| OTUTT.IINTIES
or The
PHILOSOPHY
or THE
NO!!!. AMERICAN INDIANS,
BY
J. W. POWELL.
-
–
Read before the American Geographical Society, at Chickering
Hall, December 29th, 1876.
$tº jørk:
Doug LAs TAYLOR, Book, JoB AND LAW PRINTER, Coº. NASSAU & FULTON STs.
1 8 7 7.








OTUTTLITNTIES
OF THE
PHILOSOPHY
OF THE
N()RTH AMERICAN |\|)|\\S.
BY
J. W. POWELL.
Read before the American Geographical Society, at Chickering
Hall, December 29th, 1876.
§tº #0th :
DOUGLAS TAYLOR, BOOK, JOB AND LAW PRINTER, Cor. NASSAU & FULTON STS.
1877.


OUTLINES OF THE PHILOSOPHY
OF THE
NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS.
->
I tell a riddle. There is an unknown known, and there is a
known unknown; and I tell the answer. The unknown known
is the philosophy of savagery; the known unknown is the philos-
ophy of civilization. In those stages of culture that we call sav-
agery and barbarism, all things are known—supposed to be
known; but when at last something is known, understood, ex-
plained, then to those who have that knowledge in full compre-
hension, all other things become unknown. Then is ushered in
the era of investigation and discovery; then science is born; then
is the beginning of civilization. The philosophy of savagery is
complete; the philosophy of civilization fragmentary. Ye men
of science, ye wise fools, ye have discovered the law of gravity,
but ye cannot tell what gravity is. But savagery has a cause
and a method for all things; nothing is left unexplained.
In the lower stages of savagery the Cosmos is bounded by the
great plain of land and sea on which we tread, and the firma-
ment, the azure surface above, set with brilliants; and beyond is
an abyss of nothing. Within these bounds all things are
known, all things are explained; there are no mysteries but the
whims of the gods. But when the plain on which we tread be-
comes a portion of the surface of a great globe, and the domed
firmament becomes the heavens, stretching beyond Alcyone and
Sirius, with this enlargement of the realm of philosophy the ver-
ity of philosophy is questioned. The savage is a positive man :
the scientist is a doubting man. And so we come back to our
riddle; there is an unknown known, and there is a known un-
known. But no more of riddles.
SAVAGERY IS ETHRIC CHILDHOOD.
The opinions of a savage people are childish. Society grows :
Some say society develops; others that society evolves; but some
how I like to say it grows. The history of the discovery of
growth is a large part of the history of human culture. That in-
dividuals grow, that the child grows to be a man, the colt a
horse, the scion a tree, is easily recognized, though with unas.
sisted eye the processes of growth are not discovered. But that

4.
races grow-races of men, races of animals, races of plants, races
or groups of worlds—is a very late discovery, and yet all of us do
not grasp so great a thought. Consider that stage of culture
where the growth of individuals is not fully recognized. That
stage is savagery. To-day the native races of North America
are agitated by discussions over that great philosophic question,
“Do the trees grow or were they created º' That the grass
grows they admit, but the orthodox philosophers stoutly assert
that the forest pines and the great sequoias were created as they
are. Thus in savagery the philosophers dispute over the imme-
diate creation or development of individuals—in civilization
over the immediate creation or development of races. I know of
no single fact that better illustrates the wide difference between
these two stages of culture. But let us look for other terms of
comparison. The scalping scene is no more the true picture of
savagery than the bayonet charge of civilization. Savagery is
sylvan life. Contrast Ka-ni-ga with New York. Ka-ni-ga is
an Indian village in the Rocky Mountains. New York is, well–
New York. The home in the forest is a shelter of boughs; the
home in New York is a palace of granite. The dwellers in Ka-
ni-ga are clothed in the skins of animals, rudely tanned, rudely
wrought, and colored with daubs of clay. For the garments of
New York, flocks are tended, fields are cultivated, ships sail on
the sea, and men dig in the mountains for dye stuffs stored in
the rocks. The industries of Ka-ni-ga employ stone knives, bone
awls and human muscle; the industries of New York employ the
tools of the trades, the machinery of the manufactories, and the
power of the sun—for water power is but sunshine, and the coal
mine is but a pot of pickled sunbeams.
Even the nursery rhymes are in contrast : the prattler in New
York says:
“Daffy down dilly
“Has come up to town,
“With a green petticoat
“And a blue gown;"
but in savagery the outer and nether garments are not yet
differentiated ; and more : blue and green are not differentiated,
for the Indian sees but one color, and has but one name; the
green grass and the blue heavens are of the same hue, to the
Indian eye. But the nursery tales of Ka-ni-ga are of the ani:
mals, for the savages associate with the animals on terms of
recognized equality; and this is what the prattler in Kaºgº
Says :
“The little red ant
“That lives under the hill,
“The little red ant
“That lives under the hill,
“Has only one arrow
“In his quiver.”

5
The arts and industries of savagery and civilization are not in
greater contrast than their philosophy. To fully present to you
the condition of savagery, as illustrated in their philosophy, three
obstacles appear. After all the years I have spent among the
Indians in their mountain villages, I am not certain that I have
sufficiently divorced myself from the thoughts and ways of civili-
zation to properly appreciate their childish beliefs. The second
obstacle subsists in your own knowledge of the methods and
powers of nature, and the ways of civilized society; and when I
attempt to tell you what an Indian thinks, I fear you will never
fully forget what you know, and thus you will be led to give too
deep a meaning to a savage explanation ; or, on the other hand,
contrasting an Indian concept with your own, the manifest
absurdity will sound to you as an idle tale too simple to deserve
mention, or too false to deserve credence. The third difficulty
lies in the attempt to put savage thoughts into civilized lan-
guage. Our words are so full of meaning, carry with them so
many great thoughts and collateral ideas. In English I say
wind, and you think of atmosphere in revolution with the earth,
heated at the tropics and cooled at the poles, and set into great
currents that are diverted from their courses in passing back and
forth from tropical to polar regions; you think of ten thousand
complicating conditions by which local currents are produced,
and the word suggests all the lore of the Weather Bureau—that
great triumph of American science. But I say neir to a savage,
and he thinks of a great monster, a breathing beast beyond the
mountains of the west.
I speak of meteors, and you think of these wanderers of space
finding rest at last on the bosom of mother earth. I say Kwe-
chuppu-tsºv to a savage, and he thinks of the excrement of dirty
little star-gods.
We must, if we would fully understand Indian philosophy,
leave that realm of thought where the sun is a great orb swing:
ing in circles through the heavens, where the winds drift in
obedience to cosmic laws, where falling stars reveal the consti-
tution of the heavens, and go to that lower realm where the sun
is but a little beast cowed by the heroic mien of a rabbit, and, in
Very fear, compelled to travel along in an appointed trail through
the firmament, like an ass in a treadmill; where the wind is but
breath, foul or fair, ejected from the belly of a monster; and
where the falling star is but dung.
In treating of savage philosophy I shall speak of their Cos.
mology, Theology, Religion, and Mythology.

COSMOLOGY.
Systems of Worlds.-Their cosmology is not always cos-
mogony. Some of the objects in the universe are supposed to
have had an origin—to have been created ; but many others to
have had everlasting existence. They are accepted as facts or
existences without origin—primary concepts, if you please.
A savage philosopher believes in a system of worlds, not
globes swinging in the heavens, but places of existence—the
world of this life, the land on which we tread and the
water in which we swim—and the world or worlds of land
and water to which we go. Among the different tribes
of North America, two methods in the arrangement of
worlds are observed. The lower tribes have their worlds ar-
ranged horizontally or topographically; the Wu-gun tu-wip,
the ghost land, the land of the hereafter, is beyond some
great topographic feature. The coast tribes say “beyond the
sea;” the dweller on the river banks, “beyond the river;” tribes
who dwell in valleys surrounded by crags and peaks say, “be-
yond the mountains;” the tribes who dwell on the brinks of
the great canons, “beyond the chasm.” Among those tribes
having their worlds arranged topographically, a past world is
not an item in their philosophy : with some the progenitors of
the human race, with all the animal races, came from the ground,
where they burrowed in miserable existence. With other tribes
the progenitors of the human race, with the races of animals,
came from the depths of the sea. There are always two future
worlds—one for the good, one for the bad–a land of joy and a
land of sorrow. -
When the future world is “beyond the chasm,” the way is by
a magical bridge; when “beyond the mountains,” by a danger:
ous pass among the rocks; when “beyond the river,” or “beyond
the sea,” a ferry is provided.
Among the higher tribes, we find the worlds arranged verti-
cally, or architecturally: a world or worlds below—a world or
worlds above. In this higher stage of savagery there is also a
past world: that is, humanity came to this existence, from a
former, another land. Sometimes the land from which he came
is above, sometimes below. But the land to which the righteous
go is always in a direction opposite to that from which he came
Thus among the Pueblo Indians there are seven worlds-one
world below this and five above. We came from the world be-
low by a magical ladder held by Marchī-to, one of their herº
gods, who had previously discovered a hole in the sky from that
Tower world the floor of this world, the sky of the lower. The
souls of the newly born have escaped from below to be clothed

with bodies here; and the souls of the righteous shall go on from
world to world until the bliss of the seventh heaven is reached.
I must content myself with this brief account of the worlds of
. though the theme is attractive by reason of the many
wonderful myths told of these worlds.
The Heavenly Bodies.—The sun and moon are always per-
sonages; with nomadic tribes primordial personages, uncreated
personages, but slaves, compelled to travel in appointed ways.
They have been subjugated. The freedom to roam at will is a
franchise dear to the sylvan man. What a wearied existence
those shining beasts of the firmament must have, to travel in the
same trail, in monotonous regularity, day by day through long
years! With the Pueblo tribes the sun and the moon are per-
sonages created for a purpose—to give light and warmth.
The stars of the nomads are human beings or animals trans-
lated from earth to the firmament for various reasons; but the
stars of the Pueblos were created from the fragments remaining
when the moon was made.
Meteorologic Phenomena.-Indian cosmology also deals with
all the meteorologic phenomena. The aurora is the dancing of
ghosts; the rainbow is made of the tears of the eagle god; the
thunder is the screaming of a great bird; the lightning is the
arrow of Ta-ww.ots, the hare god. Rain and snow are variously
explained. Among the Pueblos the rain god dips his brush,
made from the feathers of the birds of heaven, into the lakes of
the skies, and sprinkles the water therefrom over the face of this
world. In winter time he breaks the ice of the lakes and scat-
ters ice dust over the earth.
Geographic Phenomena.-Their cosmology explains the origin
of mountains; each mountain had a special creation; the shapes
of all the storm carved rocks were determined by the gods; the
great bends of the rivers were fixed; the lakes were made, and
the springs had a miraculous beginning.
Remarkable Facts in Nature.-Their cosmology also deals
with all the curious minutiae of nature. It explains the tawn
patch of fur on the shoulder of the little rabbit, the cardinal head
of the woodpecker, the top-knot of the crested jay, and the rattle
of the serpent. So there is nothing seen that is not explained.
Important Facts of Human Society.—In like manner all the
more important facts observed by them in human society, all the
institutions, and all the habits and customs, have their origin,
and were determined by the gods. Every tribe has its Babel
myth, its explanation of the dispersion of the human family over
the earth, and the diversity of tongues. They tell when birth
and death began and when marriage was instituted.
Let me repeat a passage from a myth. It is a dialogue be-
tween two gods, the Shin-au-av Brothers, the wolf gods.

THE SHIN-AU-AW BROTHERS DISCUSS MATTERS OF IMPORTANCE TO
THE PEOPLE.
Once upon a time the Shin-au-av Brothers met to consult
about the destiny of the Wu-mas. At this meeting the younger
said, “Brother, how shall these people obtain their food? Let
us devise some good plan for them. I was thinking about it all
night, but could not see what would be best, and when the dawn
came into the sky I went to a mountain and sat on its summit,
and thought a long time; and now I can tell you a good plan by
which they can live. Listen to your younger brother. Look at
these pine trees; their nuts are sweet; and there is the Us, very
rich; and there is the apple of the cactus, full of juice; on the
plain you see the sunflower, bearing many seeds—they will be
good for the nation. Let them have all these things for their
food, and when they have gathered a store they shall put them
in the ground, or hide them in the rocks, and when they return
they shall find abundance, and having taken of them as they may
need shall go on, and yet when they return a second time there
shall still be plenty; and though they return many times, as long
as they live the store shall never fail; and thus they will be sup-
plied with abundance of food without toil.” “Not so,” said the
elder brother, “for then will the people, idle and worthless, and
having no labor to perform, engage in quarrels, and fighting will
ensue, and they will destroy each other, and the people will be
lost to the earth; they must work for all they receive.” Then
the younger brother answered not, but went away sorrowing.
The next day he met the elder brother and accosted him thus:
“Brother, your words were wise; let the Ute people work for
their food. But how shall they be furnished with honey-dew
I have thought all night about this, and when the dawn came
into the sky I sat on the summit of the mountain and did think,
and now I will tell you how to give them honey-dew : Let it
fall like a great snow upon the rocks, and the women shall go
early in the morning and gather all they may desire, and they
shall be glad.” “No,” replied the elder brother, “it will not be
good, my little brother, for them to have much and find it with:
out toil; for they will deem it of no more value than dung, and
what we give them for their pleasure will only be wasted. In
the night it shall fall in small drops on the reeds, which they
shall gather and beat with clubs, and then will it taste very
sweet, and having but little they will prize it the more.” And
the younger brother went away sorrowing, but returned the next
day and said: “My brother, your words are wise; let the women
ather the honey-dew with much toil, by beating the reeds with
ails. Brother, when a man or a woman, or a boy or a girl, or

9
a little one dies, where shall they go 2 I have thought all night
about this, and when the dawn came into the sky I sat on the
top of the mountain and did think. Let me tell you what to
do. When a man dies, send him back when the morning re-
turns, and then will all his friends rejoice.” “Not so,” said the
elder; “the dead shall return no more.” The little brother
answered him not, but bending his head in sorrow went
a Wa W.
§. day the younger Shin-aw-av was walking in the forest,
and saw his brother's son at play, and taking an arrow from his
quiver slew the boy, and when he returned he did not mention
what he had done. The father supposed that his boy was lost,
and wandered around in the woods for many days, and at last
found the dead child, and mourned his loss for a long time.
One day the younger Shin-at-aw said to the elder, “You
made the law that the dead should never return. I am glad
that you were the first to suffer.” Then the elder knew that
the younger had killed his child, and he was very angry and
sought to destroy him, and as his wrath increased the earth
rocked, subterraneous groanings were heard, darkness came on,
fierce storms raged, lightning flashed, thunder reverberated
through the heavens, and the younger brother fled in great ter-
ror to his father Ta-ww.ots for protection.
THEOLOGY.
I next speak of their theology—their system of gods. The
theology of the North American Indians is not fetichistic,
though there are many survivals from fetichism.
Beast Gods.--All of the nomadic tribes are Zooloters; their
gods are animals.
The savage, the sylvan man, as the word signifies, is inti-
mately associated with the animals with which he is surrounded.
From them he obtains the larger part of his clothing, and much
of his food, and he carefully studies their habits and finds many
wonderful things. Their knowledge and skill and power ap-
pear to him to be superior to his own. He sees the mountain-
sheep fleet among the crags, the eagle soaring in the heavens,
the humming-bird poised over its blossom cup of nectar, the
serpent swift without legs, the salmon scaling the rapids, the
spider weaving its gossamer web, the ant building a play-house
mountain. In all animal nature he sees things too wonderful
for him, and from admiration he grows to adoration, and the an-
imals become his gods.
Another trait of character comes in to modify his theologic
beliefs—I mean ancientism—veneration for the past and for the

10
people of the past. This is a very common trait in human na-
ture. You know there are no great men living; all the wise are
dead; all the good are dead; and the men of the present are
their degenerate sons. But this ancientism is much more highly
developed in the savage. Everywhere the sylvan man mourns
the days that are lost, the men who are gone. The burthen of
every homily in an Indian camp is the degeneracy of the present
time; the theme of every eulogy, the wisdom and virtue of the
ancients. This ancientism appears in their theology in a very
interesting manner, for it is not the animals of to-day whom
they worship, but the dead animals—the ancient animals—the
progenitors or prototypes of the present. Individuals of every
species are supposed to have descended from the more ancient
animal, the progenitor of the race, who was a wonderful being.
The wolf of to-day is a howling pest, but that wolf's grand-
father was a god. And so they have a grizzly bear god, an
eagle god, a rattlesnake god, a trout god, and a spider god—a
god for every race or species of animal.
Hero Gods.-There is another very curious and interesting
fact in Indian philosophy. They do not separate man from the
beast by any broad line of demarkation. Mankind is supposed
simply to be one of the many races of animals; in some respects
superior, in many others inferior, to those races. So the Indian
speaks of “our race” as of the same rank with the bear race,
the wolf race or the rattlesnake race; and, as he deifies ancient
beasts, he deifies ancient men, and thus he has a special class,
which we may denominate hero gods. Some of the earlier men
and women of the human race were wonderful people, and per-
formed many great deeds. -
Daimon Gods,--I have said that the theology of the North
American Indians was not fetichistic, but among them we find
many survivals from fetichism; and one of these is a survival
by special development—I mean their daimon gods. I use the
term daimon rather than demon, for the latter has a Christian
meaning of devil, while these daimons are simply the presiding
spirits of places. Thus they have the spirit or ghost of the
mountain, the spirit of the river, the spirit of the lake, the spirit
of the spring, the god of the east, the god of the west, the god
of the north; and the god of the south, whose breath is the
winds.
It must be understood that these daimons have animal forms,
but have the power of transforming themselves and assuming
any shape at will, anthropomorphic or zoömorphic: This is true
also of the beast gods. They can transform themselves, and
many wonderful stories are told in their mythology of such
transformations. Their hero gods also have the power of trans-

11
formation, and may be anthropomorphic or zoömorphic. So their
daimon gods are animals.
Firmament Gods.-The sun, moon and stars are also gods,
and do many wonderful things, though they are not usually held
in very high esteem. This gives us a class which I call firma-
ment gods. They are also animals, and can at will transform
themselves, taking the shape of men or beasts.
So all their gods are animals, and the form in which they may
appear at any time is a matter of momentary whim; and these
animal gods may be classed, as you will see, as firmament gods,
hero gods, beast gods and daimon gods. There are two general
facts concerning the gods of the Indians, which must be em-
phasized. First, they are zoömorphic—they are animals; and
second, they are all ancient people. In most Indian languages
the generic term for god is ancient. In the Wuma or Shoshoni
language it is e-nº-ints-i-gaip, ancient persons, and the equiva-
lent of this word is found in many other languages; and there is
a special declension of nouns and adjectives, and a special con-
jugation of verbs, used in speaking of the ancients—the gods—
giving to these languages a solemn, reverential style.
Monster Gods.-A vicious human trait, exaggeration, plays
some strange freaks in Indian theology, and often their gods
become monsters—beasts with seven heads and ten horns. There
are three conditions favorable to the development of these
monster gods. The first is the migration of a tribe to a land
where a new fauna is found. In such migration they carry with
them their gods; but no longer having the animal descendants of
their gods in presence to correct their descriptions and to keep
them within bounds, all the important characteristics of their
ancient gods steadily develop; horns are multiplied; tails are
lengthened; claws grow; eyes enlarge or multiply; wings stretch
out like the clouds; the serpents that could twine about a bough
grow until they can twine about a mountain. The second
method by which monsters are produced is in some respects like
to the first, but the myth, only, travels from tribe to tribe, and it
is often very difficult for us to determine whether the myth
alone has traveled or not. The third class of monsters are those
based on the great bones discovered—bones of extinct elephants
and mastodons.
With some of the tribes these mythical monsters are very im-
portant personages.
Tutelar Gods.-Avarice plays a very important part in Indian
theology. The Indian has but a small store of material things,
and the religious element greatly prevails in his life; and his de-
sire for possession—ownership—is very strong; so every Indian
selects a tutelar god—a “my god.” Families also have tutelar

12
gods, and so do clans and tribes. Now a clan is a widely-spread
institution among North American Indians, the nature of which
is so well known that I need not stop to explain it; but the
tutelar god of a clan comes to be a very conspicuous personage,
and his image, as a rude painting or carving, is taken as the
badge of a clan, and this tutelar god gives name to the clan; it
is the totem.
Such are the gods of the nomads of North America: firma-
ment gods, which are animals; hero gods, animals also, as man
is an animal; beast gods, the progenitors or prototypes of the
present races of animals; and daimon gods, presiding spirits of
places, also zoömorphic.
In studying the myths of North American Indians many have
sought to evade this conclusion; and one of our brilliant writers
on the myths of the New World exclaims: “Man, the paragon
of animals, praying to the beast, is a spectacle so humiliating
that, for the sake of our common humanity, we may seek the
explanation of it least degrading to the dignity of our race.”
There have been many curious ways of interpreting Indian
myths. The latest and most attractive is that by which they are
converted into wonderful symbols, so that whenever an Indian
calls his god wolf, he does not mean wolf, he means wind, for
the wind howls and the wolves howl; when he says serpent, he
does not mean serpent, he means lightning, for the serpent darts
and the lightning darts. Now, that such symbolism has existed
among people whose grade of culture is higher, cannot be denied.
The fact of general nature worship by the ancient Indo-Euro-
pean people is fully established, and in many ways and by diverse
methods a wonderful system of symbols grew up among these
earlier Arians. This nature worship was the personification and
deification of the forces and phenomena of nature. The later
Greek and Roman philosophy was a personification and deifiº
tion of human attributes, passions and sentiments. But in this
later theology, vestiges of the earlier nature gods are discovered.
So, too, in the ancient Indo-European or Arian nature worship,
vestiges of an earlier theology appear, and that earlier theology
was a deification of animals, a theology still extant among the
North American nomads; and in this last mentioned system the
vestiges of one still more primitive appear, for in it relics of
fetchism are found. Indian theology is not a degeneracy from
monotheism. It is not a degeneracy from that polytheism Prº
vailing among classical nations, where human attributes were
deified. It is not a degeneracy from that earlier polytheism
where the forces and phenomena of nature were deified. The
Indian gods are animal gods, and the Indian religion, zoolatry-
a development from fetichism.

13
The literature of North American ethnography is vast, and
scattered through it is a great mass of facts pertaining to Indian
theology—a mass of nonsense, a mass of incoherent folly, when-
ever those faets are looked upon from that standpoint which as-
sumes that Indian theology is a degeneracy from some higher
type; but when accepted as it is understood by the Indian him-
self, the great multitude of facts fall into place, and assume the
form of a theological organism, ethically a hideous monster of
lies, but ethnographically a system of great interest—a system
which beautifully reveals the mental condition of savagery.
I have no time to dwell on the theology of the Pueblo Indians,
but simply to say that a mixture of nature and animal worship
exists among them, so that they may be considered as in a tran-
sition state.
RELIGION.
I come now to speak of Indian religion, and by religion I
mean the relations existing between gods and men; for religion
chiefly has to do with the avenues to deity—the means of com-
munication, the means of influencing the gods. In Indian phil-
osophy the gods are not very far from usin intrinsic nature.
They are poor brutes like ourselves, with like passions and like
prejudices; quick to anger, and of #.". impulse; revengeful
to enemy, and faithful to friend. In many respects they have
no greater powers than ourselves, and none of them have greater
power than the ancients. The gods are the ancients. Our in-
feriority is due to our late degeneracy. The gods can transform
themselves; the gods may wander through the universe untram-
meled by bodies; and the gods can do many other wonderful
things. And so did we a few generations ago; we also were
gods, but now we are burthened with a curse. We can talk to
the gods, and they can hear and understand, but when they talk
to us our ears are closed, for we have forgotten the ancient lan-
guage. Yet they speak to us by signs and wonders in the
heavens, and the groves resound with their voices; ever they
are signaling to us; they appear to us in dreams by night, and
when our minds are free from incumbrance of natural things,
they come to us in visions by day.
Priest-craft.—But only to the few are these revelations
vouchsafed; and thus it is that priest-craft is specialized. Cer-
tain persons only can communicate with the gods. Three some-
what distinct classes of priests are found among all North Amer-
ican Indians: prophets, shamins and witches, giving rise to
prophet-craft, shamin-craft and witch-craft.
Prophets-The prophets are the great men who rise from
time to time among the tribes, men to whom the gods reveal

14
their will concerning the destiny of the people. All of the
great movements among Indian nations are inaugurated by the
prophets, whose warnings are awful, whose denunciations are
terrible, and whose promises are full of bliss. Pontiac was a
great prophet, and faith in him was the power by which he was
enabled to organize the great Indian conspiracy. The invisible
bond that held together the confederacy of forest tribes scat-
tered from the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, and from the great
lakes to the Tennessee, was the prophecies of that great chief
Tecumseh. In later times, only a few years ago, within my
own knowledge, a powerful and revered chief of the Pan-a-
mints of Western Nevada retired from his tribe and made his
home among the crags of that great mountain San Bernadino.
From time to time he came down among his people to preach,
then again retired to dwell in his lonely home among the clouds.
And his fame spread among all the Indians in the country round
about. At last the years of his seclusion ended, and he set out
on a pilgrimage, his mission being to tell all the people what
the gods had revealed to him while he dwelt alone. The tribes
of the western slope of the Sierras met him in Tulare Valley
and there was a great revival, the meaning of which no white
man can find out. The tribes of the desert of Southern Nevada,
Southern Utah and Southern California met him at the foot of
Nu-d'-gunt, a great mountain near the Vegas. The tribes of
Northern Utah, Colorado and Southern Idaho met him in Utah
Valley. I was, myself, present at that meeting, but learned
nothing of the revélations made by the great prophet A-vºcat-si-
vacaw or White Cloud, but I have seen its effect in a wide-
spread revival of all the ancient dances and ceremonies, and
A-vacat'-si-vacaw seems to have been a prophet of peace. But
usually prophets are great leaders in war.
Shamins—The Shamins are priests of a lower grade, and are
usually known among white people as medicine men. They
take charge of the religious ceremonies, and practice sorcery in
diverse ways. One of the most important of their offices is the
driving out of evil spirits. Among the Indians a disease is nºt
supposed to be an improper working of the functions of the
system, but is an entity, an evil spirit, a devil which takes pºs:
session of some part of the person and must be exorcised. he
Indian therapeutic system is sorcery. -
These shamins or medicine men have great influence among
the Indians, and often aspire to become prophets. -
Wººds. The third and lowest grade of priests I call witches.
This craft is carried on chiefly by women, though occasionally
men are accused of being wizards, for witchcraft is the practice
of sorcery for evil purposes. There is a very general belief that

15
old women, unless they die at a reasonable time, are transformed
into witches, and are finally carried away by whirlwinds.
Ecstasism—The means by which prophets, shamins and
witches carry on their mysterious professions are various and of
reat interest; chief among these is the practice of ecstasism.
his is the production of an ecstatic state—a physical condition
bordering on epilepsy. One of the most common methods of
producing ecstasy is by fasting, another, by the use of the de-
*oction from plants—black drinks, as they are usually called.
Often it is by long continued sweating and fasting and the use
of black drinks. The sweat-house is a universal institution
among North American Indians. It is often an underground
compartment; sometimes it is built of boughs or skins, like an
ordinary lodge, and is properly a general assembly chamber for
council, for religious ceremonies, and for convivial occasions and
general gossip. These council chambers are also sometimes used
as sweat-houses, and by long-continued fasting, sweating and the
use of black drinks, the prophets and shamins are able to bring
themselves into a most wonderful condition of ecstasy, so that
their ghosts or spirits are untrammelled by their bodies, and they
can talk with the gods and peer into the future.
With many tribes every boy, on coming to the age of puberty,
goes to the top of some mountain, to the depths of some forest,
or out into the desert to fast, and remains until it is revealed to
him whom he shall take for his tutelar god; and often during
these conditions of ecstasy he receives revelations which largely
govern his subsequent life, for the revelations of that awful
hour are held most sacred. The maid, too, is initiated into the
mysteries of womanhood by like practices. -
Amuletism.—Among many of the religious ceremonies that
prevail, I must not fail to mention amuletism. This is probably
a relic from fetichism, though it widely prevails in that state of
religion of which we are now speaking. But amulets are not
gods—they are mediators. In some ecstatic state, or in some
dream, or in some other mysterious manner, every Indian finds
an amulet—a curious pebble, a bone, a claw, a knot of hair, which
he keeps on his person to bring him good fortune, or to keep
away disease-devils.
The shamins, too, are very skillful in the decoction of sorcery
broth—usually foul mixtures that are prepared prior to engaging
in any important enterprise.
Many are the religious ceremonies among the Indians—sacri-
fice of parts of all animals killed in the chase; prayer to the tute-
lar god; baptism for consecration, dancing, chanting, and a great
number of peculiar ceremonies, observances and prohibitions, so
that the whole daily life of an Indian is a religious life. He is a

16
slave to religious observances of times and methods and absurd
prohibitions. He may not whistle at night lest an U-nºw-pits, an
evil spirit, should enter his mouth under cover of the darkness.
But religion also has to do with admission to the land of the
hereafter. Admission to the land of want is always free; the
terms of admission to the land of plenty are variously and vaguely
fixed. All the living righteous, who are few, will go to the
former; all the living bad, who are many, to the latter. The
dead, those who lived in the happy days of yore, are almost all
good, and few have been denied entrance to the home of the
blessed. But who are the wicked, and who are the good? The
ethic standards of savagery and civilization are as widely con-
trasted as their ideas of meteors. The bad man is he who failed
to sacrifice to his tutelar god the spleen of the last elk killed; or
he slept on his back the night before the battle, when the gods
have taught him to sleep on his belly. They have some very
curious soulometers!
Sometimes the good land is beyond the bad, and through the
latter the ghostly traveler passes in great dismay, happily reach-
ing the former if his savage sins have been duly propitiated and
the angry gods appeased; but woe to him who dies with savage
guilt resting on his ghost. Sometimes there are two ways—the
angry gods lead here, the appeased gods lead there.
MYTHOLOGY.
And now I speak of Indian mythology. In every Indian tribe
there is a great body of story lore—tales purporting to be the
sayings and doings, the history, of the ancients—the gods.
Every tribe has one or more persons skilled in the relation of
these stories—preachers. In all the Shoshoni tribes the preacher
is called a War-i-ſwi-mump, one who tells of the ancients. The
long winter evenings are set apart for this purpose. Then the
men and women, the boys and girls, gather about the camp-fire
to listen to the history of the ancients, to a chapter in the unwrit-
ten Bible of savagery. Such a scene is of the deepest interest.
A camp-fire of blazing pine or sage boughs illumines a group of
dusky faces intent with expectation, and the old man begins his
story, talking and acting; the elders receiving his words with
reverence, while the younger persons are played upon by the
actor, until they shiver with fear or dance with delight. An In-
dian is a great actor. The conditions of Indian life train them
in natural sign language. Among the two hundred and fifty or
three hundred thousand Indians in the United States, there are
scores of languages, so than often a language is spoken by only
a few hundred or a few score of people; and as a means of com-

17
munication between tribes speaking different languages, a sign
language has grown up, so that an Indian is able to talk all over
—with the features of his face, his hands and feet, the muscles of
his body; and thus a skillful preacher talks and acts; and in-
spired by a theme which treats of the gods, he sways his savage
audience at will. And ever as he tells his story he points a moral
—the mythology, theology, religion, history and all human duties
are taught. This maru-goi-nai, this preaching, is one of the
most important institutions of savagery. The whole body of
myths current in a tribe is the sum total of their lore—their phil-
osophy, their miraculous history, their authority for their govern-
mental institutions, their social institutions, their habits and cus-
toms—it is their unwritten bible.
In a single lecture I cannot introduce many of these tales; one
or two must suffice for illustration. -
ORIGIN OF THE ECHO.
I'-o-wi (the turtle dove) was gathering seeds in the valley, and
her little babe slept. Wearied with carrying it on her back, she
laid it under the ti-hoºpi (sage bush) in care of its sister 0-ho-chu
(the summer yellow bird). Engaged in her labors, the mother
wandered away to a distance, when a tsā-a-owits (a witch) came
and said to the little girl, “Is that your brother?” and O-hô-chu
answered, “This is my sister,” for she had heard that witches
preferred to steal boys, and did not care for girls. Then the
isó-a-vuoits was angry and chided her, saying that it was very
naughty for girls to lie; and she put on a strange and horrid ap-
pearance, so that O-hô-chu was stupefied with fright, and then
the tsā-a-vuits ran away with the boy, carrying him to her home
on a distant mountain. Then she laid him down on the ground,
and, taking hold of his right foot, stretched the baby's leg until
it was as long as that of a man, and she did the same to the other
leg; then his body was elongated; she stretched his arms, and be:
hold the baby was as large as a man. And the tsā-a-vuºits mºrried
him and had a husband, which she had long desired; but, though
he had the body of a man, he had the heart of a babe, and knew
no better than to marry a witch.
Now, when I'-o-wi returned and found not her babe under the
ti-hô-pi, but learned from O-hô-chu that it had been stolen by a
tsd-a-vuits, she was very angry, and punished her daughter very
severely. Then she went in search of the babe for a long time,
mourning as she went, and crying and still crying, refusing to be
comforted, though all her friends joined her in the search, and
promised to revenge her wrongs.
Chief among her friends was her brother Kwi-na (the eagle),

18
who travelled far and wide over all the land, until one day he
heard a strange noise, and coming near, he saw tsā-a-vuoits and
U-ja (the sage cock), her husband, but he did not know that this
large man was indeed the little boy who had been stolen. Yet
he returned and related to I-o-wi what he had seen, who said:
“If that is indeed my boy, he will know my voice.” So the
mother came near to where the tsā-a-vuoits and U-ja were living,
and climbed into a cedar tree, and mourned and cried continually.
A wi-na placed himself near by on another tree to observe what
effect the voice of the mother would have on Uja, the tsā-a-vuoits'
husband. When he heard the cry of his mother, U-ja knew the
voice, and said to the tsā-a-vuoits, “I hear my mother, I hear my
mother, I hear my mother,” but she laughed at him, and per-
suaded him to hide.
Now, the tso-a-vuoits had taught Uja to hunt, and a short time
before he had killed a mountain-sheep, which was lying in camp.
The witch emptied the contents of the stomach, and with her
husband took refuge within; for she said to herself, “Surely,
J-o-wa will never look in the paunch of a mountain-sheep for my
husband.” In this retreat they were safe for a long time, so that
they who were searching were sorely puzzled at the strange dis-
appearance. At last Kwi-na said, “They are hid somewhere in
the ground, may be, or under the rocks; after a long time they
will be very hungry and will search for food; I will put some in
a tree so as to tempt them.” So he killed a rabbit and put it on
the top of a tall pine, from which he trimmed the branches and
peeled the bark, so that it would be very difficult to climb: and
he said, “When these hungry people come out they will try to
climb that tree for food, and it will take much time, and while
the tso-a-vicits is thus engaged we will carry U-ja away.” So
they watched some days, until the tso-a-vvits was very hungry,
and her baby-hearted husband cried for food; and she came out
from their hiding place and sought for something to eat. The
odor of the meat placed on the tree came to her nostrils, and she
saw where it was and tried to climb up, but fell back many times;
and while so doing Kwi-na, who had been sitting on a rock near
by and had seen from where she came, ran to the paunch which
had been their house, and taking the man carried him away and
laid him down under the very same ti-hô-pi from which he had
been stolen; and behold he was the same beautiful little babe
that I-o-wº had lost.
And Kwi-na went off into the sky and brought back a storm,
and caused the wind to blow, and the rain to beat upon the
ground, so that his tracks were covered, and the tso-a-vvits could
not follow him; but she saw lying upon the ground near by some
eagle feathers, and knew well who it was that had deprived her

19
of her husband, and she said to herself, “Well, I know Kwi-na
is the brother of I-o-wi, he is a great warrior and a terrible man;
I will go to 70-go’-a (the rattlesnake), my grandfather, who will
protect me and kill my enemies.”
To-go-a was enjoying his midday sleep on a rock, and as the
tso-a-vuits came near her grandfather awoke, and called out to
her, “Go back, go back; you are not wanted here; go back!”
But she came on, begging his protection; and while they were still
parleying they heard Kwi-na coming, and To-go-a said “Hide,
hide!” But she knew not where to hide, and he opened his mouth
and the tso-a-vuºits crawled into his stomach. This made To-go-a
very sick, and he entreated her to crawl out, but she refused, for
she was in great fear. Then he tried to throw her up, but could
not, and he was sick nigh unto death. At last, in his terrible
wretchings, he crawled out of his own skin and left the tso-a-
ww.its in it, and she, imprisoned there, rolled about and hid in the
rocks. When Kwi-na came near he shouted, “Where are you,
old tso-a-v wits? where are you, old tso-a-v wits”? She repeated
his words in mockery.
Ever since that day witches have lived in snake skins, and hide
among the rocks, and take great delight in repeating the words
of passers by.
The white man who has lost the history of these ancient peo-
ple, call these mocking cries of witches, domiciliated in snake-
skins, “echoes,” but the Wu-mas know the voices of the old
hags.
iii. is the origin of the echo.
37:44
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ſºn, º º - /.
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