Image provided by: Library of Congress; Washington, DC
About The Chemawa American (Chemawa, Or.) 19??-current | View Entire Issue (May 2, 1928)
THE CHEMAWA AMERICAN PAGE 4 INDIAN KABO OK (Continued from page 1) the remainder of the crowd adjourns to the shade to rest. Soon after the noon meal a number of young warrior dancers perform. They are clad only in loin cloths. Such timed activities to the music of the Indian song and tom-tom! Runners are sent out in pursuit of the impersonated enemy “Death.” When reports are brought back that they are found a cam paign as realistic as if life depended upon it is waged. The enemy prisoners are captured. A series of sheets pegged to the ground are assaulted with war clubs and tomahawks after which a warrior, hideously painted and feathered, with deft strokes of the knife imper sonates the skinning of the enemy alive. After this is concluded the mourning and lamenta tions are again started and kept up until after night fall when a smudge is kindled and the braves smoke themselves and while doing so they utter the most hideous whoops and cries. To an onlooker it appears that they will succumb to the smoke, when, at a given signal, they run to a stream, some hundred yards away and plunge in. To those who perform this feat without gulping in any of the “death” air comes the promise of immunity to all sickness “for plenty long time to come.” At midnight a gong is sounded and immediately the images are carried from the mourn ing house and placed upon an immense funeral pyre nearby. The tribal priests, with a series of incanta tions, light the wood and soon the flames mount higher and higher. Many mementos and trinkets of the departed are thrown in the fire by relatives. While the pyre is burning, the songs, yells and dance go on unabated, and as the fire dies down the Indians began to regain their composure, feeling that they have performed the most sacred rites and duty to their dead. Slowly they depart for their camps and later for their homes. “Karook” is one of the most outstanding and dominant episodes in the “Yuma” life. “It has come down through all the years with all its primitive aspects” and is celebrated once each year in memory of those who have passed on during the previous year. WHERE THE SOBEECH OWL GAME FBOM By JOHN CADOTTE, Chemawa Student There was a certain Indian woman who gathered hemlock branches and made mats of them by tying them together with strings made from red cedar bark. She would take this mat down to a flat rock on the beach and when the tide came in the herring would collect among the branches. She would catch them and throw them on the beach and later fill her basket, and take them home. She did this every day during herring season. This woman was married and her mother-in-law lived with her. One day the mother-in-law asked her daughter-in-law what she was cooking? The daugh- ter-in-law replied, “I’m only cooking some clams.” The mother-in-law asked the daughter-in-law to give her some of the clams. The daughter-in-law seemed to be getting ready to give the old lady some clams, but when she held out her hand the daughter-in-law put a hot rock into her hand. The old lady cried out with pain. The son returned and his mother told him what his wife had done to her. This made the son very angry and he wanted to know what his wife was cooking. The old woman did not know. She told her son that she went somewhere every day and returned with a basket of fish, but never let her see them. The wife was gone. The husband and his brother went out to look for her. They saw her coming up from the beach with a basket. They hid as she passed and went down where she had been and soon had a canoe full of fish. The husband returned and told his wife that he had many fish in a canoe. The wife ran down to the beach and found that he had told her the truth. The wife called out, “Bring the basket here.” She screamed it, and yelledit, but the men paid no attention to her. Her voice became louder and louder. All the people in the village heard it, but none would go to her. Everyone disliked her. Soon her voice sounded strange. Her words ran together and developed into the hoot of an owl. The selfish daughter-in-law had been turned into the owl that hoots and screeches until this day. Today when a maiden is selfish people say to beware of her, tor she will put a hot rock into her mother-in- law’s hand and be turned into an owl. Some folks have a way o’ doin’ that can hardly be distinguished from work.—A be M artin . There is but one straight road to success, and that is merit. The man who is successful is the man who is useful. Capacity never lacks opportunity.—B ourke C ockran . The more a man is educated, the more it is neces sary, for the welfare of the State, to instruct him how to make a proper use of his talents. Education is like a double-edged sword. It may be turned to dangerous usages if not properly handled.—Wu T ing - F ang . To know the mighty works of God; to comprehend His wisdom and majesty and power; to appreciate, in degree, the wonderful working of His laws, surely all this must be a pleasing and acceptable mode of worship to the Most High, to whom ignorance can not be more grateful than knowledge.—C opernicus .
