Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 7.djvu/831

 INDIANS

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INDIANS

tribes there was seldom any provision for coercing the individual to secure common action, but those of the same clan or band usually acted together. In this lack of solidarity is the secret of Indian military weakness. In no Indian war in the history of the United States has a single large tribe ever united in solid resistance, while on the other hand other tribes have always been found to join against the hostiles. Among the Natchez, Timucua, and some other southern tribes, there is more indication of a central authority, resting probably with a dominant clan.

The Iroquois (q. v.) of New York had progressed beyond any other native people north of Mexico in the elaboration of a state and empire. Through a care- fully planned system of confederation, originating about 1570, the five allied tribes had secured internal peace and unity, by which they had been able to acquire dominant control over most of the tribes from Hudson Bay to Carolina, and, if not prematurely checked by the advent of the whites, might in time have founded a northern empire to rival that of the Aztec.

Land was usually held in common, excepting among the Pueblos, where it was apportioned among the clans, and in some tribes of northern California, where individual right is said to have existed. Tim- ber and other natural products were free, and hospital- ity was carried to such a degree that no man kept what his neighbour wanted. While this prevented extremes of poverty, on the other hand it paralysed individual industry and economy, and was an effectual barrier to progress. The accumulation of property was further discouraged by the fact that in most tribes it was customary to destroy all the Ijelongings of the owner at his death. The word for "brave" and "generous" was frequently the same, and along the north-west coast there existed a curious custom known as poUatch, under which a man saved for half a lifetime in order to acquire the rank of chief by finally giving away his entire hoard at a grand public feast.

Enslavement of captives was more or less cotnmon throughout the country, especially in the iSouthern states, where the captives were sometimes crippled to prevent their escape. .Along the north-west coast and as far south as California, not only the captives, but their children and later descendants were slaves and might be aliused or slaughtered at the will of the master, lieing frequently buried alive with their de- ceased owner or butchered to provitle a ceremonial can- nibal feast. In the Southern slave states, before the Civil War, Indians were frequent owners of negro slaves.

Men and women, and sometimes even the older children, were organized into societies for military, religious, working, and social purposes, many of these being secret, especially those concerned with medicine and women's work. In some tribes there was also a custom by which two young men became "brothers" through a public exchange of names.

The erroneous opinion that the Intlian man was an idler, and the Indian w'oman a drudge and slave, is founded upon a misconception of the native system of division of labour, under which it was the man's busi- ness to defend the home and to provide food by hunt- ing and fishing, assuming all the ri.sks and hardships of battle and the wilderness, while the woman attended to the domestic duties, including the bringing of wood and water, and, with the nomad tribes, the setting up of the tipi. The children, however, required little care after they were able to run about, and the house- keeping was of the simplest, and, as the women worked usually in groups, with songs and gossip, while the children played about, the work had mucli of pleasure mixed with it. In all that chiefly concerned the home the woman was the mistress, and in many tribes the woman's council gave the final decision upon impor- tant matters of public policy. Among the more VII.— 48

purely agricultural tribes, as the Pueblos, men and women worked in the fields together. In the far North, on the other hand, the harsh environment seems to have brought out all the savagery of the man's nature, and the woman was in fact a slave subject to every whim of cruelty, excepting among the Kutchin of the upper Yukon, noted for their kind treatment of their women. Polygamy existed in nearly all tribes excepting the Pueblos.

Religion and Mythology. — The Indian was an ani- mist, to whom every animal, plant, and object in nature contained a spirit to be propitiated or feared. Some of these, as the sun, the buflalo, and the peyote plant, the eagle, and the rattlesnake, were more power- ful or more frequently helpful than others, but there was no overruling "Great Spirit" as so frequently represented. Certain numbers, particularly four and seven, were held sacred. Colours were symbolic and had local abiding place, and sometimes se.x. Thus with the Cherokee the red spirits of power and victory lived in the Sun Land, or East, while the black spirits of death dwelt in the Twiliglit Land of the West, ('ertain tribes had palladiums around which centred

Wichita Gr.ass Hocses

their most elaborate ritual. Each man had also his secret personal "medicine". The priest was likewise the doctor, and medicine and religious ritual w-ere closely interwoven. Secret societies were in every tribe, claiming powers of prophecy, hypnotism, and clairvoyance. Dreams were in great repute, and implicitly trusted and obeyed, while witches, fairies, and supernatural mon.sters were as common as in medieval Europe. Human sacrifices, either of infants or adults, were found among the Timucua of Florida, the Natchez of Mi-ssissippi, the Pawnee of the plains, and some tribes of California and the north-west coast, the sacrifice in the last-mentioned region being frequently followed by a cannibal feast. From time to time, as among more civilized nations, prophets arose to purify the old religion or to preacn a new ritual. Each tribe had its genesis, tradition, and mythical hero, with a whole body of mythologic belief and folklore, and one or more great tribal ceremonials. Among the latter may be noted the Green-Corn Dance thanksgiving festival of the eastern and southern tribes, the Sun Dance of the plains, the celebrated Snake Dance of the Hopi (q. v.), and the Salmon Dance of the Columbia tribes.

Burial. — The method of disposing of the dead varied according to the tribe and environment, in- humation being probably the most widespread. The Hurons and Iroquois allowed the bodies to decay upon scaffolds, after which the bones were gathered up and deposited with much ceremony in the common tribal sepulchre. The Nanticoke and Choctaw scraped the