North American Implements, Weapons, etc.

[1] For details of customs which still survive, also for information concerning practices which have fallen into disuse, see books recommended for the teacher’s reference library.

CHAPTER III
Social Life among Indian Tribes

Every boy is familiar with the arrangement of Boy Scouts, who name themselves the “Beavers,” “Lions,” “Bears,” or “Eagles”; and, strange to say, there is a similar practice among many savage peoples in America, Australia, and the Pacific region, though primitive tribes have many strange beliefs which we do not hear of among boys who take animals as their emblems.

One of the Déné tribes is divided into halves, the people of one division being “Bears,” while the others are all “Birds.” Now it is so ordered that a man or woman of the “Bear” division may not marry any one from his or her own half of the tribe; a person belonging to the “Bears” must always marry into the “Bird” clan, and an individual in the “Bird” division must select a partner from the “Bears.” The Indians cannot explain how this order originated; they say it always has been so and must remain. Some go so far as to declare that animals, who were their ancestors, ordered this tribal division, and laid down the rules for marriage. The missionary, Father Morice, tells us that among another Déné tribe named “Carriers,” there are four of these animal clans, namely, the Grouse, Beaver, Toad, and Grizzly Bear. People of the Grizzly Bear clan think that they themselves, also their ancestors, are closely connected with the Bear in some mysterious way. They respect the animal, and apologise to him when it is necessary to kill him in order to get food and clothing. The bear is thought to have a spirit which would haunt the “Bear” clan if the animal were not treated respectfully. Some Indian hunters who will have no respect for an animal belonging to some other clan, sit by the dead bear, their own totem animal, and smoke the pipe of peace, which implies that there is a good feeling between the hunter and his dead bear, whose spirit will not take revenge.

In addition to this animal “totem,” which serves as a badge for the clan, a boy always has his own special personal “totem,” which he obtains in the following way. At the age of fourteen he is subject to very harsh treatment, being beaten frequently, and driven to bathe in cold water on winter mornings. Then there is among some tribes a “sweat-bath,” which a boy enters in order to perspire out all his badness, while starvation and solitude in the woods are thought to be necessary before a boy is turned into a man who can have a “totem” animal. It is during this starvation and fasting in the woods that the boy dreams of some animal, or, as he puts it, “the ghost of the animal comes to him while he is asleep,” and the first creature which appears is his “totem,” to whom he prays when in danger and trouble. The youth must rise at once, and after killing one of his “totem” animals, he makes a little bag which is worn like a charm round the neck. Should this “medicine bag” be lost, the youth is disgraced until he has killed an enemy, and stolen his opponent’s skin bag. A chief may have more than one “totem” animal, and outside a house, say of the Haida Indians, one may see a high pole on which are carried the portraits of totem animals belonging to all who dwell within the hut. Tattooing portraits of “totem” animals on the hands and face is very common, especially among the Haida of Queen Charlotte Islands.

Totem Pole, 38 ft. high, Haida, Qn. Charlotte Is. (now in Brit. Mus.).