Native Americans « History Rhymes

1Jun/080

Death and the Navajos

The Navajos struck fear into every person living in the American southwest since the first Spanish settlements until the American conquest of the southwest in the mid-nineteenth century. Their raids on the small villages and towns of present day New Mexico and Arizona were constant and were always devastating. The devastation, however, was generally not in human life, but rather in terms of lost property. Villagers lost most of their flocks of sheep, herds of cattle and horses to the Navajo raids, but rarely were human lives the target of the Navajos' ambitions.

Though they were feared, the Navajos did not generally have a reputation for being a great warrior tribe. The reason for this is that they traditionally had a cultural phobia of death, which is quite detrimental to a warrior-based society. When a person died inside one of their dwellings -- generally a hogan made of mud and wood -- the body had to be removed by bashing a hole in the wall at the point that it faced north and then by dragging the body out of the hole. The hogan then had to be destroyed otherwise its inhabitants would be plagued by the spirit of the deceased and by other evil spirits. Such spirits were believed to upset the delicate balance of nature and wreck havoc upon the living. The Navajos also believed that the presence of death led to witchcraft and other such unwanted entities.

One type of witch that the Navajos feared were called the "Yeenaaldlooshii", or "skinwalkers." According to Hampton Sides in his book Blood and Thunder: The Epic Story of Kit Carson and the Conquest of the American West,

The Navajos believed in a class of witches called "skinwalkers" who were said to put on wolf pelts and dig up graves. The skinwalkers could be seen prowling around at night on all fours -- they had pallid white faces and red glowing eyes and chanted holy prayers backward to invoke evil deities. They desecrated graves and stole funerary trinkets and jewelry. They removed the dead person's flesh and ground it up to make a lethal poison called "corpse powder," which the skinwalkers blew into people's faces, giving them the "ghost sickness." Even a fingernail paring or a strand of hair from a dead person could be used by a skinwalker to perform diabolical things.

According the Navajo legend, skinwalkers also have the ability to make any animal or human sounds they choose, they can read human thoughts and they can imitate the voice of a friend or relatives to lure innocent victims into their traps. It is also believed that skinwalkers have the ability to take over another person's body if the unfortunate victim is careless enough to look at the skinwalker directly in the eyes.

Tagged as: American West, Death, History, Native Americans, Navajos, Raids, Southwest No Comments

8May/080

The Modocs – History and Culture of the Modocs (Part 1)

In the woods in southern Oregon, a man quietly stalks a deer. The summer weather is brutally hot and he sweats profusely. The man is careful to avoid making any sort of noise and is weary not to let his game out of sight. The deer stops in a small clearing and it is the perfect opportunity to strike. The man raises his bow and prepares it with an arrow as he gets ready to shoot. It is vitally important that he does not miss as the deer will provide food for the women and children of his village and the pelt will provide clothing. His thoughts are a blur as he takes aim and lets the arrow go. The time seems to last a small eternity until the arrow finally reaches its deadly mark. The man is a young hunter belonging to the Modocs.

When asked about the Modocs, most people will say they have not heard of them. Compared to better known Native American tribes such as the Cherokees, Apache and Arapahos, the Modocs are a relatively small and mysterious tribe, but their story is nonetheless quite interesting.

$Map of the Klamath Tribes\' Land$ Tucked away in the northwest corner of the United States, generations of Modocs lived, hunted and battled for centuries. The Modocs lived in the range from south-central Oregon to northern California, but they primarily lived around Tule Lake (see map) where they fished and ate waterfowl. Gathering was also an important part of the Modoc diet. They gathered camas root, wocus seed and other wild plants and during the summer months they also hunted deer, antelope and bighorn sheep in the high country. Eventually the Modocs adopted some of the ways of the white men such as cattle ranching and they even began working vocational jobs in Fort Klamath, Linkville, Jacksonville and Yreka. For the Modocs, to own horses as a sign of wealth that only those who were in a position of power or earned money from the white men could afford.

The Modoc tribe called themselves the Maklaks. They were part of the Klamath tribes of the northwest and spoke a language of Penution origin. Before 1800 they were part of the Lulacas tribe, but because of an internal dispute about tribute to the chief, the Modocs broke away to form their own tribe. Their villages were mostly autonomous and each had their own leaders, shamans and medicine men, however, when war was upon them, the villages would unite to fight for the common cause against the enemy. During the winter, they would live in earth-covered lodges, or “pit houses,” but the poorer families who couldn’t afford such lodges would live in mat-covered houses. In summer, they lived in domed houses made of poles and matting or lean-tos made of brush. An important part of every village was the sweathouses which served as a community center. Here both men and women would gather for prayer, religious activities and for recreation.

Everything began to go downhill for the Modocs when the first contact with the white men was established. In 1826, the Hundon’s Bay Company trading brigade established a trading station on the Dalles of the Columbia where slave trading was quite common. The Modocs received horses, firearms, clothing and other goods from the white men as payment for helping with the trading business and in exchange for slaves. Finding the trading business quite fruitful, the Modocs began to establish trading businesses of their own. They began to trade and sell lumber from their native lands and, because of their knowledge of the land and connections throughout the area, they also began to setup freighting routes for the white men. By August 1889, there were 20 tribal teams profiting in the freighting business.

Since the white men could not pronounce the Modocs’ native names, they began giving them English nicknames. The most famous of these nicknames is that belonging to the chief Keintpoos, “Captain Jack,” who would play a significant role in events to come...

Check back soon for part 2!

Other parts of this series

Tagged as: American West, Captain Jack, History, Indians, Modocs, Native Americans No Comments

20Apr/080

Indians and the Imperial Powers of Europe

At the university library, I came across a book by the title A Companion to The American West, edited by William Deverell, and have been slowly working my way through it. The book is a series of essays that talk about what the American west is, how the west is defined and how the definition of the American west has changed throughout the course of American history, starting of course with the landing and settlement of the first colonists from Europe.

The first essay, "The Making of the First American West and the Unmaking of Other Realms" by Dr. Stephen Aron, professor at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA), gives a basic overview of what the "first American west" was and the repercussions the settlement of the first American west had on the native Indian population. Dr. Aron discusses the breaking of the threshold that was the Appalachian Mountains into the wild countries of what is now Kentucky and Tennessee. The Native Americans were naturally opposed to this violation of their territory and to help fend off settlers and other men, such as Daniel Boone, the Indians turned to the competing European imperial powers for help.

After the American Revolution, Britain was a key ally for the Native Americans despite the dishonesty that plagued their relationship and the eventual abandonment of the Indians by the British. They not only supplied the Indians with resources and firearms, but they were a confidence booster for the Indians. Some of the more fortunate Indian groups, such as the Iroquois in northwestern New York, were able to take full advantage of competing European interests in the Americans. The Iroquois were situated between the French interests in the north (what is today Quebec) and English interests in the south. This strategic positioning meant that they were effectively immune from domination by one European power or the other. This “borderland geography”, as Dr. Aron calls it, gave the Iroquois a militaristic advantage as well as a natural economic advantage. The fur trading industry blossomed to the point that the population of animals that supplied the fur began to significantly dwindle to dangerously low levels.

Indeed, these were most certainly positives for the native peoples, but an unseen enemy wiped out nearly half of the Iroquois population by the seventeenth century. The exposure to so many of the Europeans left the Indians vulnerable to diseases and plagues that brought the Iroquois to their knees faster than any European power could have.

The French Revolution also had an impact on the Native Americans. Western tribes such as the displaced Shawnees who had come to reply on British and Spanish support for their cause against the ever-encroaching Americans were suddenly left to fend for themselves. Both the British and Spanish monarchies were engaged in conflict with the new French regime and consequently decided to abandon their position against the American government and concentrate their efforts closer to home in Europe. The Indians suddenly found themselves alone in their fight and, without a strong confederacy amongst the Indian groups, were quickly succumbed by American forces. Led by General Anthony Wayne, the Americans forced the Indians to give up much of what is Ohio today.

The European abandonment of the Native Americans was a crucial turning point in American history. The Indians would never again have such an advantage against the Americans.

Tagged as: England, France, History, Indians, Native Americans, Spain No Comments

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