Showing posts with label warrior. Show all posts

Sunday, July 19, 2020

Mayan Indian Warrior

Mayan Indian Mayan Indian Warrior

Some questions about the origins of this photo. It has been listed as a Mayan warrior, but I have my doubts. It is still a stunning photo

Tuesday, December 13, 2016

Young Men's Tests to Become A Creek Indian Warrior

Warriors were the most honored of men among the Creeks. Until a young man was successful in battle he was treated hardly different from a servant. The Creek boys had a pretty hard time. They were made to swim in the coldest weather; they were scratched with broken glass or fish teeth, from head to foot till the blood ran; these things were intended to toughen them to the endurance of pain. When the boy was fifteen to seventeen years old he was put through a test, after which he was no longer a boy, but a man. At the proper time he gathered an intoxicating plant. He ate the bitter root of it for a whole day, and drank a tea made of its leaves. When night came he ate a little pounded corn. He kept this up for four days. For four months he ate only pounded maize, ]which could only be cooked for him by a little girl. After that his food might be cooked by any one. For twelve months from the time of his first fast he ate no venison from young bucks, no turkeys nor hens, no peas nor salt; nor was he permitted to pick his ears or scratch his head with his fingers, but used a splinter of wood for the purpose. At the time of new moon he fasted four days, excepting that he ate a little pounded maize at night. When the last month of his twelve months' test came, he kept four days' fast, then burned some corncobs and rubbed his body with the ashes. At the end of that month, he took a heavy sweat and then plunged into cold water.

Men who wished to become great warriors selected some old conjurer to give them instruction. Four months were spent with him alone. The person desiring to learn fasted, ate bitter herbs, and suffered many hardships. After he had learned all the old conjurer could teach him, it was believed that he could disarm the enemy even at a distance, and if they were far away, could bring them near, so that he might capture them.

Tuesday, July 26, 2016

About the Cheyenne Indian Tribe

ABOUT THE CHEYENNE INDIAN

A Short History of the Cheyenne Indians
This nation has received a variety of names from travellers and the neighboring tribes, as Shyennes, Shiennes, Cheyennes, Chayennes, Sharas, Shawhays, Sharshas, and by the different bands of Dakotas, Shaí-en-a or Shai-é-la. With the Blackfeet, they are the most western branch of the great Algonkin family. When first known, they were living on the Chayenne or Cayenne River, a branch of the Red River of the North, but were driven west of the Mississippi by the Sioux, and about the close of the last century still farther west across the Missouri, where they were found by those enterprising travelers Lewis and Clark in 1803. On their map attached to their report they locate them near the eastern face of the Black Hills, in the valley of the great Sheyenne River, and state their number at 1,500 souls." Their first treaty with the United States was made in 1825, at the mouth of the Teton River. They were then at peace with the Dakotas, but warring against the Pawnees and others. Were then estimated, by Drake, to number 3,250.

During the time of Long's expedition to the Rocky Mountains, in 1819 and 1820, a small portion of the Cheyennes seem to have separated themselves from the rest of their nation on the Missouri, and to have associated themselves with the Arapahoes who wandered about the tributaries of the Platte and Arkansas, while those who remained affiliated with the Ogalallas, these two divisions remaining separated until the present time. Steps are now being taken, however, to bring them together on a new reservation in the Indian Territory.

Up to 1862, they were generally friendly to the white settlers, when outbreaks occurred, and then for three or four years a costly and bloody war was carried on against them, a notable feature of which was the Sand Creek or Chivington massacre, November 29, 1864. "Since that time there has been constant trouble. * * * In '67, General Hancock burned the village of the Dog Soldiers, on Pawnee Fork, and another war began, in which General Custer defeated them at Washita, killing Black Kettle and 37 others." The northern bands have been generally at peace with the whites, resisting many overtures to join their southern brethren.

Cheyenne Indian Chief Three Fingers

Young Cheyenne Indian Woman

Cheyenne Indians Destroying a Railroad

Captured Cheyenne Indians

Cheyenne Indian Woman Drying Meat

Cheyenne Indian Photo

Cheyenne Indian Warrior

Cheyenne Indian Tree Burials

Cheyenne Indian Tipi or House

Cheyenne Indian Summer Camp

Cheyenne Indian Pow Wow

Monday, April 11, 2016

Apache Indian Color Photos and Prints Depicting Their Life, History and Culture.

Apache Indian Color Photos and Prints Depicting Their Life, History and Culture.

Apache Native American Indian Tribe in Color

Apache Indian colorized print of Buffalo Calf

Apache Indian Village in Texas

Apache Indian women drying corn in Texas.

Apache Indians performing the Devil Dance.

Photo from the 1950s of Apache Indians performing the Devil Dance

Southwest Apache Indian warrior

Apache Indian baby

Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Artistic Photographs of the Plains Indians

An Imperial Warrior

The Attack on the Camp

An Indian Home

An Indian Burden Bearer

Thursday, March 10, 2016

Faces of the Historic Blackfoot Indian Tribe

Blackfoot colorized photo taken in 1901, location unknown.

Blackfoot Indian's historic photo taken in 1909. Believed to be in Montana.

Turn of the last century photo of a Blackfoot Indian warrior. Location of the photo was Montana

Blackfoot Indian wears clothes of the Plains Indians. 1911

Blackfoot Indian called Running Rabbit(1910) with an elaborate beadwork belt.

Saturday, November 28, 2015

Blackfoot/Blackfeet Indian Tipis

Blackfoot/Blackfeet Indian photographed in front of his tipi in 1898.

1888 photo of a Blackfeet/Blackfoot Indian warrior photographed in front of his tipi.

1880s photo of Blackfoot/Blackfeet Indian men with rifles in front of a tipi with artistic renderings of horses.

Two Blackfeet/Blackfoot Indian men with the village and tipis visible in the distance. Photo from an Alberta Canada reservation circa 1880s

Thursday, April 9, 2015

Ottawa Indian Warrior

Ottawa Indian warrior painted by David Wright

Friday, February 8, 2013

Aztec Indian Conquerors

These conquered territories were not necessarily of easy subjugation. On the contrary, they were plentifully inhabited by races of warrior-peoples, many of them with strong and semi-civilised social and military organisations. The analogy between this confederation of the Aztecs and the extending area of their dominion and civilisation, and the Incas of the Titicaca plateau of Peru, surrounded on all sides by savage warlike tribes, presents itself to the observer in this as in other respects. Like the Incas, the Aztec emperors[7] returned from campaign after campaign loaded with trophies and embarrassed with strings of captives from the vanquished peoples who had dared oppose this powerful confederation. The rich tropical regions of both the eastern and western slopes of the tableland of Anahuac thus paid tribute to the Aztecs, as well as the boundless resources of the south.

7 Both these nations have been likened to the Romans in this respect.

But not all the nations of Anahuac fell under the dominion of the Aztecs. Far from it. The spirits of the people of Tlascala would rise from their graves and protest against such an assertion! Tlascala was a brave and warlike little republic of mountaineers—a kind of Switzerland—who inhabited the western slopes of the Eastern Sierra Madre and the eastern part of the plateau of Anahuac, under the shadow of the mighty Malinche, whose snow-crowned head arises on the eastern confines of the tableland. Tlascala, indeed, was a thorn in the side of Montezuma and the Aztecs. The latter had demanded that the little republic pay homage and tribute, and acknowledge the hegemony of the dominant nation, to which the Tlascalans made reply, "Neither our ancestors nor ourselves ever have or will pay tribute to any one. Invade us if you can. We beat you once and may do it again!" or words to that effect, as recorded by the historians. For in the past history of the Tlascalans—who were of the same original migratory family as the Aztecs—a great conflict had been recorded, in which they had vanquished their arrogant kindred.

Deadly strife and hatred followed this, but Tlascala withstood all attacks from without, and, moreover, was strengthened by an alliance with the Otomies, a warlike race inhabiting part of the greatmesa or central tableland north of Anahuac. These were the people who so grievously harassed the Spaniards after the Noche Triste and against whom the heroic battle of Otumba was fought. Except to the east, whence approach was easy from the coast, the territory of Tlascala was surrounded by mountains, and this natural defence was continued by the building of an extraordinary wall or fortification at the pregnable point. Through this the Spaniards passed on their journey of invasion, and, indeed, its ruins remained until the seventeenth century. The name of the Tlascalans well deserves to be written on the pages of the history of primitive Mexico, for it was largely due to their alliance with the Spaniards that the conquest of Mexico by Cortes and his band was rendered possible.

In addition to these various and petty powers and independent republics upon the tableland of Anahuac and its slopes, must be mentioned that of Cholula, a state to the south of Tenochtitlan, in what now is the State of Puebla. This region, which contains the remarkable mound or pyramid bearing its name—Cholula—the construction of which is ascribed to the Toltecs, was, with its people, dominated by and under tribute to the Aztecs. So was the nation of the Cempoallas, upon the Vera Cruz coast, who rendered assistance to the landing Conquistadores; and, indeed, almost all the natives of that vast region acknowledged the sway and lived in awe of the empire of Montezuma.

It is seen that Mexico, in prehispanic times, was fairly well populated—comparatively speaking, of course. Indeed, at the present time there are ten times as many Indians in that part of North America which forms modern Mexico, as ever existed in the whole of the much vaster area which forms the United States. The inhabitants of Mexico were divided into two main classes—those living under a civilised or semi-civilised organisation, such as the Aztecs and others already enumerated, and those which may be looked upon as savages. These latter were exceedingly numerous, and at the present day something like 220 different tribal names have been enumerated. This serves to show the wide range of peoples who inhabited the land before the Conquest, principally as clans, or gentiles, as in South America also.

Saturday, April 14, 2012

Chief Pontiac's Education

CHIEF PONTIAC'S EDUCATION

Chief Pontiac's father was a war chief. But it did not follow that therefore Pontiac would be a war chief. He
would have to prove himself strong and brave, a good hunter and a good warrior, or his tribe would choose some more able leader.

Chief Pontiac, like most small boys, took his father for his pattern. His ambition was to be like him. But he was told early, "Be a good Indian. Be a good Ottawan. Be true to your tribe. Be a strong man and help your people. But don't think about being chief. The greatest brave must be chief of the Ottawas."

Yet, Indians love glory and perhaps in the bottom of their hearts Chief Pontiac's father and mother hoped that he would one day be a chieftain. At any rate they did all they could to train him to be a worthy Indian.

CHIEF PONTIAC INDIAN WARRIOR

They were sometimes very severe with him. If he was rude to strangers or to old people; if he lost his temper and threw ashes at his comrades; if he told a falsehood, he was beaten. He had broken the laws of the Great Spirit, and the Great Spirit had commanded that parents should beat their children with rods when they did wrong. The boy understood this and he tried to take his punishment bravely that he might regain the[ good will of the Great Spirit. He stood quite still and endured heavy blows without whimpering or flinching.

He learned, too, to endure hunger and great fatigue without complaint. He raced, and swam, and played ball, and wrestled with other boys till his body was strong and straight and supple. He played at hunting and war in the forest, until his eyes became so sharp that no sign of man or beast escaped them.

But he did not depend altogether on his eyes for information. He could find his way through a forest in the dark, where the dense foliage hid the stars. Perhaps the wind told him the direction by the odors it brought. He could tell what kind of trees grew about him by the feel of their bark, by their odor, by the sound of the wind in the branches. He did not have to think much about his course when on a journey. His feet seemed to know the way home, or to the spring, or to the enemy's camp. And if he had traveled through a wilderness once he knew the way the next time as well as any boy knows his way to school.

While ChiefPontiac was training his body, his parents took care that he should not grow up in ignorance of the religion and the history of his people. He heard much about the Great Spirit who could see all he did and was angry when he said or did anything dishonest or cowardly.

The laws of the Great Spirit were fixed in the boy's mind, for his mother was always repeating them to him. She would say as he left the wigwam: "Honor the gray-headed person," or "Thou shalt not mimic the thunder;" "Thou shalt always feed the hungry and the stranger," or "Thou shalt immerse thyself in the river at least ten times in succession in the early part of the spring, so that thy body may be strong and thy feet swift to chase the game and to follow the warpath."[1]

[1]Translated from the Ottawa language by A. Blackbird.

In the evenings the older members of the family and some visiting Indians sat around the fire and told stones about the Great Spirit and many other strange beings, some good and some evil. They told, too, wonderful tales about omens and charms. The same story was told over and over again, so that in time little Pontiac knew by heart the legends of the Ottawas. He remembered and firmly believed all his life stories that as a child he listened to with awe, in his father's wigwam.

In the same way he heard about the great deeds of the warriors of his tribe; and he came to think there were no people in the world quite equal to the Ottawas. He heard of other tribes that were their foes and he was eager to go to war against them.

As he grew older he heard a good deal about men, not only of another tribe but of another race, the palefaces, who were trying to get the lands of the Indians. Then he thought less about being an Ottawa and conquering other Indians; while every day he felt more and more that he was an Indian and must conquer the white man. He wished he could unite the tribes in friendship and lead them against these strangers who were so many and so[ strong, and who had come to drive the Indians from their homes and hunting grounds.

Such thoughts made Chief Pontiac very serious. Obeying the commands of the Great Spirit, the young Indian often blackened his face with a mixture of charcoal and fish-oil, and went into the depths of the forest, where he remained for days without food, praying and thinking earnestly about the future.

He formed his own plans, but he hid them in his heart. He practised keeping his feelings and thoughts to himself, and spoke only when he was very sure he was right. This habit soon gained him a reputation for gravity and wisdom.