Pawnee Hero Stories and Folk-Tales Part 18

It was rather unusual, but was performed once in 1877.

The sacrifice of the captive has not been practiced by the Skidi for a long time, perhaps forty or fifty years. Bear Chief told me that he had witnessed it six times; Eagle Chief, who is, perhaps, between fifty and sixty years old, says he has seen it once. The old Skidi described the ceremony as follows:

"The Skidi alone of the p.a.w.nees sacrificed human beings to _Ti-ra'-wa_. When they had returned home from war successful, bringing captives with them, they selected one of these for the sacrifice. The others were adopted into the tribe, but this one, who must be young and stout, one who would fatten easily, was kept apart, eating by himself, fed on the best of food and treated with the greatest kindness. No hint of the fate in store for him was given until the day of the sacrifice. For four nights before that day the people danced; and for four days they feasted. Each day after they had got through feasting, the dishes were taken to their especial place. Each woman, after she got through eating, rose, and said to the prisoner, 'I have finished eating, and I hope that I may be blessed from _Ti-ra'-wa_; that he may take pity on me; that when I put my seed in the ground they may grow, and that I may have plenty of everything.'

"At the end of the four days two old men went, one to each end of the village, and called aloud, directing every male person in the village to make a bow and an arrow, and to be ready for the sacrifice. For every male child that had been born a bow and an arrow was made; for the little boys small bows that they could bend and small arrows. The arrows must be feathered with the feathers of the eagle, or of some bird of prey, a hawk, an owl or an eagle. They must not cut the feathers nor burn them to make them low.

"The next day, before daybreak, every one was ready. All of the warriors, who had led parties on the warpath, took from their sacred bundles their collars, made from the feathers of the bird they wore,[12] and put them on their backs and tied them about their necks.

They held their pipes in their left hands, to signify that they were warriors. Every male carried his bow and arrow. Every woman had a lance or a stick. Just before daylight they all went out to the west end of the village, and stood there looking for the prisoner to be brought. Here two stout posts had been set up, one of ash and the other of hackberry, and between these had been tied four cross-poles, the three lower ones to aid in climbing up to the highest of the four.

[12] The Purple Martin, _Progne subis_.

"As day broke, the people, looking back toward the village, could see the captive being led toward them, bound hand and foot. Behind him, as he was led along, followed a warrior carrying the heart and tongue of a buffalo; after him came another, carrying a blazing stick, then one with a bow and arrow, and last a warrior with the stuffed skin of an owl.

"They led the naked captive to the posts, and lifting him up, tied first the left hand and then the right to the top cross-pole, and afterward tied the feet below. Every one stood there silent, looking, waiting; the men holding their weapons and the women their sticks and lances. On the ground under the sacrifice was laid the wood for a great fire, which was now lighted. Then the man with the blazing stick stepped forward, but before he reached the captive, the warrior with the bow and arrow, he who had taken the captive, ran up close to the victim and shot him through from side to side, beneath the arms, with the sacred arrow, whose point was of flint, such as they used in the olden time. After the blood had run down upon the fire below, the warrior who carried the buffalo tongue and the heart, placed them on the fire beneath the body. When this had been done the man who carried the owl ran up, and seized the burning stick and burned the body, once under each arm, and once in each groin, in all four times.

Then, at a given signal, the males all ran up, and shot their arrows into the body. If any male children were not large enough to shoot, some one shot for them. There were so many arrows that the body was stuck full of them; it bristled with them.

"A man chosen for this purpose now climbed up, and pulled out all the arrows from the body, except the one which was first shot through the side of the sacrifice, and placed them together in a pile on the ground, where they were left. After pulling out the arrows, this man took his knife and cut open the breast of the captive, and putting his hand in the opening, took out a handful of blood, and smeared it over his face, and then jumped to the ground, and ran away as fast as he could. Each of the four men, after he had done his part, ran away very fast, and went down to the river and washed himself. When this had been done the women came with their sticks and spears and struck the body and counted _coup_ on it. Even the little children struck it.

After they had done this, they put their sticks together on the ground in a pile, and left them there. By this time the fire was burning up high and scorching the body, and it was kept up until the whole body was consumed. And while the smoke of the blood and the buffalo meat, and of the burning body, ascended to the sky, all the people prayed to _Ti-ra'-wa_, and walked by the fire and grasped handfuls of the smoke, and pa.s.sed it over their bodies and over those of their children, and prayed _Ti-ra'-wa_ to take pity on them, and to give them health, and success in war, and plenteous crops. The man who had killed the captive fasted and mourned for four days, and asked _Ti-ra'-wa_ to take pity on him, for he knew that he had taken the life of a human being.

"This sacrifice always seemed acceptable to _Ti-ra'-wa_, and when the Skidi made it they always seemed to have good fortune in war, and good crops, and they were always well.

"After the sacrifice was over, then came the old women to rejoice over what had been done. They would act as the warriors used to do, when coming back from a war party. They carried the mother corn. They went to the body and counted _coup_ on it, and then went back to the village. Some of them would take the large hollow stalks of the sunflower, and put dust in them, and then blow it out, pretending to shoot, the puff of dust standing for the smoke of a shot. They would go up to the secret lodge, and standing outside of it, would tell the story of how they came to go on their pretended war party, and what they did while they were gone, and what enemies they struck--the whole long story. The people meanwhile would stand about and laugh at them as they did these things. Imitating the warriors, the old women changed their names also. One of the leading old women once took the name 'Mud on the Meat,' another, 'Skunk Skin Tobacco Pouch,' another 'Sitting Fish Old Man,' another 'Old Man Stepping on the Heart.' The old men standing about would joke with the old women, and these would joke and make fun of each other."

The different acts of this sacrifice appear to have been typical of the deeds and necessities of warfare. Thus the feathers of the eagle used on the arrows shot into the captive represented success in war.

Their use was a prayer to _Ti-ra'-wa_ that, as these birds were fierce and successful when making an attack, so those who shot might be fierce in war and always conquerors. The burning of the body of the captive with the blazing stick, perhaps, typified the lighting of the sacred pipe, which could only be done by one who had sacrificed a scalp. The shooting arrows into the body by the males and the striking it by the women typified the killing of and counting _coup_ on the enemy. The cutting open the belly was the first act in the sacrifice of the animal, the burnt offering.

It will be noted that this account differs in many particulars from that given by Mr. Dunbar in his papers on this people, but I think it worth recording, as being an independent relation by a very old man, who, I have no doubt, has been an eye-witness of more than one of these remarkable sacrifices.

I know of no satisfactory and detailed account of any of the sacred dances of the p.a.w.nees. There were many of these, among them the corn dance, the buffalo dance, the wild horse dance, the deer, bear, dog dances and so on. I give below an account of the corn dance, as detailed to me by Curly Chief, who said:

"The windy month [March] was the one in which _Ti-ra'-wa_ gave us the seed to cultivate. The first moon of April is the one during which they had a special wors.h.i.+p about the corn. Until these ceremonies had been performed no one would clear out the patch where they intended to plant the crop. Everybody waited for this time.

"The Kit-ke-hahk'-i was the only tribe in which this special ceremony was handed down. The Chau-i and Pita-hau-erat wors.h.i.+ped with them. The preparations for this dance are always made by a woman. She has to think about it a long time before she can make up her mind to undertake it. In making ready for the dance, she must furnish the dried meat made from the whole of a buffalo, fat and lean, every part of it. The sack which holds the heart she dries, and fills it with all the kinds of corn--the five colors, the blue corn, which represents the blue sky, the red corn, which stands for the evening sunset, the yellow corn, which typifies the morning sunrise, the white corn, which stands for a white cloud, and the spotted corn, which represents the sky dotted with clouds. All these she puts in the bag, placing in the sack three grains of each at a time. On the special day which has been fixed for the dance, she must offer these things to _Ti-ra'-wa_. The people are all gathered together, the women standing on the outside of the circle behind, and the men on the inner side of the circle in front. This is a woman's dance, and yet the men are there in front of the women. These men are the leading warriors of the tribe. They have been off on the warpath, and in time of corn have gone to the enemy.

They have been successful in war, and therefore they are with the women. They stand about the circle holding their pipes in their left hands, showing that they are leaders of war parties, and each with the skin of a particular bird[13] tied on top of the head, showing that they are warriors.

[13] A Martin, _Progne_.

"The floor of the lodge must be hard, and swept as clean as it can be.

On the left hand side as you look toward the door is a buffalo skull.

"When the day has come all the people are gathered together and are standing about the lodge. The high priest stands at the back of the lodge with the sacred bundles of the three bands before him. Then this leading woman comes forward, and presents to the high priest the dried meat and the sack of corn, and two ancient, sacred hoes, made from the shoulder-blade of a buffalo, bound to a handle by the neck ligament.

She places them on the ground before the sacred bundles, the corn in the middle, and the two hoes on either side. With these things she also presents a sacred pipe, filled and ready for lighting, taken from a sacred bundle. Then she steps back.

"The old high priest must well know the ceremonies to be performed. He prays to _Ti-ra'-wa_ and lights the sacred pipe, blowing smoke to heaven, to the earth, and to the four points of the compa.s.s. While the ceremonies are going on, the buffalo skull is taken to the sacred place in this lodge, and put in a particular position. Then the leading woman steps forward again, followed by two others. She takes the bag of corn, and the other two women take the hoes, and they stand in front of the high priest. He sings and prays. The leading woman stands in a particular position, as directed by the high priest, holding the bag of corn up to the sky in both her hands; and as he sings, she raises and lowers it in time to the music of the song.

"After these ceremonies the women come forward, holding their hoes in their hands, and dance about the lodge one after another in single file, following the leading woman. Four times they dance about the lodge. She cannot pa.s.s the priest the fifth time. These ceremonies and the songs and prayers were to ask for a blessing on the hunt and on the corn, and to learn whether they would be blessed in both. After the women had danced and gone back to their places, everybody looked on the floor of the lodge to see whether there were any buffalo hairs there. If they saw them, they all said, 'Now we are going to be successful in our hunt and in our corn.' Everybody said, 'We are blessed.'

"Then when they would go out on the hunt they would find plenty of buffalo, and the messenger sent back to the village from the hunt would return to the camp and say, 'We have plenty of corn.' If they saw a great many buffalo hairs they would get many buffalo; if but few they would get some buffalo.

"The next day after these ceremonies every one would begin to clear up their patches and get ready to plant corn. The leading woman who prepared the dance is respected and highly thought of. After that she is like a chief.

"This ceremony is the next princ.i.p.al thing we have after the burnt offering of the animal and of the scalp. We did not invent this. It came to us from the Ruler, and we wors.h.i.+p him through it. He gave us the corn and blessed us through it. By it we are made strong.

"We are like seed and we wors.h.i.+p through the corn."

III. MEDICINE AND MYSTERY.

It has been said that the "medicine men" or doctors among the p.a.w.nees occupied a position by themselves. Their guild was entirely distinct from that of the priests. A priest might be a doctor as well, but not because he was a priest.

The doctors were primarily healers. Their function was to fight disease. Like many other savage nations, the p.a.w.nees believed that sickness was caused by evil spirits, which had entered into the patient and must be driven out if he was to recover. In their treatment of injuries the doctors were often singularly successful.

Major North has cited for me a number of instances, in which men, whose hurts had refused to yield to the treatment of the United States Army surgeons, had been cured by p.a.w.nee doctors. Some of these have been detailed elsewhere. As might be imagined, however, the p.a.w.nee treatment of disease was less efficacious. Simple ailments were often treated with success by means of the familiar sudatory, or "sweat house;" but in the case of more serious complaints, the dancing and rattling, which const.i.tute so large a part of the doctor's treatment, tend to aggravate rather than to check the disease. I have not s.p.a.ce to discuss the very interesting subject of the system of therapeutics practiced by the p.a.w.nee doctors. Mr. Dunbar has gone into this matter quite fully, and the reader is referred to his papers for an account of their practice.

As the doctors had to fight evil spirits, it is not surprising that they should have summoned magic to their aid; but this magic probably served its more important purpose in impressing the other Indians with a belief in the doctors' powers. Some of the performances which took place at the doctors' dances were very marvellous, and most of them were quite inexplicable to those who saw what was done. That they should have imposed on the Indian spectator is perhaps not surprising; but it is further to be noted that clear-headed, intelligent white men, whose powers of observation have been highly trained, have confessed themselves wholly unable to explain these startling performances, or to hazard a guess as to the means by which they were accomplished. That these things happened as detailed is well authenticated by the testimony of many perfectly credible witnesses.

Other masters of mystery are provided with mechanical aids of one kind or another--some apparatus which a.s.sists them in imposing on their audiences, by concealing certain objects, or certain acts, by means of which they cause things to appear different from what they really are.

The p.a.w.nee doctors had nothing of this. Their dances were conducted by naked men in a ring surrounded by spectators. The floor of bare earth, packed hard and worn smooth by the tread of many feet, afforded no apparent opportunity for concealment or trickery. Under such conditions were performed their mysteries, a few of which I will mention as they appeared to watchful spectators, distant not more than twenty-five or thirty feet, and often much nearer.

The simplest performances were the swallowing of spears and arrows.

These feats were merely mechanical, and were no doubt really as they appeared, the arrows and the spears being driven down the gullet to the distance of a foot or eighteen inches. Instances occurred where men who had swallowed arrows died from the injuries received in the operation. Bear Chief, himself a doctor, and tattooed with a bear on the right side, told me that it was much harder and more painful to swallow an arrow than a spear.

Among the more remarkable performances witnessed and vouched for by my friend, Captain L. H. North, are the following:

Several men, representing elk, came into the ring, and trotted about, so as to be seen by every one, imitating the movements of those animals. To their heads were tied branches to represent horns, and each wore an elk skin thrown over his back. A doctor came into the ring, and handed to the spectators his arrows, which they examined, and found to be ordinary arrows with the usual sheet-iron points. On receiving back the arrows from those who had examined them, the doctor pretended to hunt the elk, and at length shot at them, striking them in the sides or on the legs. The arrows, instead of penetrating the flesh, bounded back, some of them flying fifteen or twenty feet in the air. They appeared to be shot with the full force of the bow, and when picked up and handed to the onlookers, the sheet-iron points were found to be doubled back as if they had been shot against a plate of iron, and the shafts of some of them were split. The elk trotted away and out of the ring without injury.

A man, representing an enemy, came into the ring on foot. A doctor followed, armed with a hatchet, which he pa.s.sed to the spectators for examination. It was an ordinary hatchet of the tomahawk form. On receiving back the hatchet, the doctor started in pursuit of the enemy, who fled. The doctor overtook him, and with a vigorous blow, sunk the hatchet up to the handle in the enemy's skull, leaving it there. The wounded man staggered on, pa.s.sing within five or six feet of the ring of spectators, who plainly saw the blood from the wound running down the man's face, and dripping from his hair behind. They saw also the gray brain-matter oozing from the wound. The wounded man was taken from the ring into the doctor's lodge. A few days later he was seen about, and in his usual health.

A small boy, six or eight years of age, was led into the ring quite naked. He was placed upon the ground, and two men sat upon him, one on his chest, the other on his legs. With a knife an incision was made in his belly; one of the doctors inserted his fingers; and, after feeling about, pulled out of the cut what looked like a portion of the child's liver. This he cut off and gave to the other man, who ate it. The remainder of the liver was crowded back into the hole, and the boy was carried off. Subsequently he was seen about, apparently in good health.

A man representing a bear came into the ring and was pursued by a number of Indians, who shot arrows at him for some time, without appearing to injure him. At length, however, an arrow pierced him through the bowels, and the wound was plainly seen on each side. The man fell, and appeared to be dying. He was removed to the lodge, and in a short time was entirely recovered.

Major North saw one of these bear performances, in which, the pretended bear having attacked one of his pursuers, the latter slashed him across the abdomen with a large knife, inflicting a cut from which the bowels hung down so that they dragged on the ground. The bear was carried off, and in a short time was healed, and went about as usual.

Major North told me that he saw with his own eyes the doctors make the corn grow. This was in the medicine lodge. In the middle of the lodge, the doctor dug up a piece of the hard trodden floor of the lodge, about as large as a dinner plate, and broke up between his fingers the hard pieces of soil, until the dirt was soft and friable. The ground having thus been prepared, and having been moistened with water, a few kernels of corn were buried in the loose earth. Then the doctor retired a little from the spot and sang, and as the place where the corn was buried was watched, the soil was seen to move, and a tiny green blade came slowly into view. This continued to increase in height and size, until in the course of twenty minutes or half an hour from the time of planting, the stalk of corn was a foot or fifteen inches in height. At this point Major North was obliged to leave the lodge, to take out a white woman who was fainting from the heat, and so did not see the maturing of the corn. All the Indians and white men who remained a.s.sured him that the stalks continued to grow until they were of full height, and that they then ta.s.seled out and put forth one or more ears of corn, which grew to full size, and that then the doctor approached the plant, plucked an ear, and pa.s.sed it to the spectators.

Similar to this was a feat performed with a cedar berry. The berry was pa.s.sed around among the spectators for examination, and was then planted as the corn had been. Then after a few moments the doctor approached the spot, put his thumb and forefinger down into the soft dirt, and seemed to lay hold of something. Very slowly he raised his hand and was seen to hold on the tips of his fingers the end of a cedar twig. Slowly his hand was moved from the ground, the twig growing longer and longer. When nine or ten inches high it began to have side branches. The doctor still holding the topmost twig of what was by this time a cedar bush, continued to lift his hand very slowly, until it was about three feet from the ground, and then let go of the bush. Then presently he took hold of the stem close to the ground, and, seeming to exert a good deal of force, pulled up the bush by the roots; and all the people saw the bush and its bunch of fresh and growing roots.

Enough has been said of these mystery ceremonies to indicate that they were very remarkable. The circ.u.mstances under which they were performed would seem to remove them from the more commonplace tricks of professional jugglers. And I have never found any one who could even suggest an explanation of them.

As might be inferred, these mysterious doings greatly impressed the p.a.w.nees; and the older men among them have a vast store of reminiscences of past dances, which they delight in repeating. In the course of a long talk with Bear Chief one evening, he recounted a number of instances which he had seen. He said:

"A man in our tribe was blind; he could not see. He could travel in the night as well as we can in the day, but when daylight came he could see nothing. At one time he called together his relations, and told them that, though blind, he wished to lead out a war party. He said, 'I know that I, with my party, will kill an enemy.' They started out, a young man leading him by the hand all day long. After they had been out several days, he told the young men to be ready, that the next morning he was going to kill an enemy. The next morning, while they were traveling along, they saw an enemy, and surrounded and killed him. They took the scalp and brought it home, and he had great credit, because, being blind, he had killed an enemy. They were all surprised that a blind man should have killed an enemy. He sacrificed the scalp to _Ti-ra'-wa_, and was made a warrior, and went to the sacred lodge and told the story of his campaign, and was made a warrior--a blind warrior.

"It was a wonderful thing for a blind person to be able to travel in the night. This must have come from _Ti-ra'-wa_.

"One of the wonderful things done by this man was at a medicine dance.

Everybody was there. He stood up with his bearskin over him, and was led out before the people. A cedar branch was given him, and he sharpened the end where it had been cut off, and stuck it in the ground. Everybody was now asked to pull up this branch, and many tried to do so, but the strongest men in the tribe could not move it. He could pull it up, as if it were stuck in the mud. He thrust the pointed end in the ground again, and asked the doctors to pull up the cedar branch. They tried to do so, but could not stir it. The chiefs also were asked to try to do this. They tried, but could not move it.

Something seemed to hold it in the ground. After everybody had tried to pull it up, and failed, this blind man went to it, and taking hold of it, pulled with all his strength, and pulled up with it about six feet of roots. There lay the tree with all it roots fresh and growing.