Xcil ETHNOGRAPHIC SKETCH. 



;is poetical, that the P]arth is our common inotlier. "She is dealing outlier 

 bountiful "cifts to her children, the human beings, without env}^ or restraint, 

 in the shape of corn, fruits, and esculent roots. Her eyes are the lakes and 

 ponds disseminated over the green surface of the plains, her breasts are the 

 hills and hillocks; and the rivulets and brooks irrigating the valleys are the 

 milk flowing from her breasts." This is the poetical imagery in use among 

 the Eastern Indians when the Earth is mentioned to them.* The idea that 

 earthquakes and unaccountable tremors or noises within the body of the 

 earth, also the malarial fevers, are the utterances of threat or displeasure 

 at the misdoings of mankind, is as general among Indians as among other 

 nations, and a consequence of the animistic tendency of primitive nations. 

 The Indian prophet Smu^ale at Priest Kapids, on Middle Columbia River, 

 and his numerous followers, called the "Dreamers," from the implicit faith 

 these Sahaptin sectarians place in dreams, dissuade their adherents from 

 tilling the ground, as the white man does; "for it is a sin to wound or cut, 

 tear up or scratch our common mother by agricultural pursuits; she will 

 revenge herself on the whites and on the Indians following their example 

 by opening her bosom and engulfing such malefactors for their misdeeds." 

 This advice was probably caused by the common observation that ground 

 recently broken up exhales miasmas deleterious to all people dwelling near. 



That the Earth was regarded as an animate if not personified being is 

 shown by the foi'm kiiilash of the objective case (125, 1), this case being 

 formed in -ash onh* in terms applied to man and quadrupeds. Their myth 

 of the earth's creation of course does not refer to the whole globe, but only 

 to the small part of North America known to these Indians. The earth's 

 interior is also the home of the Thunders, because lightnings are often 

 observed to shoot up from the earth into the skies. 



Special songs referring to the Earth are contained in 175; 16: kili'la 

 ml shuinalla; 176; 3 kiii'la ai nu walta; 158; 48 kiiilanti nu shilshila — 



* After Tecumseb bad delivered a speech to Governor Harrison at Vincenues, in 

 1811, he was offered a diair by the interpreter, who said to bini: " Yonr father 

 requests you to take a chair." To tliis Tecuniseh ina<le, with great dignity of expres- 

 sion, an answer wliicli has since become <;lassi<!al : " The sun is my father, and the 

 earth is my mother ; and on her hosom will T repose," and immediately seated himself, 

 in the Indian maimer, upon tlie ground. 



