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CURLY CHIEF—KIT-KE-HAHK´-I.
“I sacrificed a scalp toTi-ra´-wa. I felt that hehad given me the victory over my enemies, and for this reason I wanted to give him something, I wanted to make an acknowledgment of his goodness to me. He had taken pity on me and helped me. It was a sacrifice greater than the sacrifice of the buffalo meat. Not many men have made it, but once in a while you see some one who has been noticed by the Ruler. It is our aim, after we have been helped, to give thanks.”
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PAWNEE DIRT LODGE.
IT is generally believed that, among the Indians of North America, the priests and the shamans, “medicine men,” or doctors, are the same. This is not the case with the Pawnees. Among them the priestly office was entirely distinct from that of the doctor, and had nothing in common with it. The priest was in a sense the medium of communication withTi-ra´-wa; he prayed to the deity more efficaciously than could a common person, acted, in fact, as an intercessor; he knew the secrets of the sacred bundles, and when he asked anything good for the tribe, or for an individual, it was likely to be granted. His education and the power given him from above brought him into specially close relations withTi-ra´-wa, who seemed to watch over him and tolisten to him when he interceded for the tribe. He was an intermediary betweenTi-ra´-waand the people, and held a relation to the Pawnees and their deity not unlike that occupied by Moses to Jehovah and the Israelites.
The office of the “medicine man,” shaman or doctor, had to do only with sickness or injury. He was the healer. Disease was caused by bad spirits, and it was the doctor’s part to drive off these evil influences.
In the lodge or house of every Pawnee of influence, hanging on the west side, and so opposite the door, is the sacred bundle neatly wrapped in buckskin, and black with smoke and age. What these bundles contain we do not know. Sometimes, from the ends, protrude bits of scalps, and the tips of pipe stems and slender sticks, but the whole contents of the bundle are known only to the priests and to its owner—perhaps, not always even to him. The sacred bundles are kept on the west side of the lodge, because, being thus furthest from the door, fewer people will pass by them than if they were hung in any other part of the lodge. Various superstitions attach to these bundles. In the lodges where certain of them are kept it is forbidden to put aknife in the fire; in others, a knife may not be thrown; in others, it is not permitted to enter the lodge with the face painted; or again, a man cannot go in if he has feathers tied in his head.
On certain sacred occasions the bundles are opened, and their contents form part of the ceremonial of worship.
No one knows whence the bundles came. Many of them are very old; too old even to have a history. Their origin is lost in the haze of the long ago. They say, “The sacred bundles were given us long ago. No one knows when they came to us.” Secret Pipe Chief, one of the very oldest men in the tribe, and its High Priest, said to me:
“All the sacred bundles are from the far off country in the southwest, from which we came long ago. They were handed down to the people before they started on their journey. Then they had never seen anything like iron, but they had discovered how to make the flint knives and arrow points. There was nothing that came to us through the whites. It all came to us through the power ofTi-ra´-wa. Through his power we were taught how to make bows and stone knives and arrow heads.
“It was through the Ruler of the universe that thesacred bundles were given to us. We look to them, because, through them and the buffalo and the corn, we worshipTi-ra´-wa. We all, even the chiefs, respect the sacred bundles. When a man goes on the warpath, and has led many scouts and brought the scalps, he has done it through the sacred bundles. There were many different ceremonies that they used to go through. The high priest performs these ceremonies.
“The high priestship was founded in this way: The black eagle spoke to a person, and said to him, ‘I am one of those nearest toTi-ra´-wa, and you must look to me to be helped; to the birds and the animals—look to me, the black eagle, to the white-headed eagle, to the otter and the buffalo.’
“The black eagle sent the buzzard as a messenger to this person, and he gave him the corn. The secrets of the high priestship and the other secrets were handed down at the same time. The buzzard, because he is bald, stands for the old men who have little hair. The white-headed eagle also represents the old men, those whose hair is white. These are the messengers through whomTi-ra´-wasends his words to the people. The Wichitas also had these secrets, and so have the Rees.”
The Pawnees believe that they were created byTi-ra´-wa, but that there had been people on the earth before them. They say, “The first men who lived on the earth were very large Indians. They were giants; very big and very strong. The animals that lived then were the same that we know now, and of the same size. These giants used to hunt the buffalo on foot. They were so swift and strong that a man could run down a buffalo, and kill it with a great stone, or a club, or even with his flint knife. Then, when he had killed it, if it was a big buffalo bull, he would tie it up, throw it over his back, and carry it into camp, just as a man to-day would carry in an antelope. When one killed a yearling, he would push its head up under his belt, and let its body swing by his side, just as we would carry a rabbit.
“These people did not believe inTi-ra´-wa. When it would thunder and rain, they would shake their fists at the sky and call out bad words. In these days all people, wherever they live—all Indians, all white men, all Mexicans and all black men—when they smoke up, speak toA-ti´-us Ti-ra´-wa, and ask that he will give them the right kind of a mind, and that he will bless them, so that they may have plenty to eat, and may be successful in war,and may be made chiefs and head men. When we smoke toward the earth we say, ‘Father of the dead, you see us.’ This means that this isTi-ra´-wa’sground. It belongs to him, and we ask him that he will let us walk on it, and will let us be buried in it. We believe that after we are dead we will live again withTi-ra´-waup in the sky. We fear nothing after death worse than we know now. All will live again withTi-ra´-waand be happy. A thief, one who steals from others in the camp, one who is bad, dies, and that is the end of him. He goes into the ground, and does not live again. One reason why we believe that there is a life after death is that sometimes, when asleep, we dream and see these things. We see ourselves living withTi-ra´-wa. Then, too, we often dream of our people whom we have known, and who have died. We dream of being dead ourselves, and of meeting these people and talking with them, and going to war with them.
“Now, these giants did not believe in any of these things. They did not pray toTi-ra´-wa, and they thought that they were very strong, and that nothing could overcome them. They grew worse and worse. At lastTi-ra´-wagot angry, and he madethe water rise up level with the land, and all the ground became soft, and these great people sank down into the mud and were drowned. The great bones found on the prairie are the bones of these people, and we have been in deep cañons, and have seen big bones under ground, which convinces us that these people did sink into the soft ground.
“After the destruction of the race of giants,Ti-ra´-wacreated a new race of men, small, like those of to-day. He made first a man and a woman. They lived on the earth and were good. To them was given the corn. From this man and this woman the Pawnees sprung, and they have always cultivated the corn from the earliest times.”
There can be no doubt as to the belief of the Pawnees in a future life. The spirits of the dead live after their bodies have become dust. The stories of the Ghost Bride and the Ghost Wife, already given, are examples of this belief. Secret Pipe Chief told me of himself:
“I was dead once. Just as I died, I found my way leading to an Indian village. I entered it, and went straight to the lodge of my friends and my relations. I saw them, and when I saw them I knew them again. I even knew my old relations,whom I had never looked on when I was alive. I went into a lodge, but I was not offered a seat, and I thought that I was not welcome. I came out of the lodge, and went out of the village toward the west. Then I came back to life again. In the morning I had died, and I came to life in the afternoon. That must be the reason that I still live, and am getting old. I was not welcome yet. They did not receive me. From this I am convinced that there is a life after we are dead.”
Sometimes ghosts appear to them, but more often they merely speak to them; only a voice is heard. They believe that the little whirlwinds often seen in summer are ghosts. The reason for this is that once a person shot at a whirlwind with his arrow. The arrow passed through it, and it all disappeared and came to nothing. Then the man was convinced that it was a ghost, and that he had killed it.
The different bands of the Pawnees had not all the same beliefs. Thus the Skidi band offered up the human sacrifice—a captive taken in war—to the morning star. This is thought to have been a propitiatory offering to avert the evil influences exerted by that planet. At the present day the Indians speak of the sacrifice as having been made toTi-ra´-wa. None of the other tribes had this form of worship, and in this fact we have another indication that the separation of the Skidi from the Pawnees had been a long one. TheKa-wa-ra-kishband of the Pita-hau-erat, are said to have been “the only ones of the Pawnees who did not worshipTi-ra´-wa. They worshiped toward the west.”
Mention has been made of theNahu´rac, or animals, which possess miraculous attributes given them byTi-ra´-wa. The Pawnees know of five places where these animals meet to hold council—five of theseNahu´raclodges. One of these is atPa-hŭk´, on the south side of the Platte River, opposite the town of Fremont, in Nebraska. The wordPa-hŭk´means “hill island.” Another animal home is under an island in the Platte River, near the town of Central City. It is called by the PawneesLa-la-wa-koh-ti-to, meaning “dark island.” The third of these sacred places is on the Loup Fork, opposite the mouth of the Cedar River, and under a high, white cut bank. It is calledAh-ka-wit-akol, “white bank.” Another is on the Solomon River,Kitz-a-witz-ŭk, “water on a bank;” it is calledPa´howasometimes. This is a mound, shaped like a dirt lodge. At the top of the mound, in themiddle, is a round hole, in which, down below, can be seen water. At certain times, the people gather there, and throw into this hole their offerings toTi-ra´-wa, blankets and robes, blue beads, tobacco, eagle feathers and moccasins. Sometimes, when they are gathered there, the water rises to the top of the hole, and flows out, running down the side of the mound into the river. Then the mothers take their little children and sprinkle the water over them, and pray toTi-ra´-wato bless them. The water running out of the hole often carries with it the offerings, and the ground is covered with the old rotten things that have been thrown in. The fifth place is a hard, smooth, flinty rock, sticking up out of the ground. They call itPa-hūr´, “hill that points the way.” In the side of the hill there is a great hole, where theNahu´rachold councils. This hill is in Kansas, and can be seen from the Burlington & Missouri River Railroad. It is known to the whites as Guide Rock.
To describe satisfactorily any considerable proportion of the religious ceremonials of the Pawnees, would require a more extended space than is here at my command. Several of the special ceremonies, however, may be mentioned in general terms.
Like some other tribes of the plains Indians, the Pawnees had a certain special worship at the time of the first thunder in the spring. This first thunder warned them that winter was at an end and that the time of the planting was drawing near.
Of this worship a Chau-i said to me: “We all believe inTi-ra´-wa. We know that there is a power above that moves the universe, and that he controls all things. In the old days when they had buffalo meat, they used to make a sacrifice at the time of the first thunder in the spring. The next day after it had thundered, all the people would go into the sacred lodge, where the sacred bundles were kept at that time. When they had all come together, the priest would open the bundles and take out the sacred things, among which were Indian tobacco and some little pieces of scalp tied to a stick. Through these sacred things we worshiped, and the sacrificeswere made to the Ruler above. This seemed to be a help to us, and we used to live, increase and grow strong. Up north, when we worshiped at the time of the first thunder, we never had cyclones. Down here, now that this worship has been given up, we have them.”
There is no doubt that the most important of the religious ceremonials of the Pawnees were the burnt offering of the animal and of the scalp. These two, though different, had yet the same meaning. In each the sacrifice was an offering toTi-ra´-wa. Perhaps next in importance to these were the buffalo dance and the corn dance, which were special ceremonies to implore a blessing on the hunt and on the harvest.
The first animal killed on the hunt was sacrificed. It was necessary that this animal should be either a deer or a buffalo; the first one killed on the hunt of these two kinds. They were not permitted to kill any other sort of an animal, save only these two, until after the sacrifice had been made.
When this first animal had been killed, it was brought into the camp, and taken to the sacred lodge, and there the priests themselves went through the secret ceremonies. Then they divided the meat,and took a part of it to the southeast end of the village. There they built a fire of sticks, and placed the meat on it. As the fire burned the flesh, the whole tribe marched slowly and reverently by the fire, and grasped handfuls of the smoke, and rubbed it over their bodies and arms, and prayed, saying, “Now, you,Ti-ra´-wa, the Ruler, look at your children, and bless them; keep them and have mercy upon them, and care for them.” If any could not understand, such as little children, their elders, who did understand—their relations—prayed for them. The sick were carried out to the place, and prayed, and the smoke was rubbed over them. The young men would run races, starting from a certain place, and going around the village until they came to the place where the smoke of the sacrifice rose.
The sacrifice, by burning of the scalp, was a very elaborate performance, and occupied a whole day. The high priest faced the east and prayed, and sang twelve times. Descriptions of it given me in general terms indicate that this ceremony was extremely interesting. It was rather unusual, but was performed once in 1877.
The sacrifice of the captive has not been practiced by the Skidi for a long time, perhaps forty or fiftyyears. Bear Chief told me that he had witnessed it six times; Eagle Chief, who is, perhaps, between fifty and sixty years old, says he has seen it once. The old Skidi described the ceremony as follows:
“The Skidi alone of the Pawnees sacrificed human beings toTi-ra´-wa. When they had returned home from war successful, bringing captives with them, they selected one of these for the sacrifice. The others were adopted into the tribe, but this one, who must be young and stout, one who would fatten easily, was kept apart, eating by himself, fed on the best of food and treated with the greatest kindness. No hint of the fate in store for him was given until the day of the sacrifice. For four nights before that day the people danced; and for four days they feasted. Each day after they had got through feasting, the dishes were taken to their especial place. Each woman, after she got through eating, rose, and said to the prisoner, ‘I have finished eating, and I hope that I may be blessed fromTi-ra´-wa; that he may take pity on me; that when I put my seed in the ground they may grow, and that I may have plenty of everything.’
“At the end of the four days two old men went, one to each end of the village, and called aloud,directing every male person in the village to make a bow and an arrow, and to be ready for the sacrifice. For every male child that had been born a bow and an arrow was made; for the little boys small bows that they could bend and small arrows. The arrows must be feathered with the feathers of the eagle, or of some bird of prey, a hawk, an owl or an eagle. They must not cut the feathers nor burn them to make them low.
“The next day, before daybreak, every one was ready. All of the warriors, who had led parties on the warpath, took from their sacred bundles their collars, made from the feathers of the bird they wore,[12]and put them on their backs and tied them about their necks. They held their pipes in their left hands, to signify that they were warriors. Every male carried his bow and arrow. Every woman had a lance or a stick. Just before daylight they all went out to the west end of the village, and stood there looking for the prisoner to be brought. Here two stout posts had been set up, one of ash and the other of hackberry, and between these had been tied four cross-poles, the three lower ones to aid in climbing up to the highest of the four.
[12]The Purple Martin,Progne subis.
[12]The Purple Martin,Progne subis.
“As day broke, the people, looking back toward the village, could see the captive being led toward them, bound hand and foot. Behind him, as he was led along, followed a warrior carrying the heart and tongue of a buffalo; after him came another, carrying a blazing stick, then one with a bow and arrow, and last a warrior with the stuffed skin of an owl.
“They led the naked captive to the posts, and lifting him up, tied first the left hand and then the right to the top cross-pole, and afterward tied the feet below. Every one stood there silent, looking, waiting; the men holding their weapons and the women their sticks and lances. On the ground under the sacrifice was laid the wood for a great fire, which was now lighted. Then the man with the blazing stick stepped forward, but before he reached the captive, the warrior with the bow and arrow, he who had taken the captive, ran up close to the victim and shot him through from side to side, beneath the arms, with the sacred arrow, whose point was of flint, such as they used in the olden time. After the blood had run down upon the fire below, the warrior who carried the buffalo tongue and the heart, placed them on the fire beneath thebody. When this had been done the man who carried the owl ran up, and seized the burning stick and burned the body, once under each arm, and once in each groin, in all four times. Then, at a given signal, the males all ran up, and shot their arrows into the body. If any male children were not large enough to shoot, some one shot for them. There were so many arrows that the body was stuck full of them; it bristled with them.
“A man chosen for this purpose now climbed up, and pulled out all the arrows from the body, except the one which was first shot through the side of the sacrifice, and placed them together in a pile on the ground, where they were left. After pulling out the arrows, this man took his knife and cut open the breast of the captive, and putting his hand in the opening, took out a handful of blood, and smeared it over his face, and then jumped to the ground, and ran away as fast as he could. Each of the four men, after he had done his part, ran away very fast, and went down to the river and washed himself. When this had been done the women came with their sticks and spears and struck the body and countedcoupon it. Even the little children struck it. After they had done this, they put their sticks together on theground in a pile, and left them there. By this time the fire was burning up high and scorching the body, and it was kept up until the whole body was consumed. And while the smoke of the blood and the buffalo meat, and of the burning body, ascended to the sky, all the people prayed toTi-ra´-wa, and walked by the fire and grasped handfuls of the smoke, and passed it over their bodies and over those of their children, and prayedTi-ra´-wato take pity on them, and to give them health, and success in war, and plenteous crops. The man who had killed the captive fasted and mourned for four days, and askedTi-ra´-wato take pity on him, for he knew that he had taken the life of a human being.
“This sacrifice always seemed acceptable toTi-ra´-wa, and when the Skidi made it they always seemed to have good fortune in war, and good crops, and they were always well.
“After the sacrifice was over, then came the old women to rejoice over what had been done. They would act as the warriors used to do, when coming back from a war party. They carried the mother corn. They went to the body and countedcoupon it, and then went back to the village. Some of them would take the large hollow stalks of the sunflower,and put dust in them, and then blow it out, pretending to shoot, the puff of dust standing for the smoke of a shot. They would go up to the secret lodge, and standing outside of it, would tell the story of how they came to go on their pretended war party, and what they did while they were gone, and what enemies they struck—the whole long story. The people meanwhile would stand about and laugh at them as they did these things. Imitating the warriors, the old women changed their names also. One of the leading old women once took the name ‘Mud on the Meat,’ another, ‘Skunk Skin Tobacco Pouch,’ another ‘Sitting Fish Old Man,’ another ‘Old Man Stepping on the Heart.’ The old men standing about would joke with the old women, and these would joke and make fun of each other.”
The different acts of this sacrifice appear to have been typical of the deeds and necessities of warfare. Thus the feathers of the eagle used on the arrows shot into the captive represented success in war. Their use was a prayer toTi-ra´-wathat, as these birds were fierce and successful when making an attack, so those who shot might be fierce in war and always conquerors. The burning of the body of the captive with the blazing stick, perhaps, typifiedthe lighting of the sacred pipe, which could only be done by one who had sacrificed a scalp. The shooting arrows into the body by the males and the striking it by the women typified the killing of and countingcoupon the enemy. The cutting open the belly was the first act in the sacrifice of the animal, the burnt offering.
It will be noted that this account differs in many particulars from that given by Mr. Dunbar in his papers on this people, but I think it worth recording, as being an independent relation by a very old man, who, I have no doubt, has been an eye-witness of more than one of these remarkable sacrifices.
I know of no satisfactory and detailed account of any of the sacred dances of the Pawnees. There were many of these, among them the corn dance, the buffalo dance, the wild horse dance, the deer, bear, dog dances and so on. I give below an account of the corn dance, as detailed to me by Curly Chief, who said:
“The windy month [March] was the one in whichTi-ra´-wagave us the seed to cultivate. The first moon of April is the one during which they had a special worship about the corn. Until these ceremonies had been performed no one would clear outthe patch where they intended to plant the crop. Everybody waited for this time.
“The Kit-ke-hahk´-i was the only tribe in which this special ceremony was handed down. The Chau-i and Pita-hau-erat worshiped with them. The preparations for this dance are always made by a woman. She has to think about it a long time before she can make up her mind to undertake it. In making ready for the dance, she must furnish the dried meat made from the whole of a buffalo, fat and lean, every part of it. The sack which holds the heart she dries, and fills it with all the kinds of corn—the five colors, the blue corn, which represents the blue sky, the red corn, which stands for the evening sunset, the yellow corn, which typifies the morning sunrise, the white corn, which stands for a white cloud, and the spotted corn, which represents the sky dotted with clouds. All these she puts in the bag, placing in the sack three grains of each at a time. On the special day which has been fixed for the dance, she must offer these things toTi-ra´-wa. The people are all gathered together, the women standing on the outside of the circle behind, and the men on the inner side of the circle in front. This is a woman’s dance, and yet the men are there in front of the women.These men are the leading warriors of the tribe. They have been off on the warpath, and in time of corn have gone to the enemy. They have been successful in war, and therefore they are with the women. They stand about the circle holding their pipes in their left hands, showing that they are leaders of war parties, and each with the skin of a particular bird[13]tied on top of the head, showing that they are warriors.
[13]A Martin,Progne.
[13]A Martin,Progne.
“The floor of the lodge must be hard, and swept as clean as it can be. On the left hand side as you look toward the door is a buffalo skull.
“When the day has come all the people are gathered together and are standing about the lodge. The high priest stands at the back of the lodge with the sacred bundles of the three bands before him. Then this leading woman comes forward, and presents to the high priest the dried meat and the sack of corn, and two ancient, sacred hoes, made from the shoulder-blade of a buffalo, bound to a handle by the neck ligament. She places them on the ground before the sacred bundles, the corn in the middle, and the two hoes on either side. With these things she also presents a sacred pipe, filled and ready for lighting,taken from a sacred bundle. Then she steps back.
“The old high priest must well know the ceremonies to be performed. He prays toTi-ra´-waand lights the sacred pipe, blowing smoke to heaven, to the earth, and to the four points of the compass. While the ceremonies are going on, the buffalo skull is taken to the sacred place in this lodge, and put in a particular position. Then the leading woman steps forward again, followed by two others. She takes the bag of corn, and the other two women take the hoes, and they stand in front of the high priest. He sings and prays. The leading woman stands in a particular position, as directed by the high priest, holding the bag of corn up to the sky in both her hands; and as he sings, she raises and lowers it in time to the music of the song.
“After these ceremonies the women come forward, holding their hoes in their hands, and dance about the lodge one after another in single file, following the leading woman. Four times they dance about the lodge. She cannot pass the priest the fifth time. These ceremonies and the songs and prayers were to ask for a blessing on the hunt and on the corn, and to learn whether they would be blessed in both.After the women had danced and gone back to their places, everybody looked on the floor of the lodge to see whether there were any buffalo hairs there. If they saw them, they all said, ‘Now we are going to be successful in our hunt and in our corn.’ Everybody said, ‘We are blessed.’
“Then when they would go out on the hunt they would find plenty of buffalo, and the messenger sent back to the village from the hunt would return to the camp and say, ‘We have plenty of corn.’ If they saw a great many buffalo hairs they would get many buffalo; if but few they would get some buffalo.
“The next day after these ceremonies every one would begin to clear up their patches and get ready to plant corn. The leading woman who prepared the dance is respected and highly thought of. After that she is like a chief.
“This ceremony is the next principal thing we have after the burnt offering of the animal and of the scalp. We did not invent this. It came to us from the Ruler, and we worship him through it. He gave us the corn and blessed us through it. By it we are made strong.
“We are like seed and we worship through the corn.”
It has been said that the “medicine men” or doctors among the Pawnees occupied a position by themselves. Their guild was entirely distinct from that of the priests. A priest might be a doctor as well, but not because he was a priest.
The doctors were primarily healers. Their function was to fight disease. Like many other savage nations, the Pawnees believed that sickness was caused by evil spirits, which had entered into the patient and must be driven out if he was to recover. In their treatment of injuries the doctors were often singularly successful. Major North has cited for me a number of instances, in which men, whose hurts had refused to yield to the treatment of the United States Army surgeons, had been cured by Pawnee doctors. Some of these have been detailed elsewhere. As might be imagined, however, the Pawnee treatment of disease was less efficacious. Simple ailments were often treated with success by means of the familiar sudatory, or “sweat house;” but in the case of more serious complaints, the dancing and rattling, which constitute so large a part of the doctor’s treatment, tend to aggravate rather than tocheck the disease. I have not space to discuss the very interesting subject of the system of therapeutics practiced by the Pawnee doctors. Mr. Dunbar has gone into this matter quite fully, and the reader is referred to his papers for an account of their practice.
As the doctors had to fight evil spirits, it is not surprising that they should have summoned magic to their aid; but this magic probably served its more important purpose in impressing the other Indians with a belief in the doctors’ powers. Some of the performances which took place at the doctors’ dances were very marvellous, and most of them were quite inexplicable to those who saw what was done. That they should have imposed on the Indian spectator is perhaps not surprising; but it is further to be noted that clear-headed, intelligent white men, whose powers of observation have been highly trained, have confessed themselves wholly unable to explain these startling performances, or to hazard a guess as to the means by which they were accomplished. That these things happened as detailed is well authenticated by the testimony of many perfectly credible witnesses.
Other masters of mystery are provided with mechanical aids of one kind or another—some apparatuswhich assists them in imposing on their audiences, by concealing certain objects, or certain acts, by means of which they cause things to appear different from what they really are. The Pawnee doctors had nothing of this. Their dances were conducted by naked men in a ring surrounded by spectators. The floor of bare earth, packed hard and worn smooth by the tread of many feet, afforded no apparent opportunity for concealment or trickery. Under such conditions were performed their mysteries, a few of which I will mention as they appeared to watchful spectators, distant not more than twenty-five or thirty feet, and often much nearer.
The simplest performances were the swallowing of spears and arrows. These feats were merely mechanical, and were no doubt really as they appeared, the arrows and the spears being driven down the gullet to the distance of a foot or eighteen inches. Instances occurred where men who had swallowed arrows died from the injuries received in the operation. Bear Chief, himself a doctor, and tattooed with a bear on the right side, told me that it was much harder and more painful to swallow an arrow than a spear.
Among the more remarkable performanceswitnessed and vouched for by my friend, Captain L. H. North, are the following:
Several men, representing elk, came into the ring, and trotted about, so as to be seen by every one, imitating the movements of those animals. To their heads were tied branches to represent horns, and each wore an elk skin thrown over his back. A doctor came into the ring, and handed to the spectators his arrows, which they examined, and found to be ordinary arrows with the usual sheet-iron points. On receiving back the arrows from those who had examined them, the doctor pretended to hunt the elk, and at length shot at them, striking them in the sides or on the legs. The arrows, instead of penetrating the flesh, bounded back, some of them flying fifteen or twenty feet in the air. They appeared to be shot with the full force of the bow, and when picked up and handed to the onlookers, the sheet-iron points were found to be doubled back as if they had been shot against a plate of iron, and the shafts of some of them were split. The elk trotted away and out of the ring without injury.
A man, representing an enemy, came into the ring on foot. A doctor followed, armed with a hatchet, which he passed to the spectators for examination.It was an ordinary hatchet of the tomahawk form. On receiving back the hatchet, the doctor started in pursuit of the enemy, who fled. The doctor overtook him, and with a vigorous blow, sunk the hatchet up to the handle in the enemy’s skull, leaving it there. The wounded man staggered on, passing within five or six feet of the ring of spectators, who plainly saw the blood from the wound running down the man’s face, and dripping from his hair behind. They saw also the gray brain-matter oozing from the wound. The wounded man was taken from the ring into the doctor’s lodge. A few days later he was seen about, and in his usual health.
A small boy, six or eight years of age, was led into the ring quite naked. He was placed upon the ground, and two men sat upon him, one on his chest, the other on his legs. With a knife an incision was made in his belly; one of the doctors inserted his fingers; and, after feeling about, pulled out of the cut what looked like a portion of the child’s liver. This he cut off and gave to the other man, who ate it. The remainder of the liver was crowded back into the hole, and the boy was carried off. Subsequently he was seen about, apparently in good health.
A man representing a bear came into the ring andwas pursued by a number of Indians, who shot arrows at him for some time, without appearing to injure him. At length, however, an arrow pierced him through the bowels, and the wound was plainly seen on each side. The man fell, and appeared to be dying. He was removed to the lodge, and in a short time was entirely recovered.
Major North saw one of these bear performances, in which, the pretended bear having attacked one of his pursuers, the latter slashed him across the abdomen with a large knife, inflicting a cut from which the bowels hung down so that they dragged on the ground. The bear was carried off, and in a short time was healed, and went about as usual.
Major North told me that he saw with his own eyes the doctors make the corn grow. This was in the medicine lodge. In the middle of the lodge, the doctor dug up a piece of the hard trodden floor of the lodge, about as large as a dinner plate, and broke up between his fingers the hard pieces of soil, until the dirt was soft and friable. The ground having thus been prepared, and having been moistened with water, a few kernels of corn were buried in the loose earth. Then the doctor retired a little from the spot and sang, and as the place where thecorn was buried was watched, the soil was seen to move, and a tiny green blade came slowly into view. This continued to increase in height and size, until in the course of twenty minutes or half an hour from the time of planting, the stalk of corn was a foot or fifteen inches in height. At this point Major North was obliged to leave the lodge, to take out a white woman who was fainting from the heat, and so did not see the maturing of the corn. All the Indians and white men who remained assured him that the stalks continued to grow until they were of full height, and that they then tasseled out and put forth one or more ears of corn, which grew to full size, and that then the doctor approached the plant, plucked an ear, and passed it to the spectators.
Similar to this was a feat performed with a cedar berry. The berry was passed around among the spectators for examination, and was then planted as the corn had been. Then after a few moments the doctor approached the spot, put his thumb and forefinger down into the soft dirt, and seemed to lay hold of something. Very slowly he raised his hand and was seen to hold on the tips of his fingers the end of a cedar twig. Slowly his hand was moved from the ground, the twig growing longer andlonger. When nine or ten inches high it began to have side branches. The doctor still holding the topmost twig of what was by this time a cedar bush, continued to lift his hand very slowly, until it was about three feet from the ground, and then let go of the bush. Then presently he took hold of the stem close to the ground, and, seeming to exert a good deal of force, pulled up the bush by the roots; and all the people saw the bush and its bunch of fresh and growing roots.
Enough has been said of these mystery ceremonies to indicate that they were very remarkable. The circumstances under which they were performed would seem to remove them from the more commonplace tricks of professional jugglers. And I have never found any one who could even suggest an explanation of them.
As might be inferred, these mysterious doings greatly impressed the Pawnees; and the older men among them have a vast store of reminiscences of past dances, which they delight in repeating. In the course of a long talk with Bear Chief one evening, he recounted a number of instances which he had seen. He said:
“A man in our tribe was blind; he could not see.He could travel in the night as well as we can in the day, but when daylight came he could see nothing. At one time he called together his relations, and told them that, though blind, he wished to lead out a war party. He said, ‘I know that I, with my party, will kill an enemy.’ They started out, a young man leading him by the hand all day long. After they had been out several days, he told the young men to be ready, that the next morning he was going to kill an enemy. The next morning, while they were traveling along, they saw an enemy, and surrounded and killed him. They took the scalp and brought it home, and he had great credit, because, being blind, he had killed an enemy. They were all surprised that a blind man should have killed an enemy. He sacrificed the scalp toTi-ra´-wa, and was made a warrior, and went to the sacred lodge and told the story of his campaign, and was made a warrior—a blind warrior.
“It was a wonderful thing for a blind person to be able to travel in the night. This must have come fromTi-ra´-wa.
“One of the wonderful things done by this man was at a medicine dance. Everybody was there. He stood up with his bearskin over him, and wasled out before the people. A cedar branch was given him, and he sharpened the end where it had been cut off, and stuck it in the ground. Everybody was now asked to pull up this branch, and many tried to do so, but the strongest men in the tribe could not move it. He could pull it up, as if it were stuck in the mud. He thrust the pointed end in the ground again, and asked the doctors to pull up the cedar branch. They tried to do so, but could not stir it. The chiefs also were asked to try to do this. They tried, but could not move it. Something seemed to hold it in the ground. After everybody had tried to pull it up, and failed, this blind man went to it, and taking hold of it, pulled with all his strength, and pulled up with it about six feet of roots. There lay the tree with all it roots fresh and growing.
“There was, in my young days, a certain brave man in the tribe. His name was Elk Left Behind. He was so brave that, when the Sioux surrounded him, he would kill so many that he would scare the rest away. In one of the doctors’ dances he had the skin of a fawn in his hands. He called out to the people, ‘Now, you people, watch me; look close and see what I shall do, and you will find out what mybravery is, and that it all comes from this that you see.’ In our presence he shook this fawn skin, and the fawn slipped out of his hands and then stood before him, a living fawn looking at him. ‘That is what I mean,’ said he. ‘If the enemies surround me, that is the way I come out of it. The fawn can run so fast that it can never be caught, nor can it ever be shot.’
“This man was wonderful. He used to imitate the deer and the elk. He could never be driven into timber or brush, or where there were thickets. He said, ‘If I am ever wounded, it will be when I go into timber or brush.’ He always wanted to be in the open plain where he could be surrounded. He never ran to the timber for shelter.
“If they suspected that the Sioux were coming to attack the village, he would load a gun and shoot it off. If the ball came back to him, there were no Sioux coming. If it did not, then they would be coming. When I was present it always came back to him. There were no Sioux coming.
“At one time in the doctors’ dance I saw him driving ten young men, who pretended that they were deer. He had a gun and loaded it, and shot the ten men, one after another, through the side. They felldown wounded, and then got up and limped off half dying. He drove them around the ring so that the people might see their wounds. After they had looked at them, he went up to the first and slapped him on the back, and the ball dropped out of him on to the ground, and the man straightened up, healed. So he did to all, up to the tenth man, and they were all healed. This was wonderful.