The Mythology of the North American Indians (Illustrated Edition). Lewis Spence
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in detail, and when the aggregate is summed they accomplish more than the mighty engines of larger mediums.
"It was so in this case—the Lancaster paper was about issuing an extra for temperance purposes, and this letter happened to go into the forme to help 'fill up,' as poor printers sometimes express it. The Lancaster office was not poor, but the foreman did 'fill up' with the Ewing letter. Rev. Samuel Bowman, of Wilkes-Barre, by chance saw a copy. He knew the Slocums, and the entire history of the valley as it was given by tradition.
"He was not present in the valley at the time, but his heart warmed for the scenes and associations of early times in Wyoming. He mailed one of the papers to a Slocum, a brother of the captive girl, and the effect produced was as if by magic. Everybody was acquainted with the history of Frances, and all were interested in her fate. Sixty years had gone by since she was carried away, an innocent girl, and now the world had found the lost one.
"There was one mark which could not be mistaken—little Frances when a child had played with a brother in the blacksmith's shop, and by a careless blow from the latter a finger was crushed in such a manner that it never regained its original form.
"Mr. Isaac Slocum, accompanied by a sister and brother, sought an interview with the tanned woman, through the aid of an interpreter, and the first question asked, after an examination of the finger, was: 'How came that finger jambed?' The reply was convincing and conclusive: 'My brother struck it with a hammer in the shop, a long time ago, before I was carried away.'
"Here then at last, by this unmistakable token, the lost was found. Her memory proved to be unerring; the details of events sixty years old were perfect, and given in such a manner as to awaken in the hearts of the Slocum family warm emotions for the withered old woman. Her life, although rude, had been a happy one, and no inducements were strong enough to persuade her to leave the camp-fires of her adoption.
"By Act of Congress, Ma-con-a-qua, the Indian title of Frances Slocum, was granted one mile square of the reservation which was appointed to the Indians of Indiana, west of the Mississippi—to be held by herself during her life, and to revert to her heirs forever. She died March 9th, 1847, and was given Christian burial in a beautiful spot where the romantic waters of the Missisinewa and Wabash rivers join their ripples on the way to the sea.
"The story of the captive girl of Wyoming has been breathed around the hearths of the entire Christian world as one of the most fruitful in romance and song."
Dwellings
The habitations of the Indians of North America may be classed as community houses (using the term 'community' in the sense of comprising more than one family) and single or family dwellings. "The house architecture of the northern tribes is of little importance, in itself considered; but as an outcome of their social condition, and for comparison with that of the southern village Indians, is highly important. The typical community houses, as those of the Iroquois tribes, were 50 to 100 feet long by 16 to 18 wide, with frame of poles, and with sides and triangular roof covered with bark, usually of the elm. The interior was divided into compartments, and a smoke-hole was left in the roof. A Mohican house, similar in form, 14 by 60 feet, had the sides and roof made of rushes and chestnut bark, with an opening along the top of the roof from end to end. The Mandan circular community house was usually about 14 feet in diameter. It was supported by two series of posts and cross-beams, and the wide roof and sloping sides were covered with willow or brush matting and earth. The fireplace was in the centre. Morgan thinks that the oblong, round-roof houses of the Virginia and North Carolina tribes, seen and described by Captain John Smith and drawn by John White, were of the community order. That some of them housed a number of families is distinctly stated. Morgan includes also in the community class the circular, dome-shaped earth lodges of Sacramento Valley and the L-form, tent-shaped, thatched lodges of the higher areas of California; but the leading examples of community houses are the large, sometimes massive, many-celled clusters of stone or adobe in New Mexico and Arizona known as pueblos. These dwellings vary in form, some of those built in prehistoric times being semicircular, others oblong, around or enclosing a court or plaza. These buildings were constructed usually in terrace form, the lower having a one-story tier of apartments, the next two stories, and so on to the uppermost tier, which sometimes constituted a seventh story. The masonry consisted usually of small flat stones laid in adobe mortar and chinked with spalls; but sometimes large balls of adobe were used as building stones, or a double row of wattling was erected and filled in with grout, solidly tamped. By the latter method, known as pisé construction, walls 5 to 7 feet thick were sometimes built. The outer walls of the lowest story were pierced only by small openings, access to the interior being gained by means of ladders, which could be drawn up if necessary, and of a hatchway in the roof. It is possible that some of the elaborate structures of Mexico were developed from such hive-like buildings as those of the typical pueblos, the cells increasing in size toward the south, as suggested by Bandelier. Chimneys appear to have been unknown in North America until after contact of the natives with Europeans, the hatchway in the roof serving the double purpose of entrance and flue. Other forms, some 'community' and others not, are the following: The Tlingit, Haida, and some other tribes build substantial rectangular houses, with sides and ends formed of planks, and with the fronts elaborately carved and painted with symbolic figures. Directly in front of the house a totem pole is placed, and near by a memorial pole is erected. These houses are sometimes 40 by 100 feet in the Nootka and Salish regions, and are occupied by a number of families. Formerly some of the Haida houses are said to have been built on platforms supported by posts. Some of these seen by such early navigators as Vancouver were 25 or 30 feet above ground, access being had by notched logs serving as ladders. Among the north-western Indian tribes, as the Nez Percés, the dwelling was a frame of poles covered with rush matting or with buffalo or elk skins. The houses of the Californian tribes were rectangular or circular; of the latter, some were conical, others dome-shaped. There was also formerly in use in various parts of California, and to some extent on the interior plateaus, a semi-subterranean earth-covered lodge known amongst the Maidu as kum. The most primitive abodes were those of the Paiute and the Cocopa, consisting simply of brush shelters for summer, and for winter of a framework of poles bent together at the top and covered with brush, bark, and earth. Somewhat similar structures are erected by the Pueblos as farm shelters, and more elaborate houses of the same general type are built by the Apache of Arizona. As indicated by archæological researches, the circular wigwam, with sides of bark or mats, built over a shallow excavation in the soil, and with earth thrown against the base, appears to have been the usual form of dwelling in the Ohio valley and the immediate valley of the Mississippi in prehistoric and early historic times. Another kind of dwelling, in use in Arkansas before the Discovery, was a rectangular structure with two rooms in front and one in the rear; the walls were of upright posts thickly plastered with clay on a sort of wattle. With the exception of the pueblo structures, buildings of stone or adobe were unknown until recent times. The dwellings of some of the tribes of the plains, such as the Sioux, Arapaho, Comanche, and Kiowa, were generally portable skin tents or tipis, but those of the Omaha, Osage, and some others were more substantial. The dwellings of the Omaha, according to Miss Fletcher, 'are built by setting carefully selected and prepared posts together in a circle, and binding firmly with willows, then backing them with dried grass, and covering the entire structure with closely packed sods. The roof is made in the same manner, having an additional support of an inner circle of posts, with crochets to hold the cross-logs which act as beams to the dome-shaped roof. A circular opening in the centre serves as a chimney, and also to give light to the interior of the dwelling; a sort of sail is rigged and fastened outside of this opening to guide the smoke and prevent it from annoying the occupants of the lodge. The entrance passage-way, which usually faces eastward, is from 6 to 10 feet long, and is built in the same manner as the lodge.' An important type is the Wichita grass hut, circular dome-shaped with conical top. The frame is built somewhat in panels formed by ribs and cross-bars; these are covered with grass tied on shingle fashion. These grass lodges vary in diameter from 40 to 50 feet. The early Florida houses, according to Le Moyne's illustrations published by De Bry, were either circular with dome-like roof, or oblong with rounded roof, like those of Secotan in North Carolina, as shown in John White's figures. The frame was of poles covered with bark, or the latter was sometimes