TEXAS INDIAN PAPERS, 1846-1859
357
gree of cultivation. Christianity has never been introduced among them. This tribe is subject to many trespassers, not only from the whites, but also from the neighboring tribes of Indians, who hunt through portions of their country, destroying great quantities of game. The scarcity of fire-arms, and their incomplete knowledge of that weapon, renders them unequal to contend with the frontier tribes, who have obtained experience from contact with the whites. Their burials are strictly private. When a man dies, his horses are generally killed and buried, and all his principal effects burnt. The first carry him to his paradise, and the latter for his use on his arrival. 'Ihey formerly also killed their fa- vorite wife, but this custom has been done away with, from in- tErcours2 with the more civilized Indians. The death of a chief causes great tribulation to the tribe- on such occasions they assemble without distinction, and bewail his death with extreme lamentation, until they receive from the relatives of the deceased, sufficient presents to cause them to stop; for instance, if a man wants a favorite horse belonging to the brother of the deceased, he continues crying till he ob- tains it. When they are killed in battle, it is a cause of much greater lamentation than from a natural death, and a much greater number of mourners bewail the loss. The presents given by relatives are also much more valuable. The deceased is packed upon a horse as soon as he expires, and taken to the highest hill in the neighborhood, 2nd buried privately, without any monu- mznt to note the pl!:ce, as far as has been discovered. The wives of the deceased, after he is buried, assemble around the dead horses, with a knife in one hand, and whet-stone in the other, and with great lamentations, cut their arms, legs, and body in gashes, until they are exhausted by the ioss of blood, and frequently commit suicide from extreme grief on the occa- sion. From the liberality with which they dispose of their effects on all occasions of the kind, it would induce the belief that they acquire property merely for the purpose of giving it to others." (Note: This document reproduced verbatim as it appears in the works of H. R. Schoolcraft.) [Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, Historical and Statistical Information Respecting the History, Condition, and Prospects of the bidian Tribes of the United States, (6 Vols.; Philadelphia, 1851-1857), Vol. 2, Pages 125-134.l
I I •
Powered by FlippingBook