white man: to trust in the white man’s God. We believe him to be the only God—and that he is the God of all the tribes of men. We feel, that we have need to trust in him now. We are injured; and I know not what new injuries await the destiny of my people. I shall go down to the grave thinking only of the words of King David’s son, which I have read in the book presented to my father’s father by your father’s father, from over the big salt lake: ‘So I returned, and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun. And behold the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter. And on the side of their oppressors there was power—but they had no comforter.’ God is witness of our old engagements—God is witness how they have been kept—and God will reward us, according to our deeds.
“Brothers, I have done.”
CHAPTER XXIV.
FREE MASONRY AMONG THE INDIANS; MEDICINE DANCE; AND WAR DANCES.
As I was walking one day in the camp of the Winnebagoes, I observed a group of Indians collected around one of the lodges, deeply absorbed in the performance of some strange and mysterious rites, apparently of a symbolical and religious nature. The women were engaged in them, as well as the men—and all in public. At one moment they would seem to be occupied in a sort of hocus-pocus incantation, with the greatest imaginable solemnity. In spite of my philosophy, I could but sympathise with them. I verily stood waiting, from the degree of faith and expectation which they manifested, to see some strange and miraculous phenomena; spirits perhaps, coming up from the caldron they appeared to be stirring. True, there was no caldron visible to the vulgar—to us—no kettle of any fashion—no material vessel of capacity;—but they were evidently and earnestly stirring up something over a fire. They formed a circle, men and women, with a sort of pudding-stick—alias a witch’s or wizard’s rod;—and round and round they walked, with a gravity, at sight of which few would not have felt solemn, each one stirring the caldron in turn, as he or she came where it was—or should be;—reciting at the same time some mysterious words. There was manifestly an expectation of some wondrous result. They grew excited—they danced—they raved—and seemed to be the subjects of involuntary and violent muscular spasms. They would stop suddenly, and lift up the head, like the dog that bays the moon; and mutter with a most inconceivable volubility a long prayer—or some other piece of religious exercise, I know not what, apparently of a devotional character. This baying of the heavens, however, appeared to be the exclusive office of certain distinguished individuals—priests most likely. There was no miracle, after all. The ceremonies were diversified, and pompous, and solemn.
“What is this?” said I to a companion, who knew something of Indian customs. “Why,” said he, “it is Free-masonry;—and if you could stay long enough to see the whole, you would be greatly amused.” “But do the women take a part?” “O yes—the Indians are farther advanced in Free-masonry, than civilized nations:—they have taken higher degrees. The white masons, you know, are just beginning to confer degrees upon women. But Indians have done it from time immemorial.” “But the society here is open.” “Certainly. Secresy is all nonsense. There is no mystery in masonry, except in the higher degrees, in relation to the lower; and in all the degrees, in relation to the world. The white Free-masons have found it convenient for other purposes, to hold their meetings in conclave;—not for secresy. There is no secresy, except what results from physical necessity:—that a man cannot know what he has never learned. Pretended secresy lends importance to that, which is supposed to be kept out of sight—awakens curiosity, and gives amazing advantage to nothing.” “Indeed? This is information.” “I am glad, if you are wiser for it.”
One cannot have been long among the Indians, and not have had his attention challenged by a DRUMMING in some quarter, from morning to night, and from night to morning;—and sometimes for several successive days, without intermission, except by very short intervals of repose. The Indian drum is made exactly according to the philosophy of the martial instrument of music, which bears this name in Europe. But if the beauty be brought into comparison—that is another thing. An old hollow trunk of a tree, cut into a section of two or three feet, without any other work, except what was first done by the hand of nature, and next by time, will answer all the purpose. One end may be planted in the ground, if it is not convenient to put a head in it; the other must be covered by a buck-skin, stretched over it, when wet, with great pains and force, and fastened by strings and withes to pegs, driven into the longitudinal parts of the trunk. By this description every one will see, that the instrument combines all the philosophical principles of a drum. Whether the American Aborigines borrowed the suggestion from Europeans, or the latter from the former; or whether each came by the discovery independent of the other—is of no importance to our present purpose to settle. The American Indians have the drum—that is certain; and if they wish to make it portable, they contrive to fasten a hollow sounding cover of some sort on the other end;—perhaps nail on a thin board, when their arts, or trade will furnish them with iron for nails. An empty keg, when the strong water has all been drawn, (which does not take long) is often appropriated to this purpose. In which case one of the heads is permitted to remain, as a matter of economy, while the other is overdrawn, as aforesaid, by a buck-skin, in the highest degree of tension. But the use, that is more commonly made of the drum among the Indians, is by no means so pleasant, as this account of its construction. It is even sad and melancholy in the highest degree.
And is not the white man’s use of the same instrument sad? He employs it to challenge the fiercest passions, to rouse and provoke the spirit of man to deeds of blood, to drown the cries of the wounded and dying, to sustain and urge on the heaviest encounter of brute force.
Not so the Indian. He employs it to soothe and relieve the suffering, and to rescue the dying from the grave. He makes it a medicine of the soul, and of the body. When all the other powers of the healing art have failed, and the patient still declines, the Indian last resort is to the magic influence of the drum and dance. All the family and near relatives gather in a crowd around the suffering victim; the nearest relative, a mother, or father, a husband or wife, or the eldest child—more commonly a female, when it is convenient—as the tender sex are more susceptible of grief—begins to weep, and sob, and moan aloud, often howling, with expressions of heart-appealing anguish;—the drum sets up its melancholy beat to a dancing gig;—the entire circle parade and move round in solemn order, time-keeping to the summons;—the chief mourner sobs and howls;—and round they dance, muttering prayers hour after hour, and day after day, till they have drummed and danced and howled the wretched victim into the arms of death. In this extremity all other means, all other medicine, and the common sustenance of nature are perhaps scrupulously withholden. Every thing now depends on the miraculous influence of the charm. The relatives must have faith;—the patient must have faith;—all depends on faith. If the patient be an infant, the anxious and agonized mother will every now and then catch it up in her arms, and dance around the circle, weeping and sadly moaning. If the patient be an adult, and have sufficient strength, it is deemed of great importance, that he or she should rise, as often as they are able, and join the dance; and when strength fails, the patient is supported by the arms of relatives. When he is entirely exhausted, he is borne along the dance perfectly passive; and gradually as he languishes, the enthusiasm and anxiety rise to a higher pitch; the drum sounds with more earnest beat; the contagion of sobbing and moaning spreads and becomes universal; the circle is enlarged by an accession of friends and neighbours, who soon catch the sad spirit of the occasion; the noise and tumult aggravate to a storm; and as might be expected, the patient sinks and expires, under the overwhelming weight of this furious tempest of lugubrious passion. And this is called the Medicine-dance. Rarely, the strength of the patient’s constitution braves the assault, and he rises and lives notwithstanding. And these instances of recovery prove to a demonstration, in the philosophy of the Indians, the miraculous efficacy of the means.
But there is yet a use of the drum among the Indians, of a truly martial character—and that is in the War-dance. Whenever a tribe has reasons for waging war, either in self-defence, or to avenge injuries, having deliberated and resolved upon the enterprise, in a grave and solemn public council, the occasion and ceremonies of enlisting and mustering their warriors, are of a character most fearfully interesting and barbarous. For the entertainment of the Commissioners and strangers, and other spectators of the Council, which had been engaged in its deliberations at Green Bay, and while the sittings of the Council were open, we had two specimens of the Indian war-dance, at the intervals of recess from public business:—one by the Winnebagoes, and the second by the rival efforts of the two tribes. As the night is the most appropriate and most awful, by the imposing character of its own natural solemnity; and as according best with the dark designs of savage vengeance; the exhibitions were made to begin at the approach of the evening shades, and obtained their height of interest, when all that is most grand and awful in midnight scenery overspread the heavens.