This is so typical of Philip Kabel. I remember him as an old man who always had time to
"look into" something. He was a great friend of my grandparents, Fred and
Stella Moore, and was always telling about something or other. Aren't we lucky that
he wrote so much of it down and that his jocular view of life carried through. He lived
on the corner of Brown and Carl streets in Winchester and I was always fascinated by the
"pineapple slices" in his yard.....they were big ole grindstones. I think there
were three of them. Thanks for the memory.........phd
----- Original Message -----
From: "Billy J. Baker" <billybak(a)comcast.net>
To: inrandol(a)rootsweb.com
Sent: Thursday, September 30, 2010 2:04:35 PM
Subject: [INRANDOL] Indians - Their Habits & Customs
Union City Times-Gazette - Saturday, September 27, 1947
Indians Their Habits and Customs By Philip Kabel
The name “Indians” is the common designation of the Aboriginals of
America. The name first occurs in a letter of Columbus dated February,
1493, wherein the discoverer speaks of the Indios he had with him.
It was the general belief of the day, shared by Columbus, that in his
voyage across the Atlantic he had reached India.
They continued to be called Indians after later explorers proved America
to be a new world.
This term, in spite of its misleading connotation, has passed into the
language of the civilized world.
The North American Indians are an interesting people. We think of them
too often as a race of bloodthirsty warriors entirely overlooking the
fact that they welcomed the white man as a trusted friend until
misunderstandings arose, these being brought about mostly by the white man.
They felt that they were being gradually, but forcibly removed from
their hunting grounds, ancient tribal lands that had been theirs for
centuries.
They were forced to abandon many of their customs and the spirit-gods of
the centuries old beliefs of their fathers.
They witnessed the wanton destruction of incredible numbers of the great
buffalo herds by the white man, and this caused deep resentment in the
heart of the red man.
The Indians never killed more of these animals or any other animal than
were required for their immediate need for food, tepee construction,
clothing and other necessary purposes. Nothing could take the place of
the buffalo in Indian life.
All too soon the Indians learned that the new, all-powerful strangers
were taking their land away from them, destroying sheltering forest and
killing the game.
They became angry and turned to war. They had skilled leaders and were
accustomed to bloodshed.
To Columbus and to most of the early explorers the Indians were kind,
but when the colonists came to settle the country, they often found the
Indians unfriendly.
The region composing the territory in Indiana was occupied by the tribes
of Indians belonging to the Miami confederacy.
That confederacy consisted of several Algonquin tribes, which had been
formed many years before for mutual protection and defense, especially
against the fierce and powerful Iroquois, or Five Nations, who had made
frequent and fatal incursions into this beautiful valley against the
Indians dwelling here.
The tribes mainly inhabiting the territory now know as Indiana were the
Miamis, the Potawatomies, the Weas and the Kickapoos. There were only a
few thousand Indians in the whole territory of Indiana, probably not
more than there are now white people in the smallest county of the state.
They lived in tents or little huts. In some localities they had what
they called ancestral towns; these little villages consisted of a few
tents and shacks and in some of them a totem pole on the top of which
they had carved some kind of a rude image of some animal, most likely
whatever animal they thought they were descended from, somewhat similar
to the belief of some white folk as to their monkey ancestors, a story
not hard for some people to believe but awfully hard to convince the
monkey that he has such descendants.
Oftimes around these totem pols they would gather and hold their tribal
feasts and ceremonies. Dressed to resemble some animal of the forest,
they would gather at night by a blazing bonfire and sing and dance.
The warriors would take turns in entering the ring and hop around and
yelp, boasting how many scalps they had taken, and with their war clubs
they would kill a few imaginary enemies just to show how they had done
it in real combat. When one was exhausted, another warrior would take
his place and go through the same wild performance, thus spending the night.
These same men, like most uncivilized men, and some white men, never
interfered in the hard work done by the women.
The squaws, with their papooses in their tiny cradles hung on their
backs or suspended from some nearby limbs, did most of the work.
Indians ate what they had without complaint, and if some large animals
were killed they ate all they could before it spoiled, fed the rest to
their dogs, and then ate the dogs.
When we were pupils in school our histories told us that when the Indian
died he thought he would go to the Happy Hunting Ground, and provisions
sufficient to last him on the journey were placed at the place of burial.
If the term be understood to imply nothing more than a belief of the
Indian in a future existence, it answers, perhaps, as well as another.
That the Indian believed in a future life his mortuary rites abundantly
testified.
No tribe of American Indiana was without some idea of a life after
death, but as to its nature and whereabouts the Indians' ideas, which
differed in the different tribes, were vague.
Nor does it appear that belief in a future life had any marked influence
on the daily life and conduct of the individual. They seem not to have
evolved the idea of hell and future punishment.
Another erroneous conception conveyed to us by our histories was one
ascribing to him a belief in an overruling deity, the “Great Spirit.”
Instead of this conception of one all-powerful deity, the Indian
believed in a multitude of spirits that dwelt in animals and inanimate
objects, to propitiate which was the chief object of his supplications
and sacrifice.
To none of his deities did he ascribe moral good or evil.
His religion was practical. The spirits were the source of good or bad
fortune whether on the hunting path or the war trail, in the pursuit of
a wife or in a ball game.
If successful he adored, offered sacrifices, and made valuable presents.
If unsuccessful he cast his manito away and offered his faith to more
powerful and more friendly deities.
In this world of spirits the Indian dwelt in perpetual fear. He feared
to offend the spirits of the mountains, of the dark wood, or the lake,
of the prairie.
The real Indian was a different creature from the joyous and untrammeled
savage pictured and envied by the poet and philosopher.
Their religion taught them there was a spirit in all nature, in the
trees, in the birds, and in the animals. The priests, or “medicine men,”
of the tribe were supposed to know how to keep the spirits in good humor.
The noblest of the redmen used to send their youth singly and alone into
the solitudes and the silences, there for days and night to remain
silent under the stars that they might become aware of the God-spirits
and of their own souls.
This desire for seclusion ofttimes comes to our young folk as they come
face to face with the great change from youth to maturity, in facing the
mystery of life. This seclusion, which we often interpret as moodiness
on the part of the young people, would give them the opportunity for
self-knowledge, self-reverence, and self-mastery, thus learning the
secret of reverence for one's own soul and reverence for God. Here they
would realize the everlasting truth that the soul and God alone stand sure.
From these first American farmers the world gained many important food
plants that had been unknown to the people of Europe and Asia. They gave
to the white man: corn, beans, squashes, pumpkins, potatoes, peanuts,
pineapples, and strawberries. They also gave to him tobacco, and taught
him how to make delicious syrup from the sap of the maple tree. He also
taught the white man how to live in the New World. He taught him
woodcraft, hunting, trapping, taught him how to farm in the different
regions, and how to protect himself in the forest.
Many erroneous ideas of the practice of medicine among the Indians are
current, often fostered by quacks who claim to have received herbs and
methods of practice from noted Indian doctors. How often have you older
ones heard these medicine show men selling some cure-all tell how they
had secured their prescriptions from some great Indian chief.
The medical art among all Indians was rooted in sorcery; and the
prevailing idea that diseases were caused by the presence of acts of
evil spirits, which could be removed only by sorcery and incantation
controlled diagnosis and treatment.
They also believed in the doctrine of signatures, according to which, in
some cases, the color, shape and markings of plants were supposed to
indicate the organs for which in disease they were supposed to be specifics.
Among the old women there was a crude knowledge of the medicinal value
of a number of plants and roots, and the sweating process which they
employed for nearly every ailment.
The disposal of the dead by the Indians may be classed under the heads
of burial and cremation. The ceremonies attending and following burial
were various. The use of fire was common, and it was also a very
generous custom to place food, articles especially prized by or of
interest to the dead, and sometimes articles having a symbolic
signification, in or near the grave.
Scarifying the body, cutting the hair, and blackening the face by the
mourners were common customs, as, in some tribes, were feasts and
dancing at a death or funeral.
As a rule the bereaved relatives observed some kind of mourning for a
certain period, as cutting the hair, discarding ornaments, neglecting
the personal appearance, and wailing night and morning in solitary places.
It was the custom among some tribes to change the name of the family of
the deceased, and to drop the name of the dead in whatever connection.
There were various forms of burial: such as inhumation, or interment in
pits, graves, or holes in the ground, in stone cists, in mounds, beneath
or in cabins, wigwams, houses, or lodges or in caves, sometimes the body
was placed in a squatting posture.
The bottom of the grave was sometimes covered with bark, on which the
body was laid, and logs or slabs place over it to prevent the earth from
falling on the remains.
Sometimes the body was laid on the ground, slightly covered with earth,
and over this a layer of plastic clay was spread on which was built a
fire, forming an earthen shield over the corpse before additional earth
was added.
Caverns, fissures in rocks, and rock shelters were frequently used as
depositories for the dead. Embalment and mummification were practiced to
a limited extent. Burial beneath the floor of a house and then at once
burning the house was practiced to some extent. Scaffold and tree burial
was practiced in the northwest, the dead being placed on platforms built
a few feet above the ground, and sometimes the body was placed in a
canoe which was placed on posts or in the forks of trees.
When the mound just north of Winchester was leveled one skeleton was
found, and in primitive times no doubt he occupied a commanding
position, judging from the manner of his burial. Skeletons have been
found in many localities in Randolph county, but the most noted moraine
that contained human remains and ornaments is located southeast of Windsor.
Some years ago gravel haulers unearthed a number of human skeletons,
there being two distinct burying grounds, one above the other, in the
same location. The first cemetery was three or four feet below the
surface; the other resting place for the dead was located from eighteen
to twenty-two feet below the surface, the later being the more
interesting find for collectors as the skeletons were in better state of
preservation and relics more numerous and unique in form and material.
The country surrounding this moraine, which is probably a half-mile in
length and having an elevation of 35 or 40 feet at the highest part, is
practically level, and these bodies were not accidentally deposited to a
depth of more than twenty feet by the action of glacial waters, but were
thus buried by the members of their tribe.
Two prominent doctors of Parker who were collectors of artifacts of this
ancient race secured a number of primitive curious from this moraine,
wands, ceremonial and butterfly emblems, pestles, mortars, flint arrows,
spear heads and ivory beads.
Probably more than one hundred skeletons were found in this ancient
burial ground and one of these doctors had ten well preserved skeletons
in his collection.
Another fallacy taught us was the idea that the Indians were generally
nomadic, having no fixed place of abode, but wandering hither and yon as
fancy or necessities of existence demanded.
The term nomadic is not, in fact, properly applicable to any Indian
tribe. Every tribe, with a few exceptions, laid claim to and dwelt
within the limits of a certain region, the boundaries of which were well
understood and were handed down by tradition, and not ordinarily
relinquished save to a superior force. Between many tribes were
debatable areas, owned by none but claimed by all, which caused disputes
and inter-tribal wars.
Most all the tribes of this region were to a greater or less extent
agricultural and depended much for food on the products of their tillage.
During the hunting season such tribes or villages broke up into small
parties and dispersed over their domains more or less widely in search
of game, or they visited the seashore for fish and shellfish. Only in
this restricted sense may they be said to have been nomadic.
The exact nature of Indian ownership of land appears not to have been
understood by the early settlers, and the misunderstanding was often the
source of trouble and even bloodshed. Neither the individual Indian nor
the family possessed vested rights in the land. The land belonged to the
tribe as a whole, but individual clans and families might appropriate
for their own use and tillage any portion of the tribe's unoccupied domain.
Hence it was impossible for a chief, family clan, or any section of a
tribe legally to sell or give away to aliens, white or red, any part of
the tribal domain, and the inevitable consequences of illegal sales or
gifts was bad feeling, followed often by repudiation of the contract by
the tribe as a whole. Attempts by the whites to enforce these supposed
legal sales were followed by disorder and bloodshed, often by prolonged
wars.
Indian languages are so utterly unlike our speech in sound and so
different in structure and character that it is not surprising that
erroneous conceptions concerning them should arise.
Some conceived the idea that the speech of all Indians of whatever tribe
was practically the same, that it was little more than a sort of
gibberish, that it contained but a small number of words, that to eke
out its shortcomings the Indian was compelled to use gestures. Hr could
send simple messages by crude picture writing and by puffs of smoke.
On May 17, 1876, the United States cavalry rode out of Fort Abraham
Lincoln, North Dakota, with bands playing and colors flying. Five weeks
later Custer's entire army was massacred by the Sioux Indians at Little
Big Horn, Montana. The news of the massacre was brought to Fort Abraham
Lincoln by a Crow Indiana who could speak no English.
To tell the story he made a group of dots on the ground and pointing at
the white men indicated that they were white men. Then he encircled
these dots with a larger group of dots and pointing at himself indicated
that they were Indians. Then with a sweep of his had he wiped out the
inner group of dots. In this simple, dramatic way this Crow Indian
brought the news of Custer's massacre.
In the early history of the country there were said to be three hundred
eighty-eight main tribes of Indians in North America.
The American Indian population was estimated in 1940 as 333,969,
probably about half a million less than the aboriginal population in
1492, when Columbus made his voyage here. The lowest ebb in Indian
population was near the end of the Civil War in 1865, when the number
was estimated at 294,574.
The 1930 census showed 41 linguistic stocks divided into 96 tribes.
There is Indian land in about 30 of the 48 states. In 1940 Indiana land
holdings totaled 55 1/2 million acres, of which 18 1/2 million were in
Arizona, more than six million in Montana, six million in New Mexico,
five and one-half million in South Dakota.
Most of us have formed our opinions of the early Indians as one who was
hunting for someone's scalp, and to murder innocent women and babies or
to carry them into captivity. But to get a true picture of the Indian we
should delve a bit into the history of the Indiana, not the history of
wars, they are only the finish of the struggle, but the question of what
led to these wars, and the life of the Indian before these troubles
began to brew.
[This article was followed by a lengthy poem entitled, “Indian Graves”
which is omitted here.]
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