Umatilla Woman and Child.
From Wonderland, 1904—Northern Pacific Railway.
Children were seldom whipped, yet they were carefully trained and were obedient and respectful. Their parents loved them just as white parents love their offspring and in later days when the Indian Bureau compelled the children to attend the agency schools, there was many a heart pang and copious tears all round at the parting. But the usual theory was that these people had no human sensibility.
Several families of a clan often occupied a single structure. Each clan had a sign, a sort of coat of arms, called a totem, to represent it, and this was often used as a signature. Combined with other pictures it indicated the occurrence of certain events. It was generally an animal from which in far past times the clan was supposed to be descended; but there were also personal totems. The clan took its name from its totem, Bear, Hawk, etc., and its members frequently held names which indicated their clan title. The clan controlled its members, settled disputes, and if one were murdered or committed murder, the clan prescribed or accepted punishment or settlement as the case might be. It also argued its case when necessary by means of representatives before the council of the tribe. To know a tribe well it was important to know the workings of the clan system, yet this has generally been overlooked by all but the ethnologists. A tribe was usually spoken of by its members as "the men" or "the people," and these terms were often understood by white men to be the names of the tribes, and accordingly were so used.
Mandan Village on the Missouri, 1832.
Drawing by Catlin, plate 47. vol. i., Catlin's Eight Years. Reproduction from Smithsonian Report, 1885, part ii.