The Trail Book Page 17

  THE BUFFALO COUNTRY

  _Licks_ are places where deer and buffaloes went to lick the salt theyneeded out of the ground. They were once salt springs or lakeslong dried up.

  _Wallows_ were mudholes where the buffaloes covered themselves with mudas a protection from mosquitoes and flies. They would lie down and workthemselves into the muddy water up to their eyes. Crossing the GreatPlains, you can still see round green places that were wallows in thedays of the buffalo.

  The Pawnees are a roving tribe, in the region of the Platte and KansasRivers. If they were just setting out on their journey when the childrenheard them they would sing:--

  "Dark against the sky, yonder distant line Runs before us.Trees we see, long the line of trees Bending, swaying in the wind.

  "Bright with flashing light, yonder distant line Runs before us.Swiftly runs, swift the river runs, Winding, flowing through the land."

  But if they happened to be crossing the river at the time they would besinging to _Kawas_, their eagle god, to help them. They had a song forcoming up on the other side, and one for the mesas, with long,flat-sounding lines, and a climbing song for the mountains.

  You will find all these songs and some others in a book by Miss Fletcherin the public library.

  TRAIL TALK

  You will find the story of the Coyote and the Burning Mountain in mybook _The Basket Woman_.

  The Tenasas were the Tennessee Mountains. Little River is on the map.

  Flint Ridge is a great outcrop of flint stone in Ohio, near the town ofZanesville. Sky-Blue-Water is Lake Superior.

  Cahokia is the great mound near St. Louis, on the Illinois side of theriver.

  When the Lenni-Lenape speaks of a Telling of his Fathers about themastodon or the mammoth, he was probably thinking of the story that ispictured on the Lenape stone, which seems to me to be the one told byArrumpa. Several Indian tribes had stories of a large extinct animalwhich they called the Big Moose, or the Big Elk, because moose and elkwere the largest animals they knew.

  ARRUMPA'S STORY

  I am not quite certain of the places mentioned in this story, becausethe country has so greatly changed, but it must have been in Florida orGeorgia, probably about where the Savannah River is now. It is in thatpart of the country we have the proof that man was here in America atthe same time as the mammoth.

  Shell mounds occur all along the coast. No doubt the first permanenttrails led to them from the hunting-grounds. Every year the tribe wentdown to gather sea-food, and left great piles of shells many feet deep,sometimes covering several acres. It is from these mounds that wediscover the most that we know about early man in the United States.

  There are three different opinions as to where the first men in Americacame from. First, that they came from some place in the North that isnow covered with Arctic ice; second, that they came from Europe andAfrica by way of some islands that are now sunk beneath the AtlanticOcean; third, that they came from Asia across Behring Strait and theAleutian Islands.

  The third theory seems the most reasonable. But also it is very likelythat some people did come from the lost islands in the Atlantic, andleft traces in South America and the West Indies. It may be that DorcasJane and Oliver will yet meet somebody in the Museum country who cantell them about it.

  The Great Cold that Arrumpa speaks about must have been the Ice Age,that geologists tell us once covered the continent of North America,almost down to the Ohio River. It came and went slowly, and probably sochanged the climate that the elephants, tigers, camels, and otheranimals that used to be found in the United States could no longerlive in it.

  THE COYOTE'S STORY

  _Tamal-Pyweack_--Wall-of-Shining-Rocks--is an Indian name for the RockyMountains. _Backbone-of-the-World_ is another.

  The Country of the Dry Washes is between the Rockies and the SierraNevadas, toward the south. A dry wash is the bed of a river that runsonly in the rainy season. As such rivers usually run very swiftly, theymake great ragged gashes across a country.

  There are several places in the Rockies called _Wind Trap_. The CrookedHorn might have been Pike's Peak, as you can see by the pictures. Thewhite men had to rediscover this trail for themselves, for the Indiansseemed to have forgotten it, but the railroad that passes through theRockies, near Pike's Peak, follows the old trail of the Bighorn.

  It is very likely that the Indian in America had the dog for his friendas soon as he had fire, if not before it. Most of the Indian stories ofthe origin of fire make the coyote the first discoverer and bringer offire to man. The words that Howkawanda said before he killed the Bighornwere probably the same that every Indian hunter uses when he goeshunting big game: "O brother, we are about to kill you, we hope that youwill understand and forgive us." Unless they say something like that thespirit of the animal killed might do them some mischief.

  THE CORN WOMAN'S STORY

  Indian corn, _mahiz_, or maize, is supposed to have come originally fromCentral America. But the strange thing about it is that no specimen ofthe wild plant from which it might have developed has ever been found.This would indicate that the development must have taken place a verylong time ago, and the parent corn may have belonged to the age of themastodon and other extinct creatures.

  Different tribes probably brought it into the United States at differenttimes. Some of it came up the Atlantic Coast, across the West Indies.The fragments of legend from which I made the story of the Corn Womanwere found among the Indians that were living in Virginia, Kentucky, andTennessee at the time the white men came.

  Chihuahua is a province and city in Old Mexico, the trail that leads toit one of the oldest lines of tribal migration on the continent.

  To be given to the Sun meant to have your heart cut out on a sacrificialstone, usually on the top of a hill, or other high place. The Aztecswere an ancient Mexican people who practiced this kind of sacrifice as apart of their religion. If it was from them the Corn Woman obtained theseed, it must have been before they moved south to Mexico City, wherethe Spaniards found them in the sixteenth century.

  A _teocali_ was an Aztec temple.

  MOKE-ICHA'S STORY

  A _tipi_ is the sort of tent used by the Plains Indians, made of tannedskins. It is sometimes called a _lodge_, and the poles on which theskins are hung are usually cut from the tree which for this reason iscalled the lodge-pole pine. It is important to remember things likethis. By knowing the type of house used, you can tell more about thekind of life lived by that tribe than by any other one thing. When thepoles were banked up with earth the house was called an _earth lodge_.If thatched with brush and grass, a _wickiup_. In the eastern UnitedStates, where huts were covered with bark, they were generally called_wigwams_. In the desert, if the house was built of sticks and earth orbrush, it was called a _hogan_, and if of earth made into rude bricks,a _pueblo_.

  The Queres Indians live all along the Rio Grande in pueblos, since thereis no need of their living now in the cliffs. You can read about them atTy-uonyi in "The Delight-Makers."

  A _kiva_ is the underground chamber of the house, or if not underground,at least without doors, entered from the top by means of a ladder.

  _Shipapu_, the place from which the Queres and other pueblo Indianscame, means, in the Queres language, "Black Lake of Tears," andaccording to the Zuni, "Place of Encompassing Mist," neither of whichsounds like a pleasant place to live. Nevertheless, all the Queresexpect to go there when they die. It is the Underworld from which theTwin Brothers led them when the mud of the earliest world was scarcelydried, and they seem to have gone wandering about until they foundTy-uonyi, where they settled.

  The stone puma, which Moke-icha thought was carved in her honor, canstill be seen on the mesa back from the river, south of Tyuonyi. But theNavajo need not have made fun of the Cliff-Dwellers for praying to apuma, since the Navajos of to-day still say their prayers to the bear.The Navajos are a wandering tribe, and pretend to despise all people wholive in fixed dwellings.

  The "ghosts of prayer
plumes," which Moke-icha saw in the sky, is theMilky Way. The Queres pray by the use of small feathered sticks plantedin the ground or in crevices of the rocks in high and lonely places. Asthe best feathers for this purpose are white, and as everything isthought of by Indians as having a spirit, it was easy for them to thinkof that wonderful drift of stars across the sky as the spirits ofprayers, traveling to Those Above. If ever you should think of making aprayer plume for yourself, do not on any account use the feathers of owlor crow, as these are black prayers and might get you accused ofwitchcraft.

  The _Uakanyi_, to which Tse-tse wished to belong, were the Shamans ofWar; they had all the secrets of strategy and spells to protect a manfrom his enemies. There were also Shamans of hunting, of medicine andpriestcraft.

  It was while the Queres were on their way from Shipapu that theDelight-Makers were sent to keep the people cheerful. The white mud withwhich they daubed themselves is a symbol of light, and the corn leavestied in their hair signify fruitfulness, for the corn needs cheering upalso. There must be something in it, for you notice that clowns, whosebusiness it is to make people laugh, always daub themselves with white.

  THE MOUND-BUILDER'S STORY

  The Mound-Builders lived in the Mississippi Valley about a thousandyears ago. They built chiefly north of the Ohio River, until they weredriven out by the Lenni-Lenape about five hundred years before theEnglish and French began to settle that country. They went south and areprobably the same people we know as Creeks and Cherokees.

  _Tallegewi_ is the only name for the Mound-Builders that has come downto us, though some people insist that it ought to be _Allegewi_, and thesingular instead of being _Tallega_ should be _Allega_.

  The _Lenni-Lenape_ are the tribes we know as Delawares. The name means"Real People."

  The _Mingwe_ or _Mingoes_ are the tribes that the French calledIroquois, and the English, Five Nations. They called themselves "Peopleof the Long House." _Mingwe_ was the name by which they were known toother tribes, and means "stealthy," "treacherous." All Indian tribeshave several names.

  The _Onondaga_ were one of the five nations of the Iroquois. They livedin western New York.

  _Shinaki_ was somewhere in the great forest of Canada. _Namaesippu_means "Fish River," and must have been that part of the St. Lawrencebetween Lakes Erie and Huron.

  The _Peace Mark_ was only one of the significant ways in which Indianspainted their faces. The marks always meant as much to other Indians asthe device on a knight's shield meant in the Middle Ages.

  _Scioto_ means "long legs," in reference to the river's many branches.

  _Wabashiki_ means "gleaming white," on account of the white limestonealong its upper course. _Maumee_ and _Miami_ are forms of the same word,the name of the tribe that once lived along those waters.

  _Kaskaskia_ is also the name of a tribe and means, "They scrape themoff," or something of that kind, referring to the manner in which theyget rid of their enemies, the Peorias.

  The Indian word from which we take _Sandusky_ means "cold springs," or"good water, here," or "water pools," according to the person whouses it.

  You will find all these places on the map.

  "_G'we_!" or "_Gowe_!" as it is sometimes written, was the war cry ofthe Lenape and the Mingwe on their joint wars. At least that was the wayit sounded to the people who heard it. Along the eastern front of thesenations it was softened to "_Zowie_!" and in that form you can hear thepeople of eastern New York and Vermont still using it as slang.

  THE ONONDAGA'S STORY

  The _Red Score_ of the Lenni-Lenape was a picture writing made in redchalk on birch bark, telling how the tribe came down out of Shinaki anddrove out the Tallegewi in a hundred years' war. Several imperfectcopies of it are still in existence and one nearly perfectinterpretation made for the English colonists. It was in the nature ofshort-hand memoranda of the most interesting items of their tribalhistory, but unless Oliver and Dorcas Jane meet somebody in the Museumcountry who knew the Tellings that went with the Red Score, it isunlikely we shall ever know just what did happen.

  Any early map of the Ohio Valley, or any good automobile map of thecountry south and east of the Great Lakes, will give the_Muskingham-Mahoning Trail_, which was much used by the first whitesettlers in that country. The same is true of the old Iroquois TradeTrail, as it is still a well-traveled country road through the heart ofNew York State. _Muskingham_ means "Elk's Eye," and referred to theclear brown color of the water. _Mahoning_ means "Salt Lick," or, moreliterally, "There a Lick."

  _Mohican-ittuck_, the old name for the Hudson River, means the river ofthe Mohicans, whose hunting-grounds were along its upper reaches.

  _Niagara_ probably means something in connection with the river at thatpoint, the narrows, or the neck. According to the old spelling it shouldhave been pronounced Nee-ae-gaer'-ae, but it isn't.

  _Adirondack_ means "Bark-Eaters," a local name for the tribe that oncelived there and in seasons of scarcity ate the inner bark of thebirch tree.

  _Algonquian_ is a name for one of the great tribal groups, severalmembers of which occupied the New England country at the beginning ofour history. The name probably means "Place of the Fish-Spearing," inreference to the prow of the canoe, which was occupied by the man withthe fish spear. The Eastern Algonquians were all canoers.

  _Wabaniki_ means "Eastlanders," people living toward the East.

  The American Indians, like all other people in the world, believed insupernatural beings of many sorts, spirits of woods and rocks,Underwater People and an Underworld. They had stories of ghosts andflying heads and giants. Most of the tribes believed in animals that,when they were alone, laid off their animal skins and thought andbehaved as men. Some of them thought of the moon and stars as otherworlds like ours, inhabited by people like us who occasionally came toearth and took away with them mortals whom they loved. In the varioustribal legends can be found the elements of almost every sort ofEuropean fairy tale.

  _Shaman_ is not an Indian word at all, but has been generally adopted asa term of respect to indicate men or women who became wise in the thingsof the spirit. Sometimes a knowledge of healing herbs was included inthe Shaman's education, and often he gave advice on personal matters.But the chief business of the Shaman was to keep man reconciled with thespirit world, to persuade it to be on his side, or to prevent thespirits from doing him harm. A Shaman was not a priest, nor was heelected to office, and in some tribes he did not even go to war, butstayed at home to protect the women and children. Any one could be aShaman who thought himself equal to it and could persuade people tobelieve in him.

  _Taryenya-wagon_ was the Great Spirit of the Five Nations, who was alsocalled "Holder of the Heavens."

  Indian children always belong to the mother's side of the house. Theonly way in which the Shaman's son could be born an Onondaga was for themother to be adopted into the tribe before the son was born. Adoptionswere very common, orphans, prisoners of war, and even white people beingmade members of the tribe in this way.

  THE SNOWY EGRET'S STORY

  The Great Admiral was, of course, Christopher Columbus. You will findall about him and the other Spanish gentlemen in the school history.

  Something special deserves to be said about Panfilo de Narvaez, since itwas he who set the Spanish exploration of the territory of the UnitedStates in motion. He landed on the west coast of Florida in 1548, andafter penetrating only a little way into the interior was driven out bythe Indians. But he left Juan Ortiz, one of his men, a prisoner amongthem, who was afterward discovered by Soto and became his interpreterand guide.

  There is no good English equivalent for Soto's title of _Adelantado_. Itmeans the officer in charge of a newly discovered country. _Cay_ is anold Spanish word for islet. "Key" is an English version of the sameword. _Cay Verde_ is "Green Islet."

  The pearls of _Cofachique_ were fresh-water pearls, very good ones, too,such as are still found in many American rivers and creeks.

  The Indians that Soto found were very likely
descended from the earlierMound-Builders of the Ohio Valley. They showed a more advancedcivilization, which was natural, since it was four or five hundred yearsafter the Lenni-Lenape drove them south. Later they were called "Creeks"by the English, on account of the great number of streams intheir country.

  _Cacique_ and _Cacica_ were titles brought up by the Spaniards fromMexico and applied to any sort of tribal rulers. They are used in allthe old manuscripts and have been adopted generally by modern writers,since no one knows just what were the native words.

  The reason the Egret gives for the bird dances--that it makes the worldwork together better--she must have learned from an Indian, since thereis always some such reason back of every primitive dance. It makes thecorn grow or the rain fall or the heart of the enemy to weaken. TheCofachiquans were not the only people who learned their dances from thewater birds, as the ancient Greeks had a very beautiful one which theytook from the cranes and another from goats leaping on the hills.

  THE PRINCESS'S STORY

  Hernando de Soto landed first at Tampa Bay in Florida, and after a shortexcursion into the country, wintered at Ana-ica Apalache, an Indian townon Apalachee Bay, the same at which Panfilo de Narvaez had beaten hisspurs into nails to make the boats in which he and most of his menperished. It was between Tampa and Anaica Apalache that Soto met andrescued Juan Ortiz, who had been all that time a prisoner and slave tothe Indians.

  When the Princess says that Talimeco was a White Town, she means that itwas a Town of Refuge, a Peace Town, in which no killing could be done.Several Indian tribes had these sanctuaries.

  In an account of Soto's expedition, which was written sometime afterwardfrom the stories of survivors, it is said by one that the Princess wentwith him of her own accord, and by another that she was a prisoner. Thetruth probably is that if she had not gone willingly, she would havebeen compelled. There is also mention of the man to whom she gave thepearls for assisting at her escape, six pounds of them, as large ashazel nuts, though the man himself would never tell where he got them.

  The story of Soto's death, together with many other interesting things,can be read in the translation of the original account made by FrederickWebb Hodge.

  THE ROAD-RUNNER'S STORY

  Cabeza de Vaca was one of Narvaez's men who was cast ashore in one ofthe two boats ever heard from, on the coast of Texas. He wandered forsix years in that country before reaching the Spanish settlements in OldMexico, and it was his account of what he saw there and in Florida thatled to the later expeditions of both Soto and Coronado.

  Francisco de Coronado brought his expedition up from Old Mexico in 1540,and reached Wichita in the summer of 1541. His party was the first tosee and describe the buffalo. There is an account of the expeditionwritten by Castenada, one of his men, translated by Frederick WebbHodge, which is easy and interesting reading.

  The Seven Cities were the pueblos of Old Zuni, some of which are stillinhabited. Ruins of the others may be seen in the Valley of Zuni in NewMexico. The name is a Spanish corruption of _Ashiwi_, their own name forthemselves. We do not know why the early explorers called thecountry "Cibola."

  The Colorado River was first called _Rio del Tizon_, "River of theBrand," by the Spaniards, on account of the local custom of carryingfire in rolls of cedar bark. Coronado's men were the first to discoverthe Grand Canyon.

  _Pueblo_, the Spanish word for "town," is applied to all Indians livingin the terraced houses of the southwest. The Zunis, Hopis, and Queresare the principal pueblo tribes.

  You will find _Tiguex_ on the map, somewhere between the Ty-uonyi andthe place where the Corn Woman crossed the Rio Grande. _Cicuye_ is onthe map as Pecos, in Texas.

  The Pawnees at this time occupied the country around the Platte River.Their name is derived from a word meaning "horn," and refers to theirmethod of dressing the scalplock with grease and paint so that it stoodup stiffly, ready to the enemy's hand. Their name for themselves isChahiksichi-hiks, "Men of men."

  THE CONDOR'S STORY

  The _Old Zuni Trail_ may still be followed from the Rio Grande to theValley of Zuni. _El Morro_, or "Inscription Rock," as it is called, isbetween Acoma and the city of Old Zuni which still goes by the name of"Middle Ant Hill of the World."

  In a book by Charles Lummis, entitled _Strange Corners of Our Country_,there is an excellent description of the Rock and copies of the mostinteresting inscriptions, with translations.

  The Padres of Southwestern United States were Franciscan Friars who cameas missionaries to the Indians. They were not all of them so unwise asFather Letrado.

  _Peyote_, the dried fruit of a small cactus, the use of which was onlyknown in the old days to a few of the Medicine Men. The effect was likethat of opium, and gave the user visions.

  THE DOG SOLDIER'S STORY

  The Cheyenne Country, at the time of this story, was south of thePawnees, along the Taos Trail. All Plains Indians move about a greatdeal, so that you will not always hear of them in the same neighborhood.

  You can read how the Cheyennes were saved from the Hoh by a dog, in abook by George Bird Grinnell, called the _Fighting Cheyennes_. There isalso an account in that book of how their Medicine Bundle was taken fromthem by the Pawnees, and how, partly by force and partly by trickery,three of the arrows were recovered.

  The Medicine Bundle of the tribe is as sacred to them as our flag is tous. It stands for something that cannot be expressed in any other way.They feel sure of victory when it goes out with them, and think that ifanything is done by a member of the tribe that is contrary to theMedicine of the Tribe, the whole tribe will suffer for it. This verylikely is the case with all national emblems; at any rate, it wouldprobably be safer while our tribe is at war not to do anything contraryto what our flag stands for. All that is left of the Cheyenne Bundle isnow with the remnant of the tribe in Oklahoma. The fourth arrow is stillattached to the Morning Star Bundle of the Pawnees, where it may be seeneach year in the spring when the Medicine of the Bundle is renewed.

  This is the song the Suh-tai boy--the Suh-tai are a sub-tribe of theCheyenne--made for his war club:--

  "Hickory bough that the wind makes strong,-- I made it--Bones of the earth, the granite stone,-- I made it--Hide of the bull to bind them both,-- I made it--Death to the foe who destroys our land,-- We make it!"

  The line that the Suh-tai boy drew between himself and the pursuingPotawatomi was probably a line of sacred meal, or tobacco dust, drawnacross the trail while saying, "Give me protection from my enemies; letnone of them pass this line. Shield my heart from them. Let not my lifebe threatened." Unless the enemy possesses a stronger Medicine, this makesone safe.