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Dispute, con’t from page 9
Tututunne
Title: Ethnographic Notes on the Tututni Indians
(Rogue River)
Author: Cora A. DuBois
Orator:
There was man in Tutoten who always preached to the people. He told them
to be good, not to fight, not to be mean. He stood outside and everybody went to
listen to him. He said people should not step over his words. He knew lots of high
words; he tried to teach the young people. He was not a rich man, he was not a
chief, he was just a man who knew how to talk well. After a feud has been settled
with the payment of a weregeld, he tells the people not to fight anymore.
♦Weregeld: Blood Money - (payment for injury or death).
Murder:
When they kill a man, the man who did the killing pays the relatives of the
dead man.
Weregeld:
Less for a poor person than a rich. If a poor man kills a rich one he has to pay
“big money” or maybe a sister or a brother. If a poor man kills a poor man, they
don’t pay in dentalia. That is a rich man’s money.
Intent makes no difference in weregeld.
When a weregeld payment is being settled between two villages, the opponents
line up facing each other in two lines with a space between them. They are already
to fight. Then a man and a woman appointed by the chief carry the money back
and forth between the two sides. The messengers can’t be on one side or the other,
they have to be fair. Sometimes they had two men and a woman. The woman
could talk well, just like the men. If they settle the payment the two sides mingle
and an orator adjures them to be peaceable and to behave themselves. If the kin of
the person for whom the weregeld is being paid, is not satisfied, he kicks the fire
and that is a signal to fight. The messengers are called - kwxeshtuketnaga. At
sundown the two sides return to their respective villages. Do not camp on site of
négociations.
War:
Informant knows of only one fight between Indians. Was between Tututen
and Yukwitce. Tututen went to Yukwitce and burned a dwelling. As inmates rushed
out they were thrown back into the fire. Was in revenge for a murder which had
not been paid for properly.
10
□
Silet^ News , □
June 2001Jv
In this war bows and arrows and spears were used as weapons (also elk skin
armor?). Wars were always precipitated by weregeld feuds.
In the one case known to informant one of the relatives of the informant’s
father who was chief at Tutoten was killed by a man from Yukwitce. The relatives
was a rich man. The Tutoten Chief sought aid from his wife’s relatives among the
Smith riverTolowa. The group of Tolowa joined him and all the men from Tutoten.
Two women accompanied them to carry and prepare food. Only old people and
girls were left in Tutoten. At Yukwitce they made a surprise attack and burned the
house of the offender, throwing the escaping occupants back into the fire.
All surprise attacks are at night. If a night bird gives a call it is an omen of
war. Those at Yukwitce who didn’t believe in this were killed. The others all ran
and hid themselves when they heard that bird.
Chiefs participate in the combats.
Shamans are not consulted (?); nor are there any dreams about war parties by
the chief or other persons so far as the informant knew.
When a war party comes home they have to bathe as does everyone else in the
community. “It is just like after a burial.” Also everyone eats a little fresh salmon
- that is medicine to keep them from getting sick when they eat salmon again.
They always fight at night, (i.e. surprise attacks, camp disputes arising from
négociation of weregeld - see Murder)
When giving a suppositional case of war between two villages on the Rogue
River, the informant answered that the people on the river were good people and
would not fight with each other. Implication that disputes were with coast villages.
One case of war is with a coast village. Yet intermarriage between coast and river
villages seems to have been lively.
A northern tribe “from around Portland, I guess” stole a Kususme woman.
She stayed there a year and then ran away and came back to her native village.
Slaves:
Repeated questioning failed to elicit information on this subject until finally
it came out under the question of adoption. It seems most properly to belong
under that heading.
Male slaves - tcunas
Female slaves - tcane, means wife.
If a poor man committed a breach like theft, adultery, or the inability to meet
a debt, the creditor threatened to kill his children. So the debtor gave the creditor
one of his children. Preferably a girl who was then termed tcane - wife. When she
grew up he kept her as a wife. He seems not to have sold her for a bride price. If
the debtor could not furnish a girl, he gave a boy who then worked for the creditor.
The creditor sat around all day in the sweat house and the boy worked for him.
When he grew up, the creditor bought him a wife. Slave children were well treated,
“treated just like their own children.” The custom of keeping a slave was confined
to the rich.
Adoption:
A poor man who has lots of children and can’t raise them will give one to a
rich man to bring up. Is usually given as an infant and is raised by foster parent on
acorn gruel. This has a very definite association of debt payment in mind of
informant. Was probably the most frequent reason for adoption.
Joel Palmer Papers
Siletz Ind. Agency Jany 2nd 1873
Sir
I have the honor to submit this my report for the month of December 1872.
The month has been one of more than ordinary excitement and interest to these
Indians for reason that an effort has been made to establish a tribunal among
themselves and by their own election to try and decide matters of differences
between individuals - and to adopt a code of laws by which the arbitrators or
court thus selected should be governed. Several councils have been held and after
a full discussion of the importance of such a measure - the following plan has
been adopted for the time being. To elect a court-of five arbitrators consisting of
(See Dispute on page 11)