Native American Archives – Page 53 of 341

The Caddo Tale of Lion Bridegroom

There was a girl, a pretty girl, the boys came courting her. The girl would not listen to them. One day she went after water, she saw a boy across the creek, she went across and talked to him. He was a handsome boy in a fine buckskin suit. She went back to the river. She talked to him. She took him to her folks, they got married. In the fall people went hunting and the boy went out with his gun. He brought nothing back. The girl’s dogs were starved. They said, “Well, younger sister (tahai’), we are going … Read more

The Creek Square Ground

The Square or Yard was called Tokfi’tta (or Tokfi’kta), but sometimes Paskofa (Perryman spelled it “Pas-cofar” or “Pans-cofer”). Three plans of Creek Squares are given, two of them evidently intended to represent the same, while the third seems to be distinct. As the descriptions given in the teat and the notes accompanying the sketches disagree in soiree particulars, it is somewhat uncertain flow many Square Grounds are in question. The third plan (fig. 13) bears a rather close resemblance in its arrangements to what we know of Kasihta and is probably intended for it. a The four cabins erected toward … Read more

The Origin of the Natchez Indians

The Natchez have a tradition that they came from the sun, that the sun is a woman who has monthly discharges, and that one of these dropped upon the earth and turned into a man. They think that when they die the sun will expire, and that it shines only for them. This origin story is identical with the origin myth of the Yuchi and it would be of very great importance if we could be certain that the Yuchi were in no way responsible for it. It is in keeping with the solar worship of both Natchez and Yuchi..

Story of the Man who Became a Tie-Snake

Among Mr. Hewitt’s papers was a version of this story of which I Have published five more. It was written down at Washington D. C., June, 24, 1883, perhaps by Porter or Perryman but more likely it was one of the tales collected by Jeremiah Curtin to which Hewitt refers in his report to the Chief of the Bureau. It runs as follows Two Indians, one of whom was named Kowe, went upon a hunting expedition and were singularly unsuccessful. Before they killed anything their supplies of food became exhausted and they had nothing to eat. One evening, as they … Read more

Spiritual Beliefs of the Creek Indians

Innutska is said to have been the naive of the tutelary deity which came to a youth when he was fasting at the time of puberty. It seems to mean literally “What-comes-to-him-in-sleep.” The girls are said to have acquired their guardian spirits “through the medium of remarkable dreams” and so there may not have been much difference between the two. Indeed, our text continues, “both male and female persons may acquire fetishes through such dreams or by adopting an object, or a portion of an object which has impressed the partaker as exhibiting magic power, such as a fierce animal … Read more

Medicine of the Creek Indians

When a person was taken ill his near kindred appointed one of their number to take an article he had worn to the prophet who subjected it to a searching examination (by means of certain drugs?) for the purpose of ascertaining the cause of the illness. If he succeeded he told his clients the name of it but he himself gave no medicine. Diseases were carefully classified, and as soon as the disease was known the remedy was known and recourse was had to the medicine man or a medicine woman. This person possessed a pouch, usually made of the … Read more

Creek Ceremonies

A number of festivals were held during the year determined by certain phases of the moon. Anciently it was customary to hold such meetings every month to give and receive counsel and also for enjoyment. There were two principal festivals, a lesser and a greater. The former took place in the spring, usually early in April, and in the south generally at the time when berries, such as mulberries, were getting ripe. The town chief notified his people, and particularly the medicine man, when it was time to hold it. Then the people assembled at the bush ground after dark … Read more

Crime Punishment Among the Creek Indians

The fundamental idea regarding punishment was that it cleansed the culprit from the guilt of his crime. Criminals carried no guilt with them out of the world. After undergoing the prescribed punishment the culprit was innocent. It mattered not what he had done. If the law and custom had been enforced against him (or her) he was thereafter, to all intents and purposes, as innocent and as honorable as any other man in the community. If a person of one clan killed a member of another it was held that the crime had been committed against the entire clan, and … Read more

Creek Education

The father had no more to do with the discipline and education of his children than an alien. He could not punish their misconduct in any way, but he had such a right in some other man’s family, i. e., in the family of the man who had married his sister. It was the mother’s clansmen who might punish the children of their sister. The husband might sit around and talk in his wife’s house but he had no authority there. He had full authority if he wished to exercise it in the house of his sister and her husband. … Read more

Creek Marriage

When a man was considered by his clansmen entitled to a wife a conference was held by the elder men of the clan. The prospective groom must, however, have the following virtues. He must be a good hunter, a brave warrior, and an athlete. Having decided that he was old enough and fully callable of becoming the parent of children, a decision which gave him adult status, the elder men conferred with the elder women of the clan, saying to them in substance: “Our young man,” giving his name and qualifications, “should now have a wife. He is now a … Read more

Creek Clans

Perryman said that each town consisted of a number of clans or rather a number of segments of clans, and the Town Chief (Talwa Miko) was chosen from the principal one. Whenever another clan increased in numbers and importance so as to exceed that of the principal clan, a part or the whole of this clan would separate from the village and establish a new one. This happened only when the people were so numerous and the leading men so popular that they could induce members of the other clans to unite with them in the enterprise. In this way … Read more

Creek Towns

At the time when Porter and Perryman were interviewed (1881-82) they stated that there were 49 towns, each occupying a distinct territory, but that they had increased greatly after white contact and that tradition said there were originally but 18. These were all divided into two classes, one called the Italwalgi (Itulwulki) and the other the Kipayalgi (Kipayulki, Kipoywulki, Kupahyulki). This last is also given as Tipayulki but this form seems to be erroneous. The towns called Italwalgi had control of important matters relating to civil government. Their badge was white, the emblem of peace and wisdom. The towns (or … Read more

Notes on the Creek Indians

Notes on the Creek Indians was published in 1939 by Swanton and taken from the notes of Maj. J. W. Powell. Those notes were initially written down in interviews with two Creek Indians from Okmulgee Town in Oklahoma in the early 1880’s, Legus F. Perryman and Gen. Pleasant Porter. While not extensive, and in part, duplicates Swanton’s Early History of Creek Indians, there is specific information found within the manuscript not available elsewhere.

Illinois Burial Customs

The term Illinois Indians as used by some early writers was intended to include the various Algonquian tribes, encountered in the “Illinois country,” in addition to those usually recognized as forming the Illinois confederacy. Thus, in the following quotation from Joutel will be found a reference to the Chahouanous – i. e., Shawnee – as being of the Islinois, and in the same note Accancea referred to the Quapaw, a Siouan tribe living on the right bank of the Mississippi, not far north of the mouth of the Arkansas. Describing the burial customs of the Illinois, as witnessed by him … Read more

Natchez Burial Customs

When referring to the burial customs of the Natchez, that most interesting of the many tribes of the lower Mississippi Valley, the early writers by whom the tribe was visited seldom alluded to the rites which attended the final disposition of the remains of the less important members of the nation, but devoted themselves to describing the varied and sanguinary ceremonies enacted at the time of the death and burial of a Sun. Swanton has already brought together the various accounts and descriptions of these most unusual acts, and consequently they need not be repeated at the present time. Nevertheless … Read more

Five Nations Burial Customs

Writing of the Iroquois or Five Nations, during the early years of the eighteenth century, at a time when they dominated the greater part of the present State of New York, it was said: “Their funeral Rites seem to be formed upon a Notion of some Kind of Existence after Death. They make a large round Hole, in which the Body can be placed upright, or upon its Haunches, which after the Body is placed in it, is covered with Timber, to support the Earth which they lay over, and thereby keep the Body free from being pressed; they then … Read more

Menominee Burial Customs

The Menomini (Menominee Tribe), whose home when first encountered by Europeans during the early years of the seventeenth century was west of Lake Michigan, evidently possessed many customs quite similar to those of the Ojibway. Their dead were usually deposited in excavated graves, but they also had some form of scaffold burial. “The Menomini formerly disposed of their dead by inclosing the bodies in long pieces of birchbark or in slats of wood, and burying them in a shallow hole. When not in the neighborhood of birch or other trees, from which broad pieces of bark could be obtained, some … Read more

West of the Alleghenies Burial Customs

The burial customs of some western Algonquian tribes were, in many respects, quite similar to those of the New England Indians. It will be recalled that soon after the Mayflower touched at Cape Cod a party of the Pilgrims went ashore and during their explorations discovered several groups of graves, some of which “had like an Indian house made over them, but not matted.” They may when erected have been covered with mats. The similarity between this early reference and the description of certain Ojibway graves, two centuries and more later, is very interesting. Writing from “American Fur Company’s trading … Read more

Choctaw Burial Customs

Thus the greater part of the southern country was claimed and occupied by tribes belonging to the Muskhogean group, who were first encountered by the Spanish explorers of the early sixteenth century, and who continued to occupy the region until removed during the first half of the nineteenth century. For three centuries they are known to have remained within the same limited area. On the west were the Choctaw, whose villages extended over a large part of the present State of Mississippi and eastward into Alabama. And to this tribe should undoubtedly be attributed the many burial mounds now encountered … Read more

Powhatan Confederacy Burial Customs

It is to be regretted that more is not known concerning the burial customs of the Algonquian tribes of Virginia, those who constituted the Powhatan confederacy, people with whom the Jamestown Colonists came in contact during the spring of 1607. Several accounts are preserved, but unfortunately all are lacking in detail. Capt. Smith included burial customs under the general caption of their Religion, and in 1612 wrote: ” But their chiefe God they worship is the Divell. Him they call Oke and serve him more of feare than love.. They say they have conference with him, and fashion themselves as … Read more