Francis Parkman On Indian Superstitions

University of Northern Iowa
Mmoire sur les Murs, Coustumes et Relligion des Sauvages de l' Amrique Septentrionale by Nicolas Perrot; R. P. J. Tailhan The North American Review, Vol. 103, No. 212 (Jul., 1866), pp. 1-18 Published by: University of Northern Iowa Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25107951 . Accessed: 22/12/2013 05:03
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NORTH
AMERICAN
No. CCXII.
REVIEW.
JULY,
1866.
Art.
sur lesM des M?moire urs, Coustumes et Rellig-ion V Per Par Nicolas de Am?rique Septentrionale. Sauvages rot. Publi? pour la premi?re fois par le R. P. J. Tailhan, 1864. de J?sus. de la Compagnie Leipzig and Paris.
I.?
Indians seems at The religious belief of the North American a first view anomalous and contradictory. It certainly is so, and if we adopt the popular Romance, Poetry, impression. of a Rhetoric point, on the one hand, to the august conception and omnipres one all-ruling deity, a Great Spirit, omniscient are we told to admire the untutored intellect which and ent, On could conceive a thought too vast for Socrates and Plato. and the other hand, we find a chaos of degrading, ridiculous, will show that A closer examination incoherent superstitions. is more apparent than real. We will begin the contradiction trace it with the lowest forms of Indian belief, and thence to which the the unassisted mind highest conceptions upward of the savage attained. To the Indian, the material world is sentient and intelligent. Birds, beasts, and reptiles have ears for human prayers, and are endowed with influence on human destiny. A mysterious and inexplicable power resides in inanimate things. They, too, can listen to the voice of man, and influence his life for evil or are sometimes the for good. rivers, and waterfalls Lakes, are more of but them dwelling-place spirits, frequently they selves
vol.
living beings,
cm. ? no.
to be propitiated
212. 1
by prayers
and offerings.
Indian
Superstitions.
[July,
The lake has a soul, and so have the river and the cataract. Each can hear the words of men, and each can be pleased or In the silence of a forest, the gloom of a deep ravine, offended. a indefinite but redoubtable. resides Through living mystery, or of man, nothing all the works of Nature exists, however trivial, that may not be endued with a secret power seemingly for blessing or for bane. Each species of animal Men and animals are closely akin. its progenitor or king, who is supposed has its great archetype, in shape in size, though to exist, prodigious somewhere A belief prevails, and nature like his subjects. vague, but owe men first pa their themselves that apparent, perfectly as or to tortoises, bears, wolves, beasts, birds, rentage reptiles, cranes ; and the names of the totemic clans, borrowed of this in nearly every case from animals, are the reflection idea* the ani An Indian hunter was always anxious to propitiate mals he sought to kill. He has often been known to address a The bones of bear in a long harangue of apology.f wounded and carefully the beaver were treated with especial tenderness, or his kept from the dogs, lest the spirit of the dead beaver, ex This solicitude offence. should take J surviving brethren, A tended not alone to animals, but also to inanimate tilings. a the occurred remarkable Hurons, among people example their fishing-nets, advanced, who, to propitiate comparatively them and persuade them to do their office with effect, married or
There was a tradition takes a perfectly definite shape. belief occasionally men were created from the carcasses of that tribes and Western Northern among a mythical to be described here personage beasts, birds, and fishes, by Manabozho, tribe of Lake Huron, or People of the Beaver, an Algonquin The Amikouas, after. claimed descent from the carcass of the great original beaver, or father of the bea cataracts on the French River and the Up vers. They believed that the rapids and ancestor. See the tra per Ottawa were caused by dams made by their amphibious et Relligion des Sauvages de sur les M dition in Perrot, M?moire urs, Coustumes tells the same story. Each Indian was p. 20. Charlevoix VAm?rique Septentrionale, of the nature of the animal whence he sprung. supposed to inherit something of a party of the discomposure Tour to the Lakes, p. 284, mentions t McKinney, be offended at would its that Indians when shown a stuffed moose. spirit Thinking the indignity shown to its remains, they surrounded it, making speeches apologetic at it as a propitiatory and blowing tobacco-smoke offering. instances of it occur in old and numerous %This superstition was very prevalent, and recent writers, from Father Le Jeune to Captain Carver. * This
1866.]
Indian
Superstitions.
every year to two young girls of the tribe, with a ceremony far more formal than in the case of merely human wedlock.* The and to this fish, too, no less than the nets, must be propitiated; end they were addressed every evening from the fishing camp by one of the party chosen for that function, who exhorted them to take courage and be caught, assuring them that the utmost The harangue, which respect should be shown to their bones. in solemn form, took place after the evening meal, was made and while it lasted, the whole party, except the speaker, were to lie on tlieir backs, silent and motionless, around required their fire.f to the material world,/ Besides ascribing life and intelligence animate and inanimate, in supernatural the Indian believes as the known and Manitous, among existences, Algonquins as com and Okies. the Hurons These words among Iroquois all forms of supernatural to being, from the highest prehend the lowest, with the exception, of certain diminutive possibly,
fairies sters, or which hobgoblins, appear and under certain various giants forms, and grotesque anomalous and mon horrible,
in their fireside
rocks, mountains,
legends. J
cataracts,
There
and
are local manitous

forests. The
of streams,
of
conception
these
beings
betrays,
In nearly
for the most

every case,
part, a striking
when they reveal
poverty
themselves
of or
imagination.
to mortal
sight,
they bear the semblance
of beasts,
reptiles,
^ There are to this ceremony in the early writers. The Algon frequent allusions in his chapter Lalemant, quins of the Ottawa practised it, as well as the Hurons. "Da Regne de Satan en ces Contr?es" {Relation des Hurons, 1639), says that it took place yearly at the middle of March. As it was indispensable that the brides should be virgins, mere children were chosen. The net was held between them, and its spirit, or Old, was harangued by one of the chiefs, who exhorted him to do his part in furnishing had once appeared the tribe with food. was told that the spirit of the net Lalemant in human form to the Algonquins, that he had lost complaining his wife, and warning them that, unless they could find him another equally immacu late, they would catch no more fish. t Sagard, Le Grand Voyage du Pays des Hurons, p. 257. Other old writers make a similar statement. the absence of a better Clark there is mention These Western fairies As an example of the in Schoolcraft, Algic
tribes have tales of diminutive in XMany beings which, In the Travels of Lewis and word, may be called fairies. of a hill on the Missouri supposed to be haunted by them. correspond with the Puck Wudj Ininee of Ojibvva tradition. monsters alluded to, see the Saginaw story of the Weendigoes, II. 105. Researches,
Indian
Superstitions.
[Jiiy,
or distorted.* There are other mani birds, in shapes unusual some good, some evil, countless tous without local habitation, in number and indefinite in attributes. They fill the world and control the destinies of men, that is to say, of Indians ; for the primitive lives under a Indian holds that the white man own fate. that which his rule from distinct governs spiritual These
animals.
beings,
also, appear
for the most

they
part
assume
in the
human
shape
propor
of
Sometimes,
however,
they take the form of stones, frequently which, being broken, are found full of living blood and flesh. to whom he Each primitive Indian has his guardian manitou, and protection. These looks for counsel, guidance, spiritual At the age of allies are acquired by the following process. fourteen or fifteen, the Indian boy smears his face with black, retires to some solitary place, and remains for days without and the exhaustion of famine food. expectancy Superstitious His is fail their results. haunted of rarely by visions, sleep and the form which first or most often appears is that of his
? guardian manitou, a beast, a bird, a fish, a serpent, or
tions
; but more
some other object, animate or inanimate. An eagle or a bear is the vision of a destined warrior ; a wolf, of a successful the future medicine-man, hunter ; while a serpent foreshadows The young Indian or, according to others, portends disaster.f in his thenceforth wears about his person the object revealed
dream, or some portion of it,?as a bone, a feather, a snake
of the skin, or a tuft of hair. This, in the modern language " forest and prairie, is known as his medicine." The Indian it with offerings of yields to it a sort of worship, propitiates
common ; as, for example, the figure of a large bird is perhaps the most u like a swan, but ten times spirit of Rock Island : He was white, with wings ? of Blackhawk, p. 70. larger." Autobiography 100. A turkey-buzzard, ac t Compare Review, XIII. Cass, in North American The writer once knew an old Dah cording to him, is the vision of a medicine-man. * The
good
cotah chief who was greatly respected, but had never been to war, though belonging to a family of peculiarly warlike The reason was, that, in his initia propensities. of his people tory fast, he had dreamed of an antelope, ?the peace-spirit fast as well as men, ? Women always at the time of transition from childhood to In the Narrative of John Tanner, there is an account of an old woman maturity. who had fasted, in her youth, for ten days, and throughout her life placed the firm est faith in the visions Algonquins, which had Northern the practice, to her at that time. Among appeared down to a recent day, was almost universal. the
1866.]
Indian
Superstitions.
and upbraids it in disaster.* tobacco, thanks it in prosperity, fails to bring him the desired If his medicine success, he will The superstition now sometimes discard it and adopt another. since the Indian the becomes mere fetich-worship, regards as an em he rather him carries about which object mysterious
bodiment than as a representative of a supernatural power.
a very different class of however, recognizes monsters and of legendary the lore, giants beings. other conceptions may be discerned, more or less distinct, and Of these, the most conspicu of a character partially mythical. ous is that remarkable personage of Algonquin tradition, called or the Great Hare. Messou, Michabou, Nanabush, Manabozho, As each species of animal has its archetype or king, so, among is king of all these animal kings. the Algonquins, Manabozho is diverse as to his origin. to the most Tradition According and his mother a current belief, his father was the West Wind His character is worthy of of the Moon. great-granddaughter he is a wolf, a bird, or a gigantic Sometimes such a parentage. he ; sometimes hare, surrounded by a court of quadrupeds Indian belief, Besides in stature and wondrous in appears in human shape, majestic a a of and evil endowment, destroyer serpents mighty magician, manitous ; sometimes he is a vain and treacherous imp, full of childish whims and petty trickery, the butt and victim of men,
beasts, and spirits. His powers of transformation are without
and of the num limit; his curiosity and malice are insatiable; berless legends of which he is the hero, the greater part are as It does not appear that Mana trivial as they are incoherent.! bozho was ever an object of worship ; yet, despite his absurdity, in short, tradition declares him to be chief among the manitous, " the Great Spirit." J It was he who restored the world, sub
=* The writer of affectionate respect upon it as an offering. dreams and otherwise. has seen a Dahcotah warrior open his medicine-bag, talk with an air to the bone, feather, or horn within, and blow tobacco-smoke " " are acquired not only by fasting, but by casual Medicines are even bought and sold. sometimes They
has collected many of these tales. See his Algic Researches, t Mr. Schoolcraft Vol. I. Compare the stories of Messou, (Relations, 1633, 1634), given by Le Jeune and the account of Nanabush, in his notes to Tanner's Narrative by Edwin James, of Captivity and Adventures among the Indians ; during a Thirty Years' Residence also the account of the Great Hare, in theM?moire of Nicolas Perrot, Chaps. I., II. " toutes les Nations Algonquines ont donn? le nom de Grand Li?vre au X Presque ? Premier Esprit, Charlevoix, quelques-uns (Manabozho)." rappellent Michabou 344. Journal Historique,
Indian
Superstitions.
[July,
in company with a cer He was hunting merged by a deluge. tain wolf, who was his brother, or, by other accounts, his grand relative fell through the ice of a son, when this his quadruped frozen lake, and was at once devoured by certain serpents lurk intent on revenge, Manabozho, ing in the depths of the waters. transformed himself into the stump of a tree, and by this artifice surprised and slew the king of the serpents, as he basked with his followers in the noontide sun. The serpents, who were all manitous, caused, in their rage, the waters of the lake to deluge the earth. climbed a tree, which, in answer to his Manabozho as the flood rose around it, and thus saved him entreaties, grew the of the evil spirits. from to the neck, vengeance Submerged he looked abroad on the waste of waters, and at length de scried the bird known as the loon, to whom he appealed for aid the world. in the task of restoring The loon dived in search of a little mud, as material of reconstruction, but could not reach the bottom. A muskrat made the same attempt, but soon Mana reappeared floating on his back, and apparently dead. on his one of in discovered bozho, however, paws, searching them a particle of the desired mud, and of this, together with the body of the loon, he created the world anew.* are various forms of this tradition, in some of which There
Manabozho appears, not as the restorer, but as the creator of
from the carcasses of dead beasts, the world, forming mankind a birds, and fishes, f Other stories represent him as marrying female muskrat, the progenitor of the by whom he became
human * This race. %
pare the story of Messou same.
is a form of the story still current among the remoter Algonquins. Com in Le Jeune, Relation, the 1633, p. 16. It is substantially
in the form of the Great Hare, was f In the beginning of all things, Manabozho, him as their chief. No land on a raft, surrounded by animals who acknowledged to create the world, the beaver the Great Hare persuaded could be seen. Anxious to the surface senseless. to dive for mud, but the adventurous diver floated The now offered himself otter next tried, and failed like his predecessor. The muskrat for the desperate task. He plunged, and, after remaining a day and night beneath the surface, reappeared floating on his back beside the raft, apparently dead, and with all his paws fast closed. On opening them, the other animals found in one of them a grain of sand, and of this the Great Hare created the world. Perrot, M?moire, Chap. I. is always a conspicuous 1633, p. 16. The muskrat X Le Jeune Relation, figure in Algonquin cosmogony. It is said that Messou, or Manabozho, once gave to an Indian the gift of immor
1866.]
Indian
Superstitions.
of supernatural exist for some higher conception Searching a we the find of ence, among portion primitive Algonquins traces of a vague belief in a spirit dimly shadowed forth under to whom it does not appear that any the name of Atahocan, attributes were ascribed or anj worship offered, and of whom There is no the Indians professed to know nothing whatever.* tribes evidence that this belief extended certain of the beyond
Lower St. Lawrence. Others saw a supreme manitou in the
sun. f The Algonquins believed also in a malignant manitou, failed not to recognize the Devil, in whom the early missionaries but who was far less dreaded than his wife. She wore a robe made of the hair of her victims, for she was the cause of death ; and she it is whom, by yelling, drumming, and stamping, they at night, seek to drive away from the sick. she Sometimes, was seen by some terrified squaw in the forest, in shape like a flame of fire ; and when the vision was announced to the circle crouched around the lodge-fire, they burned a fragment of meat to appease the female fiend. The East, the West, the North, as or manitous. spirits personified
personal father of existences. Manabozho. The West There
and the South were vaguely Some of the winds, too, were
Wind, a was as we have seen, was and a Summer-Maker
and the Indians tried to keep the latter at bay Winter-Maker, firebrands into the air. by throwing When we turn from the Algonquin family of tribes to that of the Iroquois, we find another cosmogony and other concep tions of spiritual existence. While the earth was as yet a waste of waters, there was, according to Iroquois and Huron traditions, a heaven with lakes, streams, plains, and forests, inhabited by animals, by spirits, and, as some affirm, by human beings. was once chasing Here a certain female spirit, named Ataentsic, a bear, which, slipping through a hole, fell down to the earth. Ataentsic's jumped dog followed, when she herself, struck with despair, after them. Others declare that she was kicked out of
him never to open it. The Indian's wife, how tality, tied in a bundle, enjoining ever, impelled by curiosity, one day cut the string ; the precious gift flew out, and Indians have ever since been subject to death. Le Jeune, Relation, 1634, p. 13. *Le Jeune, Relation, 1633, p. 16; Relation, 1634, p. 13. This belief was very prevalent. t Biard, Relation, 1611, Chap. IX.
Indian
Superstitions.
[July,
heaven by the spirit, her husband, for an amour with a man ; while others, again, hold the belief that she fell in the attempt to gather for her husband the medicinal leaves of a certain tree. Be this as it may, the animals in the watery waste swimming below saw her fall, and hastily met in council to determine what should be done. to the beaver. The case was referred it to the judgment The beaver commended of the tortoise, who thereupon called on the other animals to dive, bring up mud, and place it on his back. Thus was formed a floating island, on which Ataentsic fell ; and here, being pregnant, she was soon delivered of a daughter, who in turn bore two boys, whose is unexplained. and paternity They were called Taouscaron fell to blows, Jouskeha and presently Jouskeha, killing his brother with the horn of a stag. The back of the tortoise grew into a world full of verdure and life ; and Jouskeha, with his ruled over its destinies.* grandmother Ataentsic, He is beneficent He is the Sun ; she is the Moon. ; but she is malignant, like the female demon of the Algonquins. They have a bark house, made like those of the Iroquois, at the end of the earth, and they often come to feasts and dances at the Indian villages. Jouskeha raises corn for himself, and makes he is seen, thin as harvests for mankind. Sometimes plentiful a skeleton, with a spike of shrivelled corn in his hand, or greed ily gnawing a human limb, and then the Indians know that a grievous famine awaits them. He constantly interposes between and the malice of his wicked grandmother, mankind whom, at
"*The above is the version 1636, p. 86 (Cramoisy, all of the Hurons and donck, Cusick, became mother of the story given by Brebeuf, Relation des Hurons, No two Indians told it precisely alike, though nearly Iroquois agreed as to its essential points. Compare Vander 1637).
to Yanderdonck, and other writers. Ataentsic Sagard, According of a deer, a bear, and a wolf, by whom she afterwards bore all the a tradition other animals, mankind included. Brebeuf found also among the Hurons inconsistent with that of Ataentsic, and bearing a trace of Algonquin It origin. a man, a fox, and a skunk found themselves declares that, in the beginning, together on an island, and skunk. The Delawares, cosmogony, that the man made the world out of mud brought him by the
Iroquois tortoise.
an Algonquin tribe, since they believed
seem to have borrowed somewhat of the that the earth was formed by the back of a
to some, Jouskeha the father of the human race, but, in the became According a deluge destroyed so that it was necessary third generation, his posterity, to trans III. 345. form animals into men. Charlevoix,
1866.]
Indian
Superstitions.
It was he who made lakes and times, he soundly cudgels. streams ; for once the earth was parched and barren, all the water being gathered under the armpit of a colossal frog ; but No prayers Jouskeha pierced the armpit and let out the water. nature were offered to him, his benevolent them rendering
superfluous.*
the creator of the world, call Jouskeha The early writers and speak of him as corresponding with the vague Algonquin Two other forms, however, faintly appear deity, Atahocan. as with equal claims to be regarded in Iroquois mythology, is the other called One Areskoui, supreme Owayneo. spirits. most distinctive feature is that of a deity of war. Areskoui's not it that definite attribute was does any appear this, Beyond Like Jouskeha, both were identified with to either. assigned the sun, and the three may probably be regarded as the same being under different names. another The Iroquois proper, or Five Nations, recognized ? personage, plainly a deified chief or hero. This superhuman or Hiawatha, said to be a divinely appoint was Tarenyowagon, who made his abode on earth for the political ed messenger, of the chosen social instruction in the traditions to is be found part and
cans, and other primitive nations.f
counter race, and whose of the Peruvians, Mexi
makes it evident that the primitive In Close examination dian's idea of a supreme being was a conception no higher than he began to contem The moment might have been expected. and his to of clothe it with attri this faith, sought object plate The creator butes, it became finite, and commonly ridiculous. and degraded stood on the level of a barbarous of the world to look tendency became apparent humanity, while a natural his dominion. to The him In other powers sharing beyond into a system dian belief, if developed, would have developed of polytheism.J
as before cited, and Sagard, Voyage des Hurons, p. 228. Brebeuf, are preserved in the voluminous forms of the tradition of Hiawatha " of Indian Tribes," and Prospects Condition, published by government. History, in the traditions relating to Tarenyowagon. In some of There is great uncertainty identified with Areskoui. and is apparently them he appears as the son of Jouskeha, could discover no trace of belief in a supreme spirit X Some of the early writers Compare t Several *
10
Indian
Superstitions.
[July,
In the primitive Indian's of a God the idea of conception no His deity does not dispense justice moral good has part. for this world or the next, but leaves mankind under the power of subordinate Nor spirits, who fill and control the universe. is the good and evil of these inferior beings a moral good and evil. The good spirit is the spirit that gives good luck and to the necessities ministers and desires of mankind ; the evil a is malicious of disease, death, and mis agent spirit simply
chance.
In no Indian language could the early missionaries find a and Oki meant word to express the idea of God. Manitou powers, from a snake-skin, anything endowed with supernatural
or The a greasy priests Indian were conjurer, forced to to Manabozho and up a circumlocution, use Jouskeha. " ? The
or u The Great Manitou Great Chief of Men," * it should seem that the idea Yet the Sky." arise from the naturally spirit might controlling acter of Indian belief. The idea that each race or chief, would easily suggest the its archetype
supreme chief of the spirits or of the human
who lives in of a supreme peculiar char of animals has existence of a

race, ? a con
ception imperfectly seized missionaries

has its king," they
The Jesuit shadowed forth in Manabozho. " If each this advantage. sort of animal
" urged, so, too, have men ; and as man is
above all the animals, so is the spirit that rules over men the The Indian mind readily ac master of all the other spirits." sense Christian quickly rose no and in the tribes idea, cepted a one The Great Spirit be the belief in to controlling spirit. a pervading came a distinct existence, power in the universe, now pray to him, tribes and a dispenser of justice. Many their ancient to still ; superstitions though clinging obstinately and, with some, as the heathen portion of the modern Iroquois, he is clothed with attributes of moral good.f
the Indians, of any kind. after a life spent among Perrot, ignores such an idea. Allouez denies that it existed. 1667, p. 11. Relation, emphatically * See Divers to the Relation of 1635, ? 27 ; and also many Sentimens, appended other passages of early missionaries. t In studying the writers of the last and of the present century, it is to be remem were made upon savages who had been for generations bered that their observations or otherwise, with in contact, the doctrines of Christianity. immediate Many ob servers have interpreted the religious ideas of the Indians after preconceived ideas
1866.]
Indian
Superstitions.
11
The primitive Indian believed in the immortality of the soul,* but he did not always believe in a state of future reward and Nor, when such a belief existed, was the good to punishment. be rewarded a moral good, or the evil to be punished a moral Skilful hunters, brave warriors, men of influence and evil. ; went, after death, to the happy hunting-ground consideration, while the slothful, the cowardly, and the weak were doomed to eat serpents and ashes in dreary abodes of mist and darkness. In the general there was but one land of belief, however, The spirits, in form and feature as they shades for all alike. their way through dark forests to had been in life, wended on bark and rotten wood. the villages of the dead, subsisting On arriving, they sat all day in the crouching posture of the the shades of animals, sick, and, when night came, hunted the shades of bows and arrows, among the shades of with trees and rocks ; for all things, animate and inanimate, were alike immortal, and all passed together to the gloomy country of the dead. The belief respecting the land of souls varied greatly in dif individuals. the Hurons ferent tribes and different Among their there were those who held (that departed spirits pursued the the while the souls sky, along Milky Way, journey through
of their own ; and it may safely be affirmed that an Indian will respond with a grunt to any question whatever and of acquiescence touching his spiritual state. Loskiel write from a missionary the simple-minded Heckewelder point of view ; Adair, to support a theory of descent from the Jews ; the worthy theologian, Jarvis, to main of revela tain his dogma that all religious ideas of the heathen world are perversions tion ; and so, in a greater or less degree, of many others. By far the most close observers of Indian superstition were the French and Italian Jesuits of were unrivalled Their opportunities the first half of the seventeenth ; and century. facts, and leaving theory they used them in a spirit of faithful inquiry, accumulating to their successors. atten Of recent American writers, no one has given so much and his zeal, tion to the subject as Mr. Schoolcraft ; but, in view of his opportunities " his results are most unsatisfactory. The work in six large quarto volumes, His and Prospects of Indian Tribes," under tory, Condition, published by government his editorship, includes the substance of most of his previous writings. It is a sin stuffed with blunders and self-contradictions, gularly crude and illiterate production, or philo evidence on every page of a striking unfitness either for historical giving sophical inquiry, and taxing to the utmost the patience of those who would extract is valuable what in it from its oceans of pedantic verbiage. * The are rare. Father Gravier In exceptions says that a Peoria exceedingly dian once told him that there was no future life. It would be difficult to find anoth er instance of the kind. and accurate
12
Indian
Superstitions.
[July,
known as of dogs took another route, by certain constellations, * " the Way of the Dogs." the Neuters, At intervals of ten or twelve years, the Hurons, to collect the bones and other kindred tribes, were accustomed in a com of their dead, and deposit them with great ceremony mon place of burial. The whole nation was sometimes gath ered at this solemnity ; and hundreds of corpses, brought from were inhumed in one capacious their temporary resting-places, this hour the of their souls began. From pit. immortality as some in the took affirmed, They wing, shape of pigeons ; on foot while the greater number declared that they journeyed and in their own likeness to the land of shades, bearing with them the ghosts of the wampum-belts, beaver-skins, bows, arrows, pipes, kettles, beads, and rings buried with them in the common grave.% But as the spirits of the old and of children are too feeble for the march, they are forced to stay behind, near their where the living often villages, lingering earthly hear the clapping of their invisible cabin doors, and the weak voices of the disembodied children driving birds from their corn-fields. J An endless variety of incoherent fancies is con nected with the Indian idea of a future life. They commonly owe their origin to dreams, often to the dreams of those in extreme that they had sickness, who, on awaking, supposed visited the other world, and related to the wondering by-stand ers what they had seen. The Indian land of souls is not always a region of shadows The Hurons and gloom. sometimes the souls of represented as dancing those of their dogs included ? their dead ? joy of Ataentsic and Jouskeha. ously in the presence According to some Algonquin traditions, heaven was a scene of endless the ghosts dancing to the sound of the rattle and the festivity, and with hospitable the occasional welcome drum, greeting
p. 233. Sagard, Voyage des Hurons, to the North treasures with the dead is not peculiar t The practice of burying the London Times of October 28, 1865, describing the American Thus, aborigines. ' " to dust, ashes Dust funeral rites of Lord Palmerston, says : And as the words, as a last precious to the the chief mourner, to ashes/ were pronounced, offering dead, threw into the grave several diamond and gold rings." des Hurons, 1637). X Brebeuf, Relation 1636, p. 97 (Cramoisy, *
1866.] visitor from the far off, and roving

wares.
Indian
Superstitions. the
13 spirit-land was not its confines una
living world ; for hunters sometimes
passed
Most of the traditions that the spirits on agree, however, their journey heavenward were beset with difficulties and per ils. There was a swift river which must be crossed on a log that shook beneath their feet, while a ferocious dog opposed their passage and drove many into the abyss. This river was full of sturgeons and other fish, which the ghosts speared for their subsistence. Beyond was a narrow path between moving to atoms rocks, which each instant crashed together, grinding the less nimble of the pilgrims who essayed to pass. The that a personage Hurons believed or the named Oscotarach, dwelt in a bark house beside the path, and that Head-Piercer, it was his office to remove the brain from the heads of those who passed, as a necessary preparation for immortality. This some is found in idea also singular traditions, Algonquin to which, however, the brain is afterwards restored according
to its owner.*
to the Indian a universal Dreams were oracle. They re vealed to him his guardian spirit, taught him the cure of his diseases, warned him of the devices of sorcerers, guided him to the lurking-places of his enemy or the haunts of game, and the secrets of good and evil destiny. unfolded The dream was a mysterious and inexorable least behests must power, whose a source in every Indian town of be obeyed to the letter, ? and abomination. were endless mischief There professed and professed dreamers of dreams. One of the interpreters most noted festivals among the Hurons and Iroquois was the
Dream Feast, a scene of frenzy, where the actors counterfeited
madness
and the town was like a bedlam turned loose. Each to have dreamed of to his wel necessary pretended something and rushed from house to house of all met he fare, demanding to guess his secret requirement and satisfy it.
that the whole material world was instinct with Believing influence and to his control powers fate, that good and evil
* On Indian ideas of another with and Lafitau Charlevoix, Indian Beport. Morse's life, compare Sagard, the Jesuit Relations, Perrot, and the Appendix to James, Schoolcraft,
Tanner,
14
Indian
Superstitions.
[July,
spirits and existences nameless and indefinable filled all nature, that a pervading sorcery was above, below, and around him, be controlled and that issues of life and death might by in and seemingly struments the most unnoticeable the most feeble, fear. The turning of a leaf, the the Indian lived in perpetual an a the of of cry insect, bird, the creaking of a bough, crawling or woe. be the of his weal mystic signal might An men,
same
Indian community and diviners, whose

person. The sorcerer,
swarmed functions
by
with were
sorcerers, medicine often united in the

magic songs, magic
charms,
had power over the of his drum, beating in animals inherent influences those occult and spirits He could call to him the souls of his ene inanimate things. He mies. They appeared before him in the form of stones. his blood and with and flesh bruised them hatchet; chopped lan issued forth ; and the intended victim, however distant, sorcerer of the Middle died. Like the he and Ages, guished to destroy, made images of those he wished and, muttering them with an awl, whereupon the per incantations, punctured sons represented sickened and pined away. than on natural The Indian doctor relied far more on magic feasts, and and the feasts remedies. Dreams, beating of the drum, songs, magic to frighten the female demon from and dances, and howling The prophet or his patient, were his ordinary means of cure. of reading the secrets of futurity, diviner had various means of water and such as the flight of birds and the movements of divination very general There was a peculiar practice fire. it still in the Algonquin family of tribes, with some of whom A small, conical lodge was made subsists. by planting poles in a circle, lashing the tops together at a height of about seven feet from the earth, and closely covering them with hides. The after him. in, and closed the aperture prophet now crawled summon to He then beat his drum and sang his magic songs the spirits, whose weak, shrill voices were soon heard, mingled with his lugubrious chanting ; while at intervals the juggler to the attentive to their communications interpret paused the whole scene crowd seated on the ground without. During the lodge swayed to and fro with a violence which has aston ished many a civilized beholder, and which some of the Jesuits
1866.] explain
tion.*
Indian by the ready
Superstitions. of a genuine
15 diabolic interven
solution
and diviners did not usually sorcerers, medicine-men, for function Each man sacrificed the of discharge priests. his whether to propitiate, himself to the powers he wished guardian spirit, the spirits of animals, or the other beings of his belief. The most common sacrifice was tobacco, thrown into the fire or water ; scraps of meat were sometimes offered ; and on a few rare occasions of public solemnity, a white dog, the mystic animal of many tribes, was tied to the end of an upright pole, as a sacrifice to some superior spirit, or to the The
sun, with which the superior spirits wrere constantly con
In recent Indian. founded times, when by primitive have modified his religious and Christianity Judaism ideas, to the Great Spirit. On dogs were, and still are, sacrificed the sacrificial function is discharged these public occasions by chiefs, or by warriors appointed for the purpose.f and Iroquois, and, indeed, all the station the Hurons Among was an ceremo there incredible number of mystic ary tribes, the and often disgusting, for nies, extravagant, designed puerile, the cure of the sick or for the general welfare and prosperity seem originally Most of their observances of the community.
to have been from variety dictated by heritage endless generation of dances, and dreams, to generation. masqueradings, transmitted They as consisted and a sacred in an
nondescript
orgies ; and a scrupulous adherence was held to be of the last moment,

* This practice the New World." was From
to all the traditional forms as the slightest failure in
" first observed by Champlain. in Pioneers of France See his time to the present day, numerous writers have re marked upon it. Le Jeune, in the Relation of 1637, treats it at some length. The instead of a conical form. lodge was sometimes of a cylindrical, to the guardian t Many of the Indian feasts were feasts of sacrifice, sometimes to an animal of which he has dreamed, to a sometimes spirit of the host, sometimes local or other spirit. The food was first offered in a loud voice to the being to be after which to devour it for him. the guests proceeded This unique propitiated, method of sacrifice was^ practised at war-feasts and similar solemnities. For an excellent account of Indian religious feasts, see Perrot, Chap. V. One of the most remarkable of Indian sacrifices was that practised by the Hurons in the case of a person drowned or frozen to death. The flesh of the deceased was cut off and thrown into a fire made for the purpose, as an offering of propitiation to the spirits of the air or water. remained of the body was then buried near What the fire. Brebeuf, Relation des Hurons, 1636, p. 108.
16
Indian
Superstitions.
[July,
this respect might If children were entail serious calamities. seen in their play imitating these any of they were mysteries, rebuked and secret In tribes many grimly magical punished. are in societies existed, and still exist, into which members itiated with peculiar mystic associations These ceremonies. are greatly respected and feared. They have charms for love, and a great and often a very and hold war, private revenge, and the influence. The societies of the Metai are the Northern among Wabeno, Algonquins, conspicuous ; while other societies of similar character have, for examples a century, been known to exist among the Dahcotah.* A notice of the superstitious ideas of the Indians would be a without to the traditionary tales by which reference imperfect these ideas are handed down from father to son. Some of these tales can be traced back to the period of the earliest intercourse with Europeans. One at least of those recorded on the Lower St. Lawrence, is still by the first missionaries, current among the tribes of the Upper Lakes. Many of them are curious combinations of beliefs seriously entertained with strokes intended for humor and drollery, which never fail to awaken peals of laughter in the lodge-circle. Giants, dwarfs, mischievous
cannibals, spirits, beasts, birds, and anomalous monsters, trans
tricks, and sorcery, form the staple of the story. formations, Some of the Iroquois tales embody conceptions which, however are of a bold and striking character ; but those of preposterous, are to an incredible the Algonquins degree flimsy, silly, and are nor those of the Dahcotah tribes much better. ; meaningless In respect to this wigwam lore there is a curious superstition of very wide prevalence. The tales must not be told in sum since at that season, when all Nature is full of life, the mer, are what is said of awake, and, hearing them, may take spirits in winter they are fast sealed up in snow and offence ; whereas no and ice, longer capable of listening.!
* The Friendly seen and described its rites. t The of the Spirit, the initiatory of which Society to this day (Travels, 271), preserves by Carver ceremonies were its existence and
Canada
of this fancy among the Algonquins in the remote parts of prevalence is well established. The writer found it also among the extreme Western He tried, in the month of July, to persuade an old chief, bands of the Dahcotah. a noted story-teller, to tell him some of the tales ; but, though abundantly loqua
1866.] It
Indian
Superstitions.
17
is obvious that the Indian mind has never seriously occu with any of the higher themes of thought. The itself pied of the forces of beings of its belief are not impersonations
Nature, the courses of human destiny, or the movements of
In the midst human of Nature, intellect, will, and passion. the Indian knew nothing of her laws. His perpetual reference to occult agencies forestalled of her phenomena inquiry, and If the inductive wind blew with vio reasoning. precluded was it because the water-lizard makes the wind which lence, had crawled out of his pool ; if the lightning was sharp and it was because the young of the thunder-bird were frequent, in their nest ; if a blight fell upon the corn, it was restless the Corn Spirit was angry ; and if the beavers were because to catch, it was because they had taken offence and difficult shy at seeing the bones of one of their race thrown to a dog. in a few instances, ? we al and even highly developed, Well ? with respect to certain points lude especially to the, Iroquois, the mind of the Indian of material in other concernment, The very respects was and is almost hopelessly stagnant. traits that raise him above the servile races are hostile to the kind and degree of civilization those races so easily which His attain. intractable and the pride spirit of independence, which forbids him to be an imitator, reinforce but too well that savage lethargy of mind from which it is so hard to rouse him. to those labor No race, perhaps, ever offered greater difficulties its for ing improvement.
in respect to his own adventures, and even his dreams, the Indian obstinately refused, saying that winter was the time for the tales, and that it was bad to tell them in summer. has published a collection of Algonquin Mr. Schoolcraft tales, under the title of " Most of them were translated by his wife, an educated Algic Researches." Ojib wa half-breed. The book is perhaps the best of Mr. Schoolcraft's works, though its value is much impaired by the want of a literal rendering, and the introduction of decorations which savor more of a popular monthly magazine than of an Indian Mrs. Eastman's of the Sioux" is not wigwam. interesting "Legends (Dahcotah) free from the same defect. Other tales are scattered throughout the works of Mr cious Lafitau and various modern writers. Schoolcraft A few are to be found in the works of and the other Jesuits. But few of the Iroquois legends have been printed, number have been written down. The singular" of though a considerable History the Five Nations," the substance of by the old Tuscarora Indian, Cusick, gives some of them. vol. cm. ?no. 212. 2
18
The Mahabharata.
[July,
To sum up the results of this examination, the primitive as in his life. He was Indian was as savage in his religion and that next degree of relig divided between fetich-worship in the worship which of deities consists ious development in the human'form. of their attri His conception embodied His gods were butes was such as might have been expected. no whit better than himself. Even when he borrows from the idea of a supreme and universal Christianity spirit, his a bodily a to is and reduce him to habitation local tendency only in tribes that have shape ; and this tendency disappears The primitive been long in contact with civilized white men. one his untutored to Indian, yielding homage all-pervading and and omnipotent spirit, is a dream of poets, rhetoricians, sentimentalists.
1. Indian Epic Poetry, IL? Art. being the Substance of Lec at Oxford. tures recently given Monier Williams. By 1863. London. des Indiens. Par F. G. Eichhoff. Paris. 2. Po?sie H?ro?que 1860. du Mahabharata. 3. Onze ?pisodes Traduits par Ed. Fou caux. 1862. Paris. Par H. Fauche. 4. Traduction compl?te du Mahabharata. 1863. Vol. I. Paris. zu Indra?s Himmel. ? Diluvium cum Reise 5. Ardschuna's ? Nala III. aliis Maha-Bharati und Episodis. Damayanti. von Franz Bopp. Berlin. Uebersetzt 1824, 1829, 1838. It was in 1785 that the English Orientalist, Wilkins, gave to in the world the first Sanscrit publication ; and printed Europe this was the original text, with a translation, of the Bhagavad Gita, one of the episodes of the colossal Hindoo epopee, the At immeasurable Mahabharata. that time neither Wilkins nor any one else could ever dream of translating, or even de the whole of the vast composition ; and although as ciphering, as men 1806 to exam like Wilhelm undertook early Schlegel

Francis Parkman On Indian Superstitions

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University of Northern Iowa

are local manitous

for the most

they bear the semblance

for the most

pare the story of Messou same.

an Algonquin tribe, since they believed

counter race, and whose of the Peruvians, Mexi

who lives in of a supreme peculiar char of animals has existence of a

ception imperfectly seized missionaries

1866.] visitor from the far off, and roving

13 spirit-land was not its confines una

living world ; for hunters sometimes

Indian community and diviners, whose

sorcerers, medicine often united in the

Indian by the ready

orgies ; and a scrupulous adherence was held to be of the last moment,

to all the traditional forms as the slightest failure in

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