BDLL. 30] 



PROPHETS 



309 



so, although the bird remained in freedom, 

 it was regarded as the property of the clan 

 claiming the land on which its nest was 

 situated. This claim upon the eagle.s held 

 good after the clan had left the region and 

 built a new village even 40 m. away. 

 {See Eagle.) 



Names (q. v.) were sometimes the prop- 

 erty of clans. Those bestowed on the in- 

 dividual members, and, as on the N. W. 

 coast, those given to canoes and to houses, 

 were owned by "families." Property 

 marks were placed upon weapons and im- 

 plements by the Eskimo and by the In- 

 dian tribes. A hiniter established his 

 claim to an animal by his personal mark 

 upon the arrow which inflicted the fatal 

 wound. Among botli the Indians and the 

 Eskimo it was customary to bury with the 

 dead those articles which were the per- 

 sonal projjerty of tlie deceased, either man 

 or woman. J n some of the tribes the dis- 

 tribution of all the property of the dead, 

 including the dwelling, formed part of the 

 funeral ceremonies. There was another 

 class of property, com posed of arts, trades, 

 cults, rituals, and ritual songs, in which 

 ownership was as well defined as in the 

 more material things. For instance, the 

 right to practise tattooing belonged to cer- 

 tain men in the tribe; the right to say or 

 sing rituals and ritual songs had to be pur- 

 chased from their owner or keeper. Oc- 

 casionally a spectator with quick memory 

 might catch a ritual or a song, but he 

 would not dare to repeat what he remem- 

 bered until he had properly paid for it. 

 The shrine and sacred articles of the clan 

 were usually in charge of hereditary keep- 

 ers, and were the property of the clan. 

 The peculiar articles of a society were in 

 the custody of an appointed officer; they 

 were property, but could not be sold or 

 transferred. Songs and rites pertaining 

 to the use of healing herbs were property, 

 and their owner could teach them to an- 

 other on receiving the prescribed pay- 

 ment. The accumulation of property in 

 robes, garments, regalia, vessels, utensils, 

 ponies, and tlie like, was important to 

 one who aimed at leadership. To ac- 

 quire property a man must be a skilful 

 hunter and an industrious worker, and 

 must have an al^le following of relatives, 

 men and women, to make the required 

 articles. All ceremonies, tribal festivi- 

 ties, public functions, and entertainment 

 of visitjrs necessitated large contributions 

 of food and gifts, and the men who could 

 meet these demands became the recip- 

 ients of tribal honors. (See Pntlatch. ) 



Property right in harvest fields obtained 

 among the triV)es subsisting mainly on 

 maize or on wild rice. Among the Chip- 

 pewa the right in wild-rice lands was not 

 based on tribal allotment, but on occu- 

 pancy. Certain harvest fields were habit- 



ually visited by families that eventually 

 took up their temporary or permanent 

 abode at or near the fields; no one dis- 

 puted their ownership, unless an enemy 

 from anothertribe, in which casemight es- 

 tablislied right. Among the Potawatomi, 

 according to Jenks, the people "always 

 divide everything when want comes to 

 the door." 



Consult Boas in Rep. Nat. Mus. 1895, 

 1897; McGee in 15th Rep. B. A. E.,1897; 

 Fletcher in Pub. Peabody Mus., Harvard 

 Univ.; Fewkes in Am. Anthrop., ii, 690, 

 1900; Goddard in Univ. of Cal. Pub., i, 

 no. 1, 1903; Jenks in 19th Rep. B. A. E., 

 1900; Mindeleff in 17th Rep. B. A. E., 

 1898. _ (a. c. P.) 



Prophets. From time to time in every 

 great tribe and every important crisis of 

 Indian history we find certain men rising 

 above the position of ordinary doctor, 

 soothsayer, or ritual priest to take upon 

 themselves an apostleship of reform and 

 return to the uncorrupted ancestral be- 

 lief and custom as the necessary means to 

 save their people from impending de- 

 struction by decay or conquest. In some 

 cases the teaching takes the form of a 

 new Indian gospel, the revolutionary 

 culmination of a long and silent develop- 

 ment of the native religious thought. As 

 the faithful disciples were usually prom- 

 ised the return of the earlier and happier 

 conditions, the restoration of the dimin- 

 ished game, the expulsion of the alien 

 intruder, and reunion in earthly exist- 

 ence with the priests who had preceded 

 them to the spirit world — all to be 

 brought about by direct supernatural in- 

 terposition — the teachers have been 

 called jjrophets. 



While all goes well with the tribe the 

 religious feeling finds sufficient expres- 

 sion in the ordinary ritual forms of tri- 

 bal usage, but when misfortune or de- 

 struction threatens the nation or the race, 

 the larger emergency brings out the 

 prophet, who strives to avert the disaster 

 by molding his people to a common pur- 

 pose through insistence upon the sacred 

 character of his message and thus fur- 

 nishes support to the chiefs in their plans 

 for organized improvement or resistance. 

 Thus it is found that almost every great 

 Indian warlike combination has had its 

 prophet messenger in the outset, and if 

 all the facts could be known we should 

 probably find the rule universal. 



Among the most noted of these abo- 

 riginal prophets and reformers within 

 our area, all of whom are noted else- 

 where under the appropriate titles, are: 

 Pope, of the Pueblo revolt of 1680; the 

 Delaware prophet of Pontiac's con- 

 spiracy, 1762; Tenskwatawa, the Shaw- 

 nee prophet, 1805; Kanakuk, the Kicka- 

 poo reformer, 1827; Tavibo, the Paiute, 



