North American Indian Life

Customs and Traditions of 23 Tribes

Elsie Clews Parsons

• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9780486148137
• Topic: Geschichte
• Subtopic: Nordamerikanische Geschichte

27 fictionalized essays by noted anthropologists provide entertaining and insightful reading about religion, customs, government, social psychology, and other facets of Indian life. Studies by Paul Radin on the Winnebago, Robert H. Lowie on the Crow, Stewart Culin and Elsie Clews Parson on the Zuni, Franz Boas on the Eskimo, many more.

APPENDIX

NOTES ON THE VARIOUS TRIBES

Crow

The Crow Indians number about 1750. They now occupy a reservation in southeastern Montana between Billings, Montana and Sheridan, Wyoming. This is near the center of their historic habitat, for their two main bands, the River Crow and Mountain Crow, roamed respectively from the Yellowstone-Missouri confluence southwards, and from east-central Montana southward into Wyoming.¹⁹

In point of language, the Crow belong to the Siouan family, forming together with the Hidatsa of North Dakota a distinct subdivision. There is no doubt that some centuries ago they must have formed one tribe with the Hidatsa, since the languages are very closely related. In culture many differences have developed between the two tribes; e. g., the Hidatsa were always semi-sedentary tillers of corn as well as hunters in historic times, while the Crow remained pure nomads before white influence. On the other hand, some important traits persisted in both groups after their separation. The principal enemies of the Crow were the Dakota; to a somewhat lesser extent the Blackfoot and Cheyenne.

The most important publications on the Crow are:

CURTIS, EDWARD S. The North American Indian. vol. IV, New York, 1909.

LOWIE, ROBERT H. Social Life of the Crow Indians (Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, vol. IX, part 2.). New York, 1912.

Societies of the Crow, Hidatsa and Mandan Indians (ibid., XI, part 3.). New York, 1913.

The Sun Dance of the Crow Indians (ibid., XVI, part 1.). New York, 1915.

Notes on the Social Organization and Customs of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Crow Indians (ibid., XXI, part 1.). New York, 1917.

Myths and Traditions of the Crow Indians (ibid., XXV, part 1.). New York, 1918.

The Tobacco Society of the Crow Indians (ibid., XXI, part 2.). New York, 1919.

Blackfoot

At the time of discovery, these Indians resided east of the Rocky Mountains in what is now Montana, and Alberta, Canada, and were grouped into three tribes: Blackfoot, Blood, and Piegan. The Piegan were the largest and dominant tribe, but all were in the habit of speaking of themselves as Blackfoot. How this name originated is not known, though there is a story that it was given them by other Indians because their moccasins were always stained with the black loam of the rich prairies of Alberta.

Closely affiliated with the Blackfoot were the Sarsi, a small Athabascan-speaking tribe, and the Prairie Gros Ventre, closely related to the Arapaho. Thus the Blackfoot group—confederacy of early writers—was composed of at least five distinct tribal units. Their nearest cultural contemporaries are the Plains-Cree, Assiniboin, Crow, and Shoshoni.

The Blackfoot speak a language belonging to the great Algonkian family of eastern North America. The presumption is, therefore, that they migrated from the woodlands of the east to the western plains, but this was very long ago.

The surviving remnants of the tribe now number less than 5,000, fully half of whom live in the State of Montana, and less than half of these are of pure descent.

For further information on the Blackfoot and other Plains tribes, the reader is referred to:

North American Indians of the Plains (Handbook series, No. I American Museum of Natural History, 1912), by Clark Wissler, and the following monographs by Dr. Wissler, published in the Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History:

Mythology of the Blackfoot Indians. vol. II, part 1.

The Material Culture of the Blackfoot Indians. vol. V, part 1.

The Social Life and Ceremonial Bundles of the Blackfoot Indians. vol. VII.

Societies and Dance Associations of the Blackfoot Indians. vol. XI, part 4.

Sun Dance of the Blackfoot Indians. vol. XVI, part 3.

Some Protective Designs of the Dakota. vol. I, part 2.

Societies and Ceremonial Associations in the Oglala Division of the Teton-Dakota. vol. XI, part 1.

Riding Gear of the North American Indians. vol. XVII, part 1.

Costumes of the Plains Indians. vol. XVII, part 2.

Structural Basis to the Decoration of Costumes among the Plains Indians. vol. XVII, part 3.

Decorative Art of the Sioux Indians (Bulletin, American Museum, vol. XVIII, part 3.).

Menomini

The Menomini are a small tribe (1745 in number) of the Algonkian stock, who formerly lived on the west shore of Green Bay, Wisconsin, and who now dwell on their reservation, about forty miles inland from their former headquarters, on the upper waters of the Wolf River, one of their old hunting grounds.

In culture the Menomini belong to the Central Algonkian group of Woodland Indians, and have long been closely associated with the Siouan Winnebago and the Algonkian Sauk, Fox, Potawatomi, and Ojibwa.

Dr. Skinner’s publications on the Menomini are as follows:

In the Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, vol. XIII which is composed of:

Social Life and Ceremonial Bundles of the Menomini Indians.

Societies and Ceremonies of the Menomini.

Folk Lore and Mythology of the Menomini Indians,²⁰ and in Indian Notes and Monographs, Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation:

Medicine Ceremony of the Menomini Indians. vol. IV, 1920.

Material Culture of the Menomini Indians. (unnumbered), 1921.

Winnebago

The Winnebago number to-day about 3000 people of whom 1100 to 1500 live in Nebraska directly north of the Omaha reservation, and the rest in Wisconsin, mainly in Jackson county but scattered all over the region directly to the north, east and west of that county, also. When first discovered, toward the middle of the seventeenth century, they occupied the region between Green Bay and the Wisconsin River to the west, and their villages extended to the southern portions of Lake Winnebago to the south. Toward the end of the seventeenth century and beginning of the eighteenth century, we find them as far west as the Mississippi and as far south as Madison, Beloit, and even northern Illinois. While, unquestionably, they had been in part forced into this region by the war-like activities of the Fox Indians, there seems sufficient evidence to show that they had always roamed over the greater part of this country.

After their discovery by the French, much of their time was spent in fighting with the Foxes by whom they seem generally to have been defeated. They were, from the beginning, exceedingly faithful to the French. To what degree they were influenced by the French missionaries and traders, it is difficult to say, but in all probability this influence was greater than has generally been supposed. After the cession of the old Northwest to the United States, they remained rather quiet but were definitely implicated in the Black Hawk War.

About the middle of the nineteenth century, they were forcibly transferred to Nebraska but many of them made their way back to Wisconsin, and these, together with scattered Winnebago, who had managed to escape the enforced transference to Nebraska, form the majority of those now living in Wisconsin. Since their partial removal to Nebraska, a number of minor differences in dialect and customs have developed between the two divisions. The division in Wisconsin is undoubtedly the more conservative.

The immediate neighbors of the Winnebago were the Menomini to the north, and the Fox to the south; with these tribes they were always in intimate contact. With the Menomini they seem always to have been on peaceful terms, but with the Fox they were frequently at war. They seem to have known the Potawatomi quite well, and the Ojibwa fairly well. The eastern Dakota they also knew to a certain extent. In the main, however, they knew their Algonkian neighbors (Menomini, Fox, Potawatomi) best and they were profoundly influenced by these tribes in their material culture. The mythology and certain religious notions of their Central Algonkian neighbors they also adopted, but these seem to have been kept apart and distinct from their old Winnebago mythology and religion. In their social organization, they were totally uninfluenced and, on the contrary, influenced their neighbors profoundly.

They present the interesting spectacle of a people entirely surrounded by alien tribes, absolutely cut off from all communication with groups speaking related languages and having similar civilizations, who nevertheless have preserved many archaic Siouan cultural traits. What they have, however, they have in part completely assimilated, in part kept distinct.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

RADIN, PAUL. The Ritual and Significance of the Winnebago Medicine Dance. (Journal of American Folklore, vol. XIV, pp. 149–208. 1911.)

Winnebago Tales. (Journal of American Folklore, vol. XXII, pp. 288–313, 1909.)

Social organization of the Winnebago Indians. In Geological Survey of Canada. (Museum Bulletin, 10. Anthrop. ser. 5. 1915.)

The Peyote Cult of the Winnebago. (Journal of Religious Psychology, vol. VII [1914], pp. 1—22.)

Autobiography of a Winnebago Indian. (University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology, XVI [1920], No. 7.)

The Winnebago Indians. (Report of Bureau of American Ethnology. ) (In press.)

Meskwaki

The Meskwaki Indians at present live in the vicinity of Tama, Iowa, and are 350 in round numbers. Officially, all are listed as full-bloods, but the fact is that there is a good deal of old white (French and English) mixture—practically none within the last sixty years. And many have Sauk, Potawatomi, and Winnebago blood. On the rolls the Meskwaki are carried as Sauk and Fox of the Mississippi; but this is due to the fact that the Federal government long ago legally consolidated the two tribes, though they are, even to-day, distinct in language, ethnology, and mythology. Fox is but one of the many synonyms for the Meskwaki Indians.

Their native name, me sgw A ki A ki, in the current syllabary, means “Red-Earths.”

The Meskwaki linguistically are closely related to the Sauk and Kickapoo, more remotely to Shawnee, and to the Penobscot, Malecite, etc., of Maine and adjacent parts of Canada. They are also comparatively close to the Cree and Menomini. Culturally the Sauk, Fox, and Kickapoo are very near each other, and show woodland traits predominantly, with touches of those of the plains. They are also close to the adjacent Siouan tribes. The physical type of the Meskwaki has not been worked out; from Michelson’s unpublished data it would appear that beside a mesocephalic tribe, a brachycephalic one also occurs. This last is probably due to intermarriage with Winnebagos. Moderate occipital defor...