Iroquois Indian's Legend of a Pygmy Race

Iroquois Indian's Legend of a Pygmy Race

Pipe depicting a pygmy from an Oklahoma Mississippian burial mound. 

When the Cherokees were dwelling in the swamps of Florida the Iroquois made a practice of swooping down on them and raiding their camps. On one occasion the raiding party was absent from home for close on two years. On the eve of their return one of their number, a chieftain, fell ill, and the rest of the party were at a loss to know what to do with him. Obviously, if they carried him home with them he would considerably impede their progress. Besides, there was the possibility that he might not recover, and all their labour would be to no purpose. Thus they debated far into the night, and finally decided to abandon him to his fate and return by themselves. The sick man, unable to stir hand or foot, overheard their decision, but he bore it stoically, like an Indian warrior. Nevertheless, when he heard the last swish of their paddles as they crossed the river he could not help thinking of the friends and kindred he would probably never see again.

When the raiders reached home they were closely questioned as to the whereabouts of the missing chief, and the inquiries were all the more anxious because the sick man had been a great favourite among his people. The guilty warriors answered evasively. They 
did not know what had become of their comrade, they said. Possibly he had been lost or killed in Florida.

Meanwhile the sick man lay dying on the banks of the river. Suddenly he heard, quite close at hand, the gentle sound of a canoe. The vessel drew in close to the bank, and, full in view of the warrior, three pigmy men disembarked. They regarded the stranger with some surprise. At length one who seemed to be the leader advanced and spoke to him, bidding him await their return, and promising to look after him. They were going, he said, to a certain 'salt-lick,' where many curious animals watered, in order to kill some for food.

Cherokee Indian's Gods and Religion

ABOUT THE CHEROKEE GODS AND THEIR ABIDING PLACES.

                                                                      Native American Beliefs

Cherokee Indian Symbols on a Rock In North Carolina

     After what has been said in elucidation of the theories involved in the medical formulas, the most important and numerous of the series, but little remains to be added in regard to the others, beyond what is contained in the explanation accompanying each one. A few points, however, may be briefly noted.

The religion of and Native American beliefs of the Cherokees, like that of most of our North American tribes, is zootheism or animal worship, with the survival of that earlier stage designated by Powell as hecastotheism, or the worship of all things tangible, and the beginnings of a higher system in which the elements and the great powers of nature are deified. Their pantheon includes gods in the heaven above, on the earth beneath, and in the waters under the earth, but of these the animal gods constitute by far the most numerous class, although the elemental gods are more important. Among the animal gods insects and fishes occupy a subordinate place, while quadrupeds, birds, and reptiles are invoked almost constantly. The uktena (a mythic great horned serpent), the rattlesnake, and the terrapin, the various species of hawk, and the rabbit, the squirrel, and the dog are the principal animal gods. The importance of the god bears no relation to the size of the animal, and in fact the larger animals are but seldom invoked. The spider also occupies a prominent place in the love and life-destroying formulas, his duty being to entangle the soul of his victim in the meshes of his web or to pluck it from the body of the doomed man and drag it way to the black coffin in the Darkening Land.

Among what may be classed as elemental gods the principal are fire, water, and the sun, all of which are addressed under figurative names. The sun is called Une´‘lanû´hĭ, “the apportioner,” just as our word moon means originally “the measurer.” Indians and Aryans alike, having noticed how these great luminaries divide and measure day and night, summer and winter, with never-varying regularity, have given to each a name which should indicate these characteristics, thus showing how the human mind constantly moves on along the same channels. Missionaries have naturally, but incorrectly, assumed this apportioner of all things to be the suppositional “Great Spirit” of the Cherokees, and hence the word is used in the Bible translation as synonymous with God. In ordinary conversation and in the lesser myths the sun is called ]Nû´ⁿtâ. The sun is invoked chiefly by the ball-player, while the hunter prays to the fire; but every important ceremony—whether connected with medicine, love, hunting, or the ball play—contains a prayer to the “Long Person,” the formulistic name for water, or, more strictly speaking, for the river. The wind, the storm, the cloud, and the frost are also invoked in different formulas.

But few inanimate gods are included in the category, the principal being the Stone, to which the shaman prays while endeavoring to find a lost article by means of a swinging pebble suspended by a string; the Flint, invoked when the shaman is about to scarify the patient with a flint arrow-head before rubbing on the medicine; and the Mountain, which is addressed in one or two of the formulas thus far translated. Plant gods do not appear prominently, the chief one seeming to be the ginseng, addressed in the formulas as the “Great Man” or “Little Man,” although its proper Cherokee name signifies the “Mountain Climber.”

A number of personal deities are also invoked, the principal being the Red Man. He is one of the greatest of the gods, being repeatedly called upon in formulas of all kinds, and is hardly subordinate to the Fire, the Water, or the Sun. His identity is as yet uncertain, but he seems to be intimately connected with the Thunder family. In a curious marginal note in one of the Gahuni formulas, it is stated that when the patient is a woman the doctor must pray to the Red Man, but when treating a man he must pray to the Red Woman, so that this personage seems to have dual sex characteristics. Another god invoked in the hunting songs is Tsu´l’kalû´, or “Slanting Eyes” (see Cherokee Myths), a giant hunter who lives in one of the great mountains of the Blue Ridge and owns all the game. Others are the Little Men, probably the two Thunder boys; the Little People, the fairies who live in the rock cliffs; and even the De´tsata, a diminutive sprite who holds the place of our Puck. One unwritten formula, which could not be obtained correctly by dictation, was addressed to the “Red-Headed Woman, whose hair hangs down to the ground.”

The personage invoked is always selected in accordance with the theory of the formula and the duty to be performed. Thus, when a sickness is caused by a fish, the Fish-hawk, the Heron, or some other fish-eating bird is implored to come and seize the intruder and destroy it, so that the patient may find relief. When the trouble is caused by a worm or an insect, some insectivorous bird is called in for the same purpose. When a flock of redbirds is pecking at the vitals of the sick man the Sparrow-hawk is brought down to scatter them, and when the rabbit, the great mischief-maker, is the evil genius, he is driven out by the Rabbit-hawk. Sometimes after the intruder has been thus expelled “a small portion still remains,” in the words of the formula, and accordingly the Whirlwind is called ]down from the treetops to carry the remnant to the uplands and there scatter it so that it shall never reappear. The hunter prays to the fire, from which he draws his omens; to the reed, from which he makes his arrows; to Tsu´l’kalû, the great lord of the game, and finally addresses in songs the very animals which he intends to kill. The lover prays to the Spider to hold fast the affections of his beloved one in the meshes of his web, or to the Moon, which looks down upon him in the dance. The warrior prays to the Red War-club, and the man about to set out on a dangerous expedition prays to the Cloud to envelop him and conceal him from his enemies.

Each spirit of good or evil has its distinct and appropriate place of residence. The Rabbit is declared to live in the broomsage on the hillside, the Fish dwells in a bend of the river under the pendant hemlock branches, the Terrapin lives in the great pond in the West, and the Whirlwind abides in the leafy treetops. Each disease animal, when driven away from his prey by some more powerful animal, endeavors to find shelter in his accustomed haunt. It must be stated here that the animals of the formulas are not the ordinary, everyday animals, but their great progenitors, who live in the upper world (galû´ⁿlati) above the arch of the firmament.

Cherokee Indian Shamans

ABOUT CHEROKEE INDIAN SHAMANS 

Of late years, especially since the establishment of schools among them, the Cherokees are gradually beginning to lose confidence in the abilities of their own doctors and are becoming more disposed to accept treatment from white physicians. The shamans are naturally jealous of this infringement upon their authority and endeavor to prevent the spread of the heresy by asserting the convenient doctrine that the white man’s medicine is inevitably fatal to an Indian unless eradicated from the system by a continuous course of treatment for four years under the hands of a skillful shaman. The officers of the training school established by the Government a few years ago met with considerable difficulty on this account for some time, as the parents insisted on removing the children at the first appearance of illness in order that they might be treated by the shamans, until convinced by experience that the children received better attention at the school than could possibly be had in their own homes. In one instance, where a woman was attacked by a pulmonary complaint akin to consumption, her husband, a man of rather more than the usual amount of intelligence, was persuaded to call in the services of a competent white physician, who diagnosed the case and left a prescription. On a second visit, a few days later, he found that the family, dreading the consequences of this departure from old customs, had employed a shaman, who asserted that the trouble was caused by a sharpened stick which some enemy had caused to be imbedded in the woman’s side. He accordingly began a series of conjurations for the removal of the stick, while the white physician and his medicine were disregarded, and in due time the woman died. Two children soon followed her to the grave, from the contagion or the inherited seeds of the same disease, but here also the sharpened sticks were held responsible, and, notwithstanding the three deaths under such treatment, the husband and father, who was at one time a preacher, still has faith in the assertions of the shaman. The appointment of a competent physician to look after the health of the Indians would go far to eradicate these false ideas and prevent [pg 337]much sickness and suffering; but, as the Government has made no such provision, the Indians, both on and off the reservation, excepting the children in the home school, are entirely without medical care.

About the Cherokee Indian Tribe

About the Cherokee Indians

The old home of the Cherokees was in the beautiful mountain region of the South—in Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee, but especially in Georgia. They were Indians of great strength of character, and ready for improvement and progress. When Oglethorpe settled Georgia, the Cherokees were his friends and allies. But after our government was established, the tribe, which had been so friendly to the whites, began to suffer from our encroachments. Treaties were made with them only to be broken. Little by little, the Indians were crowded back: sacred promises made by our government were not fulfilled.

Finally they refused to cede any more of their land to the greedy white settlers, and demanded that the United States protect them in their rights. The quarrel was now one between the United States and Georgia, and the central government found itself unable to keep its pledges. So orders were given that the Cherokees should be removed, even against their wish, to a new home.

Cherokee Indian Women Farming

At this time the Cherokees were most happy and prosperous. Their country was one of the most lovely portions of our land. A writer says: “The climate is delicious and healthy; the winters are mild; the spring clothes the ground with the richest scenery; flowers of exquisite beauty and variegated hues meet and fascinate the eye in every direction. In the plains and valleys the soil is generally rich, producing Indian corn, wheat, oats, indigo, and sweet and Irish potatoes. The natives carry on considerable trade with the adjoining states; some of them export cotton in boats down the Tennessee to the Mississippi, and down that river to New Orleans. Apple and peach orchards are quite common, and gardens are cultivated, and much attention paid to them. Butter and cheese are seen on Cherokee tables. There are many public roads in the nation, and houses of entertainment kept by natives. Numerous and flourishing villages are seen in every section of the country. Cotton and woolen cloths are manufactured; blankets of various dimensions, manufactured by Cherokee hands, are very common. Almost every family in the nation grows cotton for its own consumption. Industry and commercial enterprise are extending themselves in every part. Nearly all the merchants in the nation are native Cherokees. Agricultural pursuits engage the chief attention of the people. Different branches of mechanics are pursued. The population is rapidly increasing.”

This was written in 1825. Only about ten years later, this happy, industrious, and prosperous people were removed by force from their so greatly loved home. Two years were allowed in which they must vacate lands that belonged to them, and which the United States had pledged should be always theirs. Few of them were gone when the two years had ended. In May, 1838, General Winfield Scott was sent with an army to remove them. He issued a proclamation which began as follows:—

“Cherokees,—The President of the United States has sent me with a powerful army to cause you, in accordance with the treaty of 1835, to join that part of your people who are already established on the other side of the Mississippi. Unhappily, the two years which were allowed for the purpose you have allowed to pass away without following, and without making any preparations to follow; and now, or by the time that this solemn address reaches your distant settlements, the emigration must be commenced in haste, but I hope without disorder. I have no power, by granting a further delay, to correct the error you have committed. The full moon of May is already on the wane, and before another shall have passed away, every Cherokee man, woman, and child in these states1 must be in motion to join their brethren in the West.”

And so this harmless, helpless people left for their long journey. Their only offense was that they owned land which the whites wanted. There are still old Indians who remember the“great removal.” Most of them were little children then, but the sad leaving their beloved mountains and the sorrow and hardship of the long journey is remembered after sixty years.

A few years since, we visited the Eastern Cherokees. Perhaps two thousand of them now live in the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee. Some of these are persons who never went to the Indian Territory, but hid themselves in rocks and caves until the soldiers were gone; some ran away from the great company as it moved westward, trudging back a long and toilsome journey; some are the children and grandchildren of such refugees; some are persons who drifted back in later years to the hills and forests, the springs and brooks, which their fathers had known and loved. They are mostly poor,—unlike their relatives in the West,—but they are industrious and happy. Their log houses are scattered over the mountain slopes or perched upon the tops of ridges or clustered together in little villages in the pretty valleys. Their fields are fenced and well cultivated. They work them in companies of ten or twelve persons; such companies are formed to work the fields of each member in order. They dress like white people, and most of the old Indian life is gone.

Still there are some bits of it left. The women are basket-makers, and make baskets of wide splints of cane, plain or dyed black or red, which are interwoven to make striking patterns. Some old women weave artistically shaped baskets from slender splints of oak. Old Catolsta, more than ninety years old, still shapes pottery vessels and marks them with ornamental patterns which are cut upon a little paddle of wood, and stamped on the soft clay by beating it with the paddle. They still sometimes use the bow and arrow, though more in sport than in earnest, as most of them have white men's guns. The arrow race is still sometimes run. Several young men start out together, each with his bow and arrows. The arrows are shot out over the course; they run as fast as possible to where these fall and picking them up shoot them on at once. And so they go on over the whole course, each trying to get through first. Ball is largely a thing of the past, and great games are not common. Still there are rackets at many houses. One day we got a “scratcher” from old Hoyoneta, once a great medicine man for ball-players. This scratcher consisted of seven splinters of bone, sharpened at one end and inserted into a quill frame which held them firmly, separated from one another by about a quarter of an inch or less. When a young man was about to play his first great game of ball, he went to Hoyoneta, or some other medicine man, to be scratched.

Indian Ball-Player. (After Catlin.)

He had already fasted and otherwise prepared himself for the ordeal. The old man, after muttering charms and incantations, drew the scratcher four times the length of the young man's body, burying the points each time deeply in the flesh. Each time the instrument made seven scratches. One set of these ran from the base of the left thumb, up the arm, diagonally across the chest, down the right leg to the right great toe; another, from the base of the right thumb to the left great toe; another, from the base of the left little finger, up the back of the arm, across the back, down the right leg to the base of the little toe; the other, from the base of the right little finger, to the left little toe. The young man then plunged, with all these bleeding gashes, into a cold running brook. He was then ready for the morrow's ball play, for, had he not been scratched twenty-eight times with the bones of swift running creatures, and been prayed over by a great medicine man?

Every one should know of Sequoyah or George Guess or Guest, as he was called in English. He was a Cherokee who loved to work at machinery and invent handy devices. He determined to invent a system of writing his language. He saw that the writing of the white men consisted in the use of characters to represent sounds. At first he thought of using one character for each word; this was not convenient because there are so many words. He finally concluded that there were eighty-six syllables in Cherokee, and he formed a series of eighty-six characters to represent them. Some of these characters were borrowed from the white man's alphabet; the rest were specially invented. It took some little time for the Cherokees to accept Sequoyah's great invention, but by 1827 it was in use throughout the nation. Types were made, and soon books and papers were printed in the Cherokee language in Sequoyah's characters. These are still in use, and to-day in the Indian Territory, a newspaper is regularly printed by the Cherokee Nation, part of which is in English, part in the Cherokee character. This newspaper is, by the way, supplied free to each family by the Cherokee government.

 Sequoyah's Characters.

Beautiful Victorian Cherokee Woman

Beautiful Victorian Cherokee Woman 

Little info is available on this Cherokee Indian woman photographed in the late 1800s wearing a Victorian dress.

Cherokee and Sioux Indian Thunder-Gods and Thunder Birds

Cherokee and Sioux Indian Culture and Religion:  Thunder-Gods and Thunder Birds

North America is rich in thunder-gods. Of these a typical example is Haokah, the god of the Sioux. The countenance of this divinity was divided into halves, one of which expressed grief and the other cheerfulness—that is, on occasion he could either weep with the rain or smile with the sun. Heat affected him as cold, and cold was to him as heat. He beat the tattoo of the thunder on his great drum, using the wind as a drum-stick. In some phases he is reminiscent of Jupiter, for he hurls the lightning to earth in the shape of thunderbolts. He wears a pair of horns, perhaps to typify his connection with the lightning, or else with the chase, for many American thunder-gods are mighty hunters. This double conception arises from their possession of the lightning-spear, or arrow, which also gives them in some cases the character of a war-god. Strangely enough, such gods of the chase often resembled in appearance the animals they hunted. For example, Tsui 'Kalu (Slanting Eyes), a hunter-god} of the Cherokee Indians, seems to resemble a deer. 

He is of giant proportions, and dwells in a great mountain of the Blue Ridge Range, in North-western Virginia. He appears to have possessed all the game in the district as his private property. A Cherokee thunder-god is Asgaya Gigagei (Red Man). The facts that he is described as being of a red colour, thus typifying the lightning, and that the Cherokees were originally a mountain people, leave little room for doubt that he is a thunder-god, for it is around the mountain peaks that the heavy thunder-clouds gather, and the red lightning flashing from their depths looks like the moving limbs of the half-hidden deity. We also find occasionally invoked in the Cherokee religious formulæ a pair of twin deities known as the 'Little Men,' or 'Thunder-boys.' This reminds us that in Peru twins were always regarded as sacred to the lightning, since they were emblematic of the thunder-and-lightning twins, Apocatequil and Piguerao. All these thunder-gods are analogous to the Aztec Tlaloc, the Kiche Hurakan, and the Otomi Mixcoatl A well-known instance of the thunder- or hunter-god who possesses animal characteristics will occur to those who are familiar with the old English legend of Herne the Hunter, with his deer's head and antlers.

The Dakota Indians worshipped a deity whom they addressed as Waukheon (Thunderbird). This being was engaged in constant strife with the water-god, Unktahe, who was a cunning sorcerer, and a controller of dreams and witchcraft. Their conflict probably symbolizes the atmospheric changes which accompany the different seasons.

Native American Religion: Shamans, Wizards and Medicine-Men

The Native American religion and priesthood, whether known as medicine-men, shamans, or wizards, were in most tribes a caste apart, exercising not only the priestly function, but those of physician and prophet as well. The name 'medicine-men,' therefore, is scarcely a misnomer. They were skilled in the handling of occult forces such as hypnotism, and thus exercised unlimited sway over the rank and file of the tribe. But we shall first consider them in their religious aspect. In many of the Indian tribes the priesthood was a hereditary office; in others it was obtained through natural fitness or revelation in dreams. With the Cherokees, for example, the seventh son of a family was usually marked out as a suitable person for the priesthood. As a rule the religious body did not share in the general life of the tribe, from which to a great degree it isolated itself. For example, Bartram in his Travels in the Carolinas describes the younger priests of the Creeks as being arrayed in white robes, and carrying on their heads or arms "a great owl-skin stuffed very ingeniously as an insignia of wisdom and divination. These bachelors are also distinguishable from the other people by their taciturnity, grave and solemn countenance, dignified step, and singing to themselves songs or hymns in a low, sweet voice as they stroll about the towns." To add to the feeling of awe which they inspired among the laymen of the tribe, the priests conversed with one another in a secret tongue. Thus the magical formulæ of some of the Algonquin priests were not in the ordinary language, but in a dialect of their own invention. The Choctaws, Cherokees, and Zuñi employed similar esoteric dialects, all of which are now known to be merely modifications of their several tribal languages, fortified with obsolete words, or else mere borrowings from the idioms of other tribes.

Native American Religion and the Sacred Number Four

Native Americans Religion and the Sacred Number Four

Over the length and breadth of the American continent a peculiar sanctity is attached by the aborigines to the four points of the compass. This arises from the circumstance that from these quarters come the winds which carry the fertilizing rains. Native American, a dweller in vast undulating plains where landmarks are few, recognized the necessity of such guidance in his wanderings as could alone be received from a strict adherence to the position of the four cardinal points. These he began to regard with veneration as his personal safeguards, and recognized in them the dwelling-places of powerful beings, under whose care he was. Most of his festivals and celebrations had symbolical or direct allusions to the four points of the compass. The ceremony of smoking, without which no treaty could be commenced or ratified, was usually begun by the chief of the tribe exhaling tobacco-smoke toward the four quarters of the earth. Among some tribes other points were also recognized, as, for example, one in the sky and one in the earth. All these points had their symbolical colours, and were presided over by various animal or other divinities. Thus the Apaches took black for the east, white for the south, yellow for the west, and blue for the north, the Cherokees red, white, black, and blue for the same points, and the Navahos white, blue, yellow, and black, with white and black for the lower regions and blue for the upper or ethereal world.

Burial Customs of the North Carolina - Cherokee Indians

Religion and the Burial Customs of the North Carolina -Cherokee Indian Tribe

The following is an interesting account from Lawson of the burial customs of the Indians formerly inhabiting the Carolinas:

     Among the Carolina  tribes religion, the burial of the dead was accompanied with special ceremonies, the expense and formality attendant upon the funeral according with the rank of the deceased. The corpse was first placed in a cane hurdle and deposited in an outhouse made for the purpose, where it was suffered to remain for a day and a night, guarded and mourned over by the nearest relatives with disheveled hair. Those who are to officiate at the funeral go into the town, and from the backs of the first young men they meet strip such blankets and mascots as they deem suitable for their purpose. In these the dead body is wrapped and then covered with two or three mats made of rushes or cane. The coffin is made of woven reeds or hollow canes tied fast at both ends. When everything is prepared for the interment, the corpse is carried from the house in which it has been lying into the orchard of peach-trees and is there deposited in another hurdle. Seated upon mats are there congregated the family and tribe of the deceased and invited guests. The medicine man, or conjurer, having enjoined silence, then pronounces a funeral oration, during which he recounts the exploits of the deceased, his valor, skill, love of country, property, and influence; alludes to the void caused by his death, and counsels those who remain to supply his place by following in his footsteps; pictures the happiness he will enjoy in the land of spirits to which he has gone, and concludes his address by an allusion to the prominent traditions of his tribe.

At last [says Mr. Lawson], the Corpse is brought away from that Hurdle to the Grave by four young Men, attended by the Relations, the King, old Men, and all the Nation. When they come to the Sepulcre, which is about six foot deep and eight foot long, having at each end (that is, at the Head and Foot) a Light-Wood or Pitch-Pine Fork driven close down the sides of the Grave firmly into the Ground (these two Forks are to contain a Ridge-Pole, as you shall understand presently), before they lay the Corps into the Grave, they cover the bottom two or three time over with the Bark of Trees; then they let down the Corps (with two Belts that the Indians carry their Burdens withal) very leisurely upon the said Barks; then they lay over a Pole of the same Wood in the two Forks, and having a great many Pieces of Pitch-Pine Logs about two Foot and a half long, they stick them in the sides of the Grave down each End and near the Top thereof, where the other Ends lie in the Ridge-Pole, so that they are declining like the Roof of a House. These being very thick plac’d, they cover them [many times double] with Bark; then they throw the Earth thereon that came out of the Grave and beat it down very firm. By this Means the dead Body lies in a Vault, nothing touching him.

After a time the body is taken up, the bones cleaned, and deposited in an ossuary called the Quiogozon.

Figure 1, after De Bry and Lafitau, represents what the early writers called the Quiogozon, or charnel-house, and allusions will be found to it in other parts of this volume. Discrepancies in these accounts impair greatly their value, for one author says that bones were deposited, another dried bodies.

More Photos of American Indian Burials Here

Cherokee Indian Tribe Art of Basketry

Cherokee Indian Tribe Art

Types of Basketry.

Perhaps no branch of the Cherokee textile art was of greater importance to the aborigines than basketry. This term may be made to cover all woven articles of a portable kind which have sufficient rigidity to retain definite or stable form without distention by contents or by other extraneous form of support. It will readily be seen that in shape, texture, use, size, etc., a very wide range of products is here to be considered. Basketry includes a number of groups of utensils distinguished from one another by the use to which they are devoted. There are baskets proper, hampers, cradles, shields, quivers, sieves, etc. There is frequent historical mention of the use of basketry, but the descriptions of form and construction are meager. An excellent idea of the ancient art can be gained from the art of the present time, and there is every reason to believe that close correspondence exists throughout.

Baskets.

Lawson refers to basket-making and other textile arts of the Carolina, Cherokee Indians in the following language:

The cherokee Indian women's work is to cook the victuals for the whole family, and to make mats, baskets, girdles, of possum hair, and such like. * * * The mats the Indian women make are of rushes, and about five feet high, and two fathom long, and sewed double, that is, two together; whereby they become very commodious to lay under our beds, or to sleep on in the summer season in the day time, and for our slaves in the night.

There are other mats made of flags, which the Tuskeruro Indians make, and sell to the inhabitants.

The baskets our neighboring Indians make are all made of a very fine sort of bullrushes, and sometimes of silk grass, which they work with figures of beasts, birds, fishes, &c.

A great way up in the country, both baskets and mats are made of the split reeds, which are only the outward shining part of the cane. Of these I have seen mats, baskets, and dressing boxes, very artificially done.[6]

James Adair, although, a comparatively recent writer, gives such definite and valuable information regarding the handiwork of the Southern Indians that the following extracts may well be made. Speaking of the Cherokees, he remarks:

They make the handsomest clothes baskets, I ever saw, considering their materials. They divide large swamp canes, into long, thin, narrow splinters, which they dye of several colours, and manage the workmanship so well, that both the inside and outside are covered with a beautiful variety of pleasing figures; and, though for the space of two inches below the upper edge of each basket, it is worked into one, through the other parts they are worked asunder, as if they were two joined a-top by some strong cement. A large nest consists of eight or ten baskets, contained within each other. Their dimensions are different, but they usually make the outside basket about a foot deep, a foot and an half broad, and almost a yard long.[7]

This statement could in most respects be made with equal truth and propriety of the Cherokee work of the present time; and their pre-Columbian art must have been even more pleasing, as the following paragraph suggests:

The Indians, by reason of our supplying them so cheap with every sort of goods, have forgotten the chief part of their ancient mechanical skill, so as not to be well able now, at least for some years, to live independent of us. Formerly, those baskets which the Cherokee made, were so highly esteemed even in South Carolina, the politest of our colonies, for domestic usefulness, beauty, and skilful variety, that a large nest of them cost upwards of a moidore.

That there was much uniformity in the processes and range of products and uses throughout the country is apparent from statements made by numerous writers. Speaking of the Louisiana Indians, Du Pratz says:

The women likewise make a kind of hampers to carry corn, flesh, fish, or any other thing which they want to transport from one place to another; they are round, deeper than broad, and of all sizes. * * * They make baskets with long lids that roll doubly over them, and in these they place their earrings and pendants, their bracelets, garters, their ribbands for their hair, and their vermillion for painting themselves, if they have any, but when they have no vermillion they boil ochre, and paint themselves with that.[9]

Hernando de Soto Describes the Cherokee, Choctaw Indians

Hernando de Soto Describes the Cherokee, Choctaw Indians

In the narrative of the expedition of Hernando de Soto to Florida in 1539, by a gentleman of Elvas, there are references to the customs of the Indian tribes of South Carolina, the Cherokees, Choctas, and Chickasas, and of some of the tribes west of the Mississippi, whom the expedition visited one after another. They are brief and incomplete, but sufficiently indicate the point we are attempting to illustrate. It was a hostile rather than a friendly visitation, and the naturally free hospitality of the natives was frequently checked and turned into enmity, but many instances of friendly intercourse are mentioned in this narrative. "The fourth of April the governor passed by a town called Altamaca, and the tenth of the month he came to Ocute. The cacique sent him two thousand Indians with a present, to wit, many conies and partridges, bread of maize, two hens and many dogs." [Footnote: Historical Collections of Louisiana, part ii. A Narrative of the Expedition of Hernando de Soto into Florida, by a Gentleman of Elvas, p. 139.]

Again: "Two leagues before he came to Chiaha, there met him fifteen Indians loaded with maize which the cacique had sent; and they told him on his behalf that he waited his coming with twenty barns full of it." [Footnote: 3 ib. p. 147.] "At Cora the chief commanded his Indians to void their houses, wherein the governor and his men were lodged. There was in the barns and in the fields great store of maize and French beans. The country was greatly inhabited with many great towns and many sown fields which reached from one to the other". [Footnote: ib. p 152.]

After crossing the Mississippi, of which De Soto was the first discoverer, he "rested in Pacaha forty days, in all which time the two caciques served him with great store of fish, mantles, and skins, and strove who should do him greatest service". [Footnote: ib. p. 175.]

The justly celebrated Moravian missionary, John Heckewelder, obtained, through a long experience, an intimate acquaintance with the manners and customs of the Indian tribes. He was engaged in direct missionary labor, among the Delawares and Munsees chiefly, for fifteen years (1771-1786) on the Muskingum and Cuyahoga in Ohio, where, besides the Delawares and Munsees, he came in contact with Tuscaroras and other tribes of Iroquois lineage. He was conversant with the usages and customs of the Indian tribes of Pennsylvania and New York. His general knowledge justifies the title of his work, "History, Manners, and Customs of the Indian Nations, who once inhabited Pennsylvania and the neighboring States," and gives the highest credibility to his statements.

In discussing the general character of the Indians, he remarks as follows: "They think that he [the Great Spirit] made the earth and all that it contains for the common good of mankind; when he stocked the country that he gave them with plenty of game, it was not for the benefit of a few, but of all. Everything was given in common to the sons of men. Whatever liveth on the land, whatsoever groweth out of the earth, and all that is in the rivers and waters flowing through the same, was given jointly to all, and ever one is entitled to his share. From this principle hospitality flows as from its source. With them it is not a virtue, but a strict duty; hence they are never in search of excuses to avoid giving, but freely supply their neighbors' wants from the stock prepared for their own use. They give and are hospitable to all without exception, and will always share with each other and often with the stranger to the last morsel. They rather would lie down themselves on an empty stomach than have it laid to their charge that they had neglected their duty by not satisfying the wants of the stranger, the sick, or the needy. The stranger has a claim to their hospitality, partly on account of his being at a distance from his family and friends, and partly because he has honored them with his visit and ought to leave them with a good impression on his mind; the sick and the poor because they have a right to be helped out of the common stock, for if the meat they have been served with was taken from the woods it was common to all before the hunter took it; if corn or vegetables, it had grown out of the common ground, yet not by the power of man, but by that of the Great Spirit." [Footnote: Heckewelder, Indian Nations, Philadelphia ed., 1876, p. 101]

This is a clear and definite statement of the principle of hospitality as it was observed by the Indian tribes at the epoch of their discovery, with the Indians' reasons on which the obligations rested. We recognize in this law of hospitality a conspicuous virtue of mankind in barbarism.