2
THE
CHEM AW A
AM ERICAN
Indians were active participants in the ceremonies, and something deep
ly significant was going forward most of the time.
Imagine two large companies of dark-skinned people, drawn in semi
circular form about an open space, the front ranks on their knees, their
hands clinched, their heads bent forward, their eyes intent upon their
opponents. One man of the party holds in either hand a tube of pol
ished bone, each with different markings. At the head of the circle two
or three men beat monotonously on tom-toms.
All the men in the front rank keep time with sticks, striking a board,
timed to a rude chant. It is the hope of these chanters to inspire their
chosen mind-reader to place correctly in the hand of his opponent the
marked bone. This player croons a low plaint to his guardian spirit
for right direction. Sometimes he gets it, and then his side sings with
redoubled energy a song of triumph. Sometimes he fails, and then the
song becomes a wail. There may be much or little at stake on the re
sult. That does not matter. It is the power to judge that pleases.
This is the ancient game of “ Slahal,” known by one name or anotner
to all the Indian tribes of North America. It is a game in which whole
tribes can be pitted against each other, each tribe backing their chosen
mind-reader with their own strong “ medicine.” Horses, cattle, arms,
ammunition and some times the women of a tribe are lost in the ven
ture. There is a similar game called “ slahallub” which they play with
wooden discs hidden in fine shavings of cedar bark.
The Indians, yesterday, most of them farmers with families, staid and
sober all other days in the year, were painted and decorated for this pot
latch celebration, and were as deep in the ancient mysteries as their an
cestors were before ever they had seen a white man’s books or known a
whiteman’s wavs.
Something in the nature of the Indian marks him as superior by na
ture in some respects toother races. It took our forebears, the Britons,
700 years after they were under the dominion of the Romans to get away
from eating raw beef torn from the bone by teeth. I watched these In
dians at dinner. Many of them were born in wigwams and none of their
ancestors knew the meaning of a knife or fork or spoon. But they ate
off white crockery, handled their knives and forks with as much ease
and politeness as any gentlewoman, had as good table manners as gen
erations of Chesterfieldian teaching has given to the Saxon world, and
much more gentleness and consideration for each other than is often
observable in our mixed companies.
And when the meal was finished they followed an old man in a chant
of thanksgiving to the Giver-of-Good. With a childish simplicity and
gratefulness that might shame many a glibly remembered prayer, many
a fashionable choir of praise.