Three years among the Indians and Mexicans . This tribe was then very powerful, having in allfive villages, and mustering, in case of emergency, asmany as three thousand warriors. I have alreadynoticed their character and warlike qualities. Asingular custom prevails among them in cutting offa finger or inflicting a severe wound in remembranceof any severe misfortune. Few of the men thirtyyears of age, were without the marks of thesewounds, made on the death of some near relation,or on occasion of a defeat of the nation in war. SomeI saw with three and one with four fingers cut saw a youn
Three years among the Indians and Mexicans . This tribe was then very powerful, having in allfive villages, and mustering, in case of emergency, asmany as three thousand warriors. I have alreadynoticed their character and warlike qualities. Asingular custom prevails among them in cutting offa finger or inflicting a severe wound in remembranceof any severe misfortune. Few of the men thirtyyears of age, were without the marks of thesewounds, made on the death of some near relation,or on occasion of a defeat of the nation in war. SomeI saw with three and one with four fingers cut saw a young man bewailing the death of his fa-ther in a battle with the Blackfeet. He had com-pelled his friends to draw leather cords through theflesh under his arms and on his back, and attachingthree Buffalo skulls, weighing at least twenty-fivepounds, to the ends of the cords he dragged themover the ground after him through the village, moan-ing and lamenting in great distress. At their meals,the Indians on the Missouri, throw the first piece of. [i8io] 91 meat in the direction of an absent friend. In smok-ing they send the first whiff upwards in honor of theGreat Spirit, the second downward as a tribute totheir great mother, the third to the right and thefourth to the left, in thanks to the Great Spirit forthe game He sends them so abundantly on the bosomof the earth. Their name for Chief is Inca, thesame as that of the South American and MexicanIndians.^^ For knife they say messa; for horses, co-walla. A comparison of their languages will showan identity in their origin and race. They securetheir dead by setting four poles, forked at the top,and about twenty-five feet in height, in the these they put a scaffold of buffalo skin, fas-tened to the poles, and on this the corpse is placed,covered by a buffalo skin bound around it verytightly. In this way the corpse is protected fromfrom the birds and beasts, and this it remains till thescaffold falls by decay. The bones are th
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectfrontierandpioneerli
