A Birthday Wish from Native America 



By Alice C. Fletcher 



HROUGHOUT the region drained by the Mississippi river, 

 a ceremony was once practised that had for its purpose 

 the establishment of peaceful relations between groups of 

 unrelated people. Remains of its paraphernalia found in 

 the caves of Kentucky, in old burial sites, bear witness 

 that for generations before the coming of the white race this rite was 

 honored by tribes of different linguistic stocks. Both Spanish and 

 French travelers make mention of it, as did some of the missionaries. 

 Among the latter the account given by Marquette has a special inter- 

 est, not only for the description he gives of the ceremony itself, but 

 by reason of the statement that he carried with him, as a gift from a 

 friendly tribe, the peculiarly decorated pipe belonging to this rite and 

 that the respect shown this sacred object by the various tribes he 

 met enabled him to pursue in safety his epoch-making voyage down 

 the Mississippi in 1672. 



Although Marquette published this striking illustration of the 

 widespread influence of a native rite, no interest was aroused or effort 

 made to secure any definite knowledge of so remarkable a ceremony. 

 It was occasionally mentioned, under different names, by travelers 

 during the two centuries following, but its true significance seems to 

 have lain hidden from casual observers. 



About thirty-five years ago the writer had the good fortune to 

 witness this ceremony, to discern something of its beauty, and to 

 enter on a persistent effort to learn about it. This was finally successful, 

 whereby was secured all the songs and rituals, and a full explanation 

 of the details of the rite as practised by the Pawnee tribe. 1 



A comparative study of the ceremony as performed by different 

 tribes has brought to light minor variations that are of historical 

 interest, as they evidently had been brought about by changes in 

 environment. For example, the tribes living in the buffalo country 

 used for the symbolic fat, required in a certain part of the ceremony, 

 that taken from the buffalo rather than from the deer, as the bison 

 was more essential to the welfare of those people. 



The rite is evidently old, yet it seems to rest on foundations still 

 more ancient, based on the Indian conception of Nature. This con- 

 ception, briefly stated, regards Nature as a unit, animated in all its 



1 See The Hako, Twenty- second Report Bureau of American Ethnology, pt. 2, 1903. 



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