Trollheart

Chapter II: Rolling Hills, Open Sky:
Pioneers of the Wild Frontier

“The world was full of rumors just then, a marvelous thing had happened: a new land had been discovered, and just when it was needed. The people had wandered to the end of the world, in quest of food and safety. Like sand in an hourglass, pouring grain by grain. Over many thousands of years, wandering bands of people drifted toward the end of one world and crossed over into another.”

Though you will find much anger among Native American tribes now at the concept - generally held - that their people originated in Asia and crossed over during one of the Ice Ages into what is now America, arguing that this makes them, in the words of one Lakota scholar, Vine Deloria Jr., “latecomers who had barely unpacked before Columbus came knocking on the door", it seems unlikely that they were always there. Other than Africa, where life is more or less now agreed to have begun, every race migrated from somewhere to somewhere. In my history of Ireland journal and my corresponding one on the history of England, I mark how each of those who believe themselves the original inhabitants came from other countries and settled there. It’s a familiar scenario, and there’s no reason to believe that it was any different for America.

Certainly, it makes more sense than the various origin myths espoused by some of the tribes, such as arriving through a giant log (Kiowa), being created by a trickster god (Crow) or even sung into existence, to the accompaniment of celestial objects getting it on with each other (Pawnee). While of course those are myths and despite the value each tribe puts upon them, I doubt there’s any member of those peoples still living now who truly believe this is how they came into being. But even if the accepted theory is true, I don’t quite get Mr. Deloria Jr.’s beef, as the last Ice Age, during which the huge ice land bridge known as Beringia stood and which may have provided a kind of “immigrant highway” for the people of Asia who sought out the new land, was about thirteen thousand years ago, so at least twelve thousand years before Columbus stood on the bow of the Santa Maria, intent on claiming the New World for Their Majesties, Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. Some even argue for a longer habitation, going back as far as thirty-five thousand years ago. Hardly johnny-come-latelys, as Deloria Jr. seems to grump his people would be seen.

Die Hard the Hunter: Surviving and Thriving in America

Whatever your opinions on hunting these days, when little if any of it is due to hunger or a requirement for meat, back when the first Native American tribes roamed the continent, hunting was quite literally a choice between life and death. Yes, you could farm and grow crops, and many did, but these things take time. You plant your seeds and then wait through the seasons for the harvest to spring up. And even then the food has to be prepared. Not a whole lot of fun if you’re starving as you wait. Hunting is immediate, in comparison. Go out today, get lucky and come home the same evening with enough meat to feed the family, maybe the tribe. One thing America had in abundance at this time was game, from the herds of buffalo and oxen and deer that covered the country to smaller quarry such as wolves, foxes, beavers and squirrels. And then of course there was bear.

But these animals had not survived as long as they had by being stupid; they were not going to come running into a trap. Anyone, I assume, who hunts will tell you that you have to stalk your prey, and have a certain amount of skill in order to succeed. So hunting became a necessary, a vital skill among the tribes; anyone - any man - who could not hunt likely did not eat, and certainly could not provide for his family. From a very early age, most tribes would train their male children in the art of hunting, and it became second nature. But another thing herds of animals do is have a tendency not to stay in one place, ranging across the plains and the prairie for food themselves, and they’ll go where their prey, or the grass they wish to eat, is, which meant that most tribes had to be nomads or semi-nomads, following the herds as they moved across the country, relocating their camps and villages in an effort to ensure they did not go hungry.

The first believed peoples in America, known as the Clovis, flourished around 13,000 years ago, and so were necessarily primitive, and restricted to very basic weapons made of bone, wood and stone for their hunting. However, even today (as I’m sure dedicated hunters will tell you) it’s not necessarily how powerful or effective your weapon is that gets you your kill, but how well you know both the territory and the habits of your quarry. The Clovis people studied their prey, and were able to tell to a reasonably certain degree which way they were going to go, what spooked them, when they watered and so on. All of this helped them greatly in their hunting exploits, indeed there are those who blame the sudden (in geological terms) extinction of a whole raft of species on over-hunting by the Clovis. Mammoths, short-faced Bears, sabre-tooth cats, mastodons, giant sloths, camels, lions, cheetahs and, um, giant beavers the size of bears, all disappeared around the end of the Pleistocene era, about ten thousand years ago.

Rather surprised to read that horses, too, became extinct at this time. I guess they mean they became extinct in America, and were not seen again until the sixteenth century when the Spanish explorers brought them to the New World. Odd though: I had no idea horses had ever been classified as extinct in any country, least of all America, if prehistoric America. Learn something new every day. One of the theories put forward as to why the Clovis were so successful in such a relatively short time - and against such large and, on the face of it, fierce predators - contends that none of these animals had, up to the arrival of the Clovis, seen a human, and had no idea what to expect. Their weapons were new to them, they were a new species and they had an intelligence and organisation the animals did not. And they were ruthless, and hungry. There was only one way that encounter was going to turn out.

It should be noted, in fairness, that most scientists now discount this “blitzkrieg theory” as it’s called, believing that climatic changes resulting in weather patterns altering and also the supply of food for these animals vanishing, as warm-weather short grasses replaced the tall-grass prairies on which the larger beasts had subsisted. The bow and arrow, which eventually became the hunting weapon of choice until the arrival of the Spanish with their guns, seems to have begun with our friends the Athabaskans, inuits and eskimos up in the Arctic anything from 9,000 to 6,000 BC, and didn’t reach the southern states, as it were, until nearly 600 AD, when they were found to be in use in Texas, and later California.

But unlike today, I assume, hunting was a spiritual as well as a physical activity. The Native American peoples had great respect, both for the land and for the animals who shared it with them. The idea that everything has a soul, or a spirit, including trees and grass and rocks, reflects in the mythology of the many tribes, most of whom worship or at least revere gods who are animals or take the shape of animals, such as eagle, bear, wolf and of course coyote. They would perform ritual dances and offer sacrifices to these gods before going on a hunt, in the hope the spirits, their ancestors, the gods and anyone else they looked up to would bless their venture, and they were always very careful to afford the creatures they killed the proper respect. As I noted earlier, many tribes did not allow the carcasses of animals slain in the hunt to be fed to dogs, which they believed disrespectful and which would then bring bad luck.

They were also very much aware of the worth of every kill, and wasted nothing if they could help it. Whereas today, a hunter might eat the cooked flesh of a deer or whatever hunters hunt these days, the Native Americans used everything, as I have already related, from skin and hide to sinews and even blood. In some ways, perhaps they believed that the spirit of the animal, which probably could not die anyway, lived on and protected, for instance, teepees covered in its skin, or warriors wearing its horns on their head, or whatever. At any rate, it would most likely have been seen to be a mark of disrespect again if they just ate the meat and threw the rest of the animal away, so they made sure everything had a purpose and could be used. This of course made them even more dependent on the animals they hunted, creating something of a cyclical sequence, a circle of death, if you will, that they took very seriously.

Then of course, there was the spirit guide.

Most people know the idea, that when a young warrior who was of age went on the mysterious often drug-induced trip known as the vision quest, it was usually to try to contact his spirit animal. For everyone this could be different: anything from a beaver to a snake or a bear to a wolf, an eagle or a spider. This animal was then inextricably linked to that warrior, would protect him and advise him, and became sacred to him.

One animal that thrived after the extinction of the larger ones by the Clovis (maybe) was the buffalo or bison, which spread out across the prairies and the Great Plains, running from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. The buffalo soon became the Native Americans’ quarry of choice, a single animal quite possibly feeding a family of twelve for a week. Buffalo moved in herds, though, seldom found alone, and so rather than hunt singly or in small groups, the Native Americans would organise large parties, sometimes whole villages, sometimes one or more villages, to take part in a communal buffalo hunt, and share the kill. Doubtless there were many deaths. In the earlier parts of their existence on the Plains, the tribes hunted on foot, and given that buffalos weigh in the region of a ton and tend to move fast in all but stampeding herds, anyone who wasn’t quick enough, agile enough, or fell or slipped during a hunt was not likely to be going home to the village, nor was anyone likely to be helping him up.

In addition to hunting, the tribes practiced gathering of fruits, herbs, grasses, roots, tubers, seeds and plants, some for use in food or drink, some for medicinal purposes, and some for ceremonial purposes. They were also squashed and their juices used as ink to decorate shields, clothing, armour and utensils. Gathering these was the job of the women, as was preparing the meat which the hunters brought in. One can almost envisage a Native American stomping into his teepee, tired but happy, jerking a thumb outside the tent. “Kill’s outside, love, take care of it would you?” and putting his feet up while the little woman went to work. Probably not very accurate, but maybe not too far from the truth. Everyone in Native American society had their place and their responsibilities, and each took theirs very seriously. A woman would not have to be told to start skinning a deer or buffalo or antelope; she would know it was her duty to transform the dead animal into edible meat and other useful products.

Many of the tribes settled along the coast, and these mostly became fishermen, drawing their bounty from the sea and the many rivers that run through America. Fishing techniques would of course have been very basic - probably nets weighted down with stones, or the traditional figure of standing in a shallow river with a spear, ready for any unsuspecting marine life to swim by - though there were of course bigger game to be had if you could put to sea, or river, in a canoe: sea otters, seals, even whales were fished by these people. What exactly they did to land a whale I have no idea, but then after watching Moby Dick it seems the plan was always to go out in the smaller boats and finish off the whales - usually the smaller ones - so they probably did that.

Whatever, the abundance of fish, especially salmon, one of the coastal First Americans’ food staples, particularly at the time of what was (and probably still is) called the salmon run, when the fish would return to their spawning grounds, led to the first real trading settlements. So many people would gather at these spawning grounds, particularly in The Dalles, a site upstream of the Columbia River, that this became a place for meeting, socialising, catching and eating the fish and for trading same, leading to the world’s first ever trade fair on the banks of the Columbia.

The first salmon of the season caught would traditionally be shared among the children of the village, and the bones of any eaten were to be thrown back into the river, as a gesture of respect to the fish’s spirit, to ensure the fishing would remain plentiful. Women were prohibited from touching salmon during their menstruation cycle, as it was believed the “unclean” blood would pollute the fish, though I doubt they were prevented from eating it. Not really sure.

Whales were dealt with in the same manner, ie the rituals had to be observed, as the Native Americans believed that a whale would only condescend to give up its life to hunters who had paid it the proper respect. After it had been killed, women would say special prayers for its spirit. Nothing was taken for granted; every fisherman knew that the caprices of wind, weather, heat, landslides of rock, or other natural disasters and phenomena could put paid to their fishing, cutting them off from their supply of food, so they took care to chant the right prayers, appeal to the spirits and the gods, and observe all the necessary rituals in the hope their food source would remain plentiful.

They were also all but horticulturalists, even ecologists, tending to the trees and plants, clearing away weeds and competing flora, using fire to clear paths and create growth, and providing enticing habitat for the animals they hunted. Just as with the fish and the buffalo, the Native Americans believed the plants, even the very grass they walked on, had a life of their own and deserved to be treated with respect. Respect was a reciprocal tool among these early peoples; if you treated something with regard then it would in turn work for you, so to speak. Respect cut both ways, as they saw it, and was a vital ingredient in ensuring their survival.

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Trollheart

Journeys of Survival: The Exigency of Movement and Migration

It seems to be generally accepted now that Athabaskan peoples such as the Eskimos and Inuits moved west around 1,700 years ago, perhaps as the boreal forest around Hudson Bay began to retreat due to climatic changes, bringing them into the more fertile and temperate regions beyond the Arctic Circle, and giving rise to such peoples as the Shawnee, Illinois, Foxes, Kickapoo, Miami and Menominee tribes, and later the Blackfoot and Cheyenne peoples. Those who had settled across what is now the border with Canada also migrated south, bringing them into our history, as they introduced the bow and arrow to America. These then would have been the historic ancestors of two of the bigger and more famous tribes of the Plains, the Apache and the Navajo.

As they moved across the continent, bigger tribes began to split and form newer ones, for various reasons, leading to the huge variety of Native American peoples who ended up inhabiting America, many of whom survive today, in one form or another. Western Sioux fragmented into Mandans, Hidastas and Crows, Eastern Sioux gave birth to Ioways, Missouris, Otos and Winnebagos. Given the tradition of storytelling and mythology that surrounds Native American history, and their lack of any written accounts, it’s hard to pin down exactly what happened (though the theory is pretty much discounted among archaeologists and scholars that some of them were, for instance, dropped onto the land by a huge eagle, or dreamed into life by a creator god). It is clear though, that the early history of these peoples involved much movement, transition, resettlement and migration as they progressed deeper across the continent, seeking the best farmland or hunting grounds or the most clement weather or abundant fishing. One thing is certain however: these peoples moved into a land unpopulated by other human beings, and displaced no other living civilisation. To paraphrase Woody somewhat, this land was most certainly their land.

However, lest it be somehow misinterpreted that these were all peace-loving, mi casa su casa kind of people, consider the village at Crow Creek, on the Missouri in North Dakota, where evidence exists that 486 men, women and indeed children were killed, mutilated and scalped around 1325, in an apparent attempt at a land-grab.

A Woman’s Place: Gender Roles Among Native Americans

When the first explorers encountered their first, as they called them, Indians, they were shocked and often revolted at how backward and savage they were, in their eyes. These were no civilised people, and though they used them initially to gain knowledge of the New World and often tricked them into believing the Spanish conquerors friendly, in the minds of Europeans there were only two things that could be done for these heathen: convert them, or exterminate them. It’s of course an example of the massive hubris of the white man that he believed - and still believes, mostly - himself to be the shining star in the human cosmos, the very pinnacle of evolution, the arbiter of class and the decider as to who should, and does, live or die. There’s an old saying that men fear the unknown, and men in fear often resort to violence to assuage that terror; if you can’t convert it, kill it, might be an appropriate axiom for early European settlers, and to be fair, we as a race haven’t really advanced all that far from that idea.

But the truth of it is, the Native American peoples were far more civilised than the Europeans, far cleverer and far more in tune with nature, and in terms of gender politics and sexual equality they were centuries ahead of the luddites who eventually claimed the title of Americans. Based on a rigid class system that had held for thousands of years, Europeans could see little use for or value in women, other than for the obvious. Women could not vote, could not own property, could not own businesses or have any sort of independent wealth of their own. In the eyes of class and gender-conscious Europe (and this includes England of course, and Ireland) women were created to serve men; they were to stay at home, bring up the children, look after the house. They were to be courted, protected, defended and bullied, they were to be devalued and overlooked, condescended to and thought little of beyond marriage and breeding children. Their interests were totally separate to those of men, their ideas not worth the time it took to listen to, their endurance all but absent from their frail bodies and minds believed equally fragile and empty.

It took until the late nineteenth century for women to achieve any sort of proper standing in society, and the twentieth before their voice would be heard in decisions that affected them, before they could start speaking for themselves instead of having men speak for them. In Native American culture though, which had been around for, as we noted above, in the region of fourteen thousand years, and possibly longer, women were not only highly valued but were often given not only an equal, but a superior standing in society. We’ve spoken before of the matrilineal nature of some tribes, and the idea of matrilocation. But we’ve only sort of nodded to them in passing before moving on. Let’s take a proper look at those concepts, and how they were implemented in the society of early Native American man.

Here’s how Wiki defines the term: Matrilineality is the tracing of kinship through the female line. It may also correlate with a social system in which each person is identified with their matriline – their mother's lineage – and which can involve the inheritance of property and/or titles. A matriline is a line of descent from a female ancestor to a descendant (of either sex) in which the individuals in all intervening generations are mothers – in other words, a "mother line". In a matrilineal descent system, an individual is considered to belong to the same descent group as their mother. This ancient matrilineal descent pattern is in contrast to the currently more popular pattern of patrilineal descent from which a family name is usually derived. The matriline of historical nobility was also called their enatic or uterine ancestry, corresponding to the patrilineal or "agnatic" ancestry.

So essentially here, the woman has all the power. All lineal descent goes through her family, not that of her husband, and it’s her female children who stand to inherit any land, property or other bequest. In Native American terms, some of this has to do with many of their spirits and gods being female, such as Sky Woman and Bright Shining Woman, Owl Woman and even Mother Corn or Corn Mother (depending on tribe), one of the most vital staples upon which the peoples of early America subsisted. Martilienal progression also led to the clan mothers, who, though not actual leaders or chiefs, were in effect the power behind the throne in many Native American tribes, being the ones who chose the leaders and who could, if they were seen not to live up to their responsibilities or to fail the people, be replaced at the clan mothers’ command.

There’s no need for surprise that such a “savage” people should value women more than the so-called civilised Europeans. The wonder is that women were trod upon for so long in the western nations. After all, if there is one great power in this universe, mightier than all, it is life. Without life, nothing exists. And women are the only ones who can give life, bring life into the world. Native Americans recognised and celebrated that fact; they knew that without their women they would be doomed to die out as a race, and being a highly spiritual people, the cycle of life and death was very important to them, possibly a reason why older people too were revered and respected, perhaps believed to be closer to communing with the spirits of their ancestors, whom they would soon join, than the younger in the tribe.

We’ve touched on the role of women in the creation of the world, too, in Native American myths. We’ve met Corn Mother, Mother Corn or in some versions First Mother, but there’s also Big Turtle, who created and carried the world on her back, Star Woman, Hard Being Woman and Spider Woman (no, seriously). In the myths of the Arctic Athabaskan peoples, Sedna is the daughter of the creator, Anguta, and it is she who creates the world. There are plenty more examples, but we don’t want to get too bogged down in legends and myth. The fact is that Native Americans recognised and valued the role women played in their society; they prepared the kill so that it could be eaten and preserved, they made the clothes the people wore, they made baskets and decorations. They were in charge of sowing crops and gathering herbs and other plants for use in medicine, and for ritual ceremonies too.

And of course, women took care of the children they had brought into the world. While it was the man’s duty to instruct and train the males, the females would be taught by their mothers and her sisters how to cook, clean, prepare meat and so forth. An interesting effect of the matrilineal society was that it was not the father, or husband, who was the most important male member of the family, but the uncle or brother-in-law, usually the eldest brother of the wife. This was because the clan the mother belonged to was the one through which the line of succession passed, and since, as in most Native American tribes, the husband was generally of another clan, he (or his clan) had a much weaker claim upon his children.

In other words, the line of female succession decided who would be mentor and almost father figure to her children (even if they already had a father); as mentioned previously, the father - and most likely the uncle too - would often be away hunting or raiding, so many times the task of training the boys fell to the grandfather, the father of the wife, who would be too old to join any such party. Land was managed, and in some tribes actually seen to be owned, by the women, and parcelled out as they thought fit among their family and extended family.

Clan mothers were generally not elected or chosen, but descended as a hereditary right through the female line, so the title would be passed from mother to her sisters and then to her daughters and on to their daughters, and so on. Clan mothers were often responsible for giving every clan member its name, and Faithkeepers were charged with arranging weddings, funerals and other ceremonial rites. Legend, at least Iroquois legend has it that the Great Peacemaker, the greatest prophet in their mythology/history, who brought together the Five Nations during the twelfth century, first converted a woman, Jigonhsasee, and thereby she became the first clan mother. The legend goes on to explain that before the formation of the Five Nations there was war between the Hunters, a cannibal tribe made up exclusively of men, and the Cultivators, all women, who knew the secret of farming. When some of the men joined the women and the Hunters were defeated, the Great Prophet decreed that from that day forth, men and women should be equal, and that the clan mother should not lead the clan, but should choose its leaders, in a sort of perhaps very early power-sharing arrangement.

The Great Prophet put it thus: The lineal descent of the People of the Five Nations shall run in the female line. Women shall be considered proprietors of the nation. They shall own the land and the soil. Men and women shall the status of the mother. (I’m assuming the missing word after “shall” is maybe “honour” or something like that).

The clan mothers also conduct what is known as the “cross-over ceremony”, which I guess is a coming of age/rite of passage/bar mitzvah thing, marking the end of childhood and the onset of adolescence. These involve fasting, meditation, teaching and a period of seclusion lasting twenty days. During this time, the clan mothers are on hand to provide advice and encouragement to the fasters. Once the ceremony reaches its end there is a big dance and festival to welcome the ex-children into the world of adolescence. We’ve heard of the “mourning wars” the Iroquois and other tribes would launch when a member of a clan died and they wished to find a replacement, or alternatively find someone to torture to death so as to assuage the clan’s grief. Well, those were apparently also under the control of the clan mothers, showing further the power of women to urge the men on to violent action by calling them cowards if they did not obey the order.

In his Iroquois Culture and Commentary , Doug George-Kanentilio writes “In our society, women are the center of all things. Nature, we believe, has given women the ability to create; therefore it is only natural that women be in positions of power to protect this function. ... We traced our clans through women; a child born into the world assumed the clan membership of its mother. Our young women were expected to be physically strong. ... The young women received formal instruction in traditional planting. ... Since the Iroquois were absolutely dependent upon the crops they grew, whoever controlled this vital activity wielded great power within our communities.

It was our belief that since women were the givers of life they naturally regulated the feeding of our people. ... In all countries, real wealth stems from the control of land and its resources. Our Iroquois philosophers knew this as well as we knew natural law. To us it made sense for women to control the land since they were far more sensitive to the rhythms of the Mother Earth. We did not own the land but were custodians of it. Our women decided any and all issues involving territory, including where a community was to be built and how land was to be used. ...

In our political system, we mandated full equality. Our leaders were selected by a caucus of women before the appointments were subject to popular review....Our traditional governments are composed of an equal number of men and women. The men are chiefs and the women clan-mothers. ... As leaders, the women closely monitor the actions of the men and retain the right to veto any law they deem inappropriate. ... Our women not only hold the reigns of political and economic power, they also have the right to determine all issues involving the taking of human life. Declarations of war had to be approved by the women, while treaties of peace were subject to their deliberations.”


The Omnipresent Mother-in-Law: Matrilocal Tradition in Native American tribes

Oh yes, there was no escaping the dreaded mother-in-law if you were part of, or married into a matrilineal society. You were expected to move in with your new bride’s mother, and she and her sisters and aunts would be at you night and day, pointing out all your little inadequacies (hey, it’s cold out, you know?) to your wife. You’d probably kill - literally - for the chance to get away from the jabbering women on a hunt or raiding party. Hell, you might even hope you didn’t make it back!

But seriously, this was the tradition. The couple either lived in or near the wife’s mother’s house, and she, the mother, would be very involved in the raising of the children, who would always be brought up as part of her clan, not his. If a man misbehaved or brought shame upon his wife, he had no right to be in the house (whether they lived with or close to the mother) and could be ordered by law to leave the gaffe. Any children from the marriage remained, of course, the property or at least the responsibility of the woman, and the husband might never see them again if he strayed.

Finally, and linked to both the above, there is matrifocality, which occurs when the power of the household is centred in the hands of the mother; she makes all the big decisions, keeps the family together and is the main voice in the family. The husband may not even be very much involved in the family, almost seen as a visitor at times, and certainly would not be able to override any orders or edicts put down by the mother (who would be his mother-in-law): a fate worse than death for many men, especially on our side of the divide! But despite hysteria that such a “topsy-turvy” way of doing things would result in disaster, giving the women so much power that the men would become little more than subservient sperm donors, this method worked for tens of thousands of years for the Native Americans (not all, but many) and even then, the men remained proud and noble warriors, and any outsider coming into their society would view them as being the ones in charge. Further proof, perhaps, of the cunning way the clan mothers manipulated their power, or maybe just proof that women could be in charge without it going to their heads.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Trollheart

A Kind of Magic: Ritual, Ceremony and Prayer in Early America

Another reason why explorers, and later, settlers, regarded the various Native American peoples as “savage” and “uncivilised” and “heathen” was that they could not, or would not, understand the processes by which these people lived. To a people who believed all of nature was tied together, that man was not all that far above the animals - that they, as mentioned, willingly gave themselves up to the human hunters thanks to the proper rituals being observed - and that even the grass and the trees and the sky had to be respected, it was vitally important that the proper ceremonial offerings be made, not only to ensure good hunting but to reaffirm their bond with animals, plants, the rocks and the earth, the trees and the rivers and the sky. A working dogma for almost every Native American tribe could have been “all is one”. They certainly believed themselves superior to animals, but only because the Great Spirit said so, and not in the same way as we do. We believe animals are there for our use and have no say in the matter. Native Americans worked on a sort of symbiotic relationship with, well, everything, but especially the animals they hunted.

It is a matter of huge hypocrisy (not that religion isn’t based on the nastiest and most violent form of hypocrisy anyway) that Spanish missionaries, and later English, German and others, took offence at the “barbaric” rituals observed by the various Native American tribes. In effect, what the people of America were doing when settlers first encountered them is exactly what those settlers were doing themselves, just in a more overt, and some would say honest way. What was the first thing Christopher Columbus reportedly did when he set foot on the land that would be known as America, and which he believed to be the West Indies? Knelt down and thanked God. To a higher civilisation, would this not be seen as a pointless, savage, uneducated ritual? What role had God played in their adventures? How could they believe he had guided them to their destination? Faith alone drove them, and this same faith in their gods was what spurred the Native Americans to be respectful and careful in their dealings with all other creatures.

However, having given thanks to his god, it was not so very long before Columbus was killing and making slaves of these new peoples, taking their resources and, quite literally, claiming their land in the name of his sovereigns. Native Americans made no such claims, and generally once they had made peace with or come to friendly terms with another people or tribe, kept those promises, which is why it must have seemed like such an amazing and disheartening betrayal to them when the men from across the sea did not keep their word, and this would forever colour the relationship between the two civilisations, the white man never failing to live down to the expectations of the red, culminating in the culling and ethnic cleansing of the latter by the former, and their subjugation as little better than slaves.

Fantastic Journey: The Vision Quest in Native American Belief

Although they would of course see many rituals, dances and other ceremonies be enacted while young, the first real encounter a Native American male would have with the actual powers that his people believed ruled and ordered their world would be through the medium of the vision quest. This word has, like Iroquois for those people, some distasteful connotations, as it is not the word they use for the spiritual journey, but in the world of the white man it has become more or less accepted as the umbrella catch-all term for what is a sacred rite of passage for Narive American youths, and so you’ll forgive me if I use it. What it’s called is though not as important as what it signifies, which is much more than a farewell to adolescence and ascension to adulthood in the nature of a boy’s first car, or kiss, or even the first time he has to be bailed out of jail. The vision quest was the point at which the boy’s future was, literally decided, revealed to him, his path in life laid out before him by the spirits of his ancestors and the gods, who would often appear in animal form, and came to be known as spirit guides and spirit animals.

In order to get a better understanding of the ideas behind the rituals of the Native Americans, particularly that of the vision quest, I’ve turned to Lee Irwin’s Dream Seekers: the Native American Visionary Traditions of the Great Plains, and here’s how he or she describes how the Natives saw and interacted with the world:

“One of the most fundamental aspects of the Plains religious topology is its implicit, undivided wholeness. This wholeness institutes the interactive relationships between many beings, both visible and invisible, whose homes are identified with particular ecological environments. The center of this wholeness is the earth itself, regarded as a living being-usually (but not always) a life-giving female. Human beings, the "two* leggeds," live on the earth in shared relationships with all other living creatures, particularly grazing and herding animals- the "'four-leggeds" or "grass-eaters." Below, or perhaps more accurately, within both the earth and the water, is another group of beings with special or unique abilities.

Above, yet another group of beings extends from the earth up through the sky, the home of the "wingeds," and into the celestial realm of the sun, moon, and stars. Thus there are three interpenetrating strata and their respective realms that constitute the wholeness of the natural world: the above realm, the middle realm, and the below realm. The relationship between these realms can best be described topologically as a distinctive contrast, more or less emphasized, between the above and the below, with the middle representing the mysterious realm in which all beings meet and interact.”

So if you followed all of that (wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t) it seems that the spirit world, to the Native Americans, was not some vague half-formed idea of Paradise or the afterlife as we know it, or indeed a vast drinking-hall to which entry was only granted if a Viking died a glorious death, or even the dark, murky world of terrifying more after-death than afterlife the ancient Greeks waited in fear of being called to. For the Native Americans, the spiritual world and the “real” world, the world of the now, the world they lived in, existed both independently and co-dependently. If you sinned in this one, your actions had - usually dire - consequences in the other. Your ancestors were watching you, not as some idea of ghosts floating about, but really, truly there, watching from the world to which they had gone after death, and to which you too must pass when your life was over. You did not want to upset them, and you really wanted to make them proud.

However, what I read tends to give me the idea that a vision quest was not the sort of meditation till you attain Nirvana kind of thing we might suppose, and more the idea of someone, quite young, who was seeking his way in life, looking for meaning and purpose, and seeking advice from his much older ancestors, in the way a young man might turn to his father or grandfather to dispense his wisdom of the world. Nor were these quests simply completed. Irwin titles the chapter which deals with them “Isolation and Suffering”, and so it was. The young warrior would be taken, or be directed to a place of solitude, usually a sacred place, there to remain for several days without food or water, praying and endeavouring to make contact with, be noticed by or form a relationship with the spirits. When one of these deigned to impart its wisdom and power, it most usually took the form of some animal, which was thereafter sacred to and connected with the individual. Often, the “spirit animal” would present the quester with items - special plants, herbs, songs etc - which would then aid his path through life.

Most often, these vision quests would take place on a hill or other high ground, often one sacred to a particular spirit, the idea being to get as close as possible to the spirit world, and also to make the quester visible to those who dwelt above by raising himself above ground level. The quest was usually undertaken in spring, as this was seen as a time of renewal and rebirth, when the spirits were at their most potent. Seen, too, as a time when animals and plants who had been hibernating or sleeping through the winter would wake up and again “come alive”, there could be no doubt about the strong symbolism of spring, and its power.

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Even those of us with the most rudimentary knowledge of Native Americans will be familiar with one tradition, the rain dance, though in truth there were several different dances important to the tribes, all of which served different purposes.

The Grass Dance

Honours the tribe’s ancestors (and also helps flatten the grass as the dancers stomp about) and in which the dancers, attired in bright colours and wearing stalks of sweetgrass in their belts (from which practice the name of the dance comes) sway in time like the movements of the grass on the prairie.

The Hoop Dance

This, on the other hand (and legs, and body) looks to be about the most ambitious multi-hula hoop challenge ever attempted, as various hoops, symbolising the never ending cycle of life, were used to tell stories and impart wisdom. The dance began with one hoop, representing the world, to which others were added, in turn signifying animals, the wind, humans, water and seasons. The hoops were used to create stylised shapes, and the Hoop Dance is still popular today.

The Snake Dance

By contrast, this one was practiced mostly by one people, the Hopi, and involved - you guessed it - live snakes. And not harmless ones either: most of the ones used in the ceremony were rattlesnakes. But the Hopi revere the snake, believing it to be the guardian of water, so precious a commodity, and consider them their brothers. Not quite sure what the snakes thought of it all. The Snake Dance was not a spontaneous event; the snakes were gathered and then watched over by the children of the tribe for sixteen days, then carried by the dancers in their mouths. After the dance the snakes were let free, in the four directions, to carry the prayers of the tribe to their ancestors. No figures exist for how many, if any, dancers have been bitten by a snake during the performance of this ritual.

The Stomp Dance

This was performed at night, for the health of the community, and as part of the Green Corn Festival, of which more shortly. It seemed to have been a sort of early conga line, with the leader circling the fire and those who wished to join in following behind him, in order of age and experience, men and women in alternate positions. Another night time dance, it usually involved the taking of certain herbs, fasting and continued on till sunrise. And that brings us to one of the most popular and well-known, and perhaps feared, and certainly most depicted in movies, of the Native American tribal dances.

The War Dance

Surely needs little explanation, as it does exactly what it says on the tin. Surviving in some sort of semi-way in the Haka, performed by the South African rugby team before a match, it is designed to rile up the blood and to stoke feelings of bravery and resolution just before a battle or raid. The war dance could last all night, and usually involved painting of the face, smoking of pipes and the handling of sacred items. Animal masks would be worn to symbolise and conjure the spirits.

The Sun Dance

Performed at the summer solstice, the Sun Dance was a ceremony to allow the tribe to offer sacrifices and prayers for the continuing health of the family and community. Sometimes the body would be pierced, and often eagle feathers and buffalo skins would be used, as both animals are considered central to the dance. There is also one of the more important dances, the Ghost Dance, but as this only came into being in the nineteenth century, and as a direct result of oppression by the US Army and government, I’ll hold that one over until we get to that point in the timeline. For now, then, that leaves the big one.


The Rain Dance

It’s not hard to understand the idea behind the Rain Dance. For a people who lived on the plains, where the weather could be arid and dry, rain was a vital, life-giving gift, needed not only for the health of the people but for their crops too, and for their animals. Without it, all three would die, and of course given the already mentioned affinity of the Native American people for them, they would have been concerned for the welfare of the earth, the grass, the trees and so on almost as much as for their own. The Rain Dance, then, served as a petition to the spirits to send down rain to irrigate the fields and allow life to flourish on the plains. Usually, and not surprisingly, it was a spring dance, performed when the need for rain was greatest.

It was somewhat unique in that not only men participated in the dance, unlike others apart from the Stomp Dance, and although many different costumes and types of jewellery were used, feathers and the colour blue predominated, these signifying the wind and the rain, respectively.

Healing Rituals

Unlike western medicine, Native American rituals, while they could be and were used for individual purposes, such as curing a wound or treating a disease, were often also used as a sort of ceremonial healing of the tribe, village or community; a way of bringing harmony to, or back to, a large group, and re-establishing the ancient and important links between the people and the land. Sacred objects such as a medicine wheel or healing hoop would be used, and these communal healing ceremonies could take several days to conduct. Among the first of what are now called ethnobotanists in the world - in other words, people who studied, understood and knew how best to use plants, herbs and grasses in medicine - roots, tubers, plants and herbs all played a big part in Native American healing. They had, after all, no access to the sort of pharmaceuticals we have today, with the invention of things like penicillin hundreds of years away, and so they had to use what nature provided.

Of course, using the plants which grew in the ground was second nature to the Native Americans, who believed all life connected, and so were taking from Mother Earth her bounty, and using the spirits of the herbs and plants to help them heal and be better. One of the most widely-used herbs was sweetgrass, but they also used sage, bear berry, red cedar and even tobacco in their medicine. They also utilised sweat lodges, perhaps an early iteration of the sauna, in which sick or ailing individuals would sit, rubbing herbs upon their body, smoking a remedy and/or watching while a holy man conducted sacred rites to drive angry spirits away and make the man whole again.

Peyote was another thing used, ground down in tea for ceremonies such as baptisms, funerals and healing. The peyote is the dried fruit of a small cactus, and in current times has been used as a hallucinogenic, most famously by the band The Eagles while recording their first album in the desert. Perhaps they knew of the rites which lasted from sundown to sunup and utilised eagle feathers, as well as incense and fire, for cleansing mind and body. Apparently you can get just exactly the same high by taking LSD, not that I would know, Lucy.

Green Corn Festival

Probably best described as a harvest festival, this took place in midsummer and was, of course, inextricably tied in with the importance of corn as a staple of the Native American people. The ceremony would typically last three days and entailed dancing, singing, feasting, fasting (isn’t it odd how, with the removal - or addition - of one letter that word becomes its complete reverse?) and religious observation. No corn could be eaten until the Great Spirit had been appeased, and the Green Corn Festival also served as an opportunity for village committees and councils to meet and consider infractions and past sins of the village, which would usually be forgiven at this time. It was also a naming festival, where babies would be given names, and a time of coming of age for youth. Sports would also be played, and spiritual as well as physical purification practiced, including the burning of waste and the cleaning out of homes, while at the end of each of the three days a feast was held to celebrate the good harvest.

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