Archives of aboriginal knowledge. Containing all the original paper laid before Congress respecting the history, antiquities, language, ethnology, pictography, rites, superstitions, and mythology, of (14763040984)

Identifier: archivesofaborig03scho (find matches)
Title: Archives of aboriginal knowledge. Containing all the original paper laid before Congress respecting the history, antiquities, language, ethnology, pictography, rites, superstitions, and mythology, of the Indian tribes of the United States
Year: 1860 (1860s)
Authors: Schoolcraft, Henry Rowe, 1793-1864. dn United States. Bureau of Indian Affairs. cn
Subjects: Indians of North America United States
Publisher: Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott & co.
Contributing Library: University of Pittsburgh Library System
Digitizing Sponsor: Lyrasis Members and Sloan Foundation



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m the flint and steel before the food is put on to cook, so as to besure and not have anything unclean about the feast. For my part, I am forced tobelieve that these feasts are handed down from the children of Israel, but have throughtime lost all their original features and merits. 143.—What notions have they of the planetary system ? Are the stars or planetsregarded as parts of a system ? The Indians do not profess to know much about the stars, although they have namesfor a few of them. 144.—How do signs affect them ? Do omens and prognostications exercise a strongsway over the Indian mind ? Do they ever influence councils in their deliberations, orwar-parties on their march ? Are predictions, drawn from the flight of birds, muchrelied on ? Are auguries ever drawn from the sombre hue, shape, or motions of theclouds ? The Dacotahs have many signs, as fowls fl^nng, animals running, and sounds atnight. In their war-excursions the Indians are often guided by signs and dreams. ?.ar^;
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Dra.^ii 07 Cap-v S Easauaii.o i^^ )lii)ES ©F ©iET^GKOW-a iFGSE FiRi0J:tl IFSL^: PaBLISKED BY LIPPrtTCOTT.GRAMBO St CO.PHH-A— HISTORY, AND GOVERNMENT. 229 145.—Is there reason to believe the Indians to be idolaters? Are images of woodor stone ever worshipped ? or is there any gross and palpable form of idolatry in theexisting tribes, similar to that of the oriental world ? The Dacotahs have no images of wood that they worship, nor have they any edificesfor public worship. These Indians worship in their natural state. An Indian willpick up a round stone, of any kind, and paint it, and go a few rods from his lodge, andclean away the grass, say from one to two feet in diameter, and there place his stone,or god, as he would term it, and make an offering of some tobacco and some feathers,and pray to the stone to deliver him from some danger that he has probably dreamedof, or from imagination. 146.—Do they believe in the immortality of the soul, and the doctrine of moralaccountabilit