Movable Lodges of the Kaskaias.

Their scanty and simple furniture and culinary utensils are suited to their humble dwellings and homely manner of life. A kettle, a wooden bowl, a couple of wooden or horn spoons, a few skins for beds and covers, and a buffalo’s stomach for carrying water, are the chief articles of domestic accommodation. Formerly they used earthen pots; but these are now generally superseded by metallic pots and kettles, purchased from the white traders.

Many of the tribes are strangers to bread and salt. Besides fruits and roots, they feed on the flesh of the animals they kill, boiled or roasted. In travelling, pemmican is their favorite food. It consists of flesh cut into thin slices, dried in the sun or over a slow fire, beat to a coarse powder between two stones, mixed with grease, and then carefully packed up. In different nations it is known by different names.

Among the tribes who practise cultivation, maize is sometimes roasted in the ashes, and sometimes bruised and boiled, and is then called hominy. They also boil and eat wild rice, which grows in considerable quantities in some parts of the country. They have no fixed time for meals, but eat when they are hungry. They present food to a stranger, at what time soever he enters their dwelling.

Polygamy is very common among them; and the husband occasionally finds it necessary to administer a little wholesome castigation to his more quarrelsome or refractory squaws. But many are satisfied with one wife. The care of the tent, and the whole drudgery of the family, devolve on the women. They gather fuel, cook the provisions, and repair every article of dress; cultivate the ground, where any is cultivated; carry the baggage on a journey; and pitch the tent when they halt. In these and similar employments, their lordly fathers, husbands, and brothers think it degrading to assist them, and unworthy of warriors to engage in such employments.

The Indians never chastise their children, especially the boys; thinking that it would damp their spirits, check their love of independence, and cool their martial ardor, which they wish above all things to encourage. ‘Reason,’ say they, ‘will guide our children, when they come to the use of it; and before that, their faults cannot be very great.’ They avoid compulsory measures, and allow the boys to act with uncontrolled freedom; but endeavor by example, instruction, and advice, to train them to diligence and skill in hunting; to animate them with patience, courage, and fortitude in war; and to inspire them with contempt of danger, pain and death,—qualities of the highest order in the estimation of an Indian.

By gentleness and persuasion they endeavor to imbue the minds of their children with virtuous sentiments, according to their notions of virtue.The aged chiefs are zealous in this patriotic labor, and the squaws give their cordial co-operation.

Ishuchenau, an old Kanza warrior, often admonished the group of young auditors who gathered around him of their faults, and exhorted them never to tell a lie, and never to steal, except from an enemy, whom it is just to injure in every possible way.‘When you become men,’ said he, ‘be brave and cunning in war, and defend your hunting grounds against all encroachments: never suffer your squaws and little ones to want; protect them and strangers from insult. On no occasion betray a friend; be revenged on your enemies; drink not the poisonous strong water of the white people, for it is sent by the bad Spirit to destroy the Indians. Fear not death; none but cowards fear to die. Obey and venerate old people, particularly your parents. Fear and propitiate the bad Spirit, that he may do you no harm; love and adore the Good Spirit, who made us all, who supplies our hunting grounds, and keeps all alive.’ After recounting his achievements, he was wont to add, ‘Like a decayed prairie tree, I stand alone:—the friends of my youth, the companions of my sports, my toils, and my dangers, rest their heads on the bosom of our mother. My sun is fast descending behind the western hills, and I feel it will soon be night with me.’ Then with hands and eyes lifted towards heaven, he thanked the Great Spirit for having spared him so long, to show the young men the true path to glory and fame.

Their opinions, in many instances, are false, and lead to corresponding errors in conduct. In some tribes, the young person is taught to pray, with various superstitious observances, that he may be a great hunter, horse-stealer, and warrior; so that thus the fountain of virtue is polluted.