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THE NEZ PERCES, PART 12
The Nez Perce began his preparation for spiritual attainment
almost in infancy. The child, either boy or girl, when less than ten years
of age was told by the father or the mother that it was time to have tiwdtitmils
-spiritual power. "This afternoon you must go to yonder mountain
and fast. When you reach the place of fasting, build a fire and do not
let it die. As the Sun goes down, sit on the rocks facing him, watch while
he goes from sight, and look in that direction all night. When the dawn
comes, go to the east and watch the Sun return to his people. When he
comes to noon, go to the south and sit there, and when he has travelled
low again, go to the west where you sat first and watch until he is gone.
Then start for your home." After some sacred object, such as a feather,
had been tied to the child's clothing, and a few parting words of instruction
and encouragement had been given, the little suppliant was sent on its
journey.
What a picture of Indian character this affords: a mere infant starting
out alone into the fastnesses of the mountain wilds, to commune with the
spirits of the infinite, a tiny child sitting through the night on a lonely
mountain-top, reaching out its infant's hands to God! On distant and near-by
hills howl the coyote and the wolf. In the valleys and on the mountain
side prowl and stalk all manner of animals. Yet alone by the little fire
sits the child listening to the mysterious voices of the night.
For its first fasting a child was sent as far as from Lapwai to Lake Waha,
or to Taiya-mahsh, a mountain twelve miles to the south. The child was
familiar with the country and knew the trails because the father had often
talked to it and told it of the nature of the land, pointing out the direction
and saying that yonder was a place of fasting. There was no ceremony of
purification before setting out, as the child was assumed to be pure.
On ridges in the mountains were places already prepared for the fasters,
the makers now unknown, as the monuments have been there time out of memory.
They consist of piles of stones about two feet high, arcs of circles,
one with the opening to the east, another open to the west, a third to
the south. Within these sat the faster, changing from one to the other
as the sun moved from east to west, and passing the night sleeplessly
in the western arc. He neither ate nor drank during the period of fasting,
which sometimes lasted two nights and a day.
As the time approached when the faster was expected to return, the mother
prepared a feast, and when the food was given to him it was first blown
upon by a medicine-man in order to purify it and make it beneficial to
the faster. All the family and the visitors ate with him. He was not asked
and did not tell of his vigil. Perhaps the child a short time later was
sent out again, either to the same place or to a new one. Thus before
reaching the age of fifteen he might have been fasting in the mountains
from five to ten times. In these fastings, boys sometimes remained out
three nights and two days, and in rare cases twice that number. A youth
having passed the period of continence never fasted, for, if he had, he
would have experienced no visions, being impure.
Vision creatures appearing in vigils did not always confer a name on the
faster. When they did, it referred to the creature itself, and was assumed
by the faster only after he had been to war. Thereafter he was known by
that name. Thus a man's medicine cannot always be discerned from his name.
A boy might, after returning from his vigil, say to his father, "I
have seen something, and I have a name," but he would not tell what
he had seen or what the name was. After singing his song for the first
time in the long-house medicine ceremony, he would reveal his name to
his father and ask that the people be told. Then the father would make
a feast and announce the son's name.
A description of an actual vision is very difficult to obtain from the
Nez Perces. Three Eagles, however, thus describes what one might see if
thunder appeared to him in his vigil: "The faster sees a man coming,
and goes to him. He appears to be a man wrapped in a yellow blanket, and
he gives the boy whatever he may be carrying. The little boy, if he could
be seen now, would be found lying as if dead. When he awakens he may think,
`I met a man.' That is all he would remember."'
Here are shown two very interesting points: that the boy when receiving
his revelation or vision is "lying as if dead," and that when
he awakens there seems but a vague recollection of what occurred. Both
of these statements indicate that the visions are not usually had while
in a natural sleep, but while in hypnosis. In fact, the Indians continually
repeat that it is not in a normal sleep that visions are experienced,
but ever state that "I lay as if dead."
If, in these pilgrimages, the youth did not receive visions, he would
then have to resort to sweating, fasting, and purification. In such cases,
at about the age of twenty years, he went in the company of an assistant
to some stream and there dug a hole large enough to admit his body, and
filled it with water. Then, after heating to redness a large number of
stones, the suppliant disrobed, took three or four red-osier wands the
thickness of a lead-pencil and the length of his body from throat to waist,
and thrust them, one by one, far down his throat. Each stick was left
in the throat until the red bark just outside the mouth turned gray (probably
with spittle), and the removal of each caused vomiting. It was imagined
that "different colors of fever" could be seen in the discharge.
Then he took from a large bundle of wands an equal number (three or four),
and thrust them also down his throat. If during these first two operations
the supposedly foul matter which was believed to be defiling his body
came out in the form of "differently colored fevers," he might
cease this part of the purification, or he might repeat it as many times
as he wished, but each time he used the same number of sticks as he started
with, either three or four. If the impurities were not discharged the
first or the second time, then he used the three or four sticks fifteen
times. Next he went into the pit and sat down, the water coming up to
his shoulders, and he dropped the heated stones in, making it as hot as
he could bear. When darkness fell, he emerged, went to his lodge, and
slept in a sitting posture, so that the matter which was believed to be
in his system would pass downward. It would have been dangerous to sleep
lying on the back, because the impurities would have formed more matter
in the bones and chest. In the morning the suppliant went to the same
place, heated the stones, took wands from the bundle, and thrust them
down his throat, which now was so swollen that the sticks were inserted
with some difficulty, and as it continued to swell he was obliged to assist
the entrance by the muscular action of swallowing. When he could do no
more he threw the stones into the water, sat down in it, and bathed there
all day without eating or drinking. At sunset he returned to his lodge
and slept again, sitting. Again on the third day he heated the stones
and bathed all day long, coming out only to heat more stones, but he did
not thrust any of the wands down his throat. Thus he continued for seven
days in all (in addition to the first two days when wands were used),
spending each night in a sitting posture in his lodge. After returning
on the last day he was given a very soft kind of soup, for in addition
to the weakened condition of his stomach, his throat was too raw to permit
the passage of solid food.'
When the faster had recovered, he was able to run without fatigue up steep
hills. To him the "deer was like a dead animal," that is, it
could not scent the man because all the earthly odor had been removed
from him. The man who had thus purified himself was a far better hunter
than one who had not, even though the latter had "hunting medicine"
obtained in vision. In some cases this purification was followed by baths
in ice-water. When the first ice formed, the man went to the edge of the
stream about nine in the morning, broke the ice and stood in the water
up to his neck, remaining as long as he could, then emerged and sat on
the bank without covering. Then again he went into the water, and out
again, and back for a third bath. Thus the time from mid-morning until
noon was broken into periods for three or four baths and three or four
exposures to sun and air, or if the man was especially hardy, into two
such periods. This was done each day until spring. Both this practice
and that of the vomiting and hot baths are carried on to-day.
A man who in his youth sees in vision Sun, Moon, Fish-hawk, or Pelican
will become tiwat, that is, a shaman. His supernatural power is tiwatitmas.
The Sun is greatest in giving tiwatitmas, and next is Moon, who imparts
ability to cure, but not to hunt. Fish-hawk, when he sees a fish, though
it be far under the water, drops swiftly and lifts it out, hence he can
confer power to see sickness in the body and to remove it, even as he
himself takes the fish from the water. Yet one who sees Fish-hawk will
not be great in hunting. When Pelican reaches the end of his journey in
the north or in the south, he then has tiwatitmas, and the boy who is
fortunate enough to see him at such a time will become tiwat, though not
a great one. Other creatures, such as Frog, which is able to sit in warm
water, and indeed all the smaller animals and birds, have certain tiwatitmas,
but they cannot confer it of themselves, directly; it must come through
and along with that given by one of the four spirits, Sun, Moon, Fish-hawk,
Pelican. To the native mind it seems that as these four fly over the earth,
the songs of these smaller creatures rise and meet them and request to
be taken along to their destination. Then when the faster sees the greater
spirit, he receives also the power of these smaller ones.
Sometimes two or more young men purified
themselves at the same time and place, and always an old man attended
the votary. The interpreter employed in the collecting of this material,
in spite of his education by a full course at Carlisle (and for the ministry),
went through this ordeal along with his brother, both enduring for six
days following the first two days of vomiting. The distance from the bathing
place to their lodge was about a hundred yards, but on the third night
of the bathing they could take only two steps without resting. Three Eagles,
when he practised this purification, used the three sticks fifteen times
on the first day, but only five times on the second. He then bathed and
fasted seven days.
Crane gives invulnerability, and skill in hunting, especially
in capturing grizzly-bear and deer. Eagle also is very potent, granting
ability to kill game; and Clouds confer the power to blow smoke into the
air and thus cause clouds and rain on the brightest days. Morning Star
accords power to foresee events.
In the regular way no man could become twat without having seen Sun, Moon,
Fish-hawk, or Pelican. Yet, through his father being tiwat a man could
become one without receiving the stipulated revelations in youth. Thus
the son of a medicine-man would not necessarily see one of these four
spirits in his fastings. He might in the long-house for several years
sing only the songs of some other spirit, then all at once begin singing
his father's songs, which he had just been hearing in his dreams as he
slept at home. Nevertheless, descent from a medicine-man was not indispensable
to being tiwat.
It is said that a medicine-man having it in mind to bequeath his power
to a child would by this very intention cause the illness, perhaps the
death, of the child. As it grew up it would fall ill, and another medicine-man
-the father being dead or not - would be called to cure it. He would say
that its father's medicine was in it, and would pretend to take out a
small bit of stick, which he would then blow away from his hand. But if
a man placed his medicine in his son and then died before the son fell
ill, the boy would die and go with him. But the child of a medicine-man
might, after the father was dead, become ill with the power which he had
inherited by the will of the medicine-spirit itself, as it were, and not
by the intention of the father. If he could endure it without dying, he
would eventually sing his father's songs in the long-house, and would
have his father's power, exactly as if he had obtained it in vision. There
was no such thing as a father actually delegating his power to a son or
a daughter and teaching the songs and secrets. If the first sickness caused
by the inherited medicine were survived, then the other powers of the
father, one by one, would come to him.
When a medicine-man or a medicine-woman of great power died, the relatives
might fear lest the tiwatitmas should remain and harm them; hence they
would bury the medicine-bundle with the body, or by itself, or else burn
it. Occasionally a man would have both good and bad powers, and in such
a case the bundle was opened after his death, usually by his widow, and
the articles presumably representing the evil powers were buried with
him, or burned, while the others were kept in the family until one of
the children sang in the long-house and thus showed that he had been chosen
by the spirits of his father's medicine, and accordingly the next time
the bundle was opened the articles were given to him.
A boy whose vision-spirit conferred on him the ability to cure, giving
him songs and secrets for this purpose, would become a medicine-man, regardless
of whether his father or mother had been tiwat. When he first sang in
the long-house it was known by the people from the nature of the song
that he was to be a medicine-man when he became older. He would not begin
to cure until he was well advanced in years, probably about fifty.
A woman who has tiwatitmas is called tiwat-ayat (ayat, woman), and she
uses her power on women only.
The tiwat treats only those diseases which cannot be cured by means of
natural remedies, and there is no prescribed healing ceremony, each healer
pursuing his own method. Treatment is wholly by conjuration. Roots, bark,
and leaves are used by the people for diseases whose causes are known
to be due to natural conditions of the body, and not to the effect of
supernatural powers. "Inside each medicine-man is something which
is like a hair, but which really is blood. This he sometimes takes out
to show his real power. It is this which gives him the ability to kill
people by medicine, and it is called taahtoyuh." Some shamans were
accredited with power to cause death by placing in the bed of a sick person
a menstrual cloth obtained from one of certain female shamans, a method
which is said to have been practised in the case of men mortally wounded.,
Hypnotism entering so largely into their practice, it is safe to assume
that "killing by medicine" is hypnotism in which the victim
goes into hypnosis in the belief that he is being killed, and, no effort
being made for his resuscitation, he remains in the trance until actual
death occurs. It is not to be presumed that these people possessed an
understanding of hypnotism. It was simply an outgrowth of their emotional
lives, and the clever medicine-men took the greatest advantage of their
knowledge in producing this state.
The principal religious observance of the Nez Perces is the midwinter
medicine ceremony, which is called Waiyafsit. Waiyakin is the medicine,
or supernatural power, which comes to one fasting; and waiyakuafsit is
the act of dancing in this ceremony. Waiyafsit, then, seems to mean "supernatural-power
dance."
EDWARD S. CURTIS
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