Chapter II: The Sioux or Dakotahs (2)

Scalping is generally, but falsely, supposed to be a peculiarly American practice. The Abbé Em. Domenech (“Seven Years’ Residence in the Great Deserts of North America,” chap. xxxix.) quotes the _decalvare_ of the ancient Germans, the _capillos et cutem detrahere_ of the code of the Visigoths, and the annals of Flude, which prove that the “Anglo-Saxons” and the Franks still scalped about A.D. 879. And as the modern American practice is traceable to Europe and Asia, so it may be found in Africa, where aught of ferocity is rarely wanting. “In a short time after our return,” says Mr. Duncan (“Travels in Western Africa in 1845 and 1846”), “the Apadomey regiment passed, on their return, in single file, each leading in a string a young male or female slave, carrying also the dried scalp of one man supposed to have been killed in the attack. On all such occasions, when a person is killed in battle, the skin is taken from the head and kept as a trophy of valor. It must not be supposed that these female warriors kill according to the number of scalps presented; the scalps are the accumulation of many years. If six or seven men are killed during one year’s war it is deemed a great thing; one party always run away in these slave-hunts; but where armies meet the slaughter is great. I counted 700 scalps pass in this manner.” But mutilation, like cannibalism, tattooing, and burying in barrows, is so natural under certain circumstances to man’s mind that we distinctly require no traditional derivation.

Scalp-taking is a solemn rite. In the good old times braves scrupulously awaited the wounded man’s death before they “raised his hair;” in the laxity of modern days, however, this humane custom is too often disregarded. Properly speaking, the trophy should be taken after fair fight with a hostile warrior; this also is now neglected. When the Indian sees his enemy fall he draws his scalp-knife--the modern is of iron, formerly it was of flint, obsidian, or other hard stone--and twisting the scalp-lock, which is left long for that purpose, and boastfully braided or decorated with some gaudy ribbon or with the war-eagle’s plume, round his left hand, makes with the right two semicircular incisions, with and against the sun, about the part to be removed. The skin is next loosened with the knife-point, if there be time to spare and if there be much scalp to be taken. The operator then sits on the ground, places his feet against the subject’s shoulders by way of leverage, and, holding the scalp-lock with both hands, he applies a strain which soon brings off the spoils with a sound which, I am told, is not unlike “flop.” Without the long lock it would be difficult to remove the scalp; prudent white travelers, therefore, are careful, before setting out through an Indian country, to “shingle off” their hair as closely as possible; the Indian, moreover, hardly cares for a half-fledged scalp. To judge from the long love-locks affected by the hunter and mountaineer, he seems to think lightly of this precaution; to hold it, in fact, a point of honor that the savage should have a fair chance. A few cunning men have surprised their adversaries with wigs. The operation of scalping must be exceedingly painful; the sufferer turns, wriggles, and “squirms” upon the ground like a scotched snake. It is supposed to induce brain fever; many instances, however, are known of men and even women recovering from it, as the former do from a more dreadful infliction in Abyssinia and Galla-land; cases are of course rare, as a disabling wound is generally inflicted before the bloodier work is done.

After taking the scalp, the Indian warrior--proud as if he had won a _médaille de sauvetage_--prepares for return to his village. He lingers outside for a few days, and then, after painting his hands and face with lampblack, appears slowly and silently before his lodge. There he squats for a while; his relatives and friends, accompanied by the elders of the tribe, sit with him dumb as himself. Presently the question is put; it is answered with truth, although these warriors at other times will lie like Cretans. The “coup” is recounted, however, with abundant glorification; the Indians, like the Greek and Arab of their classical ages, are allowed to vent their self-esteem on such occasions without blame, and to enjoy a treat for which the civilized modern hero longs ardently, but in vain. Finally the “green scalp,” after being dried and mounted, is consecrated by the solemn dance, and becomes then fit for public exhibition. Some tribes attach it to a long pole used as a standard, and others to their horses’ bridles, others to their targes, while others ornament with its fringes the outer seams of their leggins; in fact, its uses are many. The more scalps the more honor; the young man who can not boast of a single murder or show the coveted trophy is held in such scant esteem as the English gentleman who contents himself with being passing rich on a hundred pounds a year. Some great war-chiefs have collected a heap of these honorable spoils. It must be remembered by “curio” hunters that only one scalp can come off one head; namely, the centre lock or long tuft growing upon the coronal apex, with about three inches in diameter of skin. This knowledge is the more needful, as the Western men are in the habit of manufacturing half a dozen cut from different parts of the same head; they sell readily for $50 each, but the transaction is not considered reputable. The connoisseur, however, readily distinguishes the real article from “false scalping” by the unusual thickness of the cutis, which is more like that of a donkey than of a man. Set in a plain gold circlet it makes a very pretty brooch. Moreover, each tribe has its own fashion of scalping derived from its forefathers. The Sioux, for instance, when they have leisure to perform the operation, remove the whole headskin, including a portion of the ears; they then sit down and dispose the ears upon the horns of a buffalo skull, and a bit of the flesh upon little heaps of earth or clay, disposed in quincunx, apparently as an offering to the manes of their ancestors, and they smoke ceremoniously, begging the manitou to send them plenty more. The trophy is then stretched upon a willow twig bent into an oval shape, and lined with two semi-ovals of black or blue and scarlet cloth. The Yutas and the Prairie tribes generally, when pressed for time, merely take off the poll skin that grows the long tuft of hair, while the Chyuagara or Nez Percés prefer a long strip about two inches wide, extending from the nape to the commissure of the hair and forehead. The fingers of the slain are often reserved for sévignés and necklaces. Indians are aware of the aversion with which the pale faces regard this barbarity. Near Alkali Lake, where there was a large Dakotah “tipi” or encampment of Sioux, I tried to induce a tribesman to go through the imitative process before me; he refused with a gesture indignantly repudiating the practice. A glass of whisky would doubtless have changed his mind, but I was unwilling to break through the wholesome law that prohibits it.

It is not wonderful that the modern missionary should be unable to influence such a brain as the Prairie Indian’s. The old propagandists, Jesuits and Franciscans, became medicine-men: like the great fraternity in India, they succeeded by the points of resemblance which the savages remarked in their observances, such as their images and rosaries, which would be regarded as totems, and their fastings and prayers, which were of course supposed to be spells and charms. Their successors have succeeded about as well with the Indian as with the African; the settled tribes have given ear to them, the Prairie wanderers have not; and the Europeanization of the Indian generally is hopeless as the Christianization of the Hindoo. The missionaries usually live under the shadow of the different agencies, and even they own that nothing can be done with the children unless removed from the parental influence. I do not believe that an Indian of the plains ever became a Christian. He must first be humanized, then civilized, and lastly Christianized; and, as has been said before, I doubt his surviving the operation.

[INDIAN NAMES.]

As might be expected of the Indian’s creed, it has few rites and ceremonies; circumcision is unknown, and it ignores the complicated observances which, in the case of the Hindoo Pantheist, and in many African tribes, wait upon gestation, parturition, and allactation. The child is seldom named.[74] There are but five words given in regular order to distinguish one from another. There are no family names. The men, after notable exploits, are entitled by their tribes to assume the titles of the distinguished dead, and each fresh deed brings a new distinction. Some of the names are poetical enough: the “Black Night,” for instance, the “Breaker of Arrows,” or the “War Eagle’s Wing;” others are coarse and ridiculous, such as “Squash-head,” “Bull’s-tail,” “Dirty Saddle,” and “Steam from a Cow’s Belly;” not a few bear a whimsical likeness to those of the African negroes, as “His Great Fire,” “The Water goes in the Path,” and “Buffalo Chips”--the “Mavi yá Gnombe” of Unyamwezi. The son of a chief succeeding his father usually assumes his name, so that the little dynasty, like that of the Pharaohs, the Romuli, or the Numas, is perpetuated. The women are not unfrequently called after the parts and properties of some admired or valued animal, as the White Martin, the Young Mink,[75] or the Muskrat’s Paw. In the north there have been men with as many as seven wives, all “Martins.” The Prairie Indians form the names of the women like those of men, adding the feminine suffix, as Cloud-woman, Red-earth-woman, Black-day-woman. The white stranger is ever offending Indian etiquette by asking the savage “What’s your name?” The person asked looks aside for a friend to assist him; he has learned in boyhood that some misfortune will happen to him if he discloses his name. Even husbands and wives never mention each other’s names. The same practice prevails in many parts of Asia.

[74] The Ojibwa and other races have the ceremony of a burnt-offering
when the name is given.

[75] Putorius vison, a pretty dark-chestnut-colored animal of the
weasel kind, which burrows in the banks of streams near mills and
farm-houses, where it preys upon the poultry like the rest of the
family. It swims well, and can dive for a long time. Its food is
small fish, mussels, and insects, but it will also devour rats and
mice.

[FEMALE CONDUCT.]

Marriage is a simple affair with them. In some tribes the bride, as among the Australians, is carried off by force. In others the man who wants a wife courts her with a little present, and pickets near the father’s lodge the number of horses which he supposes to be her equivalent. As among all savage tribes, the daughter is a chattel, an item of her father’s goods, and he will not part with her except for a consideration. The men are of course polygamists; they prefer to marry sisters, because the tent is more quiet, and much upon the principle with which marriage with a deceased wife’s sister is advocated in England. The women, like the Africans, are not a little addicted to suicide. Before espousal the conduct of the weaker sex in many tribes is far from irreproachable. The “bundling” of Wales and of New England in a former day[76] is not unknown to them, and many think little of that _prœgustatio matrimonii_ which, in the eastern parts of the New World, goes by the name of Fanny Wrightism and Free-loveism. Several tribes make trial, like the Highlanders before the reign of James the Fifth, of their wives for a certain time--a kind of “hand-fasting,” which is to morality what fetichism is to faith. There are few nations in the world among whom this practice, originating in a natural desire not to “make a leap in the dark,” can not be traced. Yet after marriage they will live, like the Spartan matrons, a life of austerity in relation to the other sex. In cases of divorce, the children, being property, are divided, and in most tribes the wife claims the odd one. If the mother takes any care to preserve her daughter’s virtue, it is only out of regard to its market value. In some tribes the injured husband displays all the philosophy of Cato and Socrates. In others the wife is punished, like the native of Hindostan, by cutting, or, more generally, by biting off the nose-tip. Some slay the wife’s lover; others accept a pecuniary compensation for their dishonor, and take as damages skins or horses. Elopement, as among the Arabs, prevails in places. The difference of conduct on the part of the women of course depends upon the bearing of the men. “There is no adulteress without an adulterer”--meaning that the husband is ever the first to be unfaithful--is a saying as old as the days of Mohammed. Among the Arapahoes, for instance, there is great looseness; the Cheyennes, on the contrary, are notably correct. Truth demands one unpleasant confession, viz., on the whole, chastity is little esteemed among those Indians who have been corrupted by intercourse with whites.

[76] Traces of this ancient practice may be found in the four
quarters of the globe. Mr.Bartlett, in his instructive volume, quotes
the Rev. Samuel Pike (“General History of Connecticut,” London,
1781), who quaintly remarks: “Notwithstanding the great modesty of
the females is such that it would be accounted the greatest rudeness
for a gentleman to speak before a lady of a garter or a leg, yet
it is thought but a piece of civility to ask her to _bundle_.” The
learned and pious historian endeavored to prove that bundling was
not only a Christian, but a very polite and prudent practice. So the
Rev. Andrew Barnaby, who traveled in New England in 1759-60, thinks
that though bundling may “at first appear the effect of grossness of
character, it will, upon deeper research, be found to proceed from
simplicity and innocence.”

[CHIEFS.]

The dignity of chief denotes in the Indian language a royal title. It is hereditary as a rule, but men of low birth sometimes attain it by winning a name as warriors or medicine-men. When there are many sons it often happens that each takes command of a small clan. Personal prowess is a necessity in sagamore and sachem: an old man, therefore, often abdicates in favor of his more vigorous son, to whom he acts as guide and counselor. There is one chief to every band, with several sub-chiefs. The power possessed by the ruler depends upon his individual character, and the greater or lesser capacity for discipline in his subjects. Some are obeyed grudgingly, as the Sheikh of a Bedouin tribe. Others are absolute monarchs, who dispose of the lives and properties of their followers without exciting a murmur. The counteracting element to despotism resides in the sub-chief and in the council of warriors, who obstinately insist upon having a voice in making laws, raising subsidies, declaring wars, and ratifying peace.

[MODE OF LIFE.]

Their life is of course simple; they have no regular hours for meals or sleep. Before eating they sometimes make a heave-offering of a bit of food toward the heavens, where their forefathers are, and a second toward the earth, the mother of all things: the pieces are then burned. They are not cannibals, except when a warrior, after slaying a foe, eats, porcupine-like, the heart or liver, with the idea of increasing his own courage. The women rarely sit at meals with the men. In savage and semi-barbarous societies the separation of the sexes is the general rule, because, as they have no ideas in common, each prefers the society of its own. They are fond of adoption and of making brotherhoods, like the Africans; and so strong is the tie, that marriage with the sister of an adopted brother is within the prohibited degrees. Gambling is a passion with them: they play at cards, an art probably learned from the Canadians, and the game is that called in the States “matching,” on the principle of dominoes or beggar-my-neighbor. When excited they ejaculate Will! Will!--sharp and staccato--it is possibly a conception of the English well. But it often comes out in the place of bad, as the Sepoy orderly in India reports to his captain, “Ramnak Jamnak dead, Joti Prasad very sick--all vell!” The savages win and lose with the stoicism habitual to them, rarely drawing the “navajon,” like the Mexican “lepero,” over a disputed point; and when a man has lost his last rag, he rises in nude dignity and goes home. Their language ignores the violent and offensive abuse of parents and female relatives, which distinguishes the Asiatic and the African from the European Billingsgate: the worst epithets that can be applied to a man are miser, coward, dog, woman. With them good temper is good breeding--a mark of gentle blood. A brave will stand up and harangue his enemies, exulting how he scalped their sires, and squaws, and sons, without calling forth a grunt of irritation. Ceremony and manners, in our sense of the word, they have none, and they lack the profusion of salutations which usually distinguishes barbarians. An Indian appearing at your door rarely has the civility to wait till beckoned in; he enters the house, with his quiet catlike gait and his imperturbable countenance, saying, if a Sioux, “How!” or “How! How!” meaning Well? shakes hands, to which he expects the same reply, if he has learned “paddling with the palms” from the whites--this, however, is only expected by the chiefs and braves--and squats upon his hams in the Eastern way, I had almost said the natural way, but to man, unlike all other animals, every way is equally natural, the chair or the seat upon the ground. He accepts a pipe if offered to him, devours what you set before him--those best acquainted with the savage, however, avoid all unnecessary civility or generosity: Milesian-like, he considers a benefit his due, and if withheld, he looks upon his benefactor as a “mean man”--talks or smokes as long as he pleases, and then rising, stalks off without a word. His ideas of time are primitive. The hour is denoted by pointing out the position of the sun; the days, or rather the nights, are reckoned by sleeps; there are no weeks; the moons, which are literally new, the old being nibbled away by mice, form the months, and suns do duty for years. He has, like the Bedouin and the Esquimaux, sufficient knowledge of the heavenly bodies to steer his course over the pathless sage-sea. Night-work, however, is no favorite with him except in cases of absolute necessity. Counting is done upon man’s first abacus, the fingers, and it rarely extends beyond ten. The value of an article was formerly determined by beads and buffaloes; dollars, however, are now beginning to be generally known.

The only arts of the Indians are medicine and the use of arms. They are great in the knowledge of simples and tisanes. The leaves of the white willow are the favorite emetic; wounds are dressed with astringent herbs, and inflammations are reduced by scarification and the actual cautery. Among some tribes, the hammam, or Turkish bath, is invariably the appendage to a village. It is an oven sunk in the earth, with room for about a score of persons, and a domed roof of tamped and timber-propped earth--often mistaken for a bulge in the ground--pierced with a little square window for ventilation when not in use. A fire is kindled in the centre, and the patient, after excluding the air, sits quietly in this rude calidarium till half roasted and stifled by the heat and smoke. Finally, like the Russian peasant, he plunges into the burn that runs hard by, and feels his ailments dropping off him with the dead cuticle. The Indians associating with the horse have learned a rude farriery which often succeeds where politer practice would fail. I heard of one who cured the bites of rattlesnakes and copperheads by scarifying the wounded beast’s face, plastering the place with damped gunpowder paste and setting it on fire.

[FIRE-ARMS.--BOWS AND ARROWS.]

Among the Prairie tribes are now to be found individuals provided not only with the old muskets formerly supplied to them, but with yägers,[77] Sharp’s breech-loaders, alias “Beecher’s Bibles,” Colt’s revolvers, and other really good fire-arms. Their shooting has improved with their tools: many of them are now able to “draw a bead” with coolness and certainty. Those who can not afford shooting-irons content themselves with their ancient weapons, the lance and bow. The former is a poor affair, a mere iron spike from two to three inches long, inserted into the end of a staff about as thick as a Hindostanee’s bamboo lance; it is whipped round with sinew for strength, decorated with a few bunches of gaudy feathers, and defended with the usual medicine-bag. The bow varies in dimensions with the different tribes. On the prairies, for convenient use on horseback, it seldom exceeds three feet in length; among the Southern Indians its size doubles, and in parts of South America it is like that of the Andamans, a gigantic weapon with an arrow six feet long, and drawn by bringing the aid of the feet to the hands. The best bows among the Sioux and Yutas are of horn, hickory being unprocurable; an inferior sort is made of a reddish wood, in hue and grain not unlike that called “mountain mahogany.” A strip of raw-hide is fitted to the back for increase of elasticity, and the string is a line of twisted sinew. When not wanted for use the weapon is carried in a skin case slung over the shoulder. It is drawn with the two forefingers--not with the forefinger and thumb, as in the East--and generally the third or ring-finger is extended along the string to give additional purchase. Savage tribes do little in the way of handicraft, but that little they do patiently, slowly, and therefore well. The bow and arrow are admirably adapted to their purpose. The latter is either a reed or a bit of arrow-wood (_Viburnum dentatum_), whose long, straight, and tough stems are used by the fletcher from the Mississippi to the Pacific. The piles are triangles of iron, agate, flint, chalcedony, opal, or other hard stone: for war purposes they are barbed, and bird-bolts tipped with hard wood are used for killing small game. Some tribes poison their shafts: the material is the juice of a buffalo’s or an antelope’s liver when it has become green and decomposed after the bite of a rattlesnake; at least this is the account which all the hunters and mountaineers give of it. They have also, I believe, vegetable poisons. The feathers are three in number; those preferred are the hawk’s and the raven’s; and some tribes glue, while others whip them on with tendon-thread. The stele is invariably indented from the feathers to the tip with a shallow spiral furrow: this vermiculation is intended, according to the traders, to hasten death by letting air into or letting blood out of the wound. It is probably the remnant of some superstition now obsolete, for every man does it, while no man explains why or wherefore. If the Indian works well, he does not work quickly; he will expend upon half a dozen arrows as many months. Each tribe has its own mark; the Pawnees, for instance, make a bulge below the notch. Individuals also have private signs which enable them to claim a disputed scalp or buffalo robe. In battle or chase the arrows are held in the left hand, and are served out to the right with such rapidity that one long string of them seems to be cleaving the air. A good Sioux archer will, it is said, discharge nine arrows upward before the first has fallen to the ground. He will transfix a bison and find his shaft upon the earth on the other side; and he shows his dexterity by discharging the arrow up to its middle in the quarry and by withdrawing it before the animal falls. Tales are told of a single warrior killing several soldiers; and as a rule, at short distances, the bow is considered by the whites a more effectual weapon than the gun. It is related that when the Sioux first felt the effects of Colt’s revolver, the weapon, after two shots, happened to slip from the owner’s grasp; when he recovered it and fired a third time all fled, declaring that a white was shooting them with buffalo chips. Wonderful tales are told of the Indians’ accuracy with the bow: they hold it no great feat to put the arrow into a keyhole at the distance of forty paces. It is true that I never saw any thing surprising in their performances, but the savage will not take the trouble to waste his skill without an object.

[77] An antiquated sort of German rifle, formerly used by the federal
troops.

[THE SIOUX LANGUAGE.]

The Sioux tongue, like the Pawnee, is easily learned; government officials and settlers acquire it as the Anglo-Indian does Hindostanee. They are assisted by the excellent grammar and dictionary of the Dakotah language, collated by the members of the Dakotah Mission, edited by the Rev. S. R. Riggs, M.A., and accepted for publication by the Smithsonian Institution, December, 1851. The Dakotah-English part contains about 16,000 words, and the bibliography (spelling-books, tracts, and translations) numbered ten years ago eighteen small volumes. The work is compiled in a scholar-like manner. The orthography, though rather complicated, is intelligible, and is a great improvement upon the old and unartistic way of writing the polysynthetic Indian tongues, syllable by syllable, as though they were monosyllabic Chinese; the superfluous _h_ (as Dakota_h_ for Dakota), by which the broad sound of the terminal _a_ is denoted, has been justly cast out. The peculiar letters _ch_, _p_, and _t_, are denoted by a dot beneath the simple sound; similarly the _k_ (or Arabic _kaf_), the _gh_ (the Semitic _ghain_) and the _kh_ (_khá_), which, as has happened in Franco-Arabic grammars, was usually expressed by an _R_. An apostrophe (_s’a_) denotes the hiatus, which is similar to the Arab’s hamzah.

Vater long ago remarked that the only languages which had a character, if not similar, at any rate analogous to the American, are the Basque and the Congo, that is, the South African or Kaffir family. This is the case in many points: in Dakotah, for instance, as in Kisawahili, almost every word ends in a pure or a nasalized vowel. But the striking novelty of the African tongues, the inflexion of words by an initial, not, as with us, by a terminal change and the complex system of euphony, does not appear in the American, which in its turn possesses a dual unknown to the African. The Dakotah, like the Kaffir, has no gender; it uses the personal and impersonal, which is an older distinction in language. It follows the primitive and natural arrangement of speech: it says, for instance, “aguyapi maku ye,” bread to me give; as in Hindostanee, to quote no other, “roti hamko do.” So in logical argument it begins with the conclusion and proceeds to the premisses, which renders it difficult for a European to think in Dakotah. Like other American tongues, it is polysynthetic, which appears to be the effect of arrested development. Human speech begins with inorganic sounds, which represent symbolism by means of arrows pointed in a certain direction, bent trees, crossed rods, and other similar contrivances. Its first step is monosyllabic, which corresponds with the pictograph, the earliest attempt at writing among the uncivilized.[78] The next advance is polysynthesis, which is apparently built upon monosyllabism, as the idiograph of the Chinese upon a picture or glyph. The last step is the syllabic and inflected, corresponding with the Phœnico-Arabian alphabet, which gave rise to the Greek, the Latin, and their descendants. The complexity of Dakotah grammar is another illustration of the phenomenon that man in most things, in language especially, begins with the most difficult and works on toward the facile. Savages, who have no mental exercise but the cultivation of speech, and semi-barbarous people, who still retain the habit, employ complicated and highly elaborate tongues, _e. g._, Arabic, Sanscrit, Latin, Greek, Kaffir, and Anglo-Saxon. With time these become more simple; the _modus operandi_ appears to be admixture of race.

[78] A Kaffir girl wishing to give a hint to a friend of mine drew a
setting sun, a tree, and two figures standing under it; intelligible
enough, yet the Kaffirs ignore a syllabarium.

The Dakotahs have a sacred language, used by medicine-men, and rendered unintelligible to the vulgar by words borrowed from other Indian dialects, and by synonyms, _e. g._, biped for man, quadruped for wolf. A chief, asking for an ox or cow, calls it a dog, and a horse, moccasins: possibly, like Orientals, he superstitiously avoids direct mention, and speaks of the object wanted by a humbler name. Poetry is hardly required in a language so highly figurative: a hi-hi-hi-hi-hi, occasionally interrupted by a few words, composes their songs. The Rev. Mr. Pond gives the following specimen of “Blackboy’s” Mourning Song for his Grandson, addressed to those of Ghostland:

Friend, pause, and look this way;
Friend, pause, and look this way;
Friend, pause, and look this way;
Say ye,
A Grandson of Blackboy is coming.

Their speech is sometimes metaphorical to an extent which conveys an opposite meaning: “Friend, thou art a fool; thou hast let the Ojibwa strike thee,” is the highest form of eulogy to a brave who has killed and scalped a foe; possibly a Malocchio-like fear, the dread of praise, which, according to Pliny, kills in India, underlies the habit.

The funerals differ in every tribe; the Sioux expose their dead, wrapped in blankets or buffalo robes, upon tall poles--a custom that reminds us of the Parsee’s “Tower of Silence.” The Yutas make their graves high up the kanyons, usually in clefts of rock. Some bury the dead at full length; others sitting or doubled up; others on horseback, with a barrow or tumulus of earth heaped up over their remains. The absence of grave-yards in an Indian country is as remarkable as in the African interior; thinness of population and the savage’s instinctive dislike to any _memento mori_ are the causes. After deaths the “keening” is long, loud, and lasting: the women, and often the men, cut their hair close, not allowing it to fall below the shoulders, and not unfrequently gash themselves, and amputate one or more fingers. The dead man, especiallly a chief, is in almost all tribes provided with a viaticum, dead or alive, of squaws and boys--generally those taken from another tribe--horses and dogs; his lodge is burned, his arms, cooking utensils, saddles, and other accoutrements are buried with him, and a goodly store of buffalo meat or other provision is placed by his side, that his ghost may want nothing which it enjoyed in the flesh. Like all savages, the Indian is unable to separate the idea of man’s immaterial spirit from man’s material wants: an impalpable and invisible form of matter--called “spirit” because it is not cognizable to the senses, which are the only avenues of all knowledge--is as unintelligible to them as to a Latter-Day Saint, or, indeed, as to the mind of man generally. Hence the Indian’s smoking and offerings over the graves of friends. Some tribes mourn on the same day of each moon till grief is satisfied; others for a week after the death.

[THE INDIAN PANTOMIME.]

A remarkable characteristic of the Prairie Indian is his habit of speaking, like the deaf and dumb, with his fingers. The pantomime is a system of signs, some conventional, others instinctive or imitative, which enables tribes who have no acquaintance with each other’s customs and tongues to hold limited but sufficient communication. An interpreter who knows all the signs, which, however, are so numerous and complicated that to acquire them is the labor of years, is preferred by the whites even to a good speaker. Some writers, as Captain H. Stansbury, consider the system purely arbitrary; others, Captain Marcy, for instance, hold it to be a natural language similar to the gestures which surd-mutes use spontaneously. Both views are true, but not wholly true; as the following pages will, I believe, prove, the pantomimic vocabulary is neither quite conventional nor the reverse.

The sign-system doubtless arose from the necessity of a communicating medium between races speaking many different dialects, and debarred by circumstances from social intercourse. Its area is extensive: it prevails among many of the Prairie tribes, as the Hapsaroke, or Crows, the Dakotah, the Cheyenne, and the Shoshonee; the Pawnees, Yutas, and Shoshoko, or Diggers, being vagrants and outcasts, have lost or never had the habit. Those natives who, like the Arapahoes, possess a very scanty vocabulary, pronounced in a quasi-unintelligible way, can hardly converse with one another in the dark: to make a stranger understand them they must always repair to the camp fire for “powwow.” A story is told of a man who, being sent among the Cheyennes to qualify himself for interpreting, returned in a week, and proved his competence: all that he did, however, was to go through the usual pantomime with a running accompaniment of grunts. I have attempted to describe a few of the simpler signs: the reader, however, will readily perceive that without diagrams the explanation is very imperfect, and that in half an hour, with an Indian or an interpreter, he would learn more than by a hundred pages of print.

The first lesson is to distinguish the signs of the different tribes, and it will be observed that the French voyageurs and traders have often named the Indian nations from their totemic or masonic gestures.

The Pawnees (Les Loups) imitate a wolf’s ears with the two forefingers--the right hand is always understood unless otherwise specified[79]--extended together, upright, on the left side of the head.

[79] The left, as a rule, denotes inversion or contradiction.

The Arapahoes, or Dirty Noses, rub the right side of that organ with the forefinger: some call this bad tribe the Smellers, and make their sign to consist of seizing the nose with the thumb and forefinger.

The Comanches (Les Serpents) imitate, by the waving of the hand or forefinger, the forward crawling motion of a snake.

The Cheyennes, Paikanavos, or Cut-Wrists, draw the lower edge of the hand across the left arm as if gashing it with a knife.

The Sioux (Les Coupe-gorges), by drawing the lower edge of the hand across the throat: it is a gesture not unknown to us, but forms a truly ominous salutation considering those by whom it is practiced; hence the Sioux are called by the Yutas Pámpe Chyimina, or Hand-cutters.

The Hapsaroke (Les Corbeaux), by imitating the flapping of the birds’ wings with the two hands--palms downward--brought close to the shoulders.

The Kiowas, or Prairie-men, make the signs of the prairie and of drinking water. These will presently be described.

The Yutas, “they who live on mountains,” have a complicated sign which denotes “living in mountains;” these will be explained under “sit” and “mountains.”

The Blackfeet, called by the Yutas Paike or Goers, pass the right hand, bent spoon-fashion, from the heel to the little toe of the right foot.

The following are a few preliminaries indispensable to the prairie traveler:

_Halt!_--Raise the hand, with the palm in front, and push it backward
and forward several times--a gesture well known in the East.

_I don’t know you!_--Move the raised hand, with the palm in front,
slowly to the right and left.

_I am angry!_--Close the fist, place it against the forehead, and
turn it to and fro in that position.

_Are you friendly?_--Raise both hands, grasped, as if in the act of
shaking hands, or lock the two forefingers together while the hands
are raised.

These signs will be found useful upon the prairie in case of meeting a suspected band. The Indians, like the Bedouin and N. African Moslem, do honor to strangers and guests by putting their horses to speed, couching their lances, and other peculiarities which would readily be dispensed with by gentlemen of peaceful pursuits and shaky nerves. If friendly, the band will halt when the hint is given and return the salute; if surly, they will disregard the command to stop, and probably will make the sign of anger. Then--ware scalp!

_Come!_--Beckon with the forefinger, as in Europe, not as is done in
the East.

_Come back!_--Beckon in the European way, and draw the forefinger
toward yourself.

_Go!_--Move both hands edgeways (the palms fronting the breast)
toward the left with a rocking-horse motion.

_Sit!_--Make a motion toward the ground, as if to pound it with the
ferient of the closed hand.

_Lie down!_--Point to the ground, and make a motion as if of lying
down.

_Sleep!_--Ditto, closing the eyes.

_Look!_--Touch the right eye with the index and point it outward.

_Hear!_--Tap the right ear with the index tip.

Colors are expressed by a comparison with some object in sight. Many things, as the blowing of wind, the cries of beasts and birds, and the roaring of the sea, are imitated by sound.

_See!_--Strike out the two forefingers forward from the eyes.

_Smell!_--Touch the nose-tip. A bad smell is expressed by the same
sign, ejaculating at the same time “Pooh!” and making the sign of bad.

_Taste!_--Touch the tongue-tip.

_Eat!_--Imitate the action of conveying food with the fingers to the
mouth.

_Drink!_--Scoop up with the hand imaginary water into the mouth.

_Smoke!_--With the crooked index describe a pipe in the air,
beginning at the lips; then wave the open hand from the mouth to
imitate curls of smoke.

_Speak!_--Extend the open hand from the chin.

_Fight!_--Make a motion with both fists to and fro, like a pugilist
of the eighteenth century who preferred a high guard.

_Kill!_--Smite the sinister palm earthward with the dexter fist
sharply, in sign of “going down;” or strike out with the dexter fist
toward the ground, meaning to “shut down;” or pass the dexter index
under the left forefinger, meaning to “go under.”

To show that fighting is actually taking place, make the gestures as above described; tap the lips with the palm like an Oriental woman when “keening,” screaming the while O-a! O-a! to imitate the war-song.

_Wash!_--Rub the hand as with invisible soap in imperceptible water.

_Think!_--Pass the forefinger sharply across the breast from right to
left.

_Hide!_--Place the hand inside the clothing of the left breast. This
means also to put away or to keep secret. To express “I won’t say,”
make the signs of “I” and “no” (which see), and hide the hand as
above directed.

_Love!_--Fold the hands crosswise over the breast, as if embracing
the object, assuming at the same time a look expressing the desire
to carry out the operation. This gesture will be understood by the
dullest squaw.

_Tell truth!_--Extend the forefinger from the mouth (“one word”).

_Tell lie!_--Extend the two first fingers from the mouth (“double
tongue,” a significant gesture).

_Steal!_--Seize an imaginary object with the right hand from under
the left fist. To express horse-stealing they saw with the right
hand down upon the extended fingers of the left, thereby denoting
rope-cutting.

_Trade or exchange!_--Cross the forefingers of both hands before the
breast--“diamond cut diamond.”

This sign also denotes the Americans, and, indeed, any white men, who are generically called by the Indians west of the Rocky Mountains “Shwop,” from our swap or swop, an English Romany word for barter or exchange.

The pronouns are expressed by pointing to the person designated. For “I,” touch the nose-tip, or otherwise indicate self with the index. The second and third persons are similarly made known.

Every animal has its precise sign, and the choice of gesture is sometimes very ingenious. If the symbol be not known, the form may be drawn on the ground, and the strong perceptive faculties of the savage enable him easily to recognize even rough draughts. A cow or a sheep denotes white men, as if they were their totems. The Indian’s high development of locality also enables him to map the features of a country readily and correctly upon the sand. Moreover, almost every grand feature has a highly significant name, Flintwater, for instance, and nothing is easier than to combine the signs.

The _bear_ is expressed by passing the hand before the face to mean ugliness, at the same time grinning and extending the fingers like claws.

The _buffalo_ is known by raising the forefingers crooked inward, in the semblance of horns on both sides of the head.

The _elk_ is signified by simultaneously raising both hands with the fingers extended on both sides of the head to imitate palmated horns.

For the _deer_, extend the thumbs and the two forefingers of each hand on each side of the head.

For the _antelope_, extend the thumbs and forefingers along the sides of the head, to simulate ears and horns.

_Mountain sheep_ are denoted by placing the hands on a level with the ears, the palms facing backward and the fingers slightly reversed, to imitate the ammonite-shaped horns.

For the _beaver_, describe a parenthesis, _e. g._ ( ), with the thumb and index of both hands, and then with the dexter index imitate the wagging of the tail.

The _dog_ is shown by drawing the two forefingers slightly opened horizontally across the breast from right to left. This is a highly, appropriate and traditional gesture: before the introduction of horses, the dog was taught to carry the tent poles, and the motion expressed the lodge trail.

To denote the _mule_ or _ass_, the long ears are imitated by the indices on both sides and above the head.

For the _crow_, and, indeed, any bird, the hands are flapped near the shoulders. If specification be required, the cry is imitated or some peculiarity is introduced. The following will show the ingenuity with which the Indian can convey his meaning under difficulties. A Yuta wishing to explain that the torpedo or gymnotus eel is found in Cotton-wood Kanyon Lake, took to it thus: he made the body by extending his sinister index to the fore, touched it with the dexter index at two points on both sides to show legs, and finally sharply withdrew his right forefinger to convey the idea of an electric shock.

Some of the symbols of relationship are highly appropriate, and not ungraceful or unpicturesque. Man is denoted by a sign which will not admit of description; woman, by passing the hand down both sides of the head as if smoothing or stroking the long hair. A son or daughter is expressed by making with the hand a movement denoting issue from the loins: if the child be small, a bit of the index held between the antagonized thumb and medius is shown. The same sign of issue expresses both parents, with additional explanations: To say, for instance, “_my mother_,” you would first pantomime “_I_,” or, which is the same thing, “_my_;” then “_woman_;” and, finally, the symbol of parentage. “_My grandmother_” would be conveyed in the same way, adding to the end clasped hands, closed eyes, and like an old woman’s bent back. The sign for brother and sister is perhaps the prettiest: the two first finger-tips are put into the mouth, denoting that they fed from the same breast. For the wife--squaw is now becoming a word of reproach among the Indians--the dexter forefinger is passed between the extended thumb and index of the left.

Of course there is a sign for every weapon. The _knife_--scalp or other--is shown by cutting the sinister palm with the dexter ferient downward and toward one’s self: if the cuts be made upward with the palm downward, meat is understood. The _tomahawk_, hatchet, or axe is denoted by chopping the left hand with the right; the _sword_ by the motion of drawing it; the _bow_ by the movement of bending it; and a _spear_ or _lance_ by an imitation of darting it. For the _gun_, the dexter thumb and fingers are flashed or scattered, _i. e._, thrown outward or upward to denote fire. The same movement made lower down expresses a _pistol_. The _arrow_ is expressed by nocking it upon an imaginary bow, and by “snapping” with the index and medius. The _shield_ is shown by pointing with the index over the left shoulder, where it is slung ready to be brought over the breast when required.

The following are the most useful words:

_Yes._--Wave the hands straight forward from the face.

_No._--Wave the hand from right to left, as if motioning away. This
sign also means “I’ll have nothing to do with you.” Done slowly and
insinuatingly, it informs a woman that she is _charmante_--“not to be
touched” being the idea.

_Good._--Wave the hand from the mouth, extending the thumb from the
index and closing the other three fingers. This sign means also “I
know.” “I don’t know” is expressed by waving the right hand with the
palm outward before the right breast, or by moving about the two
forefingers before the breast, meaning “two hearts.”

_Bad._--Scatter the dexter fingers outward, as if spirting away water
from them.

_Now_ (_at once_).--Clap both palms together sharply and repeatedly,
or make the sign of “to-day.”

_Day._--Make a circle with the thumb and forefinger of both, in sign
of the sun. The _hour_ is pointed out by showing the luminary’s place
in the heavens. The _moon_ is expressed by a crescent with the thumb
and forefinger: this also denotes a month. For a _year_ give the sign
of rain or snow.

Many Indians ignore the quadripartite division of the seasons, which seems to be an invention of European latitudes; the Persians, for instance, know it, but the Hindoos do not. They have, however, distinct terms for the month, all of which are pretty and descriptive, appropriate and poetical; _e. g._, the moon of light nights, the moon of leaves, the moon of strawberries, for April, May, and June. The Ojibwa have a queer quaternal division, called Of sap, Of abundance, Of fading, and Of freezing. The Dakotah reckon five moons to winter and five to summer, leaving one to spring and one to autumn; the year is lunar, and as the change of season is denoted by the appearance of sore eyes and of raccoons, any irregularity throws the people out.

_Night._--Make a closing movement as if of the darkness by bringing
together both hands with the dorsa upward and the fingers to the
fore: the motion is from right to left, and at the end the two
indices are alongside and close to each other. This movement must be
accompanied by bending forward with bowed head, otherwise it may be
misunderstood for the freezing over of a lake or river.

_To-day._--Touch the nose with the index tip, and motion with the
fist toward the ground.

_Yesterday._--Make with the left hand the circle which the sun
describes from sunrise to sunset, or invert the direction from sunset
to sunrise with the right hand.

_To-morrow._--Describe the motion of the sun from east to west. Any
number of days may be counted upon the fingers. The latter, I need
hardly say, are the only numerals in the pantomimic vocabulary.

Among the Dakotahs, when they have gone over the fingers and thumbs of both hands, one is temporarily turned down for one ten; at the end of another ten a second finger is turned down, and so on, as among children who are learning to count. “Opawinge,” one hundred, is derived from “pawinga,” to go round in circles, as the fingers have all been gone over again for their respective tens; “kektopawinge” is from “ake” and “opawinge”--“hundred again”--being about to recommence the circle of their fingers already completed in hundreds. For numerals above a thousand there is no method of computing. There is a sign and word for one half of a thing, but none to denote any smaller aliquot part.

_Peace._--Intertwine the fingers of both hands.

_Friendship._--Clasp the left with the right hand.

_Glad_ (_pleased_).--Wave the open hand outward from the breast, to
express “good heart.”

_A Cup._--Imitate its form with both hands, and make the sign of
drinking from it. In this way any utensil can be intelligibly
described--of course, provided that the interlocutor has seen it.

_Paint._--Daub both the cheeks downward with the index.

_Looking-glass._--Place both palms before the face, and admire your
countenance in them.

_Bead._--Point to a bead, or make the sign of a necklace.

_Wire._--Show it, or where it ought to be, in the ear-lobe.

_Whisky._--Make the sign of “bad” and “drink” for “bad water.”

_Blanket or Clothes._--Put them on in pantomime.

_A Lodge._--Place the fingers of both hands ridge-fashion before the
breast.

_Fire._--Blow it, and warm the hands before it. To express the
boiling of a kettle, the sign of fire is made low down, and an
imaginary pot is eaten from.

_It is cold._--Wrap up, shudder, and look disagreeable.

_Rain._--Scatter the fingers downward. The same sign denotes snow.

_Wind._--Stretch the fingers of both hands outward, puffing violently
the while.

_A Storm._--Make the rain sign; then, if thunder and lightning are to
be expressed, move, as if in anger, the body to and fro, to show the
wrath of the elements.

_A Stone._--If light, act as if picking it up; if heavy, as if
dropping it.

_A Hill._--Close the finger-tips over the head: if a mountain is to
be expressed, raise them high. To denote an ascent on rising ground,
pass the right palm over the left hand, half doubling up the latter,
so that it looks like a ridge.

_A Plain._--Wave both the palms outward and low down.

_A River._--Make the sign of drinking, and then wave both the palms
outward. A rivulet, creek, or stream is shown by the drinking sign,
and by holding the index tip between the thumb and medius; an arroyo
(dry water-course), by covering up the tip with the thumb and middle
finger.

_A Lake._--Make the sign of drinking, and form a basin with both
hands. If a large body of water is in question, wave both palms
outward as in denoting a plain. The Prairie savages have never seen
the sea, so it would be vain to attempt explanation.

_A Book._--Place the right palm on the left palm, and then open both
before the face.

_A Letter._--Write with the thumb and dexter index on the sinister
palm.

_A Wagon._--Roll hand over hand, imitating a wheel.

_A Wagon-road._--Make the wagon sign, and then wave the hand along
the ground.

_Grass._--Point to the ground with the index, and then turn the
fingers upward to denote growth. If the grass be long, raise the hand
high; and if yellow, point out that color.

The pantomime, as may be seen, is capable of expressing detailed narratives. For instance, supposing an Indian would tell the following tale--“Early this morning I mounted my horse, rode off at a gallop, traversed a kanyon or ravine, then over a mountain to a plain where there was no water, sighted bison, followed them, killed three of them, skinned them, packed the flesh upon my pony, remounted, and returned home”--he would symbolize it thus:

Touches nose--“_I_.”

Opens out the palms of his hand--“_this morning_.”

Points to east--“_early_.”

Places two dexter forefingers astraddle over sinister
index--“_mounted my horse_.”

Moves both hands upward and rocking-horse fashion toward the
left--“_galloped_.”

Passes the dexter hand right through thumb and forefinger of the
sinister, which are widely extended--“_traversed a kanyon_.”

Closes the finger-tips high over the head, and waves both palms
outward--“_over a mountain to a plain_.”

Scoops up with the hand imaginary water into the mouth, and then
waves the hand from the face to denote “no”--“_where there was no
water_.”

Touches eye--“_sighted_.”

Raises the forefingers crooked inward on both sides of the
head--“_bison_.”

Smites the sinister palm downward with the dexter fist--“_killed_.”

Shows three fingers--“_three of them_.”

Scrapes the left palm with the edge of the right hand--“_skinned
them_.”

Places the dexter on the sinister palm, and then the dexter palm on
the sinister dorsum--“_packed the flesh upon my pony_.”

Straddles the two forefingers on the index of the
left--“_remounted_;” and, finally,

Beckons toward self--“_returned home_.”

To conclude, I can hardly flatter myself that these descriptions have been made quite intelligible to the reader. They may, however, serve to prepare his mind for a _vivâ voce_ lesson upon the prairies, should fate have such thing in store for him.

After this digression I return to my prosaic Diary.