Culture and Tribal Customs
Chunkey (also known as chunky, chenco, tchung-kee or the hoop and stick game) is a game of Native American origin. It was played by rolling disc-shaped stones across the ground and throwing spears at them in an attempt to place the spear as close to the stopped stone as possible.
As a Native American scholar of environmental history and religious studies, I am often asked what Native American leaders mean when they say that certain landscapes are “sacred places” or “sacred sites.”
Before treating upon the subject of their manner of interment, I will just refer to the remedies used for their diseases. They possessed some knowledge of the virtues of certain medicinal herbs, and the external application of them to cutaneous disorders; but for internal diseases, such as fevers, &c., they always resorted to cold baths. For pains in the head, immediate application of cold water was the remedy.
Superstitions of a ridiculous, and most extravagant nature, were found associated with these Indians, and even now, in almost every town, or hamlet, the child’s first education is a belief in their authenticity; and they grow up from infancy familiar with all their fabulous traditions. The effect tends to enervate their physical faculties, and weaken their mental, so that they naturally become a pusillanimous race of people, liable to be deceived, imposed upon, and of course easily influenced by the puplem, and old men, who are their sole instructors.
As on all their feast days, dancing was the principal ceremony of the Juaneño Band of Mission Indians. I will endeavor to describe many of the ludicrous customs attending it. Such was the delight with which they took part in their festivities, that they often continued dancing day and night, and sometimes entire weeks. Their whole heart and soul were wrapped up in the amusement, and hardly a day passed, without some portion of it being devoted to this insipid and monotonous ceremony.
The usual marriage customs of the Juaneño Band of Mission Indians in selecting and obtaining their wives, was as follows:
When one of them was inclined to marry, and having seen one with whom he was particularly pleased, he kept loitering about her place of residence, until opportunity offered to communicate, in secret, the wish of his heart: generally after this style: “I wish to wed with you,” or, “We are to be married;” and the reply of the fair one, invariably, was, “It is well.” “I will inform my parents, and you shall know.” The girl then gave the information to her father and mother, and if the proposal were agreeable, the suitor was admitted to the house as a visitor.
One of the difficulties most perplexing to the Indians, was, the rearing and educating their children. They were unacquainted with the arts, excepting those most necessary for their maintenance, and ignorant of all useful knowledge to keep them from idleness; so that their only education consisted in the construction of the bow and arrow, with their peculiar uses, in procuring game and defending themselves from their enemies.
Although, ignorant as they were of the knowledge of the true God, the moral instruction given by parents to their children, was contained in the precepts of Chinigchinich, which were strongly impressed upon their minds, that they might become good, and avoid the fate of the evil.
The temples erected by command of the God Chinigchinich, or the celebrated idolater Ouiamot, were invariably erected in the centre of their towns, and contiguous to the dwelling-place of the, captain, or chief; notwithstanding their houses were scattered about without any particular regard to order, still, they managed to have the location of his house as near the middle as possible.
Chinigchinich is an ethnographic account of the culture and notably religious beliefs of the native Californians in the vicinity of the famous mission San Juan Capistrano. This is the mission where the swallows, legendarily, return every year. There is nothing, however, about the returning swallows in this book. Boscana was one of the few Spanish missionaries who, like Bishop Landa in the Yucatan, actually took an interest in the culture they were destroying.
Boscana was, typically, a bigot and a racist (he describes the Indians as being like monkeys). However, he lived among them for decades and obviously had an inquisitive mind and a talent for observation. While he condemns the practices and beliefs of the indigenous people, he describes them in great detail. Barring a time machine, this is the only first-hand account of mission-era Juaneños we will ever have.
The translator of this treatise, Alfred Robinson, was one of the first Yankees to settle in California.
This story may seem shocking and little sad to some who are romantically inclined to the modern myth about the Tear Dress. The myth is that our women wore this style of dress at the time of the Trail of Tears in 1838-39. That is not true for two reasons.
The Cherokee Nation is the only tribe to my knowledge to legislate a specific style of clothing as the official tribal dress. The Cherokees of North Carolina have a completely different style of dress.
To the Creeks, Cherokees and other Southeastern Indians, the Stomp Dance is affiliated with the Green Corn Ceremony.
The term “Stomp Dance” is an English term which refers to the ‘shuffle and stomp’ movements of the dance. In the native Muskogee language the dance is called Opvnkv Haco, which can mean ‘drunken,’ ‘crazy,’ or ‘inspirited’ dance. This usually refers to the exciting, yet meditative effect the Dance and the medicine have on the participants.
Allan W. Eckert, describing the marriage of Blue Jacket and Wabethe, gives this explanation of the Shawnee marriage dance. The marriage dance was held in late evening, while onlookers took seats on the ground in a broad oval before a fire that had been built in the principal clearing of the village. The male participants […]
The Nez Perce Tribe, historically, were the only known group of people indigenous to North America who, after becoming a society revolving around a horse culture, selectively raised horses that stood up to tests of racing, endurance and stamina resulting in an economy that flourished with the demand for their horses and also resulted in acclaim of legendary proportions throughout the world.
The general characteristics and origins of Native American religion shed light upon the more contemporary sects. But the development of the numerous individual traditions, passed down orally, remains unclear. The sheer number of groups and the diversity of the nuances of belief complicates matters further.