The Native Races (Complete 5 Part Edition). Hubert Howe Bancroft

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СКАЧАТЬ The pipe, the bowl of which is usually of red stone, painted or carved with various figures and adorned with feathers, is solemnly passed from mouth to mouth, each smoker blowing the smoke in certain directions and muttering vows at the same time.

The only tools used before iron and steel were introduced by the whites were of flint, bone, or horn. The flint knife had no regular form, and had a sharp edge about three or four inches long, which was renewed when it became dull. Elk-horn hatchets, or rather wedges, were used to fell trees. They made water-proof baskets of plaited grass, and others of wicker-work covered with hide. The Snakes and some of the Utahs were versed in the art of pottery, and made very good vessels from baked clay. These were not merely open dishes, but often took the form of jars with narrow necks, having stoppers.624

      LAWS AND GOVERNMENT.

Boats, as a rule, the Shoshones have none. They usually cross rivers by fording; otherwise they swim, or pass over on a clumsy and dangerous raft made of branches and rushes.625 By way of compensation they all, except the poorest, have horses, and these constitute their wealth. They have no regular currency, but use for purposes of barter their stock of dried fish, their horses, or whatever skins and furs they may possess. They are very deliberate traders, and a solemn smoke must invariably precede a bargain.626 Although each tribe has an ostensible chief, his power is limited to giving advice, and although his opinion may influence the tribe, yet he cannot compel obedience to his wishes. Every man does as he likes. Private revenge, of course, occasionally overtakes the murderer, or, if the sympathies of the tribe be with the murdered man, he may possibly be publicly executed, but there are no fixed laws for such cases. Chieftainship is hereditary in some tribes; in others it is derived from prestige.627

The Utahs do not hesitate to sell their wives and children into slavery for a few trinkets. Great numbers of these unfortunates are sold to the Navajos for blankets. An act which passed the legislature of Utah in 1852, legalizing slavery, sets forth that from time immemorial, slavery has been a customary traffic among the Indians; that it was a common practice among them to gamble away their wives and children into slavery, to sell them into slavery to other nations, and that slaves thus obtained were most barbarously treated by their masters; that they were packed from place to place on mules; that these unfortunate humans were staked out to grass and roots like cattle, their limbs mutilated and swollen from being bound with thongs; that they were frozen, starved, and killed by their inhuman owners; that families and tribes living at peace would steal each other's wives and children, and sell them as slaves. In view of these abuses it was made lawful for a probate judge, or selectmen, to bind out native captive women and children to suitable white persons for a term not to exceed twenty years.628

Polygamy, though common, is not universal; a wife is generally bought of her parents;629 girls are frequently betrothed in infancy; a husband will prostitute his wife to a stranger for a trifling present, but should she be unfaithful without his consent, her life must pay the forfeit. The women, as usual, suffer very little from the pains of child-bearing. When the time of a Shoshone woman's confinement draws near, she retires to some secluded place, brings forth unassisted, and remains there for about a month, alone, and procuring her subsistence as best she can. When the appointed time has elapsed she is considered purified and allowed to join her friends again. The weaker sex of course do the hardest labor, and receive more blows than kind words for their pains. These people, in common with most nomadic nations, have the barbarous custom of abandoning the old and infirm the moment they find them an incumbrance. Lewis and Clarke state that children are never flogged, as it is thought to break their spirit.630

      GAMBLING AND DRINKING.

The games of hazard played by the Shoshones differ little from those of their neighbors; the principal one appears to be the odd-and-even game so often mentioned; but of late years they have nearly abandoned these, and have taken to 'poker,' which they are said to play with such adroitness as to beat a white man. With the voice they imitate with great exactness the cries of birds and beasts, and their concerts of this description, which generally take place at midnight, are discordant beyond measure. Though they manufacture no intoxicating liquor themselves, they will drink the whisky of the whites whenever opportunity offers. They smoke the kinikkinik leaf when no tobacco can be procured from the traders.631 In connection with their smoking they have many strange observances. When the pipe is passed round at the solemnization of a treaty, or the confirmation of a bargain, each smoker, on receiving it from his neighbor, makes different motions with it; one turns the pipe round before placing the stem to his lips; another describes a semicircle with it; a third smokes with the bowl in the air; a fourth with the bowl on the ground, and so on through the whole company. All this is done with a most grave and serious countenance, which makes it the more ludicrous to the looker-on. The Snakes, before smoking with a stranger, always draw off their moccasins as a mark of respect. Any great feat performed by a warrior, which adds to his reputation and renown, such as scalping an enemy, or successfully stealing his horses, is celebrated by a change of name. Killing a grizzly bear also entitles him to this honor, for it is considered a great feat to slay one of these formidable animals, and only he who has performed it is allowed to wear their highest insignia of glory, the feet or claws of the victim. To bestow his name upon a friend is the highest compliment that one man can offer another.

The Snakes, and some of the Utahs, are skillful riders, and possess good horses. Their horse-furniture is simple. A horse-hair or raw-hide lariat is fastened round the animal's neck; the bight is passed with a single half-hitch round his lower jaw, and the other end is held in the rider's hand; this serves as a bridle. When the horse is turned loose, the lariat is loosened from his jaw and allowed to trail from his neck. The old men and the women have saddles similar to those used for packing by the whites; they are a wooden frame made of two pieces of thin board fitting close to the sides of the horse, and held together by two cross-pieces, in shape like the legs of an isosceles triangle. A piece of hide is placed between this and the horse's back, and a robe is thrown over the seat when it is ridden on. The younger men use no saddle, except a small pad, girthed on with a leather thong. When traveling they greatly overload their horses. All the household goods and provisions are packed upon the poor animal's back, and then the women and children seat themselves upon the pile, sometimes as many as four or five on one horse.632

      DISEASES AND BURIAL.

The poorer Utahs are very subject to various diseases, owing to exposure in winter. They have few, if any, efficient remedies. They dress wounds with pine-gum, after squeezing out the blood. The Snakes are much affected by rheumatism and consumption, caused chiefly by their being almost constantly in the water fishing, and by exposure. Syphilis has, of course, been extensively introduced among all the tribes. A few plants and herbs are used for medicinal purposes, and the medicine-men practice their wonted mummeries, but what particular means of cure they adopt is not stated by the authorities. I find no mention of their having sweat-houses.633

Concerning the disposal of the dead usage differs. In some parts the body is burned, in others it is buried. In either case the property of the deceased is destroyed at his burial. His favorite horse, and, in some instances, his favorite wife, are killed over his grave, that he may not be alone in the spirit land. Laceration in token of grief is universal, and the lamentations of the dead person's relatives are heard for weeks after his death, and are renewed at intervals for many months. Child-like in this, they rush into extremes, and when not actually engaged СКАЧАТЬ