While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
Eagle. Among the many birds held in superstitious and
appreciative regard by the aborigines of North America, the eagle, by reason of
its majestic, solitary, and mysterious nature, became an especial object of
worship. This is expressed in the employment of the eagle by the Indian for
religious and esthetic purposes only. The wing-bones were fashioned into
whistles to be carried by warriors or used in ceremonies, and the talons formed
powerful amulets or fetishes, having secondary value as ornaments; the feathers
were, however, of greatest importance. The capture of eagles for their feathers
was a hazardous branch of hunting, requiring great skill. Among some tribes
eagle-killing was delegated to certain men. Owing to the difficulty of getting
within bowshot of the bird, it was often trapped or the eyrie was visited to
secure the young. Eagles are still kept in captivity by the Pueblo Indians as in
the time of Coronado (14th Rep. B. A. E., 516, 1896). The striking
war-bonnet of the Plains tribes was made of eagle feathers and was highly
valued, for it is said that one pony was the price of a perfect tail of 12
feathers of the "war eagle," i. e., the white plumes with black tips. Other
varieties, with bars across the feathers, are regarded as inferior (Mooney).
Warriors of the Plains tribes usually wore the feathers of the golden eagle
only, and it is probable that the customs of many tribes prescribed like
discriminations as to feathers of different species. Many tribes wore one or
more eagle feathers in the hair, and these feathers were often cut, colored, or
otherwise decorated with some cognizance of the wearer (see Heraldry}. It was
the custom of the Pillager Chippewa to allow a warrior who scalped an enemy to
wear on his head two eagle feathers, and the act of capturing a wounded prisoner
on the battlefield earned the distinction of wearing five. Fans made of the
primary feathers of the eagle formed an accessory to the costume of the Sioux
and other tribes. Eagle feathers were also attached as ornaments to the buckskin
shirts worn by men, and war costumes and paraphernalia, including shields, were
ornamented with them. As one of the prominent totemic animals, the eagle gave
its name to many clans and religious fraternities. It is probable that nearly
every tribe in the United States recognizing clan or gentile organization had an
eagle clan or gens at some period in its history.
The eagle held an important place in symbolic art. It was depicted by all the
methods of art expression known to the Indian, appearing on pottery, basketry,
textiles, beadwork, quillwork, shields, crests, totem poles, house and grave
posts, pipes, rattles, and objects pertaining to cult and ceremony. It was also
represented in the primitive drama connected with ceremonies. Many tribes
possessed eagle deities, as the Kwahu, the eagle kachina of the Hopi of Arizona,
and the Eagle god of the Miwok of California,
Among the Haida, passes made with eagle fans were thought to be effectual in
conjuring, and this use reappears in many tribes. The wing-bones were often
employed as sucking tubes, with which medicine-men pretended to remove disease.
The Tlingit and other North Pacific tribes used eagle down for ceremonial
sprinkling on the hair, masks, and dance costume; it was also scattered in the
air, being blown through a tube or sprinkled by hand. The Pawnee and other
Plains tribes as well as the Pueblos also used the down in ceremonies, and it
was probably a general custom. Among the Hopi the eagle is generally associated
with the Sky god, and its feathers are used with disks to represent the Sun god
(Fewkes).
The use of eagle feathers in religion is nowhere better shown than among the
Pueblos, when downy plumes are attached to masks, rattles, prayer-sticks (q. v.
), and other cult objects entering into ceremonies. For this purpose a great
quantity of feathers is yearly required. The Hopi clans claimed the eagle nests
in the localities where they formerly resided, and caught in traps or took from
the nests eaglets, whose down was used in ceremonies. The eaglets, when required
for feathers, have their heads washed; they are killed by pressure on the
thorax, and buried with appropriate rites in special cemeteries, in which
offerings of small wooden images and bows and arrows are yearly deposited. The
interior Salish also are said by Teit to have property in eagles. Near the
present Hopi villages there are shrines in which offerings of eagle eggs carved
from wood are placed during the winter solstice for the increase of eagles.
Among the Zuñi, feathers shed by their
captive eagles have special significance, though the feathers are also regularly
plucked and form a staple article of trade.
The mythology of almost every tribe is replete with eagle beings, and the wide
spread thunderbird myth relates in some cases to the eagle. In Hopi myth the
Man-eagle is a sky-being who lays aside his plumage after flights in which he
spreads devastation, and the hero who slays him is carried to the house in the
sky by eagles of several species, each one in its turn bearing him higher. The
Man-eagle myth is widely diffused, most tribes regarding this being as a
manifestation of either helpful or maleficent power.
See Fewkes, Property Rights in Eagles among the Hopi, Am. Anthrop., u,
690-707, 1900; Hoffman in 14th Rep. B. A. E., 1896; Mooney (1) ibid.,
(2) in 19th Rep. B. A. E., 1900. (W. H.)
This site
includes some historical materials that may imply negative stereotypes
reflecting the culture or language of a particular period or place. These
items are presented as part of the historical record and should not be
interpreted to mean that the WebMasters in any way endorse the stereotypes
implied .
Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico, Frederick Webb Hodge, 1906
