are going around the mouth of the pit reciting chants which bear upon the future duties of the young girls. The longer the girl endures this ordeal the greater the honor. In most tribes the performance closes with a dance termed a puberty dance. In this way it is announced throughout the tribe that the young woman has made her entrance into society, and the young men take notice of it. She has grown up knowing the young men of her own camp and others who may visit back and forth, but if some young man thinks she has a special preference for him, as he has for her, he undertakes to get an idea of the state of her mind. It is a point of etiquette among the plains Indians, in social matters, that if you do not see anybody, nobody sees you. They do not have assembly rooms and parlors to meet in, but come together as they are going about in ordinary camp life. So when a young man has taken a fancy to this particular girl and wants to know whether she has any reciprocal feeling for him, he finds occasion to meet her. Having his blanket wrapt arround (sic) him, as he comes up to the young girl he deliberately throws one end of it over her head. If she does not like him she forces him away. If she does like him she stands still, and with the blanket over both their heads they talk together awhile. There may be hundreds of people around, but nobody shows any sign of noticing. After they come to the conclusion that they like each other well enough to be married, the young man sends a friend to talk with her family, but more particularly to talk with her brother, as he usually assumes more control and authority over the girl than does her father or mother. If it seems all right and the girl is satisfied, they begin to bargain as to how much the young man ought to pay or give; that has been spoken of as buying a wife. A young woman often makes the boast that her husband has paid a large price, a considerable number of ponies, to get her. She would con- |
sider it a disgrace to be given over to her lover for a small consideration. When a young Indian man and woman marry in the Indian way, as a rule it is because they want to be together. I believe most of the tribes of the plains have polygamy; in some tribes it does not exist. Usually the man who marries the eldest daughter in a family has a prior claim on the other daughters, from which it happens in some cases that a man has two or three wives, all sisters. The theory is that mothers thus closely related will take a greater interest in all the children of the same family. At any rate, if a man has more than one wife, two of them are likely to be sisters. There is no formal method of divorce; but either party is at liberty to separate from the other. When the woman leaves she takes her children with her, and this custom applies to all the tribes that I know. When with the Hopi Pueblos of Arizona who lead a sedentary life, I had opportunity to witness their marriage ceremony which took about two weeks altogether. Outside of the regular marriage ceremony, as you might call it, all the various societies connected with the families of the two contracting parties took part. On this occasion nine societies participated, and the dances and other ceremonies occupied from ten days to two weeks. But with the tribes of the plains there is no formal announcement. The news spreads abroad rapidly, and it is well known when a man and woman are married, and equally well known when they separate. On an average an Indian man or woman of fifty years of age has been married about three times; that is to say, has been married and separated three times. That is a fair average. Of course some couples live together all their lives. The grandfather and grandmother of the family with which I made my home among the Kiowa had never separated. |
The everyday work of the Indian woman is looking after the children, cooking, and making clothes. They have some work specialties, one of which is the art of cutting and fitting the tipi cover. This and other specialties are not part of the ordinary woman's knowledge but belong to work societies, for the women have their labor unions just as our tradesmen have. The women nurses in the Kiowa tribe, who look after the mother at the time of the birth of a child, belong to a society called the "Star Girl" or Pleiades society, taking their name and medical power from the Pleiads, who are believed to have been originally seven sisters of the tribe. If it is the ambition of a young woman to learn all that a woman should know, she joins the women's labor unions and work societies. If, for instance, she wants to learn how to cut out a tipi, which is an especially difficult operation, on the payment of a certain number of blankets the head woman of the tipi society agrees to teach her. She tells the young woman the names of the different parts and how to arrange the skins so that when cut out they shall make the tipi pattern. I have watched the building of a tipi from start to finish and think I am the only white man in the country who knows how to cut one out. It is not such a simple matter as one might think. The tipi, as you know, is of a general conical shape, but if you look at it closely you will see that it has not the same slope on all sides; there is one slope from top to back and a longer slope from top to front which gives it greater solidity when set up. For the ordinary tipi from twenty to twenty-two poles are required. They used to count one buffalo hide to a pole, so that it took twenty hides for a tipi of the usual size. Another part of woman's work is the dressing of these hides. This is a work of several days. After killing the animal, which must be done at the proper season to insure the best results, the skin is removed and scraped on both |
sides to remove the flesh and hair. It is then treated with a mixture of cooked lime, grease and soap root (yucca), pounded up together and spread over the surface of the skin to render it soft and pliable. This application is repeated several times, together with a great deal of scraping, stretching and soaking in water, before the work is done, the whole process taking about a week. Having prepared the skins, the woman of the household gets a professional expert to fit and cut them out for the tipi. The woman who does this work is supposed to be of good disposition, because if any other kind of a woman builds the tipi, things will never go right inside. She spreads the skins out on the ground in order that they may be arranged to fit properly, one particular skin being chosen to go at the top of the tipi. When she has them all spread out in an approximate circle, she marks with some red paint on the end of a stick the lines along which the women under her supervision are to cut out the pattern. When the cutting is done she fits these pieces together and the women sew them into one piece to cover the poles as they are set up. The tipi is painted, by the men, to represent some vision of the owner or to depict some war scene. Everything relating to it is woman's work, including the interior furnishings. I have here some specimens of Indian women's work, beaded pouches, moccasins, dolls, and buckskin sewing. The Pueblo tribes and the eastern tribes in the timber country make pottery. I have given particular attention to the process and find it to be essentially the same east and west. Much depends upon the proper selection of the clay, the mixing of the two different kinds and the burning. All of this work is done by women. Woman is the great industrial factor in Indian life. I have now described many of the things that concern the life of the Indian woman. On two occasions I was |
races. It includes archaeology, anthropometry and psychololgy and besides our Indian tribes it includes our white and colored population. A systematic ethnological investigation should include and cover all these things. Having authority to do something, the first obvious step would be to have your state surveyor prepare a large map of Nebraska with all the ranges, townships, and everything else necessary for a survey sheet properly outlined, also indicating county lines, towns, and so on. Then go to the state school superintendent, explain the nature of the work to him and try to interest him, and get him to send out to the teachers of every district school in the state a circular letter, asking him to aid in the work by calling the attention of the pupils to what is proposed. This is something I have had occasion to do in our bureau, in an investigation of a similar character some years ago for the south Atlantic states. Draw up a circular letter covering the principal points of ethnological investigation. In this case it would relate to Indian tribes; but the circular letter should call for location of presumed Indian sites, archaeologic sites, battle sites, camp sites and what might be called sites of supplies, as paint quarries, flint deposits, etc. The letter should call for names of streams and other places within the territory, of Indian origin or having an Indian connection. Have a paragraph also calling for names and addresses of any persons of Indian blood or any old settlers or frontiersmen living in the neighborhood. These circulars should be printed, two or three thousand of them, and mailed to those whose opportunity or business might give them knowledge of these things in their several localities. For instance, physicians who travel about and know nearly every family in certain country districts, postmasters, and ministers, are generally interested in such things. I should try to have one circular sent, not only to every school teacher, but to every country minister through |
out the whole state. I speak now of districts outside of large cities. Then, having sent out these circulars, sit down and wait a while for results. You will probably find that a large per cent of the circulars will not come back, and that a great deal of the information received will not be to the point. There are many ideas in connection with places, names and so on that have no valid foundation, and you will find a good many such theories set forth in the answers. Aside from all this, however, you will acquire a very large fund of information that you could not have obtained readily in any other way, and it will cover every nook and corner of the state. As a rule, besides the men who have given attention to such things, you can usually count upon a great deal of efficient field service from young university students. They like to see that their own county is properly represented, and they have a sufficient amount of training in that direction to go at it in the right way, and many of them will post up for the occasion. You can get the pioneers and pioneer associations; you can get associations of doctors and ministers and others; and there is no reason why the lawyers should not take part in the work. Then, when these results begin coming in, send out your field force. A very essential thing to remember is that a large part of this ethnologic work is really Indian work. Go to the Indians and ask them for information; and hire an Indian to go around with you. Nebraska is particularly fortunate in still having representatives of each one of the native tribes, so that you do not have to begin, as you would if you were in an older state, by hunting up books and documents for information. And you have the younger generation of Indians, who have been educated as interpreters, whom you can get. In the northeast you have the Omaha tribe, and they have a particularly large |
proportion of intelligent old men and intelligent young and middle aged who can give information. On your northern border you still have the great tribe of the Sioux, who claimed to the South Platte. Down in Oklahoma are the Pawnee, who held the central region with the Kiowa and Cheyenne who ranged over the same region, and the Oto, who held the southeastern part of the state; and back in Colorado are the Ute, who used to come down from their mountains and raid them all. Mr. Gilder told you today of remarkable finds he had made along the Missouri river and in some cases gave his opinion as to the tribe that originated those things. It is hardly necessary to ascribe them to any of the tribes we know to-day, because before the historical period that region was occupied by more than one tribe that has now passed out of remembrance. You can get from the Omaha anything that is within the memory of their tribe. It is not a difficult matter to go down to the Pawnee and others in Oklahoma and find out all that they can tell of the central region, or to get one or two of them up into Nebraska. They are all able to tell their own story. You are also particularly fortunate that Nebraska is still a pioneer state, and you can get direct information from the first settlers. They are still here to tell their story, and you should secure this now, before it is too late. You should make it a point to get the real Indian name of all rivers and hills and places. Get them correctly; get the name from the Indian himself (he is the best authority), and not the modern name manufactured as a translation by some white man. Get the real Indian name in scientific, phonetic spelling, and get the definite translation. It is well to remember that the Indian tribes in this central plain originally had no fixed boundaries, and often the same territory was covered or claimed by two or |
more tribes. Consequently in getting these names from all of the tribes that ranged over the same country there may be some duplication. That does not matter so much, because it will be found that the names for the same place, in the various languages, have usually the same translation and are all indicated by the same signs in the sign language. For the Omaha territory get the Omaha names first. For the section of country claimed by the Pawnee put the Pawnee names first. Along with names of rivers, streams, hills, village sites and other places, you will get the names of plants, gods and notable heroes; and before you are done with it you will have a good deal of Indian mythology and Indian botany and many other things that you were not expecting when you started out. In that way cover the whole state from the Indian to the pioneer, with battle grounds and camp sites, posts and trails. Locate all these things by definite range, township and quarter section, and on one or the other side of a river. Anything that concerns Nebraska history you should follow out. Some years ago in this way I made an archaeologic survey of the old Cherokee country in the southern Alleghanies. I located about one thousand sites of Indian archaeologic interest, village sites, mounds, quarries and stone graves. Each class was indicated on the map by means of a special symbol, and every site was numbered, with a separate series of numbers for each county. Corresponding to each number there was a manuscript note descriptive of the site or ancient remains, with a statement that it was so many miles in a certain direction from the nearest postoffice and on a certain side of the creek. That is an important point which is often neglected in mapping out these things. A man may tell you that a certain site is twenty-five miles north of Omaha, but you are not sure then even what state it is in; and if you know that it is within the state, yor are not certain what county it is in. |
Get these things down exactly by state, county and quarter section, distance in certain direction from the nearest postoffice, and on which side of the stream, if any. In order to follow up the investigation get the name and postoffice address of the man who owns the site, so that you can correspond with him or send somebody there to talk with him. In that way you can map out your ethnologic and archaeologic nomenclature and pioneer landmarks for the whole state. You will find in many cases that the emigrant trails and later railroad lines have followed the original Indian trails. You will also find that the trails lead to the village and battle sites. Get all the data relating to these things. Here again it is important that you call in the aid of the state to save archaeologic sites from the vandalism of ignorant people in order to preserve everything that is of sufficient importance for the state museum deposit. Especially if it forms part of a chain of evidence, try to secure it from interference until the proper students come to examine it. Photograph every stage of the excavation, then take out what you find and put it into your museum. I believe I have suggested most of the things in connection with the archaeologic and Indian ethnologic survey of your state; but there is something beyond that which is growing rapidly in importance in this country. It has already been once or twice emphasized in these meetings that we are a new nation, a conglomerate, especially in these western states, from older nations. One of these days our children and their children will want to know concerning their forefathers, and what are the constituent racial elements that have combined to make up our present citizenship. It is still possible to fill in the record, especially here in Nebraska and Kansas and these younger western states. You can form some sort of impression of the line of general census work that would be required to make up |
such an ethnologic map for the state. Find out where your immigrants have come from and where they have settled--your Germans, Irish, Swedes, Danes, etc., and your native Americans by states, and tabulate the result and put it upon a map. Then you will not only know who were your aboriginal predecessors, but who were your immediate ancestors in this country, and you will have put upon map record everything possible of past, present or future ethnologic interest to the people of Nebraska. |
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