164 



BOWLEGS TOWN BOXES AND CHESTS 



[b. a. e. 



defeated Sept. 11. Their force being 

 cout^iderably increased, they soon there- 

 after inarched from the Alachua towns 

 to attack Gen. Neinnan, who had been 

 sent against them with orders to destroy 

 their towns. After 4 severe charges in 

 which King Paine w-as killed and Bow- 

 legs wounded, the Indians were driven 

 back. With this occurrence Bowlegs 

 drops from history, though he probably 

 lived several years longer. In a docu- 

 ment exhibited in the trial of Arbuthnott 

 and Ambrister his name is signed Bo- 

 leck. (c. T.) 



Bowlegs Town. A former Seminole 

 town on Suwannee r., w. Fla. ; named 

 after an influential Seminole chief early 

 in the 19th century. — Woodward, Rem- 

 iniscences, 153, 1859. 



Bowles, Colonel, see Boiii, The. 



Bowls. With the Indian the bowl 

 serves a multitude of purposes: it is as- 

 sociated with the supply of his simplest 

 needs as well as with his religion. The 

 materials employed in making bowls are 

 stone, especially soapstone, horn, bone, 

 shell, skin, wood, and bark. Bowls are 

 often adapted natural forms, as shells, 

 gourds, and concretions, either unmodi- 

 fied or more or less fully remodeled; and 

 basket bowls are used by many triV)es. 

 The use of bowls in the preparation and 

 serving of food is treated under Dishes 

 (q. V. ). Bowls are also used in primitive 

 agriculture for gathering, winnowing, 

 drying, and roasting seeds, and in con- 

 nection with milling, ^^'itll many tribes 

 bowls are made from large knots, beinghol- 

 lowed out with fireand the knife. InTexas 

 and Indian Territory plate-like bowls 

 were made from the wood of the pecan 

 tree, while poplar, oak, and other woods 

 furnished others. Some bowls designed 

 for practical use are no larger than drink- 

 ing cups, while others, made by ^r for 

 children as toys, are not much larger than 

 a thimble. Some of the smaller ones, 

 used for mixing medicine, had a small 

 projection from the edge which served as 

 a handle, while the typical PueVjlo medi- 

 cine bowl has terraced edges symbolizing 

 rain clouds, a basket-like handle, and 

 painted figures of sacred water animals, 

 such as the tadpole and the frog. The 

 most ancient permanent cooking utensil 

 of the Plains tribes was a bowl made by 

 hollowing out a stone. The Blackfeet 

 and Cheyenne say that in very early 

 times they boiled their meat in bowls 

 made of some kind of soft stone. The 

 Omaha and others had excellent wooden 

 bowls, the standard of beauty being sym- 

 metry of outline and the grain of the 

 gnarled roots from which they were made. 

 Among many Indians bowls were used 

 in games of chance and divination. 

 In certain ceremonies of the Wahpeton 



and Sisseton Sioux and of other tribes a 

 game was played with plum-stone dice 

 thrown from a wooden bowl, in the mak- 

 ing of which great skill and care were 

 exercised. In some cases the kind of 

 wood was prescribed. Bowls that had 

 been long in use for these games acquired 

 a polish and color unattainable by art, 

 and were prized as tribal possessions. 

 The Micmac accorded supernatural pow- 

 ers to certain of their bowls, and thought 

 that water standing over night in gaming 

 bowls would reveal by its appearance 

 past, present, and future events. Some 

 tjowls were supposed to have mysterious 

 powers which would affect the person 

 eating or drinking from them. Bowls 

 and trays of basketry were used by the 

 Sioux, Cheyenne, Arapaho, and other 

 Plains tribes, though not by the Siksika, 

 in the familiar seed game. These appear 

 to be the only baskets made by these 

 tribes (Grinnell). 



Among the Pueblo tribes the pottery 

 bowl, like the basket-bowl drum of the 

 Navaho and the Panamint, is frequently 

 a cult vessel employed in religious cere- 

 monies, the medicine bowl with its nature 

 symbols and the sacred meal bowl fur- 

 nishing familiar examples. Such vessels 

 are sacrificed to springs or are deposited 

 in shrines and caves. The ancient Hopi 

 evidently regarded the concave of the 

 bowl as the vault of the sky, and pictured 

 on it stars, birds, and celestial beings. 

 The food bowls in animal forms, like 

 those of the N. W. coast, were apparently 

 associated primarily with the nourish- 

 ment derived from animals. Wooden 

 bowls used for religious purposes were 

 often decorated by tlie Plains tribes with 

 incised figures of sacred animals, whose 

 supposed spiritual power had relation 

 to the uses of the vessel; and like expla- 

 nation may be made of the life-form 

 decorations sculptured and modeled in 

 relief and engraved and painted on bowls 

 of many tribes, ancient and modern. See 

 Basleirt/, Dishes, Food, Games, Potter;/, 

 Receptacles. 



Bows. See Arrows. 



Boxelder Indians. A branch of the 

 Shoshoni formerly in n. w. Utah. — Lynde 

 in Sen. Ex. Doc. 42, 36th Cong., 1st sess., 

 38, 1860. 



Boxes and Chests. The distribution of 

 tribes using boxes and chests illustrates 

 in a striking manner the effect of environ- 

 ment on arts and customs. Thus wood- 

 land tribes made boxes of suitable tim- 

 ber, and the culmination of their manu- 

 facture is found among the tribes of the 

 N. W. coast. The Eskimo had a great 

 variety of small boxes of bone, wood, 

 whalebone, and ivory, and displayed 

 extraordinary skill and inventiveness in 

 their manufacture. This was in large 



