Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet. Фредерик Марриет

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ much resemble the common squaws, being short and broad in figure. This arises from the Comanches secluding the women, and not permitting them air and exercise.)

      Though women participate not in the deeper mysteries of religion, some of them are permitted to consecrate themselves to this divinity, and to make vows of chastity, as the vestals of Paganism or the nuns of the Catholic convents. But there is no seclusion. They dress as men, covered with leather from head to foot, a painting of the sun on their breasts. These women are warriors, but never go out with the parties, remaining always behind to protect the villages. They also live alone, are dreaded, but not loved. The Indian hates anything or any body that usurps power, or oversteps those bounds which appear to him as natural and proper, or who does not fulfil what he considers as their intended destiny.

      The fine evenings of summer are devoted, by the young Indian, to courtship. When he has made his choice, he communicates it to his parents, who take the business into their bands. Presents are carried to the door of the fair one’s lodge; if they are not accepted, there is an end to the matter, and the swain must look somewhere else; if they are taken in, other presents are returned, as a token of agreement. These generally consist of objects of women’s workmanship, such as garters, belts, mocassins, etcetera; then follows a meeting of the parents, which terminates by a speech from the girl’s father, who mentions his daughter as the “dove,” or “lily,” or “whisper of the breeze,” or any other pretty Indian name which may appertain to her. She has been a good daughter, she will be a dutiful wife; her blood is that of a warrior’s; she will bear noble children to her husband, and sing to them his great deeds, etcetera, etcetera. The marriage-day arrives at last; a meal of roots and fruits is prepared; all are present except the bridegroom, whose arms, saddles, and property are placed behind the fair one. The door of the lodge is open, its threshold lined with flowers; at sunset the young man presents himself; with great gravity of deportment. As soon as he has taken a seat near the girl, the guests beg in eating but in silence; but soon a signal is given by the mothers, each guest rises, preparatory to retiring. At that moment, the two lovers cross their hands, and the husband speaks for the first time, interrogatively:—“Faithful to the lodge, faithful to the father, faithful to his children?” She answers softly “Faithful, ever faithful, in joy and in sorrow, in life and in death”—“Penir, penir-asha, sartir nú cohta, lebeck nú tanim.” It is the last formula—the ceremony is accomplished. This may seem very simple and ridiculous; to me it appeared almost sublime. Opinions depend upon habits and education.

      The husband remains a whole year with his father-in-law, to whom belongs by right the produce of his hunting, both skins and flesh. The year expired, his bondage is over, and he may, if he wishes it, retire with his wife to his own father’s, or construct a lodge for his own use. The hunter brings his game to his door, except when a heavy animal; there ends his task; the wife skins and cuts it, she dries the skin and cures the meat. Yet if the husband is a prime hunter, whose time is precious, the woman herself, or her female relations, go out and seek the game where it has been killed. When a man dies, his widow wears mourning during two or four years; the same case happens with the male widower, only his duties are not so strict as that of a woman; and it often happens that, after two years, he marries his sister-in-law, if there is any. The Indians think it a natural thing; they say that a woman will have more care of her sister’s children than of those of a stranger. Among the better classes of Indians, children are often affianced to each other, even at the age of a few months. These engagements are sacred, and never broken.

      The Indians in general have very severe laws against murder, and they are pretty much alike among the tribes; they are divided into two distinct sections—murder committed in the nation and out of the nation.

      When a man commits a murder upon his own people, he runs away from his tribe, or delivers himself to justice. In this latter case, the nearest relation of the victim kills him openly, in presence of all the warriors. In the first case, he is not pursued, but his nearest relation is answerable for the deed, and suffers the penalty, if by a given time he has not produced the assassin. The death is instantaneous, from the blow of a tomahawk. Often the chief will endeavour to make the parties smoke the pipe of peace; if he succeeds, all ends here; if not, a victim must be sacrificed. It is a stern law, which sometimes brings with its execution many great calamities. Vengeance has often become hereditary, from generation to generation; murders have succeeded murders, till me of the two families has deserted the tribe.

      It is, no doubt, owing to such circumstances that great families, or communities of savages bearing the same type and speaking the same tongue, have been subdivided into so many distinct tribes. Thus it has been with the Shoshones, whose emigrant families have formed the Comanches, the Apaches, and the Arrapahoes. The Tonquewas have since sprung from the Comanches, the Lepans and the Texas from the Apaches, and the Navahoes from the Arrapahoes. The Texas are now extinct. Formerly there was a considerable tribe of Indians, by the name of Texas, who have all disappeared, from continual warfare. Among the Nadowessies or Dahcotahs, the subdivision has been still greater, the same original tribe having given birth to the Konsas, the Mandans, the Tetons, the Yangtongs, Sassitongs, Ollah-Gallahs, the Siones, the Wallah Wallahs, the Cayuses, the Black-feet, and lastly the Winnebagoes.

      The Algonquin species, or family, produced twenty-one different tribes; the Micmacs, Etchemins, Abenakis, Sokokis, Pawtucket, Pokanokets, Narragansets, Pequods, Mohegans, Lenilenapes, Nanticokes, Powatans, Shawnees, Miamis, Illinois, Chippewas, Ottawas, Menomonies, Sacs, Foxes, and the Kickapoos, which afterwards subdivided again into more than a hundred nations.

      But, to return to the laws of murder:—It often happens that the nephew, or brother of the murderer, will offer his life in expiation. Very often these self-sacrifices are accepted, principally among the poorer families, but the devoted is not put to death, he only loses his relationship and connection with his former family; he becomes a kind of slave or bondsman for life in the lodges of the relations of the murdered.

      Sometimes, too, the guilty man’s life is saved by a singular and very ancient law; it, however, happens but rarely. If the murdered leaves a widow with children, this widow may claim the criminal as her own, and he becomes her husband nominally, that is to say, he must hunt and provide for the subsistence of the family.

      When the murderer belongs to a hostile tribe, war is immediately declared; if, on the contrary, he belongs to a friendly nation, the tribe will wait three or four months till the chiefs of that nation come to offer excuses and compensation. When they do this, they bring presents, which they leave at time door of the council lodge, one side of which is occupied by the relations of the victims, the other by the chiefs and warriors of the tribe, and the centre by the ambassadors. One of these opens the ceremony by pronouncing a speech of peace, while another offers the pipe to the relations. If they refuse it, and the great chief of the tribe entertains a particular regard for the other nation, he rises and offers himself to the relations the calumet of conciliation. If refused still, all the children and babes of the murdered one’s family are called into the lodge, and the pipe passed a third time in that part of the lodge. Then if a child even two or three months old touches it, the Indians consider the act as a decision of the great Master of Life, the pipe goes round, the presents are carried in, and put at the feet of the plaintiffs. When, on the contrary, the calumet passes untouched, the murderer’s life alone can satisfy the tribe.

      When the chiefs of the tribe of the murderer leave their village to come and offer excuses, they bring with them the claimed victim, who is well armed. If he is held in high estimation, and has been a good warrior and a good man, the chiefs of his tribe are accompanied by a great number of their own warriors, who paint their faces before entering the council lodge; some in black with green spots, some all green (the pipe of peace is always painted green).

      The relations of the murdered man stand on one side of the lodge, the warriors of the other tribe opposite to them. In the centre is the chief, who is attended by the bearer of the pipe of peace on one side of him, and the murderer on the other. The chief then makes a speech, and advances with the pipe-bearer and СКАЧАТЬ