The Soul of the Indian

Chapter I describes the American Indian's original attitude toward the "Great Mystery," characterized as simple and exalted. Worship is silent, solitary, and free from self-seeking; there are no priests, creeds, temples, or shrines save nature. The text states the Indian would deem it sacrilege to build a house for Him met in forest, prairie, rock, and sky. It describes the bambeday, or religious retreat, undertaken by a youth who prepares through the vapor-bath, ascends a summit with only symbolic objects, and remains naked and motionless facing the Great Mystery for a night and day or longer. He does not speak of his vision unless commissioned. The author notes the Indian's poverty stemmed from a religion forbidding accumulation of wealth, and that he shared his goods. The red man divided mind into spiritual and physical; personal requests belonged to the material mind. The Sun and Earth were regarded as parents of life; elements were secondary spiritual powers; every creature possesses a soul. The author compares Indian miracles to Bible miracles and questions Christian civilization, concluding after thirty-five years that Christianity and modern civilization are irreconcilable, while Christianity and the ancient religion are essentially the same. Chapter II states the Indian was an individualist, the parent holding priestly function. The mother's spiritual influence shapes the unborn child; she bears the child alone in the wilderness, then teaches silence, love, reverence, generosity, courage, chastity. At about eight the boy goes to his father, the girl to her grandmother. Grandparents transmit traditions. The text describes politeness, marriage without ceremony, the seclusion of couples, the Dakota clan and family structure, women's secure position, naming customs, daily prayer facing the sun, the "Spirit, partake" grace, hospitality, and the brother-friend bond.

The chapter opens by stating that the public religious rites of the Plains Indians are few and largely of modern origin, belonging to the "transition period" that began with contact with the dominant race. Fur-traders, "Black Robe" priests, the military, and Protestant missionaries began the disintegration of the Indian nations. The text notes that contact first increased cruelty, and that the Sun Dance was abused until prohibited by the Government. Eastman describes the Sun Dance's original form: a Sioux warrior in danger vowed to his father, the Sun, to make a Sun Dance if rescued, as confession and thank-offering to the "Great Mystery." He details procuring the pole, carving figures of a man and buffalo, scarification, dragging a buffalo skull, dancing while gazing at the sun and blowing a goose-bone whistle, and the rite's later distortion into torture and prayer for war success. He next describes the "Grand Medicine Lodge," an indirect result of Jesuit missionaries, noting the "Shawnee Prophet" (1762) and the "Ghost Dance" prophet (1890) founded claims on the Gospel. The order originated among the Algonquin, resembled Free Masons, admitted women, expelled murderers and adulterers, and taught medicine. His grandmother practiced; his parents were members. He describes the mystery feast and the Grand Medicine Dance's initiation ritual symbolizing death and resurrection. Eastman then discusses Indian medicine, healing herbs, the vapor bath, and Sioux terms "wah-pee-yah," "pay-jee-hoo-tah," and "wakan." He describes totems and charms. He describes two universal ceremonies: the "eneepee" (vapor-bath) and "chan-du-hu-pah-yu-za-pee" (pipe ceremonial). He recounts The-one-who-was-First-Created reviving his slain brother's bones through the vapor-bath, using four heated stones. He explains "Tunkan" (Grandfather rock), the pipe's origin taught by the Elder Brother, and its daily use, concluding that these two are the sacraments substituting for baptism and communion.

The narrator states that before hearing of Christ or seeing a white man he learned morality's essence from an untutored woman and from Nature, knowing God and goodness; he contends civilization taught him nothing better, and that as a child he understood how to give but forgot that grace once civilized. He describes the Indian as reconstructed like rock ground into artificial blocks. He presents the first American's humility and belief in silence as balance, and the answers a sage gives about silence being the Great Mystery and its fruits being self-control, courage, patience, dignity, and reverence; the old chief Wabashaw counsels guarding the tongue in youth. The text describes physical training, temperance, fasting, and public announcement of a child's milestones by the herald. It details the "Feast of Virgins," announced by the herald for Pretty Weasel-woman, daughter of Brave Bear, with maidens touching a red-painted heart-shaped rock beside a knife and arrows; men could challenge unworthy girls but were punished if unproven. A similar feast existed for young men. The text explains teaching generosity, giving to impoverishment, care of orphans and aged, the name "Wenonah," feast-making, and the stigma "Wamanon" (Thief), with food always free. Warfare is described as a chivalric contest for the eagle feather, with thirty days' mourning for a slain enemy, scalp customs, and worsening cruelties after the white man's arrival. Murder within the tribe required atonement before the victim's clan. Crow Dog, who killed Spotted Tail in 1881, surrendered, visited home, reported himself by telegram from Rapid City, and was acquitted. Lying was once a capital offense. The narrator describes Indian courage as self-control, closing with an old chief's charge to a scout seeking buffalo in midwinter.

A missionary instructs a group of Indians in creation in six days and the fall by eating an apple; an Indian relates a tradition of the origin of maize, the missionary calls it fable, and the Indian answers that the missionary lacks rules of civility. Eastman states every religion has a Holy Book, theirs a living Book mingling history, poetry, and folk-lore, and that the red man attributes spirit to all nature. In the Sioux creation the Mysterious One stays in the background; Sun and Earth bring forth life, and Ish-na-e-cha-ge, the First-Born, appears among the animal people. Weary of solitude, he forms the Little Boy Man from a splinter of his great toe. Unk-to-mee the Spider advises the animals to kill the boy; sea monsters take his life, and the First-Born revives him. Unk-to-mee again sows war; the Elder Brother arms the Boy Man and makes rock walls from a pebble. Animals attack; the boy fights with bow, club, and fire, driving off insects. A treaty makes animals furnish flesh and skins; insects refuse, and birds punish them. Eastman discusses stone arrows and compares Unk-to-mee to the Serpent. A flood follows: the First-Born advises a tent and food; snow falls, the two feign death with ashes, then a canoe floats over the flood, few animals surviving. The Elder Brother sends the youth to seek a wife; he meets the robin-woman with cherries, the beaver-woman who bears his child and vanishes, and the bear-woman. Their normal children become ancestors. Eastman names later heroes—the Avenger, the Red Eagle shooter, and Star Boy, who battles Wazeeyah the North-Wind, establishing the seasons.

Eastman states death holds no terrors for the Indian, who courts death in battle but deems death in a private quarrel disgraceful. The dying are carried outdoors so the spirit passes under open sky. Mourners loosen and cut their hair, trim ornaments, blacken faces, gash their limbs, give away possessions, and wail night and day, likened to Celtic "keening." Plains burial used scaffolds or trees; bodies were dressed, wrapped, sometimes laid in a new teepee with food, then the people departed. The slain in battle were placed sitting, facing the enemy. A lock of hair became a "spirit bundle," fed at meals, interred after a year. Eastman states the spirit returns to the "Great Mystery" and lingers near the grave; the dead were not named aloud. He recounts prophecies: a Sioux foretold the white man; another described the "Fire Boat"; Ta-chank-pee Ho-tank-a foretold seven battles against the Ojibways. A medicine-man born on Rum River, saved as an infant, later saved his band twice. Little Crow's father foretold three enemies slain and lost his two sons. Eastman describes his grandmother's power to locate graves and premonitions—at Lake Manitoba she foretold her son's return; near Fort Ellis she refused a campsite later where a family was massacred. Finally, a Sioux war-prophet met his Ojibway "spirit twin," who sang his song.