The Soul of the Indian
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Charles A. Eastman >> The Soul of the Indian
THE SOUL OF THE INDIAN
An Interpretation
BY
CHARLES ALEXANDER EASTMAN
(OHIYESA)
TO MY WIFE
ELAINE GOODALE EASTMAN
IN GRATEFUL RECOGNITION OF HER
EVER-INSPIRING COMPANIONSHIP
IN THOUGHT AND WORK
AND IN LOVE OF HER MOST
INDIAN-LIKE VIRTUES
I DEDICATE THIS BOOK
I speak for each no-tongued tree
That, spring by spring, doth nobler be,
And dumbly and most wistfully
His mighty prayerful arms outspreads,
And his big blessing downward sheds.
SIDNEY LANIER.
But there's a dome of nobler span,
A temple given
Thy faith, that bigots dare not ban--
Its space is heaven!
It's roof star-pictured Nature's ceiling,
Where, trancing the rapt spirit's feeling,
And God Himself to man revealing,
Th' harmonious spheres
Make music, though unheard their pealing
By mortal ears!
THOMAS CAMPBELL.
God! sing ye meadow streams with gladsome voice!
Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds!
Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain storm!
Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds!
Ye signs and wonders of the elements,
Utter forth God, and fill the hills with praise! . . .
Earth, with her thousand voices, praises GOD!
COLERIDGE.
FOREWORD
"We also have a religion which was given to our forefathers,
and has been handed down to us their children. It teaches us to be
thankful, to be united, and to love one another! We never quarrel
about religion."
Thus spoke the great Seneca orator, Red Jacket, in his superb
reply to Missionary Cram more than a century ago, and I have often
heard the same thought expressed by my countrymen.
I have attempted to paint the religious life of the typical
American Indian as it was before he knew the white man. I
have long wished to do this, because I cannot find that it has ever
been seriously, adequately, and sincerely done. The religion of
the Indian is the last thing about him that the man of another race
will ever understand.
First, the Indian does not speak of these deep matters so long
as he believes in them, and when he has ceased to believe he speaks
inaccurately and slightingly.
Second, even if he can be induced to speak, the racial and
religious prejudice of the other stands in the way of his
sympathetic comprehension.
Third, practically all existing studies on this subject
have been made during the transition period, when the original
beliefs and philosophy of the native American were already
undergoing rapid disintegration.
There are to be found here and there superficial accounts of
strange customs and ceremonies, of which the symbolism or inner
meaning was largely hidden from the observer; and there has been a
great deal of material collected in recent years which is without
value because it is modern and hybrid, inextricably mixed with
Biblical legend and Caucasian philosophy. Some of it has even been
invented for commercial purposes. Give a reservation Indian
a present, and he will possibly provide you with sacred songs, a
mythology, and folk-lore to order!
My little book does not pretend to be a scientific treatise.
It is as true as I can make it to my childhood teaching and
ancestral ideals, but from the human, not the ethnological
standpoint. I have not cared to pile up more dry bones, but to
clothe them with flesh and blood. So much as has been written by
strangers of our ancient faith and worship treats it chiefly as
matter of curiosity. I should like to emphasize its universal
quality, its personal appeal!
The first missionaries, good men imbued with the narrowness of
their age, branded us as pagans and devil-worshipers, and demanded
of us that we abjure our false gods before bowing the knee at their
sacred altar. They even told us that we were eternally lost,
unless we adopted a tangible symbol and professed a particular form
of their hydra-headed faith.
We of the twentieth century know better! We know that all
religious aspiration, all sincere worship, can have but one source
and one goal. We know that the God of the lettered and the
unlettered, of the Greek and the barbarian, is after all the same
God; and, like Peter, we perceive that He is no respecter
of persons, but that in every nation he that feareth Him and
worketh righteousness is acceptable to Him.
CHARLES A. EASTMAN (OHIYESA)
CONTENTS
I. THE GREAT MYSTERY 1
II. THE FAMILY ALTAR 25
III. CEREMONIAL AND SYMBOLIC WORSHIP 51
IV. BARBARISM AND THE MORAL CODE 85
V. THE UNWRITTEN SCRIPTURES 117
VI. ON THE BORDER-LAND OF SPIRITS 147
I
THE GREAT MYSTERY
THE SOUL OF THE INDIAN
I
THE GREAT MYSTERY
Solitary Worship. The Savage Philosopher. The Dual Mind.
Spiritual Gifts versus Material Progress. The Paradox of
"Christian Civilization."
The original attitude of the American Indian toward the Eternal,
the "Great Mystery" that surrounds and embraces us, was as simple
as it was exalted. To him it was the supreme conception, bringing
with it the fullest measure of joy and satisfaction possible in
this life.
The worship of the "Great Mystery" was silent, solitary, free
from all self-seeking. It was silent, because all speech is of
necessity feeble and imperfect; therefore the souls of my ancestors
ascended to God in wordless adoration. It was solitary, because
they believed that He is nearer to us in solitude, and there were
no priests authorized to come between a man and his Maker. None
might exhort or confess or in any way meddle with the religious
experience of another. Among us all men were created sons of God
and stood erect, as conscious of their divinity. Our faith might
not be formulated in creeds, nor forced upon any who were
unwilling to receive it; hence there was no preaching, proselyting,
nor persecution, neither were there any scoffers or atheists.
There were no temples or shrines among us save those of
nature. Being a natural man, the Indian was intensely poetical.
He would deem it sacrilege to build a house for Him who may be met
face to face in the mysterious, shadowy aisles of the primeval
forest, or on the sunlit bosom of virgin prairies, upon dizzy
spires and pinnacles of naked rock, and yonder in the jeweled vault
of the night sky! He who enrobes Himself in filmy veils of cloud,
there on the rim of the visible world where our
Great-Grandfather Sun kindles his evening camp-fire, He who rides
upon the rigorous wind of the north, or breathes forth His spirit
upon aromatic southern airs, whose war-canoe is launched upon
majestic rivers and inland seas--He needs no lesser cathedral!
That solitary communion with the Unseen which was the highest
expression of our religious life is partly described in the word
bambeday, literally "mysterious feeling," which has been
variously translated "fasting" and "dreaming." It may better be
interpreted as "consciousness of the divine."
The first bambeday, or religious retreat, marked
an epoch in the life of the youth, which may be compared to that of
confirmation or conversion in Christian experience. Having first
prepared himself by means of the purifying vapor-bath, and cast off
as far as possible all human or fleshly influences, the young man
sought out the noblest height, the most commanding summit in all
the surrounding region. Knowing that God sets no value upon
material things, he took with him no offerings or sacrifices other
than symbolic objects, such as paints and tobacco. Wishing to
appear before Him in all humility, he wore no clothing save his
moccasins and breech-clout. At the solemn hour of sunrise or
sunset he took up his position, overlooking the glories of earth
and facing the "Great Mystery," and there he remained, naked,
erect, silent, and motionless, exposed to the elements and forces
of His arming, for a night and a day to two days and nights, but
rarely longer. Sometimes he would chant a hymn without words, or
offer the ceremonial "filled pipe." In this holy trance or ecstasy
the Indian mystic found his highest happiness and the motive power
of his existence.
When he returned to the camp, he must remain at a distance
until he had again entered the vapor-bath and prepared
himself for intercourse with his fellows. Of the vision or sign
vouchsafed to him he did not speak, unless it had included some
commission which must be publicly fulfilled. Sometimes an old man,
standing upon the brink of eternity, might reveal to a chosen few
the oracle of his long-past youth.
The native American has been generally despised by his white
conquerors for his poverty and simplicity. They forget, perhaps,
that his religion forbade the accumulation of wealth and the
enjoyment of luxury. To him, as to other single-minded men in
every age and race, from Diogenes to the brothers of Saint
Francis, from the Montanists to the Shakers, the love of
possessions has appeared a snare, and the burdens of a complex
society a source of needless peril and temptation. Furthermore, it
was the rule of his life to share the fruits of his skill and
success with his less fortunate brothers. Thus he kept his spirit
free from the clog of pride, cupidity, or envy, and carried out, as
he believed, the divine decree--a matter profoundly important to
him.
It was not, then, wholly from ignorance or improvidence that
he failed to establish permanent towns and to develop a material
civilization. To the untutored sage, the concentration of
population was the prolific mother of all evils, moral no less than
physical. He argued that food is good, while surfeit kills; that
love is good, but lust destroys; and not less dreaded than the
pestilence following upon crowded and unsanitary dwellings was the
loss of spiritual power inseparable from too close contact with
one's fellow-men. All who have lived much out of doors know that
there is a magnetic and nervous force that accumulates in solitude
and that is quickly dissipated by life in a crowd; and even his
enemies have recognized the fact that for a certain innate power
and self-poise, wholly independent of circumstances, the
American Indian is unsurpassed among men.
The red man divided mind into two parts,--the spiritual mind
and the physical mind. The first is pure spirit, concerned only
with the essence of things, and it was this he sought to strengthen
by spiritual prayer, during which the body is subdued by fasting
and hardship. In this type of prayer there was no beseeching of
favor or help. All matters of personal or selfish concern, as
success in hunting or warfare, relief from sickness, or the sparing
of a beloved life, were definitely relegated to the plane of the
lower or material mind, and all ceremonies, charms, or
incantations designed to secure a benefit or to avert a danger,
were recognized as emanating from the physical self.
The rites of this physical worship, again, were wholly
symbolic, and the Indian no more worshiped the Sun than the
Christian adores the Cross. The Sun and the Earth, by an obvious
parable, holding scarcely more of poetic metaphor than of
scientific truth, were in his view the parents of all organic life.
From the Sun, as the universal father, proceeds the quickening
principle in nature, and in the patient and fruitful womb of our
mother, the Earth, are hidden embryos of plants and men.
Therefore our reverence and love for them was really an imaginative
extension of our love for our immediate parents, and with this
sentiment of filial piety was joined a willingness to appeal to
them, as to a father, for such good gifts as we may desire. This
is the material
or physical prayer.
The elements and majestic forces in nature, Lightning, Wind,
Water, Fire, and Frost, were regarded with awe as spiritual powers,
but always secondary and intermediate in character. We believed
that the spirit pervades all creation and that every creature
possesses a soul in some degree, though not necessarily a soul
conscious of itself. The tree, the waterfall, the grizzly
bear, each is an embodied Force, and as such an object of
reverence.
The Indian loved to come into sympathy and spiritual communion
with his brothers of the animal kingdom, whose inarticulate souls
had for him something of the sinless purity that we attribute to
the innocent and irresponsible child. He had faith in their
instincts, as in a mysterious wisdom given from above; and while he
humbly accepted the supposedly voluntary sacrifice of their bodies
to preserve his own, he paid homage to their spirits in prescribed
prayers and offerings.
In every religion there is an element of the supernatural,
varying with the influence of pure reason over its devotees. The
Indian was a logical and clear thinker upon matters within the
scope of his understanding, but he had not yet charted the vast
field of nature or expressed her wonders in terms of science. With
his limited knowledge of cause and effect, he saw miracles on every
hand,--the miracle of life in seed and egg, the miracle of death in
lightning flash and in the swelling deep! Nothing of the marvelous
could astonish him; as that a beast should speak, or the sun stand
still. The virgin birth would appear scarcely more
miraculous than is the birth of every child that comes into the
world, or the miracle of the loaves and fishes excite more wonder
than the harvest that springs from a single ear of corn.
Who may condemn his superstition? Surely not the devout
Catholic, or even Protestant missionary, who teaches Bible miracles
as literal fact! The logical man must either deny all miracles or
none, and our American Indian myths and hero stories are perhaps,
in themselves, quite as credible as those of the Hebrews of old.
If we are of the modern type of mind, that sees in natural law a
majesty and grandeur far more impressive than any solitary
infraction of it could possibly be, let us not forget that, after
all, science has not explained everything. We have still to face
the ultimate miracle,--the origin and principle of life! Here is
the supreme mystery that is the essence of worship, without which
there can be no religion, and in the presence of this mystery our
attitude cannot be very unlike that of the natural philosopher, who
beholds with awe the Divine in all creation.
It is simple truth that the Indian did not, so long as his
native philosophy held sway over his mind, either envy or desire to
imitate the splendid achievements of the white man. In his
own thought he rose superior to them! He scorned them, even as a
lofty spirit absorbed in its stern task rejects the soft beds, the
luxurious food, the pleasure-worshiping dalliance of a rich
neighbor. It was clear to him that virtue and happiness are
independent of these things, if not incompatible with them.
There was undoubtedly much in primitive Christianity to appeal
to this man, and Jesus' hard sayings to the rich and about the rich
would have been entirely comprehensible to him. Yet the religion
that is preached in our churches and practiced by our
congregations, with its element of display and
self-aggrandizement, its active proselytism, and its open contempt
of all religions but its own, was for a long time extremely
repellent. To his simple mind, the professionalism of the pulpit,
the paid exhorter, the moneyed church, was an unspiritual and
unedifying thing, and it was not until his spirit was broken and
his moral and physical constitution undermined by trade, conquest,
and strong drink, that Christian missionaries obtained any real
hold upon him. Strange as it may seem, it is true that the proud
pagan in his secret soul despised the good men who came to convert
and to enlighten him!
Nor were its publicity and its Phariseeism the only elements
in the alien religion that offended the red man. To him, it
appeared shocking and almost incredible that there were among this
people who claimed superiority many irreligious, who did not even
pretend to profess the national faith. Not only did they not
profess it, but they stooped so low as to insult their God with
profane and sacrilegious speech! In our own tongue His name was
not spoken aloud, even with utmost reverence, much less lightly or
irreverently.
More than this, even in those white men who professed religion
we found much inconsistency of conduct. They spoke much of
spiritual things, while seeking only the material. They bought and
sold everything: time, labor, personal independence, the love of
woman, and even the ministrations of their holy faith! The lust
for money, power, and conquest so characteristic of the Anglo-Saxon
race did not escape moral condemnation at the hands of his
untutored judge, nor did he fail to contrast this conspicuous trait
of the dominant race with the spirit of the meek and lowly Jesus.
He might in time come to recognize that the drunkards and
licentious among white men, with whom he too frequently came in
contact, were condemned by the white man's religion as well,
and must not be held to discredit it. But it was not so easy to
overlook or to excuse national bad faith. When distinguished
emissaries from the Father at Washington, some of them ministers of
the gospel and even bishops, came to the Indian nations, and
pledged to them in solemn treaty the national honor, with prayer
and mention of their God; and when such treaties, so made, were
promptly and shamelessly broken, is it strange that the action
should arouse not only anger, but contempt? The historians of the
white race admit that the Indian was never the first to repudiate
his oath.
It is my personal belief, after thirty-five years' experience
of it, that there is no such thing as "Christian civilization." I
believe that Christianity and modern civilization are opposed and
irreconcilable, and that the spirit of Christianity and of our
ancient religion is essentially the same.
II
THE FAMILY ALTAR
THE FAMILY ALTAR
Pre-natal Influence. Early Religious Teaching. The Function of
the Aged. Woman, Marriage and the Family. Loyalty, Hospitality,
Friendship.
The American Indian was an individualist in religion as in war. He
had neither a national army nor an organized church. There was no
priest to assume responsibility for another's soul. That is, we
believed, the supreme duty of the parent, who only was permitted to
claim in some degree the priestly office and function, since it is
his creative and protecting power which alone approaches the
solemn function of Deity.
The Indian was a religious man from his mother's womb. From
the moment of her recognition of the fact of conception to the end
of the second year of life, which was the ordinary duration of
lactation, it was supposed by us that the mother's spiritual
influence counted for most. Her attitude and secret meditations
must be such as to instill into the receptive soul of the unborn
child the love of the "Great Mystery" and a sense of brotherhood
with all creation. Silence and isolation are the rule of life for
the expectant mother. She wanders prayerful in the stillness
of great woods, or on the bosom of the untrodden prairie, and
to her poetic mind the immanent birth of her child prefigures the
advent of a master-man--a hero, or the mother of heroes--a thought
conceived in the virgin breast of primeval nature, and dreamed out
in a hush that is only broken by the sighing of the pine tree or
the thrilling orchestra of a distant waterfall.
And when the day of days in her life dawns--the day in which
there is to be a new life, the miracle of whose making has been
intrusted to her, she seeks no human aid. She has been trained and
prepared in body and mind for this her holiest duty, ever
since she can remember. The ordeal is best met alone, where no
curious or pitying eyes embarrass her; where all nature says to her
spirit: "'Tis love! 'tis love! the fulfilling of life!" When a
sacred voice comes to her out of the silence, and a pair of eyes
open upon her in the wilderness, she knows with joy that she has
borne well her part in the great song of creation!
Presently she returns to the camp, carrying the mysterious,
the holy, the dearest bundle! She feels the endearing warmth of it
and hears its soft breathing. It is still a part of herself, since
both are nourished by the same mouthful, and no look of a
lover could be sweeter than its deep, trusting gaze.
She continues her spiritual teaching, at first silently--a
mere pointing of the index finger to nature; then in whispered
songs, bird-like, at morning and evening. To her and to the child
the birds are real people, who live very close to the "Great
Mystery"; the murmuring trees breathe His presence; the falling
waters chant His praise.
If the child should chance to be fretful, the mother raises
her hand. "Hush! hush!" she cautions it tenderly, "the spirits may
be disturbed!" She bids it be still and listen--listen to the
silver voice of the aspen, or the clashing cymbals of the
birch; and at night she points to the heavenly, blazed trail,
through nature's galaxy of splendor to nature's God. Silence,
love, reverence,--this is the trinity of first lessons; and to
these she later adds generosity, courage, and chastity.
In the old days, our mothers were single-eyed to the trust
imposed upon them; and as a noted chief of our people was wont to
say: "Men may slay one another, but they can never overcome the
woman, for in the quietude of her lap lies the child! You may
destroy him once and again, but he issues as often from that same
gentle lap--a gift of the Great Good to the race, in which
man is only an accomplice!"
This wild mother has not only the experience of her mother and
grandmother, and the accepted rules of her people for a guide, but
she humbly seeks to learn a lesson from ants, bees, spiders,
beavers, and badgers. She studies the family life of the birds, so
exquisite in its emotional intensity and its patient devotion,
until she seems to feel the universal mother-heart beating in her
own breast. In due time the child takes of his own accord the
attitude of prayer, and speaks reverently of the Powers. He thinks
that he is a blood brother to all living creatures, and the
storm wind is to him a messenger of the "Great Mystery."
At the age of about eight years, if he is a boy, she turns him
over to his father for more Spartan training. If a girl, she is
from this time much under the guardianship of her grandmother, who
is considered the most dignified protector for the maiden. Indeed,
the distinctive work of both grandparents is that of acquainting
the youth with the national traditions and beliefs. It is reserved
for them to repeat the time-hallowed tales with dignity and
authority, so as to lead him into his inheritance in the stored-up
wisdom and experience of the race. The old are dedicated to
the service of the young, as their teachers and advisers, and the
young in turn regard them with love and reverence.
Our old age was in some respects the happiest period of life.
Advancing years brought with them much freedom, not only from the
burden of laborious and dangerous tasks, but from those
restrictions of custom and etiquette which were religiously
observed by all others. No one who is at all acquainted with the
Indian in his home can deny that we are a polite people. As a
rule, the warrior who inspired the greatest terror in the hearts of
his enemies was a man of the most exemplary gentleness, and
almost feminine refinement, among his family and friends. A soft,
low voice was considered an excellent thing in man, as well as in
woman! Indeed, the enforced intimacy of tent life would soon
become intolerable, were it not for these instinctive reserves and
delicacies, this unfailing respect for the established place and
possessions of every other member of the family circle, this
habitual quiet, order, and decorum.
Our people, though capable of strong and durable feeling, were
not demonstrative in their affection at any time, least of all in
the presence of guests or strangers. Only to the aged, who have
journeyed far, and are in a manner exempt from ordinary
rules, are permitted some playful familiarities with children and
grandchildren, some plain speaking, even to harshness and
objurgation, from which the others must rigidly refrain. In short,
the old men and women are privileged to say what they please and
how they please, without contradiction, while the hardships and
bodily infirmities that of necessity fall to their lot are softened
so far as may be by universal consideration and attention.
There was no religious ceremony connected with marriage among
us, while on the other hand the relation between man and woman was
regarded as in itself mysterious and holy. It appears that
where marriage is solemnized by the church and blessed by the
priest, it may at the same time be surrounded with customs and
ideas of a frivolous, superficial, and even prurient character. We
believed that two who love should be united in secret, before the
public acknowledgment of their union, and should taste their
apotheosis alone with nature. The betrothal might or might not be
discussed and approved by the parents, but in either case it was
customary for the young pair to disappear into the wilderness,
there to pass some days or weeks in perfect seclusion and
dual solitude, afterward returning to the village as man and wife.
An exchange of presents and entertainments between the two families
usually followed, but the nuptial blessing was given by the High
Priest of God, the most reverend and holy Nature.