THE OHIO VALLEY-GREAT LAKES ETHNOHISTORY
ARCHIVES: THE MIAMI COLLECTION
It is noted that the following work from the Miami Archives should be read and
considered within the historical context in which it was composed and printed.
The opinions expressed and the language used do not reflect the opinions or
standards of the Glenn A. Black Laboratory of Archaeology, but are, rather,
indicative of thought in that historical moment during which the document was
published.
Letters 55-63: Of the Miamis and Illinois
(Due to length divided here into two parts)
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Raudot, Antoine Denis, "Memoir Concerning the Different Indian Nations of North America: Translation of Letters 23 to 41 and Letters 45 to 72 inclusive" in Kinietz, W. Vernon, The Indians of the Western Great Lakes: 1615-1700, pp. 383-397. |
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pp. 393, 394, 395, 396, 397.
(page 393) so that you see immediately a dust which throws out
smoke and which falling through the notch on rotten wood or well-crushed dry
grass makes a fire very rapidly.
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I am, sir, etc. |
LETTER 62
The Marriages of the Illinois
Sir,
The young men among the Ilinois marry sooner at present than they did formerly. They say that since we have been with them they have lost the custom of marrying only when they have made some attack on their enemies, so that they were then at least twenty-eight to thirty years old. The girls waited on their side until the age of twenty-five years. But there are now boys who do not wait until the age of twenty years and girls that of eighteen. When a young man has attained a knowledge of hunting, he says to his father and his mother that he wishes to get married and names the girl that he loves; often it is one to whom he has never spoken, for a reasonable girl among this nation and that of the Miamis must never have conversation with the boys or the men if she wishes to be married with ceremony. Their marriages are a real ceremony, the propositions are made by the father or the uncle of the boy while he is at war or hunting. He takes five or six of the largest kettles, two or three guns, skins of stags, deer, cats, and beaver, flat sides of beef, some cloth, and a slave if he has one, in short, everything that he may have, which he has carried by his women relatives into the cabin of the girl, who leaves immediately. He gives his regards to the father and to the nearest relatives and tells them that he asks their alliance, that he begs them to have pity on him and to allow him to warm himself at their fire. He leaves his presents, which often remain four or five days in the cabin without anyone rendering him a reply because of difficulties made by the girl, whom the boy (page 394) does not please, or her brother, who wishes it was another who has been intriguing with him for a long time for the same purpose. It happens sometimes that the presents are returned without any comment, and that is the sign of refusal. In this case the father, who knows the love that his son has for the girl, adds to them and carries them back to the cabin of this girl and says to her father that he wishes to warm himself only at his fire. Sometimes also he carries them to another cabin where there is a girl he has heard esteemed by his son.
When the girl and her parents give their consent to the marriage they carry back in place of the presents made them, things very similar. The girl walks in front well decked out with belts of beads of all colors, of porcelains, and of bells. As soon as she arrives, the betrothed is seated on a skin of buffalo or deer spread in the middle of the cabin, and her relatives go back. In the evening the relatives of the boy lead her back with some gift. These comings and goings continue during four consecutive days, but on the last day the girl remains always in the cabin. They wait usually until the boy comes to make the last visit. The women are sometimes a long time without wanting to consummate the marriage, and it has often happened that the men, angry at not being able to get the consent of their wives, have left them to go to war without being able to say they were husbands. That comes usually from the fact that they do not love the men they marry, others claim by that to do themselves credit, wishing to avoid the reproach that would be made them of having loved their husbands before marriage if they were confined within nine months.
When one of these men is killed at war, the wife is indeed to be pitied. The relatives are always after her to reproach her, saying that the severity she showed her husband is the cause of his death. She dares not comb her hair nor attend a dance, and still less get married. She must shed tears in spite of herself, in order that her sadness in the end may (page 395) touch the relatives of her deceased husband. These relatives tell her by her sister-in-law, who first combs her hair, to put an end to her mourning, to remarry. She must not do this for a year, for if she should do it before, the relatives of the deceased would scalp her as an enemy.
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I am, sir, etc. |
LETTER 63
The
Way the Ilinois Women Mourn Their Husbands,
and Their Interment
Sir,
All the women mourn their husbands when they die. It is using the wrong word, however, to say that they cry for them, as in all their lamentations on this subject they never speak of them, but pity their children because they no longer have a father, their brothers because there is no longer anyone to give them presents, for all the men always give something to the brothers of their wives. The men also give a number of cries and tell how they were related to the deceased. These scenes usually are staged at night while the relatives are going around the village. The relatives and even the friends of the dead come to cover him and for this purpose bring cloth, axes, skins, kettles, guns, porcelain, necklaces, and bells. It is the custom among all the nations to cover the dead with presents. The people of the cabin who are the closest relatives do the thanking, and say that he is well off dead, since by presents brought to him so many people have shown that they esteemed him. All the things given merely change hands, for the following day the one who brought a red blanket is given back a blue one and the same for the others. The relatives pay four men to bury him. To do this they cut two ten-foot forks and a crosspiece, digging a hole a little larger than is necessary to bury one person, mattaching3 well the corpse, putting on it a white shirt, new leggings, and mocas- (page 396) sins and covering it with the best robe that they have, laying it in this hole on a piece of old canoe and putting two others at the sides, with a small kettle, some Indian corn, a calumet, some tobacco, a knife, an ax, a bow, and some arrows, as if he were going to make a long voyage. Then, at the feet and the head they plant the two forks, put the crosspiece on them, and lean stakes against it on each side. They take much care to close the ends of this little shed so that animals cannot enter.
If they bury a war chief they put at the side of his grave a pole thirty or forty feet high, painted red and black. On the pole is sketched his portrait and the prisoners that he has led back, and tied to it is a bundle of sticks to show the number of men he has killed.
When they have done all these things it is necessary to perform the last obsequies. The old men, who are all jugglers, tell them that until this time the dead are on the bank of a great river from which they hear the mirth and see the pleasures of a country where they are to go, that in this country all is delightful, that they dance there all the time, that one eats of everything that one could wish, that the women are all beautiful, that one has as many of them as one wishes, that it is never cold, and that there is a great abundance of everything, but that one is not suffered to cross the river whose passage is necessary to get there, if the last obsequies are not performed, this is the cause of all these savages hurrying to render them to the dead. For this purpose the relatives gather in the cabin of the dead and decide among themselves what presents they can give; they arrange things in such a manner that all the villages have an equal amount, in order that there are no malcontents, and as these last obsequies are performed only by dances or games that the deceased loved best, they send a deputation to the chiefs of each village to ask them to send the young men to dance or play in honor of the deceased; during this dance or these games, the women mourn in the cabin, and after they are (page 397) finished the closest relative distributes the presents, which are on poles, by showing with a stick that which is for each village.
When the women or girls die, it is persons of their sex who dig the hole and perform all the ceremonies. It is they also who play the games and make the dances in their honor.
When a woman who loved her husband dies and the husband remarries shortly after to a person who is not of the same family, the feminine relatives of the deceased go in his cabin, smash it, and break it to pieces, and cut and destroy everything that they find there without anyone being able to hinder them. They do the same thing when without reason a man leaves his wife to take one of another family.
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I am, sir, etc. |
LETTER 63
The
Religion of the Ilinois and the Way in Which the
Jugglers Treat the Savages in Their Illnesses
Sir,
The religion of these savages is nothing but
what I have already told you: each chooses a divinity in his way, and this
divinity is a bear, a beaver, a crow, or some other beast. They are well
persuaded of the immortality of the soul, since they believe that they only
leave this earth to go live, as I have told you, on one much more agreeable and
filled with pleasures. They speak of the deluge and specify even in what manner
the men and animals saved themselves; they show a knoll of land that they call
"the great canoe" and, indeed, this knoll has the form of a canoe;
they say that it is in the place where that great canoe which saved their
fathers, along with different kinds of animals, ran aground after the waters
were drawn back from over the land, and their fathers were very weary of so
fragile a carriage in the middle of so much water; hence, as soon as the rain
had passed and the waters had a little diminished, they sent the otter to bring
them some
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3 Mattaching = painting or daubing with clays of different colors.
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