Chroniclers of Indian Life 0809497336, 9780809497331

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FROM CAPTIVITY TO KINSHIP 35

^1

in

ffifii*' s*i«i

Beads ofinlaid shell, or wampum, adorn this 17th-century

war club, said have belonged

to

I

Again, this as

II

III

I

i i

>j^';j^)

saw

Rowlandson

God's work, thus over-

looking the strictures that pre-

to the

Wampanoag chief Metacomet, known to the English as

King Philip. The war club was reportedly purchased by a colonist from an allied Indian who killed the chief in 1676, bringing to an end King Philip's War.

among

vailed

from

shielded

her

though

was not unheard

it

and

the Indians

abuse.

Al-

of for

warriors to rape captives, most tribes all,

spurned the practice. Over-

white

women

taken prisoner by

Indians stood far less risk of being raped

than did Indian

women

Nevertheless, the

mere

seized by whites.

threat of sexual abuse stirred

up angry passions and transformed some

women into

fuel for

Rowlandson, tribe

it

later captivity stories

murderous vendettas directed against

Indians.

turned out, had more trouble with the

women

than with the men, for the chief responsible

Philip,

dame she

in dressing herself near as

of the

for her, a relative of King

had three wives, one of whom took a powerful

vere and proud

by white

dislike to her. "A se-

was," Rowlandson wrote, "bestowing every day

much time as any gentry of the land; powdering

her hair, and painting her face, going with her necklaces, with jewels in her ears,

and bracelets upon her hands." As a devout Puritan, Rowlandson

approved of such gentry were class that

vanity, but

much

ence by fashioning taries,

she was honest enough to admit that white

the same. Indeed, the region's tribes

was not unlike

dis-

the English one.

had a privileged

Rowlandson profited by its

articles of clothing for Philip

and other

exist-

tribal digni-

who paid for her services. Although she referred to her time among

the Indians as a journey into the "howling wilderness," she never lost

own virtues and foibles. touched by the memory of the favors

touch with society— albeit an Indian one, with At times, Rowlandson

was so

its

Indians performed for her that she laid aside her sermonizing and wrote

with plain gratitude. In particular, she recalled one couple peatedly:

me

"If

I

went

to their

wigwam

at

any

time, they

something, and yet they were strangers that

I

who

fed her re-

would always give

never saw before." An-

I

n D

1

A n

LITE Birch bark and elm bark cover this reconstruction of an Algonquian lodge. Indian bands on the move during King Philip's War and other unsettled times quickly disassembled such bark-covered wigwams and carried the materials to their next campsite.

woman offered her a and lent me her frying pan

other Indian

"piece of fresh pork,

with

to fry

it,

what a sweet, pleasant and So

little

do we prize

Those captives

white society

and

I

little salt

cannot but remember

delightful relish that bit

had

to

me,

to this day.

common mercies, when we have them to the full." who stayed longer among Indians than Rowlandson

and were formally adopted preciative of their

it;

and a

into native families

common

when

became

all

the

more ap-

mercies and sometimes refused to return to

they had the opportunity Such

was

the case with

young Eunice Williams, who was captured during an attack in 1704 on the English settlement of Deerfield, Massachusetts, by Abenaki and Caughnawaga warriors allied to the French. Some of her relatives died in the assault,

and other family members were seized along with her—

who was ransomed after weeks in captivity and spent years trying to obtain her release from the Caughnawaga. By the time he finally succeeded in arranging for an including her father. Reverend John Williams,

eight

English intermediary to

Montreal

in 1713,

visit

Eunice at the Caughnawaga settlement near

she was 16 years old and married to a

member

of the

FROM CAPTIVITY TO KIMSHIP 37

tribe.

She had forgotten English and had

to

be addressed through an

in-

When the intermediary urged her to return to her white relatives in New England, she made it clear to him that she had found her family here among the Indians and would never abandon them. terpreter.

That a captive would choose not to be redeemed shocked pious colonists like John Williams,

who assumed

that those

who

Indians did were beyond God's grace. Even groups like the

who accepted Catholicism were much as Indians who had been were regarded as heathens by to

Caughnawaga and Abenaki Indians allied with the French bum the English settlement ofDeerfleld, Massachusetts, in this early engraving of an attack in 1 704 that saw many of the town's inhabitants taken prisoner. One adopted captive, Eunice Williams, grew so close to the Caughnawagas that she refused to return home when offered the chance.

lived as the

Caughnawaga

considered lost souls by Protestants, influenced by Protestant missionaries

Catholics.

It

remained

to later witnesses

demonstrate that Indians could be profoundly religious without benefit

much from Tecaughretanego, the Caughnawaga chief and medicine man who rejected the observances

of Christian clergy. James Smith learned as

of French priests in favor of the rituals of his ancestors. But even stronger

testimony came from whites

who were

of the Great Lakes region and

felt

the

taken in by the devout Ojibwa

power of their

In the

summer

convictions.

of 1762, an adventurous

young Anglo-American

trader by the

name of

Alexander Henry received an extraordinary offer

had

from an Ojibwa named Wawatam. Henry

just

begun dealing with Indians

for furs at

Fort Michilimackinac, situated at the juncture

of Lakes Huron and Michigan and occupied

by English troops

at the close of the

French

and Indian War Although the Ojibwa had

seemed Henry— and none more so

sided with the opposing French, they friendly

enough

to

than Wawatam, a thoughtful forties,

man

in his

or nearly tv/ice Henry's age.

One

day, the trader wrote,

Wawatam

peared at Henry's post with a generous furs

mid-

ap-

gift

of

and food and commenced a long speech.

"He informed

me

had observed a ing to the

and

hope

fast,

some years

before,

he

devoting himself, accord-

custom of

his nation, to solitude

to the mortification of his body, in the

to obtain

tion through sion,

that

all

from the Great his days; that

Spirit protec-

on

this

occa-

he had dreamed of adopting an English-

CHRONICLERS OF IHDIAn LIFE

man and

as his son, brother, friend;

moment

in

that

from the

which he

first

beheld me, he had recognized

me

whom

the Great Spirit

as

person

the

had

been pleased to point out

to

he hoped that

him

for a brother; that

that

he should forever regard

Wawatam's for Henry.

me

I

would not refuse

vision from the Great Spirit turned out to be a

was brewing

Fresh conflict

ac's

Sauk

visiting

Indians,

campaign against the

in the region,

who had

game of lacrosse

their sticks for

Henry hid out there,

in the

fort

placidly,

in

mid-

by storm. Although

home

of a French trader

to being executed along with

many of the cap-

He was spared only because Wawatam made an appeal to an Ojibtured British soldiers.

goods

to

buy

Chief

Menehwehna,

off claims

might have on Henry's

my that

that

brother,"

Wawatam

offering

any other warriors

life. "I

adopted him as

said of Henry.

"From

moment, he became one of my family, so no change of circumstances could break

the cord which fastened us together."

Menehwehna honored Wawatam's

ap-

peal and placed Henry under his care. In the

months ahead,

the trader

became an

integral

part of his guardian's family Partly to protect

A portrait of an

Ojibwas and

them

men

in Ponti-

of the two tribes

to celebrate the king's birthday, then

he was soon discovered and came close

wa kinsman.

local

English, staged a surprise attack at Michili-

concealed weapons

contest and took the

godsend

and he would soon

quietly enlisted with

mackinac. As the troops there looked on played a

and

as one of his family."

have desperate need of a guardian. The following June,

some

his present;

Ojibwa man reveals face paint

and scalp lock stylings of the sort common when fur trader Alexander Henry was taken by Ojibwas of the Great Lakes region in and adorned as a member of the tribe.

1

in

763

exchanged

FROM CAPTIVITY TO

K

M S H

I

I

P

39

Beads, feathers, and shell breastplates

ornament

this

early- 1 9th-centmy shirt that

was worn by a tribesman of the Great Lakes area.

Henry from warriors kin

lost

to

English and

the

might seek his

who had

life

in return,

he

was dressed as a member of the "My hair was cut off, and my head shaved, with the exception of a spot on the crown," he wrote. "My face was painted with three or four different colors; some parts of it red, and others black. A shirt was provided tribe.

for

me, painted with vermilion, mixed with grease.

A

large collar of wam-

pum was put around my neck, and another suspended on my breast." Henry

felt

diminished without his

and of the

village in general,

Dressing as an Ojibwa

head of hair, "but the

full

ladies of the family,

now condescended to call me handsome." was only

a superficial conversion. Henry's

deeper indoctrination into the culture came that

fall

when he

departed

with Wawatam's family to their winter hunting ground in northern Michi-

what was

gan. There he found that

for

him a source of worldly

profit—

the taking of animals and their furs— was part of a deeper spiritual quest for Ojibwas,

who

communion he discovered, was to fol-

regarded a successful hunt as a form of

with transcendent powers. To track a beaver,

low the

spirit

been able

of a prodigiously gifted creature. Indeed, beavers had once

to speak,

Henry learned, but they had been deprived of that

ent by Gitche Manitou, or the Great in

Spirit, "lest

tal-

they should grow superior

understanding to mankind." Respect

for the spirit of the

bear was even greater, as indicated by an

Wawatam's party conducted when they took their first season. Henry himself spotted the bear's den in the hollow of a

elaborate ritual

bear of the tree

and shot the animal when

and kissed the

it

emerged. Afterward, the Ojibwas stroked

bear's head, addres.sing the slain animal as "grandmother"

away her life." They implored her "not to lay the fault upon them, since it was truly an Englishman that had put her to death." Later, the bear's head was placed on a scaffold and and "begging a thousand pardons

adorned with

wampum

and other

deploring the

treasure,

its nostrils.

their^e7ic/s."Once the creature's noted, the Ojibwas

felt

spirit

had been properly honored, Henry

no misgivings about

heartily of the bear's flesh,

and even the head

was put into the kettle." When Wawatam's party brought their ftirs

days on the

spring,

and Wawatam and Henry

Wawatam addressed the bear ten"necessity under which men labored, thus to destroy

blew tobacco smoke into derly,

for taking

feasting itself,

on

after

it:

"We

all

ate

remaining three

scaffold,

Henry discovered

that

all

to a French trader the next

his labor during the winter

had earned

CHRONICLERS OF INDIAN LIFE 40

him only enough to purchase some new clothes, along with a fresh supply of ammunition and tobacco. Yet he had shared in ottier rewards that degains that sustained the Ojibwa through their

fied calculation-spiritual

seasonal round. That summer, he parted

difficult

and traveled

Marie aboard the canoe of Madame Cadotte,

to Sault Sainte

He

the Indian wife of a trader.

and did so with the

full

left in

still

the

hope of resuming

till

his former

life

who prayed to Gitche Mani-

blessing of Wawatam,

tou "to take care of me, his brother,

we should next meet." As the canoe

Wawatam's voice faded

pulled away,

company with Wawatam

into the distance, but

Henry could

see him on the receding shore, offering up his prayers. In the

months ahead, Henry remained under

their beliefs.

When

his

summoned

to a great

eager to restore trading reprisals

if

who had

joined in Pontiac's

War were

peace conference by the English,

who were

the hostile tribes.

ties vyAth

The Ojibwas feared

they attended the conference, however, and appealed for

ual guidance.

and

canoe reached Sault Sainte Marie, he found that

Ojibwa chiefs and warriors there being

the spell of Ojibwas

They made

offerings of tobacco

and had one of their

spirit-

priests

man sought adand other far-seeing spirits who rattled the tent

conduct a shaking-tent ceremony, during which the holy vice from the Great Turtle

mysteriously

when

Henry was it.

But after the

they appeared.

initially skeptical

spirits

of this "scene of imposture," as he called

had assured the Indians through the

would be treated well by the

English,

Henry could not resist inquiring as

whether he would safely return from Indian his

Anglo-American countrymen:

anxiety for the future; and having

bacco,

I

inquired,

whether or not

The question being put by the received this answer: That that nothing

my

friends

and country

The prophecy proved Fort Niagara, he later

resumed

and

yielded to the solicitations of my

own

like

the rest,

should ever

priest, the tent

to hurt

in safety'

sponse that he offered the

territory to the colonies

first, I

to

made my offering of to-

revisit

shook as

my native

country?

usual; after

which

I

should take courage and fear no danger, for

I

would happen

"I

priest that they

me; and that should I

"

spirits extra

to

in the

end reach

Henry was so pleased with

this re-

tobacco.

be correct. After traveling with Ojibwas to

came under

the protection of English authorities

his career as a trader

among

and

the Ojibwa. His year with

Wawatam and family had introduced him to a world where people of great devotion adopted strangers and watched over them in much the same way that the spirits

experience

above looked

was

on earth. But his revealing compared with the prolonged

after their relatives

a mere dip into the culture

FROM CAPTIVITY TO KINSHIP 41

immersion that awaited one John Tanner of Kentucky. Tanner was captured as a boy in

1

789 and spent nearly 30 years

so close to them in Tanner's isolated

who

life

spirit that

among

he even learned

to

among Ojibwas, growing dream as they

the Indians began inauspiciously Raised

homestead by a stern widower, Tanner was a

often wished he could "go

assuming

that

did.

and

live

among

on an

rebellious child

the Indians," as he put

he would then enjoy unbridled freedom. But

after

it,

he was

seized in a raid about the age of nine, he soon discovered that Indian

boys were subject to

their

own exacting forms of discipline.

The warrior who captured Tanner and day Michigan did so this finely

box was crafted by an Ofibwa in 1834. The quillwork scenes depict beaver and other creatures of the lakes region as well as camp life and travel by canoe. quilled birch-bark

to "bring

after the

death of their

first

sight of young Tanner, the

woman wept and embraced him as her own. The next day, he to the grave of the son who had died. There family and friends,

bereaved led

to a village in present-

back her son," which could only

be done by adopting a replacement. At her

was

him

who

to oblige his wife,

youngest boy asked her husband

A memento of the fur trade,

led

CHROMICLERS OF 42

An Ojibwa band cooks a meal in camp on the American side of the rapids ofSauIt Sainte Marie in this painting by 19thcentury Canadian artist Paul Kane. The abundance offish at the rapids made it a gathering place for various tribes and for whites who were eager to trade with them.

INDIAFi

LIFE

fRO^l CAPTIVITY TO

KIPiSHIP

43

standing on one side, waited with presents that Tanner himself distributed to guests on the other side of the

grave in a ceremony that he described as strangely

manner of

"cheerful, after the

danced

in a circle, the hosts

the scalp dance."

gave him the

gifts

As he

one by

one, but as he "came around in dancing to the party the opposite side of the grave, whatever they

on

had given

me was snatched fi'om me: thus they continued a great part of the day, until the presents

This haunting

were exhausted."

ceremony proved

to be prophetic of

Tanner's future. As a replacement for the dead son, he

was immediately acknowledged as and the community. But

many

obligations,

honor carried with

that

and Tanner,

tribe in these difficult times,

part of the family

like all

members

would have

it

of the

to give as

much as he received. The first demands he had to meet came fi'om his new father and brothers, who asked him to prove he was worthy of acceptance by pulling his weight as a hunter. Unfortunately, Tanner antagonized

new guardian much as he had his natural father. On one dire occasion, he fell asleep in the woods when he

his

was supposed

to

be building a blind to shoot deer

so enraging his foster father that the

fi'om,

man struck him in

tomahawk and left him for dead, informing his mother that he was "good for nothing." His mother and sister retrieved him and nursed him back to health, but young Tanner never gained the respect of the head v^th a

his

male

After

relatives.

kinswoman

of his father's

two

years,

a

prominent

named Netnokwa, who had

also lost a son about Tanner's age, obtained custody of

him over the ly

protest of his

mother by

offering the fami-

presents that included a "10-gallon keg of whiskey,

blankets, tobacco,

and other articles of oreat

value."

Netnokwa was an Ottawa, but through long association and intermarriage, her people had become virtually a

branch of the Ojibwa. Under her guardianship.

Tanner found his

me

lot

much

improved. Netnokwa "gave

plenty of food," he remarked, "put good clothes

upon me, and

told

me

to

go and play with her

own

CHROMICLERS OF

IMDIAFI

44

sons."

Tanner described her as principal chief of the Ottawa. Whatever her

actual position in the tribe, she

cluding her husband, deferred to her in

all

who was

matters.

had

full

command

of her household, in-

a generation younger than

He too

treated

Netnokwa and

Tanner well and gave him his

became adept at hunting and trapping, he was "no longer required to do the work of the women about the lodge." As Tanner grew older, however, the fortunes of his family declined. His first

gun.

Once

the boy

man while the two were drinking. The loss of an able-bodied man could mean deprivation for his kin, and Tanner's stepfather feared as much as he lay near death. "Now, my children, have to leave you," he said. "I am sorry that stepfather died prematurely, as a result of a fight with another

I

I

He did not ask his children to avenge him. As Tanner put it, "He was too good a man to wish to involve his family in the troubles which such a course would have brought upon them." After his death, Netnokwa took her kin away from the Michilimackinac area, where they had lived for some time, to join relatives west of Lake Superior in the vicinity of Red River, below present-day Winnipeg. Many Ojibwas and Ottawas were moving west about this time, as whites intruded on their homeland and overhunting reduced the supply of game. Although the prospects for hunters and trappers were better in the Red River country, the venters there were even more severe, and Tanner and his kin faced tremendous hardship in the years ahead. The journey in itself was long and harrowing. The family wintered at the western end of Lake Superior and might have starved there had they not been taken in by a Muskogee— or Swamp Indian— who made room for the needy family in his lodge and hunted for them. "Such is still the custom of the Indians, remote from whites," Tanner observed years later. He added that near trading posts and settlements, however, some Indians had "learned to be must leave you so

like the

poor."

whites and to give only to those

who can pay."

The prevailing charity among Ojibwas helped persuade Tanner, who

was now in his early teens and free to move about as he pleased, to remain with Netnokwa and kin: "I remembered the laborious and confined manner in which must live if returned among the whites; where, having no friends, and being destitute of money or property, must, of necessity, I

I

I

be exposed to those

all

who were

to find

someone

the

ills

of extreme poverty.

Among the Indians, saw that I

weak to hunt for themselves, were sure them. was also rising in the estimation of

too young, or too to provide for

I

and becoming as one of them." As a token of acceptance, his companions now referred to him by a tribal name meaning the "Falcon." the Indians,

LIFE

FROM CAPTIVITY TO KIMSHIP 45

was growing increasingly attached to his stepWamegonabiew, who was a few years older than Tanner,

Furthermore, he brother,

and

to the redoubtable

Netnokwa. "She could accomplish whatevTanner

er she pleased, either with the traders or the Indians,"

re-

some measure, because she never attempted to do anything which was not right and just." She was also remarkably vigorous for her age. If a high wind came up when their canoe was still far from shore, she would first offer a "loud marked, "probably,

in

and earnest prayer

to the Great Spirit," then apply herself "with

surprising activity to the use of her paddle."

When

the family finally reached the

Red River country, they were

warmly greeted by kindred Ojibwas and Ottawas. "These, our have come

tions,

"We must not plenty for

all,

to

suffer

us from a distant country" one chief proclaimed.

them

grew scarce. As she often John Tanner, shown here in European-

ance

in

Spirit

had

to

be

in

want among

camp was a large

but the

did in times of want,

visited her in the night

us."

At

first,

was game

there

one, and as winter closed

Netnokwa prayed

One morning, she informed

her dreams.

rela-

in,

for guid-

her sons that the Great

and promised her that she would

feast

style clothing ajter

he returned

to live

among whites about 1820, spent nearly

before the day

with something

like

bear, to be found "in a small

a path leading from

Wamegonabiew disregarded

three decades

among Ojibwas and kindred Ottawas after being captured as a boy in Kentucky.

was out on a

bear and went

in

round meadow,

it."

the prophecy, but Tanner

had yet

search of the place his mother told of After

to

some

kill

effort,

he discovered a round clearing in the woods, with a brook running from There he

literally

stumbled on a den,

falling

through the

snow up

a

it.

to his

waist and uncovering the head of a hibernating bear, which he dispatched

When Tanner

dream had come true, "she watched my face

Netnokwa that her for a moment, and then caught

me

with great earnestness." That

with a single blast from his gun.

me

in her arms,

night,

all

hugging and kissing

the band's hunters joined in tne feast to

told

honor the boy's

first kill.

Despite this success. Tanner remained dubious of Netnokwa's

gift.

He

suspected that such prophecies were based on her knowledge of the sur-

rounding country— and

in

and directed hunters

was

ed. In time,

to

one case confirmed in fact

one whose

that a bear she lair

dreamed of

she had already locat-

however, he himself began to meet with

spirits in his

dreams,

and he became convinced of their prophetic power. Tanner's

20 years old

dream encounter came when he was about and journe3ang to the Red River trading post on his owti to first

significant

obtain supplies for his kin. As he paddled his buffalo-skin canoe along a tributary of the

Red

River,

he passed an inviting landing place that local

CHRONICLERS OF

I

M D

I

A H

LIFE

46

Indians had long avoided because one brother had killed another there and

had

later

been executed and buried with the victim on the

spot. Scornful of

the tribal legend that said the spirits of the ill-fated brothers

the place, Tanner kindled a

That night,

in

a

fitful

fire

down by my fire, opposite me.

and

fire,

and

in this situation

saw no men,

I

lay

Their eyes were intently fixed

they neither smiled, nor said anything. the

haunted

dovm by the embers to sleep. he "saw the two dead men come and sit

there

reverie,

still

I

upon me, but

got up and sat opposite

awoke. The night was dark and

or heard any other sounds than that of the

wind

them by

gusty, but

I

in the trees.

,^^

C A/^Dp^pv

QOIV^Q f\lr^ lVli3 V/l

John Tanner's education among the Ojibwa includ- '^/Vv^IYL/LI i3v/l ed instruction in the use and in- HTl-lp^ r\ ¥ terpretation of pictographs, figures that

were carved

into pieces of

wood

or bark to

record the text for sacred songs and prayers.

Each picture denoted the subject of a verse, or whose actual words were committed to memory beforehand and then recalled in the

phrase,

proper order with the aid of the pictographs. The pictographs above, reproduced in Tanner's account, represent the verses of a song

chanted by Ojibwa medicine

men

in order to

bring good fortune in the hunt. Figure

minds the singer

to begin the

song by

one

re-

calling his

and followers to to his entreaty The

friends listen

singer to f RIA/A second figure cues the tell his audience of the Great Spirit who makes the river flow (symbolized by wavy lines on the back of a beaver). At figure three,

upon his listeners to look to him Then he reveals himself as a shaman with the hunting power of a bird (fourth sign). Lines drawn between figures four and five the singer calls for leadership.

indicate the

moment

for the singer to

begin

accompanying dance steps. The last figure prompts him to sing that he will fly about in a vision like a bird to find game, thus demonstratthe

ing his sacred medicine for hunting.

FROM CAPTIVITY TO KIMSHIP 47

Lines leadingfrom the hearts of two moose and a bear represent the gift of life granted to John Tanner by a spirit who offered the animals to him in a dream during a time of great hunger. Upon awakeningfrom his dream. Tanner drew the animals on bark to ensure that his vision would come true. Following the directions ofhis dream visitor, he tracked and killed two moose within hours.

It is

likely

fell

I

asleep again, for I soon

low the bank of the

my

had made

fire

heads just

river, their

and looking

on,

saw the same two men standing be-

at

me

they rose one after the other, and sat

were laughing, and pushing of annoyance. tried to

but

fly,

I

ground

rising to the level of the

I

as before. After a few minutes

down

now

opposite me; but

they

me with sticks, and using various methods to speak to them, but my voice failed me.

at

endeavored

I

my feet refused to do their office."

One of the spirits then told him of a stray horse on a nearby hill and inhim

vited

to ride the

another night with

animal to his destination and back, so 'you can spend

us."

Come morning. Tanner climbed that hill and found

a lone horse belonging to the trader he

doned

his

canoe and rode the horse

was on

way

his

to the post. But

to

visit.

He aban-

he had learned to fear

the spirits and never revisited the dreaded "place of the two dead." Later in his starvation,

life,

when he and

Tanner resorted

his

Ojibwa kin were threatened

to "medicine hunting" of the sort

taught him. "Half the night I sung and prayed, and then lay

he recalled of the

first

such vigil he conducted.

young man come down through the hole

tiful

he stood hear?

directly before

Do

I

upon you loud

not

know when you

at all times,

cries.' "

me. 'What,' said he,

and

it

is

"I

are hungry

to the

my lodge,

and

noise and crying that

in distress?

not necessary you should

Then the young man gestured

to sleep,"

saw in my dream a beau-

this

and

Netnokwa

down

in the top of

'is

v^^th

call

I

look

I

down

me with such

west and pointed out the

moose and a bear that were Tanner's for the taking. When he awoke, he smoked tobacco to honor this dream visitor and sketched the tracks of two

figures of the animals

on a piece of birch

bark.

Then he took

set off in the appointed direction. Well before noon,

the track of two moose, and killed

tremely to

fat."

come,

to

This

same dream

visitor

both, a

appeared

warn of danger or direct him

Tanner's task as a hunter

now had

them

to

his

he reported,

gun and "I fell

on

male and a female, and exto

him repeatedly

in years

game.

was made more

difficult

fact that

he

young man

to

by the

children to feed. In spite of his inclination as a

CHROMICLERS OF INDIAN LIFE 48

enjoy his freedom and put off marriage, he yielded in his early twenties

Netnokwa and the charms of a bold young Ojibwa woman, who asked him one day to share a pipe with her. This was highly unusual, Tanner noted, since most couples were brought together by their tribal elders and scarcely glanced at each other before marriage. After smoking with the young woman, he found himself dressing up as handsomely as he could and walking about the village, playing his to the urgings of

reed

flute to

He was

impress in fact

her.

more eager

home one day and saw

rived

to court her than

marry

her.

When

he ar-

her seated inside his lodge, he hesitated to

enter and join her, knowing that it would be taken as a commitment. But Netnokwa forced his hand. "Will you turn back from the door of the lodge,"

she asked, "and put better than

this

you are? This

young affair

woman

to

shame,

who

is in all

respects

has been of your seeking, and not of mine

or hers." Stung by the reproach, Tanner sat

down by

his fiancee's

side—

Netnokwa had arranged matters with the young woman's parents while he was away and invited her into the lodge, confident that he would join her when pressed. and learned only

later that

Neither this marriage nor a second one that Tanner entered into later

proved happy. Although he was a diligent hunter

who

did

all

he could to

who regardmedicine man

provide for his children, he quarreled frequently with in-laws,

ed him as an outsider and resented his denunciation of a

they respected. Tanner's ambiguous position within the tribe resembled that of a fabled

Ojibwa he had heard

of,

only to discover after his death that he

man's paradise nor the

who

accepted Christian baptism,

was welcome

in neither the

white

Indian's.

was compounded by the travails of the hunter's life and the toll that drinking took on him and his companions. At first, he avoided the rum and whiskey that traders commonly offered Indians for their furs, and tried to dissuade Netnokwa and others from "wasting all our peltries in purchasing what was not only useless, but Tanner's sense of isolation

hurtful

and poisonous

much

to

there

was

But

to us."

after

Netnokwa's dismay. Even little

he could do

to

if

a while, he too began to partake,

he stayed sober at trading time,

keep his friends and kin from expending

in

a few days the proceeds of many months' labor. Afterward, they often had

purchase ammunition and provisions on credit families through another winter. to

in

order to see their

After facing such challenges for nearly three decades. to return to the United states

and

find a place in

Tanner decided

white society, leaving his

FROM CAPTIVITY TO KINSHIP 49

children with his wife

and her Ojibwa in-laws

was

could get settled. Back in his native Kentucky, he

who

greeted warmly by his kin,

dressed him as a white man. He stiff

clothing, however,

cally

ill

and

cut his long hair

uncomfortable

felt

he

until

in the

made him physiHe preferred to lie down at

and found

to sleep inside a house.

that

it

night in a "good place outside."

more in that would

Ultimately he returned north to live once

dian country and seek employment there

low him

to provide for his children. For the rest of his

he moved from job to

were raised by

last

allife,

and several of his youngsters

others. His travails in later years fulfilled

the prophecy of the

him one

job,

In-

dream

visitor,

time before he

"Henceforth, you shall see

who had appeared

left for

me no

to

the United States.

more," the

spirit

pro-

claimed, "and that which remains before you, of your path, shall be

full

His journey

of briars and thorns."

was indeed

difficult.

But the story of his

years with the Ojibwa— which he related in 1830 to physician Edwin James, title

who committed

it

to writing

under the

The Falcon— emerged as one of the most detailed por-

traits

of

among

life

Indians

composed up

to that time.

Whatever differences Tanner may have had with Ojibwas over the years, he remained true to them in words and An Ojibwa on snowshoes

cradles his rifle in preparation for a winter deer hunt in this 19th-century photograph. Although Jirearms

and snowshoes helped hunters of the lakes region get by through the course of the long, hard winter, theyfaced constant peril and prayed to protective

spirits for survival.

deeds, as he demonstrated shortly after returning to Canada,

worked

briefly as a trader for

would more than double

if

a fur company. He recognized that his profit

he offered Ojibwa hunters whiskey in payment.

But after once trading with them

never do

it

again.

"I

in that

way, he told his boss he would

had been so long among the Indians

my

when he

that

many

of

was not willing to be myself active in spreading such poison among them." He owed as much to them were personally

friends,"

he explained.

"I

the Ojibwas, he added, for they regarded the Falcon as "one of their own."

Tanner was not the only white chronicler whose long sojourn among adoptive people allowed him to speak for them.

even longer than he did among Indians and

was Mary Jemison, who demonstrated rise

that

Jemison was taken prisoner

in

One witness who spent

testified

women

from captivity to a place of dignity within the

his

with equal authority

as well as

tribe.

Like

men

could

James Smith,

Pennsylvania during the French and Indian

CHROniCLERS OF INDIAN LIFE 50

War. In 1758,

Ohio

Valley,

when

she was about

15, six

accompanied by four French

homestead near Gettysburg, plundered

it

Shawnee

warriors from the

soldiers, attacked her family's for provisions,

and made

off

with Mary, her father and mother, three of her siblings, and several neigh-

who were visiting at the time. For them as for many prisoners of the day, the journey into captivity was fraught with danger. Those who could not keep up with the warriors bors

as they fled pursuit were sometimes put to death and scalped— a deed that both French

Indian ing to

and English authorities encouraged by offering

their

enemy scalps. After a few days of hard journeyevade search parties, the Shawnees placed moccasins on the feet allies

bounties for

Mary and one of the neighbor's boys, signaling that they alone were to be spared, and separated them from the rest of the captives. A short time afterward, she saw the Shawnees scraping and stretching on hoops

of

scalps that she recognized as those of her kin.

Within a few days, the war party reached Fort Duquesne, where

James Smith had run the gantlet three years

no such

ordeal. Instead, the

earlier.

Shawnees painted her

Jemison underwent

face

and

hair red

and

An

Indian pours liquorfrom a keg while and Assiniboin companions exhibit various degrees of intoxication in an 1820 painting by Swiss artist and traveler Peter Rindisbacher. Many traders eagerly plied the Indians with liquor, knowing that hunters under the influence would his Ojibwa

trade away a year's worth ofpelts for what amounted to a few nights of revelry.

FROM CAPTIVITY TO KINSHIP 51

led her into the fort,

where she met the two Seneca

become her guardians and

women who were to

The Seneca were the westernmost

sisters.

nation of the Iroquois and had grown close to the French in recent years

by frequenting

Senecas as powerful gifts like that

Seneca

allies in the

sisters

ongoing war and honored them with

made when

the warriors

sisters, "to

The

Lakes trading posts. Shawnees recognized

their Great

they offered Jemison to the two

dispose of as they pleased."

welcomed Jemison because they had

brother in battle and longed to replenish their family

Jemison was a young

woman and

anything, she offered

If

quois society

was both

more

mattered

the relative she replaced a

to the family than a

matrilocal

It

recently lost a

and

that

young man.

man would because Iro-

matrilineal,

band she took or children she bore would

little

meaning

that

any hus-

and become

reside at her lodge

part of her lineage, or kinship group.

Soon

after

Jemison arrived

at the village of her

new

guardians in

was dressed as an Iroquois and took part in a remarkable observance that was part mourning ritual and part adoption northern Pennsylvania, she

ceremony. She did not yet

know

the Seneca language, but she later

learned the meaning of the words spoken on such occasions and para-

phrased the mourners. "He

will

never return!" the

dead brother. "Friendless he died on the

field

women

said of their

of the slain, where his bones

are yet lying unburied!" After heartily grieving his loss, however, they

gave thanks that he had died bravely and that reward: "With glory he in

and his spirit went up

had earned

its

to the land of his fathers

why do we mourn? With transports of joy they received him, him, and clothed him, and welcomed him there! Oh friends, he

war! Then

and is

fell,

his soul

fed

happy; then dry up your

a

new

in

our

happy

tears." Finally,

they celebrated the arrival of

sibling to comfort them-. "In the place of our brother she stands tribe. till

By

With care

her

we

spirit shall

will

guard her from trouble; and

may

she be

leave us."

the conclusion of the ceremony, Jemison observed, her sisters

had

progressed from anguish to exultation: "Joy sparkled in their countenances, and they seemed to rejoice over

me

as over a long lost child."

was then that she received her Seneca name, Dehgewanus, meaning "Two Falling Voices," an apparent reference to her sisters and the deep consolation that muted their grief A few years after her adoption, a party of Delawares came to live with It

the Senecas, and Jemison's sisters arranged for her to marry a Delaware

named

Sheninjee,

whom

she found to be an "agreeable husband, and a

CHRONICLERS OF

1

N D

1

A H

LIFE

52 A bronze statue of Mary Jemison in Iroquois dress marlcs her burial place in Letcliworth State Park, New Yoric, overlooking the Genesee River valley, where she lived as a member of the Seneca Nation after being taken from her Pennsylvania

comfortable companion." She no longer

had begun that her

to

first

pmed

to rejoin white society

view the world as her Indian relations child

was born

"at

did.

She

As

dictated by custom, she

sisters.

The

child lived only

but she was well cared

for

went

off to a birthing hut,

two days, and Jemison

first

fell

first

of several children she

ap-

in tribal fashion.

attended by her two deathly ill afterward,

and recovered "by the time the corn was

Jemison subsequently had a son the

later recalled

the time that the kernels of corn

peared on the cob," marking the time by nature's calendar

and

ripe."

whom she called Thomas Jemison—

named

after her

white relatives,

in

keeping

home and adopted in her teens.

FROM CAPTIVITY TO KINSHIP 53

liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii'^

own fond memories and with the Iroquois custom of tracing through the mother. When Sheninjee died not long after Thomas

both with her lineage

was bom, Jemison mourned

she had remained with her Seneca mother and sisters and had

fact that

continuing support. They offered her

their

shock was lessened by the

for him, but the

power, and

a few months

in

Jemison

later

the consolation in their

"all

my grief wore off and became contented." I

remarried and lived happily

among

the Senecas during

the tranquil interlude before the American Revolution, which embroiled

her people in further conflict. Allied viath the English against the rebel-mi

lious colonists— who

ment

were intent on eliminating

barriers to white settle-

Indian territory recently proclaimed by English authorities—

in

Senecas carried out raids on the Americans and were attacked by them in return.

The

reprisals devastated villages in

Senecas had expanded on -^»c

tending

fruit

HIOKATOO, lired in

ISn,

'tis

Hi the

war

drei».

He

tied >i

Gardow

5^

ndranced «ge of lOJ yenn.

rt-

FUU m _

where

groves and raising livestock.

in the war: "A part of our

they burnt, and threw the remainder into the

^J:'^:_

York,

corn-based horticulture by

their traditional

John Sullivan through Iroquois country late Mi». Jemison's recond hu»l»nd, aj he appcurea when

New

Jemison recalled the devastating sweep by the forces of Major General

:««•

«*-5e«

western

killed

what few

cattle

river.

and horses they could

corn

They burnt our houses,

find,

destroyed our

fruit

j^;.

trees,

Mary Jemison's second husband, Hiokatoo,

and left nothing but the bare

soil

and

timber." Desperate for subsist-

ence, Jemison hired herself out to pick corn for two

displays the outfit of a Seneca hunter-warrior in this illustration Jrom Jemison's narrative.

had taken refuge

Hiokatoo was the father offour daughters and two sons by Jemison and endured, by her reckoning, to the ripe age of 103.

that

in the area

runaway

slaves

who

and pioneered a homestead. Not knowing

Jemison had long since been embraced by Senecas, one of them

stood by with a loaded gun as Jemison worked, "fearing that

I

should get

taken or injured by the Indians." After the Revolution,

white relatives

free to return to her

her eldest son,

Seneca chiefs assured Jemison

who had matured

She was unwilling

to leave

if

that she

was

she so desired, but they insisted that

become a gifted warrior, stay behind. Thomas and feared that if she managed to to

reach her relatives in Pennsylvania, they would treat her and her children "as

enemies;

thought

I

or,

at least with a

degree of cold indifference, which

I

could not endure." Gratified by her decision to remain, leaders

of the tribe arranged in negotiations with white authorities for her to receive

title

years— a

to the land

fertile tract

she and her children had been living on

along the Genesee River.

Some Senecas left the in

New York.

in recent

area for small reservations allotted to the tribe

Others stayed on, as settlers began encroaching and claim-

ing land or leasing

it

from titleholders

childhood, she found herself living

on

like

Jemison.

the frontier,

Once again, as in her where the interests of

C H R

O

ri

I

C

L E

R S

OF inOIAM LIFE 54

whites and Indians collided. Increased contact with whites exposed more

and more Senecas tween

to the

bane of alcohol and aggravated tensions be-

tribal traditionalists

quences

for

Jemison's

and accommodationists— with

fatal

conse-

own family.

Thomas embodied

between

the conflict

tribal

values and those of

white society. He enjoyed the respect that he received from Senecas for his

prowess

in battle, for

warriors inflicted criticized his

upon

example, but he "despised the cruelties that the

their subjugated enemies." Closer to

home, he

younger brother John—Jemison's son by her second hus-

band—for taking two wives, claiming that such conduct was "inconsist-

Thomas

ent with the principles of good Indians."

also

denounced

his

brother in terms that were deeply rooted in tribal culture, insisting that

John was a witch, a charge that Senecas sometimes leveled against people

who

acted in ways they regarded as unnatural or antisocial.

Jemison herself confessed that threatened to take her as to

life

menace her with

dovm by

John,

who

a

for

"in fits of

drunkenness,"

Thomas

often

having raised a witch. He once went so

tomahawk, but

in the

far

end he himself was cut

shared his brother's weakness for liquor and mur-

dered him during a drunken quarrel.

The family tragedy council,

which excused him

Thomas over his

did not

end

there.

John was acquitted by the

in light of the

the years. Indeed, John

tribal

abuse he had received from

was v^dely admired by Senecas

powers as a healer and visionary. He practiced as a doctor in

for

tribal fash-

This rough-hewn cabin, built by Mary Jemison for her daughter Nancy in 1800, was typical of the shelters then occupied by

whites and Indians alike in western New York. The cabin was moved from its original location to Mary Jemison's grave site.

FROM CAPTIVITY TO KINSHIP 55

ion by administering 'Yoots and herbs, which he gathered in the forests,

and other places where they had been planted by the hand of nature." JemiJohn had dreamed of murdering Thomas before the

son

later learned that

fact

and had been advised by a fellow medicine man

and avoid any quarrel which he

lost his self-control

embroiled

in

in future

another drunken clash that claimed the

and had long been

violent

end

arising." Unfortunately,

under the influence of alcohol, and he

youngest and dearest son, Jesse, cestry

he might see

to "govern his temper,

at

life

became

later

of Jemison's

who was intensely proud of his white an-

odds v^th John.

In the end,

John himself met a

hands of two unrelated Senecas— an end he foresaw in a

at the

vision just days before the attack occurred.

Jemison spent the

by the

rest of her

life

on the land granted

to her,

had convulsed her family but determined

strife that

to

haunted

do well by

Some Senecas whispered that she was a "great denied it, and no harm came to her. Senecas had some

her surviving children. witch," but others

reason to regard her as an outsider, This salt container

was tightly woven from comhusks by one ofMaryJemison's contempo-

among the Iroquois, who made raries

the

most of their

com harvests by putting every part of the plant to use.

tity

for

she never cast off her former iden-

more than John Tanner did. Both were torn at times bevalues they adopted and the standards of white society

entirely— any

tween the

tribal

Neither adoption nor intermarriage could erase that conflict, for outsiders

who

entered

tribal circles

brought opposing attitudes with

them, introducing tensions that persisted over decades and

endured from one generation to the next.

Even when they were

with

telling of lingering differences

however, chroniclers

like

Jemison and Tanner enlightened whites,

who

their adoptive people,

learned of native cultures that were rich

and strong enough

to rival their

own.

A

fuUer understanding of those societies

would come

later,

from ob-

servers of a different breed,

ventured gladly

and documented at

length.

among

Indians

their traditions

into

tribal

and found a measure of

ment

who

But witnesses

were forced

who

circles fulfill-

communicated something fundamental upon which all cultural

there

understanding depended— respect

for Native

Americans and

their

powers.

X^

.-VV^v/V^'NA.

Kf^'^itr

£^ w

yw^ y^ £^ Europeans who ventured to the New World chron^^ I 1^ 1^ ^^ icled their encounters with Indians for posterity lW^ \J k\k^\J ;E not only by keeping journals but also by collecting

TREASURES 1TVT .

lir i ^l l t W y ll^ I 1/ 1^

1^ FROM NATIVE \a m X

KI w'^^

Jj.

^ w g^ C 1 1 l\

cate their reports of exotic

sponsors. As exploration gave

\^J[

aries, traders,

Europe or

work, as

oftimeless beauty. For early

new lands and

peoples and were sometimes presented as

AMERICA Vl \ ES5 riors in

tribal artifacts

explorers, such treasures served to authenti-

built

up

their

and

officials

own

gifts to royal

way to colonization, mission-

sent Indian artifacts to their supe-

"cabinets," or collections of tribal handi-

mementos of their travels and

experiences. By the

1

9th century,

Europeans were organizing formal scientific expeditions to collect Native American artifacts for study and exhibition. Whether gathered as a result of exploration, colonization, or scientific inquiry,

works ended up discover

anew

in

some

museums across Europe, where

the artistry

and ingenuity of the

first

of the finest of these

future generations could Americans.

^^vA,A.A^vV\A/VWC Nootka men dance in front of Spanish tents at Friendly Cove on Vancouver Island as other tribal members look on from their canoes in a drawing by Tomds de Suria, an artist who accompanied the explorer Alejandro Malaspina on his reconnaissance ofAmerica's Northwest Coast in the 1 790s. Many of the Indians can be seen wearing caps like the Nootka whaler's hat below, woven of spruce root and collected by Malaspina.

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i^M^&l^^^^^m^

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^'•A*f*0»4****»**M*XiJ!tt^* ^Arc.

Heirlooms or the Northwest Coast Malaspina's expedition, com-

^

missioned by Spain's King Carlos IV

an '

• j

"^ I

in

1

790,

was

etTort to protect

MODEL CANOE CARVED FROM CEDAR WITH CREST PAINTING

in part

and ex-

tend the Spanish empire. But it also rellected a growing scientific curiosity about native peoples during the Enlightenment. Long after the Spanish empire crumbled, Malaspina's

i-

cultural finds, including the ^

1

Tlingit treasures

endured

shown

here,

a collection at Madrid's Museo de America. in

i^-^i

TLINGIT WARRIOR'S

PAINTED WOODEN

SLAT-ARMOR

^\"X.

^^^

^s^^".

CARVED HEADDRESS DECORATED WITH COPPER AND SHELL

^m\ ^m}\\

M

#

^^ri-'

CEREMONIAL CLUB ADORNED WITH

HUMAN HAIR AND FEATHER QUILLS

"1 ^ -

^

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V

IMr ntm

d-'

.K.

Al

'..'.-^ .4

^ F,

~i m — il

t

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Wm^ iimmiH'

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BEAR-CLAW NECKLACE

ADORNED WITH QUILLWORK

k.:

i

If 18TH-CENTURY QUILLED

MOCCASINS

H*>.

)_

"v

IS

>->

.ii-

^

HI1

iw

-:^-

that

he could do justice to the great shaman on canvas. At

Mahtoheha

that,

am glad that my people have told you who am," he declared. "I v^ll go to my wigwam and eat, and shook

Catlin's

hand and shared a pipe with him.

"I

I

in a

little

while

I

will

come, and you

may go to work."

Several hours

later,

he

returned to pose, "bedaubed and streaked with paints of various colors

..

.

with medicine pipes in his hands and foxtails attached to his heels."

Once

became a tribe's

was completed

the portrait

firm ally of Catlin's.

by the Mandan

and

to

ward

in

off evil.

Plains tribes, the ritual

midsummer

satisfaction,

later invited the artist to

most sacred ceremony, the Okipa. Similar

Dances performed by other ally

He

Mahtoheha's

to

to

observe the

in nature to the

seek blessings from the Great

tribal

hero

First

approached the in

where he survived

village

Spirit

arrival of

Man, who according

legend had escaped a great flood in ancient times by climbing the tains to the west,

Sun

was conducted annu-

The ceremony opened with the dramatic

Mahtoheha, impersonating the

he

to

moun-

to replenish the world. First

Man

from the west, coated v^th white clay and garbed

white wolfskins. After being greeted with acclaim, he opened the med-

icine lodge in the center of the village

they

made

the proper

gift to

and warned the people

the spirits— tools to build a great

would be destroyed by another

flood. First

lodge and collected the tools, which were

Man

first

that unless

canoe— they

then went from lodge to

deposited in the medicine

lodge and later cast into the river as an offering.

As depicted in this painting by Catlin, Mandan men join in a spirited contest to see who can shoot the most arrows into the airfrom the same bow before the first one released comes to earth. Each participant had to wager a valued possession, such as a bow, and the winner claimed all the prizes.

PORTRAYIMQ THE PEOPLE 85

Catlin collected this

fine pair of men's leggings at some point during his travels,

probably along

the upper Missouri.

The Mandan wore similar leggings, firinged with enemy scalps and adorned with stripes denoting battle coups.

CHRONICLERS or INDIAN LIFE

The following

young men

Man conducted 50

day, Catlin related, First

into the medicine lodge. There they

water, and sleep for four days before enduring

devout

would go without

agony— including

food,

the inser-

tion of barbs through their flesh— as proof of their devotion to the Great Spirit.

Having committed the young

ritual in the

promising to return

was going back

Man left

the

men

to the

mountains

in the

to

west" and

in a year's time.

documenting

dances by

to their ordeal, First

hands of the keeper of the lodge and departed, explaining

the people that "he

In

men

this

remarkable ceremony, which included rousing

wearing buffalo regalia and concluded with harrowing

scenes of suffering, Catlin feared that the public would find his account

in-

He had agent Kipp and two aides sign a statement that his picand notes "faithfully represented those scenes as we saw them

credible.

tures

transacted, without

any addition or exaggeration."

After spending the

summer among

continued downriver to Saint Louis. His

the

Mandan and

visit

Hidatsa, Catlin

had been amicable and en-

was shadowed by an ominous incident. As he left Fort Clark in his canoe, a party of Mandans ran after him along the riverbank and gestured for him to come ashore. He did as they asked and learned that a girl he had recently portrayed had fallen gravely ill and was lightening, but his departure

bleeding from the mouth. "The picture which you like her,"

made of her is too much

one Mandan asserted. "You are drawing the

strings out of her

+ 1^

This detailed interior view of a Mandan earth lodge was painted by Karl Bodtner during his visit as artist for the Maximilian expedition in the winter of 1833-1834. It shows the stout posts and crossbeams supporting the roof, and various implements and containers crafted by the villagers, including a burden basket like the one shown at right, used to carry crops. The lodge housed several relatedfamilies.

PORTRAYIMQ THE PEOPLE 87

heart and they will soon break.

back and then she

We

must take her

will get well again."

tance, Catlin surrendered the portrait. that the

girl died,"

he wrote

later,

"I

picture

With some reluc-

have since learned

"and that

I

am forever to be

considered the cause of her misfortunes."

The following

November

1833, another expedi-

at Fort Clark. This party

was

by Prince Maximilian zu Wied, a German aristocrat

who

tion arrived to

led

year, in

drew on

spend the vwnter

his personal fortune to survey the tribal peoples

of the upper Missouri River and their environment.

panying Maximilian was Swiss

saw relatively little

of Indian country

artist Karl

and Hidatsa

among

Mandan and

Hidatsa with

studied their artistry and helped to encourage

consummate

who

the wide-

Mandan Bodmer not

the

that rivaled Catlin's scenes for richness of detail.

only portrayed the

On one

Bodmer,

compared with

ranging Catlin but produced a series of watercolors

Accom-

skill

but also

it.

Bodmer painted a Hidatsa chief, who was reluctant to leave the finished work in the artist's hands because he was going off to war and feared that some of his strength would remain behind in the portrait. In the end, the chief came up with a compromise. He drew a fine likeoccasion,

ness of Bodmer, thus evening the score. Such attitudes were not so mysterious to Bodmer.

An exterior sketch of a Mandan earth lodge by Bodmer reveals its sturdy roof, lined with willow

rods and covered with insulating sod at all points except the entryway and central

smoke hole.

He too believed

in the

power of images

to capture the

CHROniCLERS OF

H D

I

A

Fl

of people and places, and he

spirit

recognized

Indian

that

owed much

artistry

to their conviction that

were a potent form of med-

pictures

icine. Like Catlin,

he was greatly im-

who

pressed by Chief Mahtotohpa,

was both an accomplished and a his

I

having recorded

gifted artist,

exploits

homage

to

on

buffalo robes.

In

Mahtotohpa, Bodmer

one of those

depicted

faithfully

warrior

shoving the chief counting

robes,

coup on

his enemies. Supplied with

materials by Bodmer, the chief then

portrayed further scenes from his eventful

life

with pencil and water-

Mahtotohpa's

colors.

that of another

Mandan

warrior-

(Yellow

Feather),

Sihchida

artist,

demonstrated

like

efforts,

men

both

that

Bodmer durhe drew inspi-

learned lessons from ing his stay, even as

ration from their work. Sadly, the visit of Maximilian

and Bodmer was among the

last

such revealing exchanges between the villagers and the outside world. In 1837 a trading vessel steaming upriver

so

brought another deadly smallpox epidemic to the area. Only 100 or

members

of the two tribes survived, and they abandoned their villages.

Catlin learned later

vivors but

saw his

from agent Kipp that Mahtotohpa was

entire family perish

Mahtotohpa covered

lodge,

his

and

lost the will to live.

.

.

.

resolved to starve himself to death.

sixth day,

when he had just

strength

Reentering his lodge, he lay

Alone

dead kin with buffalo robes, Catlin

"and wrapping another around himself, went out upon a

tance

among the sur-

down

enough

hill

at a

in his

related,

little

dis-

He remained

there until the

back

to the village."

to creep

beside his loved ones, "drew his robe

over him, and died on the ninth day." Catlin

concluded that the

tribe

had been extinguished: "So have per-

ished the friendly and hospitable Mandans." Yet like their culture hero First

LIFE

PORTRAYiriQ THE PEOPLE 89

Man, those

who survived the catastrophe rebuilt their shattered society. In

the decades to come, the remaining

Mandan and

Hidatsa

came

to terms

with the Arikara and formed the Three Affiliated Tribes on the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota. Thus the villagers of the upper Missouri en-

dured as a people. And a record of their ancestral culture survived as well in

words and pictures, thanks

and the gracious Catlin

tribal chroniclers

was not alone

tinction.

f^'?

in

Many people

were a "vanishing Sihchida (Yellow Feather) of the Mandan is portrayed at left by Bodmer in a buffalo robe and feathered headdress, with otterfur around his neck and heel trailers proclaiming his exploits. Sihchida displayed his own artistry by using Bodmer's supplies to paint the watercolor below, possibly a self-portrait.

thorities to

to the

keen observers who passed

who

their

way

informed and enlightened them.

prematurely consigning an

afflicted tribe to ex-

sympathetic to Indians feared at the time that they

race," a

misconception that only made

deny tribes a secure place

it

in the nation's future.

easier for au-

Few outsiders

how resilient Native Americans could be. But the sense of impending doom brought at least one blessing. It lent urgency to the appreciated just

study of native cultures, which were indeed undergoing dire changes.

Ethnographers

who

set out to

document "vanishing"

traditions

some-

CHRONICLERS OF

IFIDIAM

90

times

became advocates

mained of their land and

One such

for tribes that

were

fighting to preserve

what

re-

way of life. scholar was Lewis Henry Morgan, who grew up

their

supportive

New

York

few

in the Finger

Lakes

decades

whites ousted the Iroquois from that bountiful area. Like

after

of

district

in the early 1800s, just a

Morgan was fascinated by Indians before he knew much about them. As a young lav^er in Rochester in the early 1840s, he organized a branch of a secret society knovm as the Order of the Gordian Knot and Catlin,

soon transformed

it

of the Iroquois. His

into

own

something closer

to his

was dedicated to the Cayuga Nation, nearby cities were named after the Mohawk,

chapter

while others that formed in the Oneida, the Onondaga,

and the Seneca. At

mission, the activities of the Grand Order were versions.

Members wore

Iroquois leggings

first,

little

by Morgan's

another with

mock solemnity: "The

tall

ad-

at their get-

in a stilted fashion that

represented their dim notion of Indian oratory. As one to

own

more than "boyish" di-

and headdresses

tomahawks, and spoke

togethers, brandished

heart— the Grand Order

member

declared

pine in the young forest has not

spoken with a forked tongue."

managed to inject a serious purpose into this fi-ivolous order. As he put it, he wanted the fraternity to become a "repository of Remarkably, Morgan

all

that remains to us of the Indian ... his antiquities, customs, eloquence,

history,

began

and

institutions."

Under Morgan's guidance, members of the order

and discuss the few books available on the Iroquois. It was while rummaging through a bookstore in Albany in 1844 that Morgan met to read

the individual

who shaped his career as an ethnographer— a young Seneca

named Hasanoanda,

or Ely

Samuel

Parker. Raised

on the Tonawanda

Reservation near Buffalo, Parker had been educated at a school run by a Baptist missionary

was

Such was

his proficiency in English that at

age 16 he

already serving as an interpreter for a Seneca delegation to the state

capital.

Parker invited

Morgan

them with questions about permit," recording their

to

meet

the delegates,

their traditions for "as

answers

in his

and Morgan

plied

long as propriety would

notebook as Parker

translated.

The meeting of Parker and Morgan proved rewarding for both sides. Morgan's Grand Order elected Parker an honorary member, invited him to

speak on the

nanced

travails of his

people during the reservation era, and

his further education at a

fi-

nearby academy The Seneca wanted

Parker to study law so that he could help them in their efforts to resist

removal from

their

Tonawanda Reservation

west of the Mississippi

River. Parker

to

an uncertain destination

read law diligently but

was denied

LIFE

PORTRAYiriQ THE PEOPLE

admission to the bar because, as an Indian, he

had not been granted

came

a

civil

become

Grant,

who

Army

as an engineer and rose

a trusted aide of General Ulysses later as president

named

missioner of Indian affairs— the

can

he be-

engineer. During the Civil War, he

served in the Union to

citizenship. Instead,

first

Parker

S.

com-

Native Ameri-

to serve in that position.

While Morgan played a small part

in furthering

this

remarkable career, young Parker rendered cru-

cial

assistance to the aspiring ethnographer. Mor-

gan's interview v^dth the Seneca delegation in Al-

bany was

just the first of

many

contacts with the

Iroquois that Parker arranged for tributed to as interpreter.

him and con-

By 1846 Morgan had so

gained the trust of the Iroquois that he and two white assistants were formally adopted by the Sen-

eca at Tonawanda. Ely Parker attended the ceremony,

marked by war dances, and wrote with mixed

feelings about a people

the country

who had once dominated

and intimidated colonists celebrating

the induction of "white brothers into their nation."

As an adopted member of the Hawk Clan, Morgan

now had

access to rituals and lore that had

previously been closed to him. With Parker's help,

Morgan Seneca spokesman Ely Samuel Parker, shown here in 1855, worked closely with ethnographer Lewis Henry Morgan to produce the landmark study "League of the Ho-de-no-sau-nee, or Iroquois," one of the first accounts to evaluate an American Indian culture by its own standards.

book

the

a landmark study of the Iroquois, published in 1851 —

later praised

by explorer and ethnographer John Wesley Powell as

"first scientific

account of an Indian

Morgan announced terms

scores of notebooks with data that

for

formed the basis a

filled

in the

title

tribe

given to the world."

his intention to portray Iroquois culture

on

its

own

of the book: League of the Ho-de-no-sau-nee, or Iroquois.

As Morgan explained,

the Iroquois called themselves the Hodenosaunee, or

People of the Longhouse, to express the deep sense of kinship that bound together their tribes, or nations, as one body. "They likened their confeder-

acy to a longhouse," he wrote, "having partitions and separate their ancient

method of building houses, within which

were sheltered under a door to

this

common

roof" The

Mohawk

fires, afi:er

the several nations

guarded the eastern

longhouse, and the Seneca guarded the western door, with

the other nations dwelling in between, each with

its

own

fire.

By adopting

CHROMICLERS OF

iriDIAPi

LIFE

92

i

I

Morgan shared with readers the insights he had gained when Parker and others welcomed him under their roof. Morgan described in detail not only the political rituals that unified the confederacy but also the cycle of religious ceremonies that bound Iroquois communities together through the year. Morgan treated those obthe imagery of the Iroquois,

servances with great respect, even Sacrifice of the

when

discussing rituals such as the

White Dog that seemed alien

was raised in and Morgan reported,

still

adhered

to.

On

the

to the Christian tradition

first

day of their midwinter

he

rite,

Iroquois ceremonial leaders "selected a dog, free from

physical blemish, and of a pure white," and strangled the animal, taking

care not to shed for the victim,

Iroquois

its

blood or break any bones. Far from feeling contempt

worshipers regarded the animal as blessed. "White was the

emblem

the dog to

power.

its

of purity and of

Morgan

faith,"

keeper was emblematic of

their

wooden

altar as a priest offered a prayer to the

rising to thee,

by which

it

will

is

Great

into the text

were a

far

appear that our words are

and Morgan conveyed the

Morgan

members of

knew better.

"We now

true."

cry from the fanciful Indian

oratory found in fiction and mimicked by the Grand Order before they

Spirit:

returning unto thee.

This and other speeches that Parker translated and

wove

to bear their peti-

burned the body of the dog on

obey thy commands. That which thou hast made It is

devotion to the supreme

No more trustworthy messenger "could be found

tions to the Master of life." Later, worshipers

a

noted, and the fidelity of

Parker

^^ % ^^

PORTRAYING THE PEOPLE 93

power

words

of Iroquois rhetoric in

prayer of thanksgiving:

"We

and

that rang clear

true, as in this

which

return thanks to our mother, the earth,

We return thanks to the rivers and streams, which supply us We return thanks to all herbs, which furnish medicines for the cure of diseases. We return thanks to the com, and to her sisters, the beans and squashes, which give us life. We return thanks to the bushes and trees, which provide us with fruit. We return thanks to the wind, which, moving the air, has banished diseases. We return thanks to the moon and stars,

sustains us.

with water.

which have given

to us their light

Morgan acknowledged him and describing

Morgan expressed

hope

"fruit

mestic institutions." The truths

gone."

by dedicating the book

to

of our joint researches." In his preface,

that the

ing toward the Indian, founded

was

the sun

his debt to Parker

as the

it

the

when

book would "encourage a kinder feel-

upon a truer knowledge of his civil and doMorgan arrived at came not from detached

observation but from a relationship between the author and the Iroquois that Lewis Henry Morgan made the notes and sketches at left during a field trip to the Tonawanda Reservation in western New York in 1849. Sketched on the right-hand page of the notebook are views of a traditional Iroquois lodge like the one portrayed in. the lithograph below, made of a framework ofpoles covered with slabs of bark.

went beyond

Tonawanda Senecas in required them to abandon

Morgan lent support an 1840

treaty that

grate to the west.

As

the confines of research. to

The

treaty makers,

part of that relationship,

their

campaign

to overturn

their reservation

and emi-

by offering inducements that

in

some

cases amounted to bribes, had obtained the signatures of a bare majority of the 90 or so chiefs

on the reservation

Senecas fought the treaty on

council.

several grounds, including

one

that

went

to

the heart of their culture— the need for the

unanimous consent of council members. Traditionally,

if

such unanimity was not

achieved, the chiefs ended deliberations

and doused

the council

fire,

postponing ac-

tion until they could reach a consensus, or "roll their

words

into

one bundle." Senecas

refused to recognize as binding a treaty

signed under duress by a mere majority.

Members

of Morgan's Grand Order

cir-

culated petitions on behalf of the Senecas,

and he himself delivered the statements of support to Washington. Another ethnographer,

NO-iOTE or

served as federal Indian agent

Lakes

i^aBmmsMJiii

Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, who had region

and

in the

negotiated

treaties there, testified before the

Great

several

Senate

CHRONICLERS OF

I

n D

I

A N

LIFE

94

1 As part ofhisfieldwork, Morgan collected and sketched traditional Iroquois apparel such as the items worn at left by Levi Parker, Ely Parker's brother, and portrayed in detail at right. Morgan described the headdress—a silk cap topped with an eagle feather— as the "most conspicuous part of the male costume." The kilt, he noted, resembled that of Scottish Highlanders, while the moccasin was

among the finest articles

"for the protection

and adornment of the foot ever invented."

A

SENECA

IN

DA-AH-DE-A THE COSTUME OF THE IROQUOIS.

PORTRAYiriQ THE PEOPLE 95

Tonawanda agreement indeed violated the Iroquois principle of unanimous consent. Ely Parker argued eloquently for his people before the same committee, but in

that the

the end, the senators

HEAD DRESS.

field

of interminable

embarrassment, and expense." Senecas

difficulties,

QR

the treaty stand, claiming that to

do otherwise would "open a

,

CUS-TO-WEH

let

won

the

Tonawanda Reservation with funds aside for their removal to Kansas. The community that had nurtured pioneering work of Parker and Morgan would continue to exist.

the

up the

]