The Element Encyclopedia of Native Americans: An A to Z of Tribes, Culture, and History

Native Americans might catch beavers by cutting holes in the ice and waiting until the animal emerged for air, when the hunter would grasp the animal quickly and kill it cleanly and efficiently.

The white settlers, however, also quickly realized the value of the beaver, and soon established a thriving fur trade with the Natives, which assisted good relations on both sides.

BEAVER (TRIBE)

Also called the Tsattine, a word that means “those who live among the beavers.” There were many beavers in what is now northwest Alberta in Canada, especially near the Peace River, whose name in the language of the tribe was the Tsades, meaning “beaver river.” The tribe belonged to the Athapascan language family.

The Beaver, among the hardy Native Americans who lived in subarctic conditions, were seminomadic, moving to follow the hunt. Their prey included not only beavers but moose, caribou, and smaller mammals such as rabbits. The Beaver used hand-made animal “calls” of birch-bark to attract their prey. They also sometimes encountered the buffalo.

The Beaver lived in cone-shaped houses which looked a little like tipis, and when hunting built lean to shelters from whatever materials were at hand. Hunting parties consisted of loose bands of families, each assigned a territory; to follow the hunt the tribe used canoes, toboggans, and snowshoes.

The shaman or medicine man of each band slept with his head toward the west, in order to allow him to speak with the spirits. The other tribal members slept toward the rising sun, facing east. They believed that this direction would help them to dream. The Beaver had a strong belief in guardian spirits, and would mutilate themselves to show grief, using methods of self-harm that ranged from chopping off a joint of a finger to piercing their chests. Their introduction to Christianity absorbed many of their traditional beliefs, and placed the priests in a role very similar to that of the shamen.

Because of the potential for the fur trade in territory that was so rich in beavers, the tribe were among the first of the Athapascans to encounter the Europeans, and in 1799 their chief asked for their own fur-trading post. By 100 years later, the Beaver tribe had handed over vast tracts of their land to the Canadian Government.

BIG ELK

“What has passed and cannot be prevented should not be grieved for.”

1770–1846

The last pure-blood chief of the Omaha people, Big Elk was known to his own people as Ontopanga. Big Elk lived during rapidly changing times, and steered his people through these changes with wisdom and perspicacity. It was not only the white men who posed a threat to the Omaha, but the Sioux. What was out of the chief ‘s control, however, was the devastation caused by European diseases: smallpox, in particular, had a shocking effect on the population of his people, which was reduced from 3,000 in 1780 to 300 in 1802.

Big Elk supported the United States in the War of 1812, hoping that a victory would mean that the Government would help protect the Omaha against the Sioux.

A progressive leader, there were many facets of the new culture of America that Big Elk thought were good, and he was happy to have two of his daughters marry successful fur traders since he believed that assimilation could work well for both parties, and that such illustrious sons-in-law would give credence to his own family. Since the Omaha tribe followed a matrilinear system, any offspring would be automatically accepted as tribal members.

One of these “good” marriages came with the betrothal of Big Elk’s daughter, named Mitain, to the Governor of the Missouri Territory, Manual Lisa, even though he was at the time still married to a white woman who had been left behind in St. Louis.

Big Elk’s daughter Me um Bane married a wealthy fur trader named Lucien Fontanelle. Their eldest son, Logan, worked as a translator for the U.S. Indian agent from the age of 15. Logan went on to become an important person within the tribe because of his abilities, especially in negotiating land deals, although he was unfortunately killed by the Sioux.

Big Elk believed that, in ceding land to the Government, his people would receive protection in exchange. Accordingly, the tribe gave up most of their land and were relocated onto a reservation in the northeastern part of Nebraska. At this time Big Elk adopted another fur trader, Joseph LaFlesche, not only into the tribe but as his son. In 1842 Big Elk informed Joseph that he would succeed him as chief, and so the young man began to train himself in the traditional ways of the tribe.

Big Elk died in 1846, after a fever. He is buried in Nebraska, at a site known as Elk Hill but also known to the Omaha people as Ong-pa-ton-ga Xiathon, meaning “The Place Where Big Elk Is Buried.”

BIG SPOTTED HORSE

1836(?)–?

As a young Pawnee brave of 15 or 16 in 1852, Big Spotted Horse was chased by a Cheyenne warrior while taking part on a buffalo hunt in Kansas. The warrior, Alights on the Clouds, wore a protective material called scalemail which meant that he was impervious to arrows. Alights on the Clouds intended to count coup on Big Spotted Horse, and galloped toward his right hand side. What he did not know, however, was that Big Spotted Horse was left-handed; he turned to the right as Alights on the Clouds approached him with a sword, pulled back his bow, and struck home, piercing his enemy’s eye.

The young Big Spotted Horse had no idea what had happened until some of his fellow Pawnee hunters, seeing the body fall, shouted out. The Cheyenne, shocked at the death, retreated, but for the Pawnee, the killing of a warrior decked in protective metal discs was celebrated as a great victory. Big Spotted Horse’s name as a great warrior was made, and his exploits as a horse thief and warrior became the subject of folklore.

In one raid, in 1869, he led his men to a Cheyenne village near a river. There they stealthily untied the choicest horses, setting off for home with some 600 animals. Despite blizzards, they made it home intact to their village. However, horse raiding was very much frowned upon by the Indian agents, and 600 horses were too many to hide from Jacob Troth. Big Spotted Horse was called before him and ordered that the horses should be returned to the Cheyenne. Big Spotted Horse, determined not to be humiliated by such an action, refused, and was imprisoned. After five months he was released, however, when it was proved that there was no statute that made horse raiding illegal.

On returning to his village, Big Spotted Horse was outraged to find that only some 40 of the horses remained, the rest having been returned whence they came. In his anger, he joined the Wichita people in Oklahoma.

In 1872 Big Spotted Horse returned to his village with the intention of relocating his entire tribe to the Wichita territory, a move supported by them but disapproved of by the Pawnee chiefs, who did not want to leave. So Big Spotted Horse gathered some 300 supporters and returned to the Wichita; two years later, to the dismay of the Pawnee chiefs, the rest of the tribe followed him, despite the fact that the Wichita land was far less fertile than that of Nebraska.

BIGIU

The Chippewah word for the resins obtained from certain evergreen trees including the cedar and various firs. Bigiu was used to make things waterproof: rafts and canoes, basketware, etc. It was also used to coat the ends of sticks which could then be set alight so that hunters could hunt at night.

See alsoGlue (#litres_trial_promo)

BILLY BOWLEGS

1810(?)–1859

Also known as the “Alligator Chief,” Billy Bowlegs’ name in the language of his Seminole tribe was Holata Micco, meaning “chief.”

Billy was born in the Seminole village of Cuscowilla, in the part of the U.S. which is now Paynes Prairie, Florida. His family, the “Cowkeeper Dynasty,” were the hereditary chiefs of the Seminole; among his relatives was King Bowlegs, who was head chief at about the time that Billy would have been born. Billy became chief in 1839 after the old chief, Micanopy, was forced west into exile during the Second Seminole War and thereby forfeited his right to remain chief.

Billy remained chief during the Second and Third Seminole Wars, fought against the U.S. In 1832, on behalf of his tribe, he signed a treaty to agree that the Seminole would relocate west if suitable land were found for them. Land was found, but the tribe, under Billy, refused to quit Florida, and shortly afterward the Second Seminole War broke out. This war resulted in the deaths of many Seminole, including other leaders, and Billy and a small band of 200 warriors were among the few survivors. They lived peacefully for some 20 years until, in 1855, a group of white men who were surveying the territory built several forts in the area after destroying property and chopping down valuable banana trees. The Third Seminole War broke out as Billy Bowlegs and his men led a series of guerrilla attacks on the invaders. This war lasted for three years until, in 1858, Billy was approached by the chief of the Western Seminole, Wild Cat. Wild Cat had been sent to try to persuade Billy and his band to relocate; faced with an offer of hard cash, the 124 Seminole, including their leader, agreed to move to the Indian Territory. Billy died shortly after the journey there.

BILOXI

The Biloxi people belong to the Siouxan language family, although their actual dialect is no longer spoken; the last speaker died in the 1930s. Originally they lived near the Gulf of Mexico close to the city that is named for them—Biloxi, Mississippi. The tribe were descended from the mound-building people.

When they were first “discovered” by a French Canadian explorer in 1699, Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville was told that the tribe had been quite large before they suffered the ravages of smallpox.

The Biloxi were a farming people who supplemented their agricultural efforts with fishing and hunting; their prey included buffalo, deer, and sometimes bear. The Biloxi society had as its head the Great Sacred One, effectively the monarch, who could be a king or a queen but was always a shaman or spiritual practitioner. In the Biloxi language he or she was called the Yaaxitqaya; nobles below the Yaaxitqaya were called ixi. The tribe lived in cabins made of packed mud and bark.

The Biloxi had unusual funeral practices. The deceased were dried out by means of smoke and fire and then tied to red-painted poles which would be sunk vertically into the ground in the center of the temple.

BIRCH BARK SCROLLS

In the Ojibwe language, the wiigwaasabak are scrolls made of the flexible, long-lasting bark of the paper birch tree, which peels from the tree neatly and cleanly. The Ojibwe used these sheets to inscribe pictures and designs depicting all sorts of information: songs, rituals, maps, the movement of the stars, and the history of a family, clan or tribe. Sometimes the scrolls were themselves used in rituals, in which case they incorporated the word midewiwin (medicine), and were therefore named midewiigwaas.

The designs were drawn or inscribed onto the soft inner side of the bark with a tool made out of bone or wood. The resulting indentations were made more visible by rubbing soft charcoal into them. If the scroll that was being made needed to be bigger than a single sheet of bark, then separate pieces of bark were stitched together using the strappy roots of pine trees. Once completed, the scroll was tightly rolled up and placed for safe keeping in a cylindrical box, also made of birch bark. These boxes might then be secreted away underground or in hiding places; after a few years had elapsed, the information might be copied onto another sheet of birch bark to ensure that the information remained intact. The scrolls could measure as little as a single sheet or as large as several yards of bark stitched together. We know that the scrolls have been in use for at least 400 years.

The discovery of certain scrolls have revealed important aspects of Ojibwe history: for example, the route of the migration of the tribe toward the west from the eastern part of North America. Thanks to these scrolls, we also know about the discovery of white cowrie shells, which are found only in certain saltwater areas.

The scrolls are very much a piece of living history, kept alive by the Native peoples of today, particularly among the medicine (midewiwin) societies. The contents of the scrolls are often memorized, and the interpretations can remain a secret among the elders of the group.

BIRD WOMAN

SeeSacajawea (#litres_trial_promo)

BLACK DRINK

The Native Americans of the southeast blended a particular type of brew which they then used in ritual and ceremonial practice. The primary ingredient of the tea was a poisonous plant called Ilex vomitoria; also included were tobacco and other herbs. As the name of the main ingredient might suggest, the tea induced vomiting, believed to detoxify the body as well as provide visions.

BLACK ELK

“And I say the sacred hoop of my people was one of the many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all the children of one mother and one father.”

1863–1950