Each Of These
Medicine Men Has His Idols Carved In Wood, Representing The
Spirits Of The Air And Of The Fire, Under Some Rude And Grotesque
Form Of A Horse, A Bear, A Beaver, Or Other Quadruped, Or That Of
Bird Or Fish.
These idols are hung round with amulets and votive
offerings, such as beavers' teeth, and bears' and eagles' claws.
When any chief personage is on his death-bed, or dangerously ill,
the medicine men are sent for. Each brings with him his idols,
with which he retires into a canoe to hold a consultation. As
doctors are prone to disagree, so these medicine men have now and
then a violent altercation as to the malady of the patient, or
the treatment of it. To settle this they beat their idols soundly
against each other; whichever first loses a tooth or a claw is
considered as confuted, and his votary retires from the field.
Polygamy is not only allowed, but considered honorable, and the
greater number of wives a man can maintain, the more important is
he in the eyes of the tribe. The first wife, however, takes rank
of all the others, and is considered mistress of the house. Still
the domestic establishment is liable to jealousies and cabals,
and the lord and master has much difficulty in maintaining
harmony in his jangling household.
In the manuscript from which we draw many of these particulars,
it is stated that he who exceeds his neighbors in the number of
his wives, male children, and slaves, is elected chief of the
village; a title to office which we do not recollect ever before
to have met with.
Feuds are frequent among, these tribes, but are not very deadly.
They have occasionally pitched battles, fought on appointed days,
and at specific places, which are generally the banks of a
rivulet. The adverse parties post themselves on the opposite
sides of the stream, and at such distances that the battles often
last a long while before any blood is shed. The number of killed
and wounded seldom exceed half a dozen. Should the damage be
equal on each side, the war is considered as honorably concluded;
should one party lose more than the other, it is entitled to a
compensation in slaves or other property, otherwise hostilities
are liable to be renewed at a future day. They are also given to
predatory inroads into the territories of their enemies, and
sometimes of their friendly neighbors. Should they fall upon a
band of inferior force, or upon a village, weakly defended, they
act with the ferocity of true poltroons, slaying all the men, and
carrying off the women and children as slaves. As to the
property, it is packed upon horses which they bring with them for
the purpose. They are mean and paltry as warriors, and altogether
inferior in heroic qualities to the savages of the buffalo plains
on the east side of the mountains.
A great portion of their time is passed in revelry, music,
dancing, and gambling.
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