Canoe voyages were mainly embarked on for trading; but in all probability before the coming of the European there was little trading done between one tribe and another, except in the region west of the Rocky Mountains, in which—especially to the north—the Amerindians were so different in their habits and customs from those dwelling east of the mountains as to suggest that they must very occasionally have been in touch with some world outside America, such as Hawaii, Kamschatka, or Japan. In these Pacific coastlands they used a white seashell as a currency and a medium of exchange. So also did the Iroquois people and the southern Algonkin tribes, in the form of "wampum". The principal articles of barter were skins of fur animals, porcupine quills, dogs, slaves, and women.
First Hunting (to supply food), then Trading in the products of the chase, and lastly War were the main subjects which occupied the Amerindian's thoughts before the middle of the nineteenth century. They usually went to war to turn other tribes out of profitable hunting grounds or productive fisheries; or because they wanted slaves or more wives; or because a chief or a medicine man had a dream; or because some other notability felt he had given way too much to tears over some personal or public sorrow, and must show his manliness by killing the people of another tribe. In their wars they knew no mercy when their blood was up, and frequently perpetrated frightful cruelties for the sheer pleasure of seeing human suffering. Yet these devilish moods would alternate with fits of sentimentality. A man or a woman would suddenly take a war prisoner, or a person who was wounded or half-tortured to death, under their protection, and a short time afterwards the whole war party would be greeting this rescued wretch (usually a man—they were far more pitiless towards women) as brother, son, or friend, and even become quite maudlin over a scratch or a bruise; whereas an hour or so before they were on the point of disembowelling, or of driving splinters up the nails and setting them on fire. In warfare they often gave way to cannibalism.
Though extremely fond of singing—they sang when they were merry; when they thought they were going to die; when they were victorious in hunting, love, or war; when they were defeated; when they were paddling a canoe or sewing a moccasin—they had but a poor range of musical instruments. Most of the tribes used flutes made out of the wing bones of cranes or out of reeds, and some had small trumpets of wood, bark, or buffalo horn. The Pacific coast Indians made gongs or "xylophones" out of blocks or slabs of resonant wood.
Here is a specimen of Amerindian singing. It is the song which accompanied the famous Calumet dance in celebration of the peacemaking qualities of tobacco-smoking. It was taken down by the Jesuit missionaries in the seventeenth century from the Ilinwa (Illinois) Algonkin Indians of the middle west, and its notation reminds one of Japanese music.
Ninahani, &c, ongo; ninahani, &c, hoho; ninahani, &c.,
Kawa bannoge atchicha Koge ake awā;
Banoge atchicha shagobe hé hé hé! Mintingo mitade
Pini pini hé! Atchicha lé machi mi nam ba miktande,
Miktande pini pini hé!
Dancing was little else than posturing and jumping in masks—usually made to look like the head of a wild beast. But the men were usually very athletic. Wrestling competitions were almost universal, especially as a means of winning a wife. The conqueror in a wrestling match took the wife or wives of the defeated man. Their running powers for endurance and speed became justly celebrated.
"Their principal and most inveterate game is that of the hoop," writes Alexander Henry, sen., "which proves as ruinous to them as the platter does to the Saulteurs (Ojibwé)." This game was played in the following manner. A hoop was made about two feet in diameter, nearly covered with dressed leather, and trimmed with quillwork, feathers, bits of metal, and other trinkets, on which were certain particular marks. Two persons played at the same time, by rolling the hoop and accompanying it, one on each side; when it was about to fall, each gently threw one arrow in such a manner that the hoop might fall upon it, and according to that mark on the hoop which rested on the arrows they reckoned the game. They also played another game by holding some article in one hand, or putting it into one of two shoes, the other hand or shoe being empty. They had another game which required forty to fifty small sticks, as thick as a goose quill and about a foot long; these were all shuffled together and then divided into two bunches, and according to the even or odd numbers of sticks in the bunch chosen, the players lost or won.
A favourite game amongst the Ojibwé is described as "the hurdle", which is another name for the Canadian national game of La Crosse. When about to play, the men, of all ages, would strip themselves almost naked, but dress their hair in great style, put ornaments on their arms, and belts round their waists, and paint their faces and bodies in the most elaborate style. Each man was provided with "a hurdle", an instrument made of a small stick of wood about three feet long, bent at the end to a small circle, in which a loose piece of network is fixed, forming a cavity big enough to receive a leather ball about the size of a man's fist. Everything being prepared, a level plain about half a mile long was chosen, with proper barriers or goals at each end. Having previously formed into two equal parts, they assembled in the very middle of the field, and the game began by throwing up the ball perpendicularly in the air, when instantly both parties (writes an eyewitness) "formed a singular group of naked men, painted in different colours and in the most comical attitudes imaginable, holding their rackets elevated in the air to catch the ball". Whoever was so fortunate as to catch it in his net ran with it to the barrier with all his might, supported by his party; whilst the opponents were pursuing and endeavouring to knock the ball out of the net. He who succeeded in doing so ran in the same manner towards the opposite barrier, and was, of course, pursued in his turn. If in danger of being overtaken, he might throw it with his hurdle towards any of his associates who happened to be nearer the barrier than himself. They had a particular knack of throwing it a great distance in this manner, so that the best runners had not always the advantage; and, by a peculiar way of working their hands and arms while running, the ball never dropped out of their "hurdle".