Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1

by James Athearn Jones

(2) Eat up the Nation.—p. 294.

This is a frequent figure of the Indian orator, when endeavouring to inflame the passions of his hearers. It signifies that a war is to be waged against the nation respecting whom the "talk" is held, in the most outrageous and destructive manner. When they wish to engage in their quarrel an ally who is not present, they send a belt of wampum, with an invitation to him to drink the "blood" or "the broth of the flesh of their enemies." It is not to be inferred from this, that the North American Indians are Anthropophagi. It is undoubtedly an allegorical manner of speaking, with frequent examples of which the Scriptures furnish us, e.g. Psalms xxvii. 2.

(3) The stormy Lake of Michabou.—p. 294.

The Indians believe that Michabou, the God of the Waters, formed Lake Superior to serve as a nursery for beavers. The rocks at the Sault de Saint Marie, or Falls of St. Mary, according to the tradition of the Indians, are the remains of a causeway made by the God in order to dam up the waters of the rivers, which supply this great lake. At the time he did this, he lived, they add, at Michillimackinac, i.e. a great place for turtles, pronounced Mak-i-naw. He it was who taught the ancestors of the Indians to fish, and invented nets, of which he took the idea from the spider's web. Very many of the northern tribes recognise this same divinity, but the Hurons alone assign Lake Superior as the place of his residence.

(4) House of Death.—p. 302.

The funeral customs of the Indians are very various, and all are sufficiently curious to merit a place in this note. I have only space for a few. The first extract relates rather to the place of deposit for the dead, than to the dead themselves. It describes the common cemetery of the tribes living west of the Rocky Mountains.

"Among the Pishquitpaws, who live beyond the Rocky Mountains, the place in which the dead are deposited is a building about sixty feet long, and twelve feet wide, and is formed by placing in the ground poles or forks six feet high, across which a long pole is extended the whole length of the structure. Against this ridge-pole are placed broad boards and pieces of canoes in a slanting direction, so as to form a shed. It stands east and west, and neither of the extremities are closed. On entering the western end we observed a number of bodies, wrapped carefully in leather robes, and arranged in rows on boards, which were then covered with mats. This was the part destined for those who had recently died: a little further on, bones half decayed were scattered about, and in the centre of the building was a large pile of them heaped promiscuously on each other. At the western extremity was a mat on which twenty-one sculls were placed in a circular form, the mode of interment being first to wrap the body in robes, and as it decays the bones are thrown into the heap, and the sculls placed together. From the different boards and pieces of canoes which form the vault were suspended on the inside fishing-nets, baskets, wooden bowls, robes, skins, trenchers, and trinkets of various kinds, obviously intended as offerings of affection to deceased relatives. On the outside of the vault were the skeletons of several horses, and great quantities of bones were in the neighbourhood, which induced us to believe that these animals were most probably sacrificed at the funeral rites of their masters."—Lewis and Clarke, ii, 24.

It was not worth while for these travellers to imply a doubt that those animals were sacrificed. The custom obtains among all the tribes of the Western continent, from Labrador to Cape Horn, of sacrificing the most valuable animals, on the death of their master. In this they are actuated by a common belief that the deceased will need their assistance in the land of spirits. See the various traditions.

The Choctaws, a tribe living near the gulf of Mexico, till very late years had a practice similar to that of the Pishquitpaws, of exposing their dead upon scaffolds, till such time as the flesh was decayed; it was then separated from the bones by a set of old men, who devoted themselves to this custom, and were called "bone-pickers;" after which, the bones were interred in some place set apart for the purpose.

With the tribes living far towards the northern lakes, the ceremonies and superstitions which formerly preceded inhumation, were these:—Charlevoix, the best writer that ever treated of the Indians, is my authority. "As soon as the sick person expires, the place is filled with mournful cries. The dead body, dressed in the finest robe, with the face painted, the arms, and all that belonged to the deceased, by his side, is exposed at the door of the cabin, in the posture it is to be laid in the tomb; and this posture is the same in many places as that of a child in the mother's womb. The custom of some nations is for the relations to fast to the end of the funeral; and all this interval is passed in tears and cries, in treating their visiters, in praising the dead, and in mutual compliments. In other places, they hire women to weep, who perform their part punctually: they sing, they dance, they weep, without ceasing, always keeping time: but these demonstrations of a borrowed sorrow do not prevent what nature requires from the relations of the deceased.