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

A weapon used to catch or hinder an animal (or person) when it was hurled at the legs of the prey. The bola consisted of rocks or stones attached to lengths of sinews or thongs, the whole attached to a longer length of rope. The bola hobbled the prey, enabling it to be captured easily.

BOOGER MASK

Likely to be a European word, since “booger” has the same origins as “boogeyman” or “boggart,” the booger mask was in particular a Cherokee artifact, a mask carved of wood with exaggerated, cartoonlike features, often resembling animals or human/animal hybrids.

BOW AND ARROW

The traditional image of a Native American would not be complete without the classic weaponry of the bow and arrow. We know that the use of the bow and arrow was widespread among the indigenous people of America from about A.D. 500, and that it’s likely the weapon arrived in America around 2500 B.C., from the Arctic.

ARROW

It was very important that the main shaft of the arrow was as straight as possible. The pithy canes used for these shafts were selected with care, and hung in bundles above a fire—the central fire in a tipi was ideal—to further straighten and season them. Afterward, the shafts were smoothed and polished with stone tools. Initially intended for hunting animals, a shallow groove would be carved along the length of the arrow so that, once the arrow had pierced its target, the animal’s blood would continue to flow along this groove, not only weakening the prey as it lost blood but also enabling the hunter to track the animal as the blood splashed the ground.

The “flight,” or feathered end of the arrow, was actually made from feathers and helped the weapon fly through the air. In the main, feathers from the wild turkey or the eagle were preferred, and of these birds, the wing feathers were best for the purpose. Using feathers from the same wing meant that the arrow had a twisting, spiraling flight pattern. Most arrows had three feathers fixed to them, set at regular intervals around the end of the shaft. These feathers were fastened with glue (probably made from ground bones) and further strengthened with sinew tied around them.

The actual arrowhead could be made from a number of different materials: knapped flint, copper, bone or horn, or the tips of antlers. The coming of the white man meant that iron was introduced to the Natives, and so this metal was used to make arrow tips, too.

Hunting arrows did not have the distinctive barbed shape that’s often seen; this meant that the arrow could be removed easily from the animal. However, arrows that were intended for use in war were complete with the barb, which made them almost impossible to remove without doing further damage to the enemy. The barbs of these arrows were sometimes tied to the shaft quite loosely so that there was more chance of them remaining painfully embedded in the flesh of the victim.

Different tribes preferred slightly different types of arrow; experts can differentiate these sometimes subtle distinctions. Plains tribes, for example, liked a short arrow with a long feather. Native peoples also marked their own arrows so that they were identifiable. It was always good to know without a shadow of a doubt whose blow had killed the enemy.

BOW

Any kind of springy, whippy wood—hickory, cedar, mulberry, white ash, or dogwood—could be used to make a bow; so, too could horn or bone. Bows were made in many different sizes and shapes, to suit the user. His bow was a precious tool to any Native American, and he continued to carry it even after the coming of guns.

There were different types of bow, too. The simplest was called the “self bow,” made from one piece of wood and strengthened with sinew glued and lashed along its length. Then there was the “compound bow” made from layers of materials such as wood, bone, and horn, glued and lashed together with sinews. There was a bow whose wooden part was entirely wrapped in sinew. The Eskimo actually made bows from the rib bones of whales.

In the same way that different tribes preferred different types of arrows, they also preferred different styles of bow. For example, the Plains Indians preferred a shorter bow since they would be likely to use it when on horseback. The Apache bow had its tips curved back, like the typical “Cupid’s bow.” The Pueblo made miniature bows, painted them, and buried them with their dead.

The bowstring itself, which pulled back the arrow to make it fly, was generally made from twisted vegetable fibers, rawhide, and sinew. It was important that the bowstring had “bounce” and elasticity combined with toughness; bear guts or other animal guts were ideal for this purpose, since this material had the necessary qualities. One end of the bow string was affixed to the wooden part of the bow permanently, while the other was loose when not in use, attached only to a notch in the bow when the weapon was about to be used. This meant that the bowstring itself lasted longer and wasn’t overstretched.

The Native American, no matter his tribe, was incredibly skilled with his bow and arrow, and legendarily could fire off half a dozen arrows in the time it took the white man to load one bullet into the early single-shooter guns.

BRANT, JOSEPH

“The Mohawks have on all occasions shown their zeal and loyalty to the Great King; yet they have been very badly treated by his people.”

1743–1807

“Joseph Brant” was the name given by the Europeans to the Mohawk leader Theyebdabegea (meaning “two sticks tied together for strength”). Joseph was born in Ohio Country into the Wolf clan of his mother—it was the practice among matrilineal tribes, as the Wolf were, for the child to belong to its mother’s people.

Joseph’s father died before he was ten, at which point his mother moved back to a Mohawk village in the New York area with her son and his elder sister Molly. Shortly afterward, his mother married a Mohawk chief named Canagaraduncka, who also carried the name of Brant. Brant’s family had strong connections with the British, his father being one of the Four Mohawk Kings who actually visited Britain in 1710. The family were relatively wealthy, although none of the lineage of his stepfather was passed on to the young Joseph because of that matrilineal line.

Joseph’s new stepfather had a good friend, Sir William Johnson, a very influential man who was the Superintendent of Indian Affairs in the area. Joseph’s sister Molly and Johnson got to know one another, since Johnson spent a lot of time at the house, and the two subsequently married.

Sir William Johnson, now Joseph’s brother-in-law, took an interest in the young Mohawk, to the point of supervising his education. Joseph was sent with two other Mohawk boys to a school that would later become Dartmouth College. A clever boy, he was a quick study and was schooled in Latin and Greek as well as English. Like other Native American boys, Brant was introduced at an early age to the arts of warfare, and had followed Sir William into battle at the tender age of 13 during the French and Indian Wars. After this excitement, he returned to school.

It’s certain that Joseph was a talented linguist, and it has been suggested that he was fluent in all six of the Iroquois Confederacy languages—an extremely valuable asset. Because of his language skills and the fact that he had adopted the Christian faith, Brant acted as an interpreter for a Christian missionary named Reverend John Stuart; their work together resulted in the translation of the Gospel of Mark, and the common prayer book, into the Mohawk language. In later life Joseph would translate more Christian works.

When he was 25 or so, in 1768, Brant married a woman named Christine, whose father was an Oneida chief. The couple had met at school, and they had two wedding ceremonies: a Native American and an Anglican one. When Christine died just three years later, she left behind a daughter and a son. A couple of years after this, Joseph married Christine’s sister, Susannah, who also died shortly afterward of the same disease: tuberculosis.

In 1775 Brant was promoted to the rank of Captain and was dispatched to England; here he met King George III, and two dinners were held in his honor.

Once he returned to America, Brant led four of the Iroquois League Nations into attacks on the colonial outposts at the borders of the New York Frontier. During the War of Independence, the Iroquois League split in its allegiances. Two of the tribes favored the American case, while the others sided, with Brant, in favor of the British. Some of the tribal leaders preferred to remain neutral, hoping, no doubt, that the white men would all simply slaughter each other and turn their attentions away from the Native territories. Brant, however, argued against neutrality since he suspected that the Indians would lose all their lands if the colonists won the war and achieved independence.

Brant’s reputation as a formidable leader was cemented after an incident known as the Cherry Valley Massacre, in August 1778. Brant and his forces destroyed the town and fort at Cherry Valley in eastern New York. Some 30 men were killed, houses were burned to the ground, and 71 prisoners were captured. Subsequently, however, the British surrendered their lands to the colonists—and not to the Indians as they had promised.

A couple of years later Brant married his third wife, Catherine Croghan, who was the daughter of a Mohawk mother and an Irish father. Brant was now faced with having to find a new home, not just for himself and his new wife, but for the Mohawk tribes. During this time he also helped the new U.S. Commissioners make peace treaties with the Native peoples, regained his Army commission, and was awarded a tract of land for the Mohawk to settle on. This land was on the Grand River in Ontario. This territory—the Grand River Reservation—was established in 1784, and almost 2,000 Iroquois loyalists set up home there. All six tribes belonging to the Iroquois Nation were included, although the majority of the settlers were from the Mohawk and Cayuga tribes.

The year 1785 saw Brant return once again to England, where he managed to secure compensation for Mohawk losses in the War of Independence. He had also wanted to gain a secure holding on the lands that had been granted the tribes, but was unable to do so.

Brant was a keen missionary, and in 1785 he oversaw the building of a small Protestant chapel on the reservation: Her Majesty’s Chapel of the Mohawks is a small wooden building which still stands today, and is the only place of worship with the title “Chapel Royal” outside the U.K. Brant believed that the Mohawk could learn a lot from the Christian faith, and encouraged white settlers onto Mohawk and Iroquois land, believing that the two races would learn from each other; this arrangement was unsettling for some. He also tried to arrange a proper land settlement between the Iroquois and the United States, and fought against further land cessions. He continued with his translations of the Bible up until his death in 1807 in Burlington, Ontario. He is buried at the Chapel of the Mohawks.

BRAVE

The word that used to be used to describe a young Native American male, “brave” was probably first applied by the Spanish explorers and settlers. In Spanish, bravo means wild and untamed, and the phrase Indios Bravos can be found in Spanish writings dating back to their time in the Americas. Whenever a Native American managed to overcome extraordinary hardship, he spoke of himself as having had a “brave time.”

BREASTPLATE

A covering for the chest of male Native Americans, which was both protective and decorative, often made of long beads made of bone; traders called these beads “hair pipes.”

The breastplate was common to the Plains Indians.

BREECHCLOTH

Also called a breech clout, this was the material (often made of deerskin) that protected and covered the loins of a male Native. The breechcloth extended from front to back, looped over a piece of sinew tied at the waist with a length of cloth extending down at either side.

BRULE

The original name of the Brule was Sichanghu, meaning “burned thighs.” The French word brulé means “burned.” The Brule were a division of the Lakota, who were one of the seven tribes of the Sioux Confederation. When the Lewis and Clark Expedition encountered them in 1804, the tribe lived along both sides of the Missouri, Teton, and White Rivers. At the time they numbered about 300.

The chief at the time, Makozaza, was well-disposed toward the Europeans, unlike some members of the larger Lakota tribe.

A hunting tribe, the Brule chased the herds of buffalo; they were able to do this from horseback. The horses were generally wild, and could be caught on the Platte and in Arkansas country.

When the white settlers and prospectors became a regular sight in Dakota country, it was the Brule who suffered the worst ravages of their diseases, which included smallpox and measles, more than any other division of the Sioux. The reason was that the Brule lived closest to the route of the trail. The Treaty of Fort Laramie, signed in 1868, had a strong advocate in the Brule chief Swift Bear; the treaty was meant to restrict the incursions of the settlers but sadly did nothing to alter the course of events, and the settlers continued to flood into Dakota territory.

BUCKSKIN

Although you would think that buckskin would be taken specifically from a male (buck) deer, this is not the case. Buckskin can be made from the hides of several animals, including the elk, the moose, the buffalo, and others.

Buckskin does not rely on tanning agents in the same way as leather does; rather, the rawhide is softened by being treated with smoke. The hair on the outside of the buckskin was sometimes left on, for added warmth and protection as well as beauty.

The process of making buckskin varied a little from tribe to tribe, but the basic technique was always the same. First, the skin needed to be softened; there were several methods of doing this. Sometimes the brains and gristle of an animal were rubbed into the rawhide to soften it; an alternative was to use mashed-up green maize, or eggs, or meal. After softening, the skin was beaten with a stone, stretched, and pummeled. At this point the buckskin would be ready to use: soft, white, and pliable. As such it could be fashioned into women’s dresses, pouches, and bags.

However, this skin, if wet, was liable to become stiff, and so a further process was added. After digging a hollow or pit in the ground, the skin was laid over an arched framework of sticks. A fire, using material such as rotted wood, corn chips, and chips of white cedar, was started in the pit. The buckskin was smoked for a couple of hours, taking on a color depending on the material that was used for the fire. Skins could also be dyed using natural substances: the tannins in oak bark produced an orangey red, whereas peach bark produced a bright red color.

Once finished, smoked buckskin was a very valuable resource: it could be cut and sewed easily, was hard-wearing and beautiful, and retained both its soft texture and its toughness.