The Indians are entirely unacquainted with letters; but they have a kind of picture-writing, which they practise on the inside of the bark of trees, or on skins prepared for the purpose, and by which they can communicate the knowledge of many facts to each other.
The Indian names are descriptive of the real or supposed qualities of the persons to whom they belong: they often change them in the course of their lives. The young warrior is ambitious of acquiring a new name; and stealing a horse, scalping an enemy, or killing a bear, are achievements which entitle him to choose one for himself, and the nation confirms it.
The Indian women are industrious wives and affectionate mothers. They are attentive to the comfort of their husbands, watch over their children with the utmost care and tenderness; and if they die, lament the loss in the most affecting manner. Chastity is not, in some tribes, reckoned a virtue; and, as the women are considered the property of the men, a deviation from it, with the consent of the father, husband, or brother, is not looked on as an offence. Nay, to countenance their wives, sisters, or daughters in conferring favors on strangers, is considered a strong expression of hospitality; and refusal of the proffered kindness is regarded by the lady as an unpardonable insult. But some husbands, on discovering unauthorized conjugal infidelity, punish it with severity; others treat it very lightly.
The Indians are kind and hospitable to their friends, and to those who are introduced to them in that character. Although they themselves sit on the bare ground, yet they courteously spread a buffalo skin for their visiter; smoke a pipe with him in token of peace and amity; and thesquaw prepares something for him to eat. They are ready to share their last morsel with their friends.
They are immoderately addicted to intoxicating liquors, which they procure from the white traders, and which have been the means of destroying multitudes of them. Before their intercourse with white men, they had no intoxicating beverage; and, excepting the liquor which they procure from the merchants, their meals are temperate, and their habits of life active. Their diseases are few, and seldom of long duration. Many of them fall in battle, and multitudes are occasionally swept away by smallpox. To the healing art they are in a great measure strangers; although, by means of simples, they in some instances perform surprising cures. In general, however, these pretenders to medical skill are mere quacks and jugglers, who affect to chase away disease by howling, blowing on the patient, and by various incantations, slight-of-hand performances, and superstitious rites.
Some of their medical men pretend to have seen the Great Spirit, and to have conversed with him in some visible form, as of a buffalo, beaver, or other animal, and to have received from him some medicine of peculiar efficacy. The animal whose form had appeared is considered to be the remedy; and they imitate its cry in making their medical applications. The medicine bag, in which these savage physicians have a few herbs, entire or pulverized, and which they administer with a little warm water, is an indispensable requisite in Indian medical practice. Indeed, the head of every family has his medicine bag, which is a place of sacred deposit, and to the sanctity of which he commits his most precious articles. The value of its contents an Indian only can appreciate.
In every stage of society, persons appear who accommodate themselves to the state of the public mind. Of this description are the jugglers, conjurers, or powahs, among the ignorant and superstitious Indians. They are partly medical quacks, partly religious impostors. Many of them are dexterous jugglers and cunning cheats. They pretend to foretell future events, and even to influence the weather. It is likely that they are often, in some measure, the dupes of their own artifices.
The sweating houses of the Indians are often employed for medical purposes, although they are places of social recreation also. A hole is dug in the ground, and over it is built a small close hut, with an opening just large enough to admit the patient. A number of heated stones are placed in the bottom of the hole. The patient enters, having a vessel full of water along with him; and being seated on a place prepared for his reception, the entrance is closed. He sprinkles water on the heated stones, and is soon, by the steam, thrown into a state of profuse perspiration. After this has continued for some time, the person is taken out and plunged into cold water. This process is repeated several times, always ending with the steam-bath. The Indians use this as a general remedy; but its salutary effects are experienced chiefly in rheumatic diseases, in which its efficacy is at times very great.
The Indians bear disease with composure and resignation; and, when far advanced in life, often long for the hour of dissolution. ‘It is better,’ said an aged sachem, ‘to sit than to stand, to sleep than to be awake, to be dead than alive.’ The dying man exhorts his children to be industrious, kind to their friends, but implacable to their enemies. Herejoices in the hope of immortality. He is going to the land of spirits, that happy place where there is plenty of game and no want, where the path is smooth and the sky clear.
When the sick person expires, the friends assemble round the body, the women weep and clap their hands, and bewail their loss with loud lamentations. Different nations dispose of the bodies of departed friends, and express their grief in different ways. Many Indian tribes bury their dead soon after death. They wrap up the body carefully in a buffalo robe, or dressed skin, and carry it to the grave on the shoulders of two or three men. Along with the body, they bury a pair or two of moccasons, some meat, and other articles, to be used in the land of spirits. The favorite weapons and utensils of the warrior are also deposited by his side. It is believed by several tribes that unless this be done, the spirit of the deceased appears among the trees near his lodge, and does not go to its rest till the property withheld be committed to the grave. In some places, they discharge muskets, make a noise, and violently strike the trees, in order to drive away the spirit, which they imagine fondly lingers near its old abode. A mound is sometimes raised over the grave, proportioned in size to the dignity of the deceased; or the place is marked out and secured by short sticks driven into the ground over and around it. Some of those graves are commonly near each of their villages.