Archives Of Aboriginal Knowledge Collections – Page 3 of 5

Menomonie and Chippewa History

The originality of the following tradition is of a character which can be viewed disjunctively, and commends itself to notice. The Indian is prone to trace important events in his history to small, and apparently improbable causes. We have heard of no Indian wars of any note, of an ancient date, but those against the Foxes, in which the Menomonies figure as one of the chief actors. Their connection with the Algonquin family, and their speaking a peculiar dialect of it, lead to the supposition that they were, at an ancient period, more closely affiliated. Traditions of this kind, however mixed up with improbabilities, may enable us hereafter better to comprehend their history. That they fell out with their neighbors, relatives, and friends, for a small thing, is an event by no means novel or improbable.

Medawin or to Meda

Medawin: The Meda, or Meda-wininee, is in all respects a (priestly) magician. He is distinct from the Muskekewininee, or medical practitioner. They assemble, not to teach the art of healing, but the art of supplicating spirits. They do not rely on physical, but supernatural power.

Medaëka, or Amulets

Charms for preventing or curing disease, or for protection against necromancy, were the common resort of the Indians; and they are still worn among the remote and less enlightened tribes. These charms were of various kinds; they were generally from the animal or mineral kingdom, such as bone, horn, claws, shells, steatites, or other stone of the magnesian family. The Indian philosophy of medicine greatly favored this system of charms. A large part of their materia medica was subject to be applied through the instrumentality of amulets. They believed that the possession of certain articles about the person would render … Read more

Massachusetts Indians

When the English landed in Massachusetts, in 1620, there were some twenty tribes of Indians in the present area of New England, speaking cognate dialects. They were hunters and fishermen, in the lowest state of barbarism, and though they never had been, apparently, densely populous, the tribes had then; recently suffered much, from a general epidemic. In their manners and customs, forest-arts and traditions, and in their language, they did not differ in their ethnological type. They made use, in their wars, of the balista, which is shown in Plate 15, Figure 2. This antique instrument is represented several times, … Read more

Mammoth Skeletons found in Missouri

Scarcely a year passes that does not add to the number of localities, of the former existence of an animal era in America, attesting great changes. These discoveries are not alone confined to the Mississippi Valley, where they were first made. The borders of the sea-shore in South Carolina; the great marine deposits of Georgia and Alabama; and the clay and alluvial beds of the valleys of the Hudson River, have yielded some of the largest specimens of these antique bones; even the uplands of Vermont have recently given proofs of this kind. But it is to the valley of … Read more

Mace or War Club

There is no instance, it is believed, among the North American Indians, in which the war-club employed by them is made of a straight piece, or has not a recurved head. Generally, this implement consists of a shaft of heavy wood, such as the rock maple, with a ball carved at one side of the head, much in the manner of the South Sea Islander, or Polynesian war-clubs. Such is the Pug-ga-ma-gun of the Algonquins. It differs from the Polynesian club, chiefly in its possessing a tabular shaft, and in its less elaborate style of carving. Clubs exhibited at the … Read more

Kekenowin

Kekeenowin: This class of signs is devoted to the forest priesthood. There are two institutions among the North American Indians, which will be found to pervade the whole body of the tribes from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic Ocean, however the terms by which they are denoted differ, or the minor rites of the institutions themselves may be modified. They are called in the language from which we adopt most of the aboriginal terms in this treatise, the Medawin, and the Jeesukawin. In other terms, they are the art of medical magic, and of prophecy. Both are very ancient in their origin, and very generally diffused, practiced and believed in. It is impossible duly to consider the pictorial art as existing among them, without some prior notice of these leading and characteristic institutions. For, a very large proportion of both the simple representative and symbolic signs they employ, derive their force and significancy from the relation they bear to these institutions.

Javelin, or Indian Shemagon or Spear

This antique implement was one of the most efficacious, in close encounters, before the introduction of iron weapons. A fine specimen of it was brought to me, at Michillimackinac, in (August) 1837, by a noted chief, called MUKONS E-WYON, or the Little Bear Skin, of the Manistee river of the northern peninsula. The following is a facsimile of it. (Plate 26, Figure 2.) The material is of a yellowish chert. It is seven inches long, and one and a half wide at the lower end, which is chipped thin to admit the splints by which it was fastened to the … Read more

Iroquois Cosmogony

Iroquois Cosmogony: The tribes who compose this group of the Indians, concur in locating the beginning of creative power in the upper regions of space. Neo, or the Great Spirit of Life, is placed there. Atahocan is the master of heaven. Tarenyawagon, who is thought to be the same as Michabou, Chiabo, Manabozho, and the Great Hare, is called the keeper of the Heavens. Agreskoe is the god of war. Atahentsic is the woman of heaven. The beginning of the creation, or of man, is connected with her history. One of the six of the original number of created men of … Read more

Influence of the Cultivation of the Zea Maize

Indians of Kentucky

Indians of Kentucky: It is known that, while the present area of Kentucky was, at the earliest times, the theater of severe Indian conflicts, stratagems, and bloody battles, these efforts of fierce contending warriors were made by tribes, who, during all the historical period of our information, crossed the Ohio from the West. The fierce Shawnee and wily Delaware remained in the country but for short times. They landed at secret points, as hunters and warriors, and had no permanent residence within its boundaries. Such were the incessant bloody attacks and depredations made by these and their kindred tribes, both prior and subsequent … Read more

Indian Tribes of the South Pass of the Rocky Mountains

The Salt Lake Basin; The Valley Of The Great Säaptin, Or Lewis River, And The Pacific Coasts Of Oregon. By Nathaniel J. Wyeth, Esq. Synopsis. Letter I. Object of Inquiry. Period of Residence. Letter II. Question of Affinity of the Shoshonees by Language. Means of Subsistence. True Name Bonacks. Scarcity of Game. Game and Trapping. No social Organization among the Tribes. Utter Ignorance. Introduction of the Horse an Era. No Cultivation whatever. No Laws. No Ideas of Rights of Property. Foot Tribes cannot cope with Tribes possessing Horses. The Horse, therefore, the Cause of Division, and Tribal Organization. Letter III. … Read more

Indian Tribes of New Mexico

Governor Charles Bent, the author of the annexed memoir, who received his authority from General Kearny, fell before the perfidy of the assassins of Taos. New Mexico will long lament the loss of his experience and knowledge of Indian affairs. An extensive acquaintance with the tribes south of the Arkansas and Red Rivers, reaching to the Rio Grande and the regions west of it, had qualified him to make a just estimate of the character and population of the aboriginal tribes who rove over those vast and undefined plains, and mountain fastnesses. In his estimation of the tribes, the boundaries … Read more

Indian Pipes

The American Indian takes a great pride in his pipe. There is nothing too precious for him to make it from. His best efforts in ancient sculpture were devoted to it. And there is nothing in his manners and customs more emphatically characteristic, than his habits of smoking. Smoking the leaves of the nicotiana was an ancient custom with the Indian tribes. Tobacco, which is improperly supposed to be an Asiatic plant, appears first to have been brought to England from the North American coasts by the ships of Sir Walter Raleigh, about 1588. Powhatan and his sylvan court smoked … Read more

Indian Pictographs

Atotarho, the First Iroquois Ruler - Plate 70

Indian Pictographs: Observations on the Pictographic Method of Communicating Ideas by Symbolic and Representative Devices of the North American Indians. Pictorial and symbolical Representations constitute one of the earliest observed traits in the Customs and Arts of the American Indians. This Art found to assume a systematic Form, among the rude Hunter Tribes of North America, in the year 1820, when it was noticed on the Source of the Mississippi. This Instance given, with a Drawing. The Hint pursued.

Indian Gorgets or Medals

Whether this was in ancient times merely an ornament, which any one might wear, or a badge of authority, it might be fruitless now to inquire. It is probable that the modern practice of conferring metallic medals on chiefs only, and of marking thereby their authority, was founded on an ancient practice of this kind existing in the original tribes. The ancient gorget or medal of the North American tribes, was formed of the inner and shining parts of large sea-shells. The instance figured in Plate 19, Figs. 3 and 4, was taken from one of the old ossuaries of Beverly, … Read more

Indian Axe

Various stone implements of the antique period of the hunter occupancy of America, have received the name of “Indian Axe.” With what justice this term was applied, in relation to the use made of the European axe of iron, it is proposed to inquire. The ancient Indians, prior to the era of the discovery of America, had indeed no use for an axe, in the sense in which we apply the term now a days. Fire was the great agent they employed in felling trees and reducing their trunks to proper lengths. There was no cutting of trees. No stone … Read more

Indian Art, Tools and Weapons

If we were to judge the Chinese by the tools and implements which they employ, as these were exhibited for the first time to the British public in 1842, at the Chinese Museum at Knightsbridge, London, or as since shown by other collections in this country, without the fabrics produced by them, we should certainly underrate their skill and type of civilization and refinement beyond measure. This fact denotes how cautious we should be in judging of the arts of a people who are, by any possibility of just theory, descended from that mixed race, or, what is more plausible, … Read more

Indian Arrowheads

A great variety of these ancient instruments was fabricated, according to the species of hunting, the size and ferocity of the animals pursued, and the ages of the persons using them. Boys were always furnished with small arrow-points, such as were expected to be spent against squirrels, or the lesser quadrupeds and birds. This was the second lesson in learning the art of hunting; the first consisted in using the blunt arrow or Beekwuk, which was fired at a mark. Great complacency and pride was evinced by the parents in preparing the rising generation for this art, on expertness in … Read more

Ice Cutters

All the tribes of high northern latitudes employ, at the present day, a chisel of iron of peculiar construction, during the winter season, to perforate the ice of the lakes and rivers, for the purpose of fishing and taking beaver. This instrument replaces in the history of their customs, a horn, which their ancestors used for the same purpose. The practice prevails particularly among the lake tribes, who rely much on fish for their subsistence, and reaches so far south as north latitude 40°, and as far inland as the streams and waters become permanently frozen. The ancient horn consisted … Read more