Medicine-Men Of The Apache — Necklaces of human fingers; Necklaces of human teeth; The scratch stick; The drinking reed

NECKLACES OF HUMAN FINGERS.

The necklace of human fingers, an illustration of which accompanies this text (Pl.

IV), belonged to the foremost of the medicine-men of a brave tribe--the Cheyenne of Montana and Wyoming.

They were the backbone of the hostility to the whites, and during the long and arduous campaign conducted against them by the late Maj.

Gen. George Crook, which terminated so successfully in the surrender of 4,500 of the allied Sioux and Cheyenne, at Red Cloud and Spotted Tail agencies, in the early spring of 1877, it was a noted fact that wherever a band of the Cheyenne was to be found there the fighting was most desperate.

It is a matter now well established that the Cheyenne are an offshoot of the Algonquian family, speaking a dialect closely resembling that of the Cree, of British America.

[Illustration: NECKLACE OF HUMAN FINGERS.

Plate IV.

] It may interest some readers to listen to a few words descriptive of the manner in which such a ghastly relic of savagery came into my possession.

On the morning of the 25th of November, 1876, the cavalry and Indian scouts (Sioux, Shoshoni, Arapaho, Pawnee, and a few of the Cheyenne themselves), of Gen. Crook's command, under the leadership of the late Brig.

Gen. Ranald S. Mackenzie, then colonel of the Fourth Cavalry, surprised and destroyed the main village of the Cheyenne, on the headwaters of the Powder River, in the Big Horn Mountains, Wyoming.

The onslaught was irresistible, the destruction complete, and the discomfited savages were forced to flee from their beds, half naked and with nothing save their arms and ammunition.

More than half of the great herd of ponies belonging to the savages were killed, captured, or so badly wounded as to be of no use to the owners.

The cold became so intense that on the night after the fight eleven papooses froze to death in their mothers' arms, and the succeeding night, three others.

This blow, the most grievous ever inflicted upon the plains tribes, resulted in the surrender, first of the Cheyenne, and later on of the principal chief of the Sioux, the renowned Crazy Horse; after which the Sioux troubles were minimized into the hunt for scattered bands.

Undoubtedly, among the bitterest losses of valuable property suffered by the Cheyenne on this occasion were the two necklaces of human fingers which came into my possession, together with the small buckskin bag filled with the right hands of papooses belonging to the tribe of their deadly enemies, the Shoshoni.

These were found in the village by one of our scouts--Baptiste Pourrier, who, with Mr. Frank Gruard, was holding an important and responsible position in connection with the care of the great body of Indian scouts already spoken of.

From these two gentlemen I afterwards obtained all the information that is here to be found regarding the Cheyenne necklace.

The second necklace, consisting of four fingers, was buried, as Gen. Crook did not wish to have kept more than one specimen, and that only for scientific purposes.

Accordingly, the necklace here depicted was sent first to the U. S.

Military Academy at West Point, New York, and later to the National Museum in Washington, where it was believed it could better fulfill its mission of educating students in a knowledge of the manners and customs of our aborigines.

The buckskin bag, with the papooses' hands, was claimed by the Shoshoni scouts, who danced and wailed all night, and then burned the fearful evidence of the loss sustained by their people.

The necklace is made of a round collar of buckskin, incrusted with the small blue and white beads purchased from the traders, these being arranged in alternate spaces of an inch or more in length.

There are also attached numbers of the perforated wampum shell beads of native manufacture.

Pendant from this collar are five medicine arrows, the exact nature of which, it was, of course, impossible to determine from the owner himself.

Both Frank and Baptiste agreed that an arrow might become "medicine" either from having been shot into the person of the owner himself or into the body of an enemy, or even from having been picked up under peculiar circumstances.

The owner, High Wolf or Tall Wolf, admitted as much after he had surrendered at the Red Cloud Agency and had made every effort to obtain the return of his medicine, which was this necklace.

The four medicine bags to be seen in the picture are worthy of attention.

They were carefully examined under a powerful glass by Dr. H.

C.

Yarrow, U. S.

Army, in the city of Washington, and pronounced to be human scrota.

The first of these contained a vegetable powder, somewhat decomposed, having a resemblance to hoddentin; the second was filled with killikinnick; the third with small garnet-colored seeds like the chia in use among the Apache, and the fourth with a yellow, clayey-white vegetable matter not identified.

The fifth, also, remained unidentified.

Besides the above, there are artificial teeth, resembling those of the fossil animals abundant in the Bad Lands of South Dakota, but cut out of soft stone.

The fingers--eight altogether--are the left-hand middle fingers of Indians of hostile tribes, killed by High Wolf.

I obtained the list and could insert it here were it worthwhile to do so.

The fingers have not been left in the natural state, but have been subjected to very careful and elaborate antiseptic treatment in order thoroughly to desiccate them.

They were split longitudinally on the inner side and after the bone had been extracted the surface of the skin, both inside and out, received a treatment with a wash or paint of ocherous earth, the same as is used for the face.

I was told that the bones were not replaced but that sticks were inserted to maintain the fingers in proper shape.

Of the reason for making use of such a trophy or relic, there is not much to be said; even the savages know little and say less.

From the best information that I have been able to gather, it would seem to be based partly upon a vainglorious desire to display the proofs of personal prowess, and partly upon the vague and ill defined, but deeply rooted, belief in the talismanic or "medicinal" potency possessed by all parts of the human body, especially after death.

It was such a belief which impelled the Mandan, Aztecs, and others of the American tribes to preserve the skulls of their dead as well as (among the Aztecs) those of the victims sacrificed in honor of their gods.

As has been shown in another place, the Zuñi and others take care to offer food at stated periods to the scalps of their enemies.

The use of necklaces of human fingers or of human teeth is to be found in many parts of the world, and besides the fingers themselves, we find the whole arm, or in other cases only the nails.

The Cheyenne did not always restrict themselves to fingers; they generally made use of the whole hand, or the arm of the slaughtered enemy.

In a colored picture drawn and painted by one of themselves I have a representation of a scalp dance, in which the squaws may be seen dressed in their best, carrying the arms of enemies elevated on high poles and lances.

There is no doubt in my mind that this custom of the Cheyenne of cutting off the arm or hand gave rise to their name in the sign language of the "Slashers," or "Wrist Cutters," much as the corresponding tribal peculiarity of the Dakota occasioned their name of the "Coupe Gorge" or "Throat Cutters."

The necklace of human fingers is found among other tribes.

A necklace of four human fingers was seen by the members of the Lewis and Clarke expedition among the Shoshoni at the headwaters of the Columbia, in the early years of the present century.

Early in the spring of 1858 Henry Youle Hind refers to the allies of the Ojibwa on Red River as having "two fingers severed from the hands of the unfortunate Sioux."

[131] In Eastman's "Legends of the Sioux," we read of "Harpsthinah, one of the Sioux women, who wore as long as she could endure it, a necklace made of the hands and feet of Chippewah children."

[132] We read that in New Zealand, "Several rows of human teeth, drawn on a thread, hung on their breasts."

[133] Capt. Cook speaks of seeing fifteen human jaw bones attached to a semicircular board at the end of a long house on the island of Tahiti.

"They appeared to be fresh, and there was not one of them that wanted a single tooth;"[134] and also, "the model of a canoe, about three feet long, to which were tied eight human jaw bones; we had already learnt that these were trophies of war."

[135] Capt. Byron, R. N.

, saw in the Society Islands, in 1765, a chief who "had a string of human teeth about his waist, which was probably a trophy of his military prowess."

[136] "The wild Andamanese, who live only on the fruits of their forests and on fish, so far revere their progenitors that they adorn their women and children with necklaces and such like, formed out of the finger and toe-nails of their ancestors."

[137] Bancroft says[138] that the Californians did not generally scalp, but they did cut off and keep the arms and legs of a slain enemy or, rather, the hands and feet and head.

They also had the habit of plucking out and preserving the eyes.

Kohl assures us that he has been informed that the Ojibwa will frequently cut fingers, arms, and limbs from their enemies and preserve these ghastly relics for use in their dances.

Sometimes the warriors will become so excited that they will break off and swallow a finger.

[139] Tanner says of the Ojibwa: "Sometimes they use sacks of human skin to contain their medicines, and they fancy that something is thus added to their efficacy."

[140] Of the savages of Virginia we read: "Mais d'autres portent pour plus glorieuse parure une main seiche de quelqu'un de leurs ennemis."

[141] Of the Algonkin we read: "Il y en a qui ont une partie du bras et la main de quelque Hiroquois qu'ils ont tué; cela est si bien vuidée que les ongles restent toutes entieres."

[142] The Mohawk "place their foe against a tree or stake and first tear all the nails from his fingers and run them on a string, which they wear the same as we do gold chains.

It is considered to the honor of any chief who has vanquished or overcome his enemies if he bite off or cut off some of their members, as whole fingers."

[143] The Cenis (Asinai) of Texas, were seen by La Salle's expedition in 1687-1690, torturing a captive squaw.

"They then tore out her hair, and cut off her fingers."

[144] In volume 2 of Kingsborough's Mexican Antiquities, in the plates of the Vatican manuscript, is to be seen a representation of an Aztec priest or other dignitary holding out in his hands two human arms.

In plate 76 of the same is a priest offering up a human sacrifice, the virile member of the victim cut off.

Teoyamaqui, the wife of Huitzlipochtli, the Aztec god of war, was depicted with a necklace of human hands.

[145] Squier also says that Darga or Kali, the Hindu goddess, who corresponds very closely to her, was represented with "a necklace of skulls" and "a girdle of dissevered human hands."

The Hindu goddess Kali was decorated with a necklace of human skulls.

[146] In the Propaganda collection, given in Kingsborough,[147] are to be seen human arms and legs.

"On the death of any of the great officers of state, the finger bones and hair are also preserved; or if they have died shaven, as sometimes occurs, a bit of their mbŭgŭ dress will be preserved in place of the hair."

[148] "Their families guard their tombs."

[149] The principal war fetiches of Uganda "consist of dead lizards, bits of wood, hide, nails of dead people, claws of animals, and beaks of birds."

Stanley saw them displayed before King Mtesa.

[150] "Some of the women in Gippsland wear round the neck human hands, which, Mr. Hull says, were beautifully prepared.

He moreover informs me that they sometimes wear the parts of which the 'Lingam' and 'Priapus' were the emblems."

[151] "The Gippsland people keep the relics of the departed.

They will cut off the hands to keep as a remembrance, and these they will attach to the string that is tied round the neck."

[152] Smyth also relates that the women of some of the Australian tribes preserve "the hands of some defunct member of the tribe--that of some friend of the woman's, or perhaps one belonging to a former husband.

This she keeps as the only remembrance of one she once loved; and, though years may have passed, even now, when she has nothing else to do, she will sit and moan over this relic of humanity.

Sometimes a mother will carry about with her the remains of a beloved child, whose death she mourns."

[153] The Australians also use the skulls of their "nearest and dearest relatives" for drinking vessels; thus, a daughter would use her mother's skull, etc. [154] "One of the most extraordinary of their laws is that a widow, for every husband she marries after the first, is obliged to cut off a joint of a finger, which she presents to her husband on the wedding day, beginning at one of the little fingers."

[155] In the Army and Navy Journal, New York, June 23, 1888, is mentioned a battle between the Crow of Montana and the Piegan, in which the former obtained some of the hands and feet of dead warriors of the first-named tribe and used them in their dances.

Catlin shows that the young Sioux warriors, after going through the ordeal of the sun dance, placed the little finger of the left hand on the skull of a sacred buffalo and had it chopped off.

[156] "The sacrifices [of American Indians] at the fasts at puberty sometimes consist of finger joints."

[157] In Dodge's Wild Indians is represented (Pl.

vi, 13) a Cheyenne necklace of the bones of the first joint of the human fingers, stripped of skin and flesh.

I have never seen or heard of anything of the kind, although I have served with the Cheyenne a great deal and have spoken about their customs.

My necklace is of human fingers mummified, not of bones.

Fanny Kelly says of a Sioux chief: "He showed me a puzzle or game he had made from the finger bones of some of the victims that had fallen beneath his own tomahawk.

The bones had been freed from the flesh by boiling, and, being placed upon a string, were used for playing some kind of Indian game."

[158] Strabo recounts in his third book that the Lusitanians sacrificed prisoners and cut off their right hands to consecrate them to their gods.

Dulaure says that the Germans attached the heads and the right hands of their human victims to sacred trees.

[159] Adoni-bezek cut off the thumbs and great toes of seventy kings of Syria.

[160] The necklace of human fingers is not a particle more horrible than the ornaments of human bones to be seen in the cemetery of the Capuchins in Rome at the present day.

I have personally known of two or three cases where American Indians cut their enemies limb from limb.

The idea upon which the practice is based seems to be the analogue of the old English custom of sentencing a criminal to be "hanged, drawn, and quartered."

Brand gives a detailed description of the "hand of glory," the possession of which was believed by the peasantry of Great Britain and France to enable a man to enter a house invisible to the occupants.

It was made of the hand of an executed (hanged) murderer, carefully desiccated and prepared with a great amount of superstitious mummery.

With this holding a candle of "the fat of a hanged man" burglars felt perfectly secure while engaged in their predatory work.

[161] The belief was that a candle placed in a dead man's hand will not be seen by any but those by whom it is used.

Such a candle introduced into a house kept those who were asleep from awakening.

The superstition in regard to the "hand of glory" was widely diffused throughout France, Germany, Spain, and Great Britain.

As late as the year 1831 it was used by Irish burglars in the county Meath.

Dr. Frank Baker delivered before the Anthropological Society of Washington, D. C.

, a lecture upon these superstitions as related to the "hand of glory," to which the student is respectfully referred.

[162] An Aztec warrior always tried to procure the middle finger of the left hand of a woman who had died in childbirth.

This he fastened to his shield as a talisman.

[163] The great weapon of the Aztec witches was the left arm of a woman who had died in her first childbirth.

[164] Pliny mentions "still-born infants cut up limb by limb for the most abominable practices, not only by midwives, but by harlots even as well!"

[165] The opinions entertained in Pliny's time descended to that of the Reformation-- Finger of birth-strangled babe, Ditch-deliver'd by a drab.

[166] "Scrofula, imposthumes of the parotid glands, and throat diseases, they say, may be cured by the contact of the hand of a person who has been carried off by an early death;" but, he goes on to say, any dead hand will do, "provided it is of the same sex as the patient and that the part affected is touched with the back of the left hand."

[167] A

footnote adds that this superstition still prevails in England in regard to the hand of a man who has been hanged.

The use of dead men's toes, fingers, spinal vertebræ, etc. , in magical ceremonies, especially the fabrication of magical lamps and candles, is referred to by Frommann.

[168] Grimm is authority for the statement that in both France and Germany the belief was prevalent that the fingers of an unborn babe were "available for magic."

[169] In England witches were believed to "open graves for the purpose of taking out the joints of the fingers and toes of dead bodies ...

in order to prepare a powder for their magical purposes."

[170] "Saint Athanase dit même, que ces parties du corps humain [i. e. , hands, feet, toes, fingers, etc. ] étoient adorées comme des dieux particuliers."

[171] According to the sacred lore of the Brahmans "the Tirtha sacred to the Gods lies at the root of the little finger, that sacred to the Rishis in the middle of the fingers, that sacred to Men at the tips of the fingers, that sacred to Agni (fire) in the middle of the hand."

[172] In the Island of Ceylon "debauchees and desperate people often play away the ends of their fingers."

[173] Hone shows that "every joint of each finger was appropriated to some saint."

[174] NECKLACES OF HUMAN TEETH.

A number of examples are to be found of the employment of necklaces of human teeth.

In my own experience I have never come across any specimens, and my belief is that among the Indians south of the Isthmus such things are to be found almost exclusively.

I have found no reference to such ornamentation or "medicine" among the tribes of North America, but there are many to show the very general dissemination of the custom in Africa and in the islands of the South Sea.

Gomara says that the Indians of Santa Marta wore at their necks, like dentists, the teeth of the enemies they had killed in battle.

[175] Many of the Carib, we are told by a Spanish writer, ostentatiously wear necklaces made of strings of the teeth of the enemies whom they have slain.

[176] Padre Fray Alonzo Fernandez says of the Carib: "Traen los dientes con los cabellos de los que mataron por collares, como hazian antiguamente los Scitas."

[177] The people of New Granada "traen al cuello dientes de los que matavan."

[178] Picart says that the natives of New Granada and Cumana "portent au col les dents des ennemis qu'ils ont massacrez."

[179] The Spaniards found in the temple of the Itzaes, on the island of Peten, an idol made of "yesso," which is plaster, and in the head, which was shaped like the sun, were imbedded the teeth of the Castilians whom they had captured and killed.

[180] "They strung together the teeth of such of their enemies as they had slain in battle and wore them on their legs and arms as trophies of successful cruelty."

[181] Stanley says, referring to the natives of the Lower Congo country: "Their necklaces consisted of human, gorilla, and crocodile teeth, in such quantity, in many cases, that little or nothing could be seen of the neck."

[182] "The necklaces of human teeth which they [Urangi and Rubunga, of the Lower Congo] wore."

[183] Again, "human teeth were popular ornaments for the neck."

[184] When a king dies they [the Wahŭma, of the head of the Nile] cut out his lower jaw and preserve it covered with beads.

[185] Schweinfurth[186] speaks of having seen piles of "lower jawbones from which the teeth had been extracted to serve as ornaments for the neck" by the Monbuttoo of Africa.

"A slaughtered foe was devoured from actual bloodthirstiness and hatred by the Niam-Niams of Central Africa....

They make no secret of their savage craving, but ostentatiously string the teeth of their victims round their necks, adorning the stakes erected beside their dwellings for the habitation of the trophies with the skulls of the men they have devoured.

Human fat is universally sold."

[187] The four front teeth were extracted by the men and women of the Latooka and other tribes of the White Nile, but no explanation is given of the custom.

[188] In Dahomey, strings of human teeth are worn.

[189] Freycinet saw in Timor, Straits of Malacca, "a score of human jawbones, which we wished to purchase; but all our offers were met by the word 'pamali,' meaning sacred."

[190] In one of the "morais" or temples entered by Kotzebue in 1818, on the Sandwich Islands, there were two great and ugly idols, one representing a man, the other a woman.

"The priests made me notice that both statues, which had their mouths wide open, were furnished with a row of human teeth."

[191] The Sandwich Islanders kept the jaw bones of their enemies as trophies.

[192] King Tamaahmaah had a "spitbox which was set round with human teeth, and had belonged to several of his predecessors."

[193] Among some of the Australian tribes the women wear about their necks the teeth which have been knocked out of the mouths of the boys at a certain age.

[194] This custom of the Australians does not obtain among the North American tribes, by whom the teeth, as they fall out, are carefully hidden or buried under some tree or rock.

At least, I have been so informed by several persons, among others by Chato, one of the principal men of the Chiricahua Apache.

Molina speaks of the customs of the Araucanians, who, after torturing their captives to death, made war flutes out of their bones and used the skulls for drinking vessels.

[195] The Abipones of Paraguay make the bones of their enemies into musical instruments.

[196] The preceding practice is strictly in line with the "medicinal" and "magical" values attached in Europe to human teeth, human skin, etc. The curious reader may find much on this subject in the works of Frommann, Beckherius, Etmüller, Samuel Augustus Flemming, and others of the seventeenth century, where it will be shown that the ideas of the people of Europe of that period were only in name superior to those of the savages of America, the islands of the South Seas, and of Central Africa.

In my work upon "The Scatalogic Rites of all Nations" I have treated this matter more in extenso, but what is here adduced will be sufficient for the present article.

The skin of Ziska, the Bohemian reformer, was made into a "medicine drum" by his followers.

THE SCRATCH STICK.

When Gen. Crook's expedition against the Chiricahua Apache reached the heart of the Sierra Madre, Mexico, in 1883, it was my good fortune to find on the ground in Geronimo's rancheria two insignificant looking articles of personal equipment, to which I learned the Apache attached the greatest importance.

One of these was a very small piece of hard wood, cedar, or pine, about two and a half to three inches long and half a finger in thickness, and the other a small section of the cane indigenous to the Southwest and of about the same dimensions.

The first was the scratch stick and the second the drinking reed.

The rule enjoined among the Apache is that for the first four times one of their young men goes out on the warpath he must refrain from scratching his head with his fingers or letting water touch his lips.

How to keep this vow and at the same time avoid unnecessary personal discomfort and suffering is the story told by these petty fragments from the Apache's ritual.

He does not scratch his head with his fingers; he makes use of this scratch stick.

He will not let water touch his lips, but sucks it into his throat through this tiny tube.

A

long leather cord attached both stick and reed to the warrior's belt and to each other.

This was all the information I was able to obtain of a definite character.

Whether these things had to be prepared by the medicine-men or by the young warrior himself; with what ceremonial, if any, they had to be manufactured, and under what circumstances of time and place, I was unable to ascertain to my own satisfaction, and therefore will not extend my remarks or burden the student's patience with incoherent statements from sources not absolutely reliable.

That the use of the scratch stick and the drinking reed was once very general in America and elsewhere, and that it was not altogether dissociated from ritualistic or ceremonial ideas, may be gathered from the citations appended.

In her chapter entitled "Preparatory ceremony of the young warrior" Mrs. Emerson says: "He does not touch his ears or head with his hand," explaining in a footnote, "the head was sometimes made a sacrificial offering to the sun."

[197] Tanner relates that the young Ojibwa warrior for the "three first times" that he accompanies a war party "must never scratch his head or any other part of his body with his fingers, but if he is compelled to scratch he must use a small stick."

[198] Kohl states that the Ojibwa, while on the warpath, "will never sit down in the shade of a tree or scratch their heads; at least, not with their fingers.

The warriors, however, are permitted to scratch themselves with a piece of wood or a comb."

[199] Mackenzie states regarding the Indians whom he met on the Columbia, in 52° 38′, N.

lat.

, "instead of a comb they [the men] have a small stick hanging by a string from one of the locks [of hair], which they employ to alleviate any itching or irritation in the head."

[200] The Tlinkit of British North America use these scratchers made of basalt or other stone.

"The pipe-stem carrier (i. e. , the carrier of the sacred or 'medicine' pipe) of the Crees, of British North America, dares not scratch his own head, without compromising his own dignity, without the intervention of a stick, which he always carries for that purpose."

[201] Bancroft[202] quotes Walker as saying that "a Pima never touches his skin with his nails, but always with a small stick for that purpose, which he renews every fourth day and wears in his hair."

As part of the ceremony of "initiating youth into manhood" among the Creeks, the young neophyte "during the twelve moons ...

is also forbidden to pick his ears or scratch his head with his fingers, but must use a small splinter to perform these operations."

[203] The Apache-Yuma men carry in their hair "a slender stick or bone about 8 inches long, which serves them as a comb."

[204] The idea that these scratch sticks replace combs is an erroneous one;

Indians make combs in a peculiar way of separate pieces of wood, and they are also very fond of brushing their long locks with the coarse brushes, which they make of sacaton or other grass.

"One other regulation, mentioned by Schomburgk, is certainly quaint;

the interesting father may not scratch himself with his finger nails, but may use for this purpose a splinter, especially provided, from the mid-rib of a cokerite palm."

[205] When a Greenlander is about to enter into conversation with the spirits "no one must stir, not so much as to scratch his head."

[206] In the New Hebrides most of the natives "wear a thin stick or reed, about 9 inches long, in their hair, with which they occasionally disturb the vermin that abound in their heads."

[207] Alarcon, describing the tribes met on the Rio Colorado, in 1541, says: "They weare certaine pieces of Deeres bones fastened to their armes, wherewith they strike off the sweate."

[208] In German folk-lore there are many references to the practice in which the giants indulged frequently in scratching themselves, sometimes as a signal to each other.

Just what significance to attach to these stories I can not presume to say, as Grimm merely relates the fact without comment.

[209] Of the Abyssinians, Bruce says: "Their hair is short and curled like that of a negro's in the west part of Africa, but this is done by art not by nature, each man having a wooden stick with which he lays hold of the lock and twists it round like a screw till it curls in the form he desires."

[210] In a footnote, he adds: "I apprehend this is the same instrument used by the ancients, and censured by the prophets, which in our translation is rendered crisping-pins."

Possibly the constant use of the scratch stick in countries without wood suggested that it should be carried in the hair, and hence it would originate the fashion of wearing the hair crimped round it, and after a while it would itself be used as a crimping-pin.

Thus far, the suggestion of a religious or ceremonial idea attaching to the custom of scratching has not been apparent, unless we bear in mind that the warrior setting out on the warpath never neglects to surround himself with all the safeguards which the most potent incantations and "medicine" of every kind can supply.

But Herbert Spencer tells us in two places that the Creeks attach the idea of a ceremonial observance to the custom.

He says that "the warriors have a ceremony of scratching each other as a sign of friendship;"[211] and again, "scratching is practiced among young warriors as a ceremony or token of friendship.

When they have exchanged promises of inviolable attachment, they proceed to scratch each other before they part."

[212] Dr. J.

Hampden Porter remarks that this ceremonial scratching may be a "survival" of the blood covenant, and that in earlier times the young warriors, instead of merely scratching each other's arms, may have cut the flesh and exchanged the blood.

The idea seems to be a very sensible one.

Father Alegre describes a ceremonial scratching which may have been superseded by the scratch stick, to which the medicine-men of certain tribes subjected the young men before they set out on the warpath.

Among the Pima and Opata the medicine-men drew from their quivers the claws of eagles, and with these gashed the young man along the arms from the shoulders to the wrists.

[213] This last paragraph suggests so strongly certain of the practices at the sun dance of the tribes farther to the north that it may be well to compare it with the other allusions in this paper to that dance.

It will be noticed that the use of the scratch-stick, at least among the tribes of America, seems to be confined to the male sex; but the information is supplied by Mr. Henshaw, of the Bureau of Ethnology, that the Indians of Santa Barbara, Cal.

, made their maidens at the time of attaining womanhood wear pendant from the neck a scratcher of abalone shell, which they had to use for an indefinite period when the scalp became irritable.

Prof. Otis T. Mason, of the National Museum, informs me that there is a superstition in Virginia to the effect that a young woman enciente for the first time must, under no circumstances, scratch her head with her fingers, at least while uncovered; she must either put on gloves or use a small stick.

The Parsi have a festival at which they serve a peculiar cake or bread called "draona," which is marked by scratches from the finger nails of the woman who has baked it.

[214] No stress has been laid upon the appearance in all parts of the world of "back scratchers" or "scratch my backs," made of ivory, bone, or wood, and which were used for toilet purposes to remove irritation from between the shoulder blades or along the spine where the hand itself could not reach.

They are to the present day in use among the Chinese and Japanese, were once to be found among the Romans and other nations of Europe, and instances of their occasional employment until a very recent date might be supplied.

THE DRINKING REED.

Exactly what origin to ascribe to the drinking reed is now an impossibility, neither is it probable that the explanations which the medicine-men might choose to make would have the slightest value in dispelling the gloom which surrounds the subject.

That the earliest conditions of the Apache tribe found them without many of the comforts which have for generations been necessaries, and obliged to resort to all sorts of expedients in cooking, carrying, or serving their food is the most plausible presumption, but it is submitted merely as a presumption and in no sense as a fact.

It can readily be shown that in a not very remote past the Apache and other tribes were compelled to use bladders and reeds for carrying water, or for conveying water, broth, and other liquid food to the lips.

The conservative nature of man in all that involves his religion would supply whatever might be needed to make the use of such reeds obligatory in ceremonial observances wherein there might be the slightest suggestion of religious impulse.

We can readily imagine that among a people not well provided with forks and spoons, which are known to have been of a much later introduction than knives, there would be a very decided danger of burning the lips with broth, or of taking into the mouth much earthy and vegetable matter or ice from springs and streams at which men or women might wish to drink, so the use of the drinking reed would obviate no small amount of danger and discomfort.

Water was carried in reeds by the Dyaks of Borneo, according to Bock.

[215] The manner in which the natives of the New Hebrides and other islands of the South Pacific Ocean carry water in bamboo joints recalls the Zuñi method of preserving the sacred water of the ocean in hollow reeds.

[216] [Illustration: FIG. 432. --The scratch stick and drinking reed.

] Mr. F.

H.

Cushing shows that "so far as language indicates the character of the earliest water vessels which to any extent met the requirements of the Zuñi ancestry, they were tubes of wood or sections of canes."

[217] Long after these reeds had disappeared from common use, the priests still persisted in their use for carrying the water for the sacred ceremonies.

The mother of the king of Uganda gave to Speke "a beautifully-worked pombé sucking-pipe."

[218] For ordinary purposes these people have "drinking gourds."

In Ujiji, Cameron saw an old chief sucking pombé, the native beer, through a reed;[219] and, later on in his narrative, we learn that the reed is generally used for the purposes of drinking.

"The Malabars reckoned it insolent to touch the vessel with their lips when drinking."

[220] They made use of vessels with a spout, which were no more and no less than the small hollow-handled soup ladles of the Zuñi and Tusayan, through which they sipped their hot broth.

In an ancient grave excavated not far from Salem, Massachusetts, in 1873, were found five skeletons, one of which was supposed to be that of the chief Nanephasemet, who was killed in 1605 or 1606. He was the king of Namkeak.

On the breast of this skeleton were discovered "several small copper tubes ...

from 4 to 8 inches in length, and from one-eighth to one-fourth of an inch in diameter, made of copper rolled up, with the edges lapped."

[221] Alarcon relates that the tribes seen on the Rio Colorado by him in 1541, wore on one arm "certain small pipes of cane."

But the object or purpose of wearing these is not indicated.

[222] The natives of the Friendly Islands carried in their ears little cylinders of reed, although we learn that these were "filled with a red solid substance."

[223] Among the Narrinyeri of Australia, when young men are to be initiated into the rank of warriors, during the ceremonies "they are allowed to drink water, but only by sucking it up through a reed."

[224] Admiral von Wrangel says of the Tchuktchi of Siberia: "They suck their broth through a small tube of reindeer bone," which "each individual carries about with him."

[225] Padre Sahagun says that the human victim whom the Aztecs offered up in sacrifice was not allowed to touch water with his lips, but had to "suck it through a reed."

[226] "The Mexicans had a forty-days' fast in memory of one of their sacred persons who was tempted _forty_ days on a mountain.

He drinks through a reed.

He is called the Morning Star."

[227] The Mexicans, according to Fray Diego Duran, placed before the statues of their dead bowls of "vino," with "rosas," tobacco (this seems to be the proper translation of the word "humazos," smokes), and a reed called the "drinker of the sun," through which the spirit could imbibe.

[228] "The suction pipes of steatite," mentioned by Schoolcraft, as found in the mounds, may have been the equivalents of our drinking reeds, and made of steatite to be the more readily preserved in the ritual of which they formed part.

Copper cylinders 1¼ inches long and ⅜ of an inch in diameter were found in the mounds of the Mississippi Valley by Squier and Davis.

The conjecture that they had been used "for ornaments" does not seem warranted.

[229] We should not forget that there was a semideification of the reed itself by the Aztec in their assignment of it to a place in their calendar under the name of "acatl."

[230] Mrs. Ellen Russell Emerson speaks of the custom the warriors of the northern tribes had which suggests that she had heard of the drinking reed without exactly understanding what it meant.

She says that warriors carry bowls of birch bark "from one side of which the warrior drinks in going to battle--from the other, on his return.

These bowls are not carried home, but left on the prairie, or suspended from trees within a day's journey of his village."

[231] Among the Brahmans practices based upon somewhat similar ideas are to be found: every morning, upon rising, "ils prennent trois fois de l'eau dans la main, & en jettent trois fois dans leur bouche, évitant d'y toucher avec la main."

[232] The fundamental reason upon which the use of the drinking reed is based is that the warrior or devotee shall not let water touch his lips.

It is strange to find among the regulations with regard to taking water by the warrior caste: "He shall not sip water while walking, standing, lying down, or bending forward."

[233] The Dharma-sûtra, traditionally connected with the Rishi-Vasishtha, of the Seventh Mandala of the Rig-Veda, is a relic of a Vedic school of the highest antiquity.

Its seat was in the present northwestern provinces of India, and, like the Dharmasâstra of Gautama, it is the sole surviving record from this source.

[234] There was another service performed by reeds or tubes in the domestic economy of nations around the north pole.

As the Apache are derived from an Arctic ancestry it does not seem amiss to allude to it.

Lord Lonsdale, in describing the capture of a whale which he witnessed, says that the Eskimo women "first of all gathered up the harpoons and then pulled out all the spears.

As each spear was withdrawn a blow-pipe was pushed into the wound and the men blew into it, after which the opening was tied up.

When every wound had been treated in this manner the whale resembled a great windbag and floated high in the water."

In the National Museum at Washington, D. C.

, there are many pipes made of the bones of birds, which were used by the Inuit as drinking tubes when water had to be taken into the mouth from holes cut in the ice.

These drinking tubes seem to be directly related to our subject, although they may also have been used as Lonsdale describes the pipes for blowing the dead whale full of air.

Another point to be mentioned is that the eagle pipe kept in the mouth of the young warrior undergoing the torture of the sun dance among the Sioux and other tribes on the plains is apparently connected with the "bebedero del Sol" of the peoples to the south.

[235] The use of this drinking reed, shown to have been once so intimately associated with human sacrifice, may have disappeared upon the introduction of labrets, which seem, in certain cases at least, to be associated with the memory of enemies killed in battle, which would be only another form of human sacrifice.

This suggestion is advanced with some misgivings, and only as a hypothesis to assist in determining for what purpose labrets and drinking tubes have been employed.

The Apache have discontinued the use of the labret, which still is to be found among their congeners along the Lower Yukon, but not among those living along the lower river.

[236] According to Dall the custom was probably adopted from the Inuit; he also shows that whenever labrets are worn in a tribe they are worn by both sexes, and that the women assume them at the first appearance of the catamenia.

"This is to be noted, that how many men these Savages [Brazilians] doe kill, so many holes they will have in their visage, beginning first in their nether lippe, then in their cheekes, thirdly, in both their eye-browes, and lastly in their eares."

[237] Cabeza de Vaca speaks of the Indians near Malhado Island, "They likewise have the nether lippe bored, and within the same they carrie a piece of thin Cane about halfe a finger thicke."

[238] Herrera relates very nearly the same of the men of "Florida": "Traìan una tetilla oradada, metido por el agujero un pedaço de Caña, i el labio baxero tambien agujereado, con otra caña en èl." [239] But Herrera probably obtained his data from the narrative of Vaca.

In looking into this matter of labrets as connected or suspected as being in some way connected with the drinking reed, we should not expect to find the labret adhering very closely to the primitive form, because the labret, coming to be regarded more and more as an ornament, would allow greater and greater play to the fancy of the wearer or manufacturer, much the same as the crosses now worn by ladies, purely as matter of decoration, have become so thoroughly examples of dexterity in filagree work as to have lost the original form and significance as a declaration of faith.

But it is a subject of surprise to find that the earlier writers persistently allude to the labrets in the lips of the Mexican deities, which probably were most tenacious of primitive forms, as being shaped like little reeds--"cañutillos."

Herrera says of Tescatlipoca: "Que era el Dios de la Penitencia, i de los Jubileos ...

Tenia Çarcillo de Oro, i Plata en el labio baxo, con un cañutillo cristalino, de un geme de largo."

[240] The high priest, he says, was called topilçin, and in sacrificing human victims he wore "debaxo del labio, junto al medio de la barba, una pieça como cañutillo, de una piedra açul."

[241] Father Acosta also speaks of the tube (canon) of crystal worn by Tezcatlipoca in the lower lip: "En la leure d'embas un petit canon de crystal, de la longueur d'un xeme ou demy pied."

[242] Speaking of Quetzalcoatl Clavigero says: "From the under lip hung a crystal tube."

[243] From Diego Duran's account of this "bezote" or labret it must have been hollow, as he says it contained a feather: "En el labio bajo tenia un bezote de un veril cristalino y en el estaba metida una pluma verde y otras veces azul."

[244] In the Popul Vuh is to be found a myth which gives an account of the origin of labrets.

It relates that two night watchers over the flowers in the garden of Xibalba had in some manner proved derelict in duty, and had their lips split as a punishment.

[245] In Paraguay a tribe called the Chiriguanes, "se percent la levre inférieure & ils y attachent un petit Cilindre d'étain ou d'argent, ou de Resine transparente.

Ce prétendu ornement s'appelle _Tembeta_."

[246] FOOTNOTES:

[1] Narrative of Captivity, Cincinnati, 1871, p. 141. [2] Padre Boscana, Chinigchinich, in Robinson's California, p. 261. [3] Origine de tous les Cultes, vol. 2, pt.

2, pp. 87, 88. [4] Diego Duran, vol. 3, pp. 237, 238. [5] Higgins, Anacalypsia, lib.

2, p. 77. [6] Balboa, Hist.

du Pérou, in Ternaux-Compans, Voy.

, vol. 15. [7] Ross, Fur Hunters, quoted by Spencer, Desc.

Soc.

[8] Max Müller, Science of Religion, p. 88. [9] Davis, Spanish Conq.

of N. M.

, p. 98. [10] I Samuel, XII, 17, 18. [11] Cérémonies et Coûtumes, vol. 6, p. 75. [12] Everard im Thurn, Indians of Guiana, London, 1883, p. 334. [13] Tanner's Narrative, p. 390. [14] Diego Duran, lib.

3, cap.

3, p. 201. [15] Dorman, Primitive Superstitions, p. 384. [16] Spencer, Desc.

Sociology.

[17] Picart, Cérémonies et Coûtumes Religieuses, Amsterdam, 1735, vol. 6, p. 122. [18] Myths of the New World, p. 281. [19] Domenech, Deserts, vol. 2, p. 392. [20] Bancroft, Nat.