552 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1897. 



they add also large red, green, and other colored feathers. They regard it as coming 

 from the sun, to whom it is offered to smoke when they want calm or rain or sun- 

 shine. They fear to hathe in summer or to eat new fruits without having danced to 

 it as Ibllows: This calumet dance, which is very celebrated among these ijeople, is 

 not performed except on serious occasions ; 8f>metime8 for making peace, or to reunite 

 them for a great war, or for public rejoicing ; sometimes for a nation's assistance ; at 

 times they use it at the reception of a person of considerable importance, as though 

 to offer a ball or comedy. In winter the ceremony is held in a cabin ; in summer out 

 in the air. The place being selected they surround it with trees, in order to shadt; 

 the whole assembly. There is spread out a large mat of reeds, painted different 

 colors, in the middle of the place, which serves as a carpet for the god of him who 

 makes the dance; for each one has his own, which is called his Manitou. It is a ser- 

 pent, or a bird, or a stone, or some similar thing of which they have dreamed and in 

 which they put every confidence for success in the war or chase. Sitting near this 

 Manitou and on his right is placed the calumet in honor of the one who has given 

 the feast; the arms, such as clubs, hatchets, bows and (juivers, such as they use, are 

 laid around it. Things being thus arranged, those having the best voices, who are to 

 sing, take the most honorable place under the trees. All the world then comes aud 

 take their places around them, and as each one arrives he salutes the Manitou, 

 which he does in smoking and blowing the smoke upon him, as though oft'eriug 

 incense. Then the one who is to commence the dance appears and goes respectfully 

 and takes the pijie and holding it in both hands he dances it in rythm with the song. 

 He makes it describe dift'erent figures; at times he presents it to the company and 

 turns it from side to side, then he offers it to the sun as though he wished him to 

 smoke it ; at others he inclines it toward the earth ; sometimes he sjireads the wings 

 as though he wished it to fly; at other times he jilaces it in the mouths of the assist- 

 ants that they make smoke it, all in rythm, and it is like the first scene of tbe ballet. 

 The second scene they imitate a combat and go through an imaginary fight, one 

 with arms and another with the calumet. The third scene is a discourse, in which 

 the one Avho holds the calumet tells of his victories and it is passed from hand to 

 hand until all have had a chance to smoke. ' 



These Illinois belonged to the great Algonquin linguistic stock, as 

 Marquette informs us, which reached from approximately the thirty- 

 fifth to the fifty-fifth degree of latitude on the east side of the Missis- 

 sippi.^ The Sioux being their neighbors on the west bank of the river, 

 from about latitude 33° to latitude 53°. Marquette states that these 

 Illinois had never before seen Frenchmen,^ though they must have 

 been quite familiar with them, as he refers to their skill in the use 

 of the rifle with which they are supplied by the Indians who trade 

 with the French, and which he says makes them formidable to their 

 enemies.^ 



This pipe Marquette describes as being larger than the common 

 tobacco pipe of the French.- It should be observed here that the Illi- 

 nois pipe referred to answers fully the description of the red Siouan 

 catlinite; and it is hardly possible, when we consider the minuteness of 

 description of the stem and its ornamentation, that had the primitive 



' M(Eurs des Sauvages Am6riqains, II, p. 314, Paris, 1724. See also Marquette and 

 Joliet, An Account of the Discovery of some new Countries and Nations in North 

 America, 1673, Historical Collections of Louisiana, Pt. 2, p. 287, New York, 1852. 



2 See map accompanying Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology. 



3 Marijuette and Joliet, Historical Collections of Louisiana, Pt. 2, p. 287. 

 •• Idem, Pt. 2, p. 288. 



6 Idem, Pt. 2, p. 289. 



