Chapter 9 Po-No-Kah: An Indian Tale of Long Ago by Mary Mapes
INDIAN LIFE
Rudolph and Kitty learned many things from the Indians that they never would have studied in the rough school-house near their pretty home; and they soon became familiar with many singular customs that at first filled them with wonder.
For instance: when they, or any of the little papooses, were naughty or disobedient, they were put under what might be called the water-cure treatment. Instead of being whipped or locked up in a dark pantry—as was, I am sorry to say, the custom among some white people—they were simply "ducked" under water until they became manageable. Winter or summer, it was all the same. A bad child would very soon become a wet child, if there were any water within a mile.
There are bright sides, as well as dark, to the Indian character; and in considering their cruelties and inhuman practices, we must remember that the white man has not always been just to him or set a good example to his uncivilized brother, or been careful not to provoke him to deeds of resentment and wrong. An Indian rarely forgets a kindness, and he never tells a lie. He is heroic, and deems it beneath a man's dignity to exhibit the slightest sign of pain under any circumstances. Among the Sioux tribe of that time, the boys were trained from the first to bear as much hardship as possible. They had a ceremony called the Straw Dance, in which children were forced to maintain a stately and measured step, while bunches of loose straws tied to their naked bodies were lighted and allowed to burn slowly away. Any poor little creature who flinched or "broke step" was sorely punished and held in disgrace.
There were certain dances among the Indians performed by the warriors, before going either to battle or to the hunt. If to battle, they spent hours, and often whole days and nights together, in the fearful war-dance, accompanied by clashing on their drumlike instruments, and whoops that rang long and loud amid the echoing hills. If to the hunt, the Bear-Dance or the Buffalo-Dance was kept up nights and days before starting, in order to propitiate the Bear Spirit or Buffalo Spirit, whichever it might be. They had a funeral dance also, which was very solemn and impressive. And if a chieftain was to be buried, either in the river, or, as among the Mandans, on a rough platform erected on poles high up from the ground, the warriors danced before his wigwam, and assigned to a few of their number the duty of seeing that his widow and children, if he left any, should never be without food and shelter.
Kitty and Rudolph often looked on with, mingled feelings of terror and delight, while some of these strange ceremonies were being enacted. It was curious to see the stalwart warriors, with bent backs and glum faces, and many a grunt or whoop, stamp through the measured dance. Often Kitty would clutch her brother's arm in terror, when, in strange concert, the savages would suddenly halt, and with fiendish look and stealthy gesture, seem to be listening to the approach of an enemy.
Sometimes, too, the women danced, but always apart from the men. Even in their games the warriors and squaws never played together. Among the Crow Indians, famous for their long black hair, it was not uncommon for a thousand young men to play in one game of ball for three or four consecutive days without interruption. As soon as one player retired, exhausted, another took his place. Often hundreds of women played together, and they were generally as expert as the men in throwing and catching the ball.
Another strange feature among Indian customs, was the importance attached to the medicine-bag. Every warrior had one, and would no sooner hunt, or go to battle, or appear among his tribe without it, than he would neglect to wear his bow or his scalping-knife. Not that the bag contained any medicine, such as we understand by the word—for it was nothing but a small piece of skin sewed like a bag, curiously ornamented, and stuffed with straw or leaves—but because he regarded it as a charm. With him, "medicine" meant some mysterious power that would protect and guide him, and propitiate the unseen powers in his favor. When about to obtain his medicine, the young Indian went alone to some solitary river or lake in the depths of the forest, or mounted to some lonely peak. Here he fasted, and remained until, sleeping, he dreamed. The first animal he dreamed about, whether it were a bear, buffalo, deer, weasel, or bird or reptile of any kind, became his "medicine" forever. He at once hunted until he found one, and obtained its skin for a bag.
Rudolph and Kitty looked with awe upon many of the rare medicine-bags of the tribe, though they were never on any account allowed to touch them. Indeed, Kitty had managed to make a rough little one for Rudolph, dotted with clumps of beads, and he wore it next his heart with secret pride. The little fellow had once, while tramping through the forest with Katequa, seen a number of deer gathered around a spring, or salt-lick, as it is called, and had quivered with frightened delight to see the finest one fall wounded by her arrow. When the large eyes of the wounded creature had turned plaintively toward him, he had tried not to feel sorry, but his heart ached in spite of his efforts,
"I shall be a mighty hunter one of these days," he said to Kitty on his return; "but I won't shoot deer, for they look at you just as if they wanted to speak. I'll get bears though, lots of 'em, and buffalo; and I'll have a fine trap when I get home, and catch badgers and foxes, just as the Indians do."
Tom and Rudolph saw with indignation that, throughout the village, the labor and drudgery were forced upon the squaws, while the warriors stretched themselves lazily upon the ground, or smoked their pipes under the spreading trees. As for Kitty, she was too busy watching the women cook, dig, chop, and carry, to make any moral reflections.
She loved, also, to sit beside them when they prepared the skins brought in from the hunt, or while they were busy with their curious sewing, so different from that with which she had seen her mother occupied.
Bright-colored rags, feathers, beads, porcupine-quills, and even scraps of tin, were the ornaments upon which the squaws relied to make the toilets of their tribe "stylish" and beautiful; and Kitty—tiny little woman that she was—soon grew to agree with them perfectly in matters of taste.
To be sure, the Indian women never did anything quite so barbarous as to put their little girls' feet into narrow shoes with high heels, nor fasten tight belts about their waists, so that the God-given machinery within could hardly work. But they did many preposterous things, for all that. They painted their bodies and tattooed their skins, by pricking figures on the flesh and rubbing in some staining juice when the blood appeared. They even pierced their noses so that bright rings could dangle from them. Many, too, hung bits of metal from their ears in a similar way—but that may not strike my civilized readers as being a very barbarous custom.