Authors: William M. Osborn
The Wild Frontier (12 page)
Ralph K. Andrist completed the scene:
During the debauch that followed [Indian excessive drinking], drunken rows flared into stabbings, women wailed, adulteries were committed without discretion, and initial euphoria sagged into soddenness so deep the victims lay in their own vomit.
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And George Catlin was forced to observe that
after his [the Indian’s] first means, in his wild state, are exhausted, he becomes a beggar for whiskey, and begs until he disgusts, when the
honest pioneer becomes his neighbour; and then, and not before, gets the name of the “poor, degraded, naked, and drunken Indian,” to whom the epithets are well and truly applied.
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Even today, the Indians suffer from extensive alcoholism. In 1964 the drink-associated crime rate of Indians was 12 times higher than the national rate.
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The Indian Health Service reported that in the late 1980s, the Indian mortality rate from alcoholism in the United States was 667 percent greater than that of the general population.
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Brian W. Dippie expressed the modern view about this problem:
For the Indians, alcohol brought with it a whole train of destructive consequences—quarrels disruptive of family and social life, the breakdown of traditional moral sanctions, impaired health due to exposure during bouts of drinking, maiming, prostitution, venereal disease, murder, and a lowered birth rate…. Tribal leaders over the centuries have struggled with the effects of intoxicating liquors on their people.
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Fergus M. Bordewich included a whole chapter on the subject of Indian alcoholism in
Killing the White Man’s Indian.
He reported that some studies imply that the alcoholism of Indians and other ethnic groups may be genetic in nature because of structural differences in certain enzymes.
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Dippie concurs in this idea and adds some other possible causes. In the 1970s, scientists at the Oklahoma Center for Alcohol-Related Research entered a thorny area of controversy by suggesting that Indians might have a genetic intolerance to distilled spirits. Two Canadians have pointed to the possibility that hypoglycemia, exacerbated by severe stress and nutritional deficiencies, accounts for the Indians’ susceptibility to strong drink.
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F
INALLY, THE
Indians were markedly religious, but in a uniquely Indian way. Religion was not a new thing for them. The subject of Indian religion, however, is a complicated one. Harold E. Driver perhaps encapsulated it best:
Every thought and act [of the Indian] was hedged or bolstered by religion or magic, which ranged all the way from an amorphous feeling of reverence to the performance of elaborate rituals where every word and gesture was prescribed in advance. The distinction between the
natural and supernatural was never sharply drawn by Indians, who tended to blend the two into one harmonious whole….
Gods, ghosts, and other spirits are supposed to have intelligence, emotions, and free will comparable to those of man. They may intervene in the affairs of the world of man in a manner consistent with a system of ethics or according to their whims of the moment. Because of their humanlike emotions, they may experience love, hate, joy, anger, jealousy, fear, courage, and may act according to their emotional state at the time. They may be benevolent, malevolent, or merely unconcerned, but they are generally susceptible to human pleading, and bend an ear to prayers, sacrifices, and other forms of emotional appeal to their egos….
Some men are able to maneuver impersonal supernatural power as well as to compel spiritual personalities to do their bidding. Their technique is called “magic.” If the proper spell is recited, if the proper manipulation of physical materials and objects [is] carried out, or if a symbolic pantomime is reenacted, a certain result is destined to follow. A mere human being therefore is able to compel supernatural forces or personalities to fulfill his desires….
The term “sorcery” or “witchcraft” is applied to magic used for antisocial purposes. The harming or even the killing of a person by magical technique, when he is regarded by his society as a criminal, is not an antisocial act, because the people may agree that he should be killed. But when evil (black) magic is directed against an innocent person, only then does it become sorcery or witchcraft. It is then a form of unapproved aggression against a fellow member of a society. Magic, good and bad, was likewise universal in Indian America.
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Two additional aspects of Indian belief were vision quests and dreams. Young boys and girls could acquire a spirit helper by going on a vision quest. He or she would go to an isolated spot with a reputation as an abode of spirits and would remain several days, naked, fasting, mutilating the body, and praying. Frequently there would be a hallucination or vision, sometimes in the form of an animal, which would speak, teach a song, or show designs to paint on the body for protection against enemies.
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George Catlin and others described this practice.
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Dreams were important because they were regarded as wishes of the soul, which should be satisfied for the health of the dreamer. A man who dreamed he was captured and being tortured by the enemy would ask his friends to tie him up and burn him. If he dreamed he was ordered to cohabit with a married woman or 2 for several days, village authorities would allow it for fear the dream spirit would bring disaster if he disobeyed. One Cayuga dreamed he had killed and eaten a girl. The chiefs
selected an innocent victim, but when the dreamer was about to kill her, he decided his dream had been satisfied, and she was not killed.
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Dreams of torture by the enemy were common among warriors. One warrior described by Harold E. Driver told the council about such a dream, and the council seized him and tortured him with fire. After he was tortured in this manner, he seized a dog and offered it as a sacrifice. The dog was roasted and eaten in a public feast “just as they would eat a human captive.”
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J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur concluded that the religious aspect of Indians made them in many ways superior to settlers:
Without temples, without priests, without kings, and without laws, they are in many instances superior to us; and the proofs of what I advance are that they live without care, sleep without inquietude, take life as it comes, bearing all its asperities with unparalled patience, and die without any kind of apprehension for what they have done or for what they expect to meet hereafter. What system of philosophy can give us so many necessary qualifications for happiness?
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The government, however, did not believe that the medicine men who dispensed the sorcery or witchcraft were of benefit to the Indians at all. Secretary of the Interior Henry M. Teller criticized them in his 1883 annual report:
Another great hindrance to the civilization of the Indians is the influence of the medicine men, who are always found with the anti-progressive party. The medicine men resort to various artifices and devices to keep the people under their influence, and are especially active in preventing the attendance of the children at the public schools, using their conjurers’ arts to prevent the people from abandoning their heathenish rites and customs. While they profess to cure diseases by the administering of a few simple remedies, still they rely mainly on their art of conjuring. Their services are not required even for the administration of the few simple remedies they are competent to recommend, for the Government supplies the several agencies with skillful physicians, who practice among the Indians without charge to them. Steps should be taken to compel these impostors to abandon this deception and discontinue their practices, which are not only without benefit to the Indians but positively injurious to them.
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There were many instances where Teller’s conclusions proved all too true. Medicine men frequently assured the warriors that they would not
be hurt in battle, and especially that the settlers’ bullets would not harm them.
The Comanche prophet Isatai was said to have great magic. He claimed he could vomit wagonloads of ammunition from his belly, stop white men’s bullets in midair, bring the dead back to life, and cure all diseases. He used magic paint to effect some of these things.
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A group of Kwahadi Comanche, Cheyenne, and Arapaho rode to attack some white buffalo hunters at Adobe Walls. On the way, Isatai reassured them. He said the hunters could not shoot them, he would stop all their bullets with his medicine, and that the Indians would wipe them all out when they charged. Isatai bullet-proofed all the warriors, and made incantations so that all the buffalo hunters would be asleep and all the doors would be open. He rode into battle wearing a cap of sagebrush stems and nothing else. The warriors finally lost confidence in him when he completely covered his horse with bullet-proof paint only to have it shot out from under him while he was observing the battle.
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The warriors were defeated. “They turned their rage and frustration against Isatai,” Carl Waldman reported, “who had promised them protection from the white men’s bullets and a great victory. An angry Cheyenne lashed Isatai with his quirt, and several other braves came up to join in.”
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Ottawa chief Pontiac also had a medicine man known as the Delaware Prophet. He claimed that he talked with the Master of Life.
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Tecumseh’s medicine man and brother, Tenskwatawa, or the Prophet, had a variety of magic that would protect the warriors from the settlers’ bullets. He communicated, he said, directly with the Great Spirit. In 1805 he experienced a deep trance and announced that he had visited the spirit world, where he had received a message from the Master of Life.
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At the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811, he predicted that the soldiers would be defeated because of his magic, but they were not, and he subsequently moved to Canada.
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In 1871, an owl hooted in Texas. Medicine man Mamanti told his people 2 parties of Texans would pass by. The hooting of the owl meant that the first (which would be small) should be allowed to pass by without being attacked, but the second one could be attacked successfully. The first party consisted of 18 people and was not attacked. The second, consisting of 10 wagons with 12 people, was attacked, and several in the second party were killed. (The atrocity aspect of this episode is discussed below.) The owl had not indicated that the first party contained
4-star general William Tecumseh Sherman, one of the most effective Indian fighters ever, who was on an inspection trip. The 2 chiefs who led the attack on the wagon train, Satanta and Big Tree, were apprehended, tried, found guilty, and sentenced to be hanged. The governor commuted their sentences to life imprisonment. The governor then freed the 2 in response to eastern pressure. Public opinion had allowed Satanta and Big Tree to escape the gallows. General Sherman was not happy. His letter to the governor in its entirety said this:
I believe in making a tour of your frontier, with a small escort, I ran the risk of my life, and I said to the military commander what I now say to you, that I will not again voluntarily assume that risk in the interest of your frontier, that I believe Satanta and Big Tree will have their revenge, if they have not already had it, and that if they are to have scalps, that yours is the first that should be taken.
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Modoc medicine man Curly Headed Doctor told Chief Captain Jack, or Kintpuash, in 1873 that if he killed the army leaders at a peace conference, he would render the troops helpless. Captain Jack did kill the army commander, General Edward Canby, and another warrior, Boston Charley, killed one of President Grant’s 2 peace commissioners, the Reverend Eleasar Thomas. The troops were not rendered helpless, however. They captured Captain Jack, Boston Charley, and the others who were with them.
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They were hanged after a 10-day trial.
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Not all medicine men were unsuccessful. George Catlin noted about the medicine men of one tribe that “when the Mandans undertake to make it rain,
they never fail to succeed
, for their ceremonies never stop until the rain begins to fall.”
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Fanny Kelly met Sioux chief Red Cloud in Washington after her release from captivity. She invited him to church, telling him about the great organ and the fine music he would hear. “Red Cloud replied with dignity that he did not have to go to the big house to talk to the Great Spirit; he could sit in his tipi or room, and the Great Spirit would listen. The Great Spirit was not where the big music was.”
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The Paiute Wovoka was the most influential medicine man of all. He played a pivotal part in the Battle of Wounded Knee, perhaps the most well-known battle of this war. Dee Brown in
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
devoted considerable space to Wovoka. (His story is told by Kicking Bear.) The Messiah returned to earth again. A voice told Kicking Bear to meet the ghosts of Indians who were to return after the flood. He and 9 other Sioux went far west to a Paiute camp in Nevada.
The Paiutes told them Christ had come again. They went to Walker Lake, where Wovoka was born and where hundreds of Indians were waiting to see the Messiah. On the third day, he appeared. Kicking Bear had always thought Christ was a white man. He was surprised he looked like an Indian. He spoke to them. He taught them the Ghost Dance. They danced until late at night.
The next day, Christ told them white men had treated him badly, leaving scars on his body, so he had gone back to heaven. He gave them a message. Wovoka told them that the very next spring he was going to wipe out the white man for being so wicked to him at his first coming to earth.
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A few days later they got on their horses to return home. The Messiah flew above them in the air, teaching them new songs. They found a group of dead Indian friends and visited with them for some time. They also found a herd of buffalo, ate one, left it lying as Wovoka instructed, and it reassembled into a new buffalo.
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