The evening herald. [volume] (Shenandoah, Pa.) 1891-1966, 1899-02-09

Fifty miles. to the southwest Of Tucson
A. r., is dreary region of desert-a rug
gcd butte Of roughly cOnical shape rises
abruptly from the plain and points like a
finger toward the sky. Here and there its
sides are pittcd with caverns, and alto
gether its appearance Is so weird that it Is
no wonder the Papago Indians of the re
gion regard it with superstitious awe 1t
is called Rattlesnake rock because the an
cient of all the rattlesnakes makes his
home inside of it. This fact is known
positively, because he has been seen many
times. The butte is sacred place, and
nobody ventures near it under ordinary
circumstances, but candidates for aborig-
inal diplomas as medicine men sleep
by it overnight after fasting for long
time, and the big serpent comes out and
leads them into the rock, where in an i'm
mense hollow chamber all sorts of potent
things, such as snakes skins, birds claws
etc, are hung up. The uses of these for
magical and curative purposes he teaches
to the novice, who is thereafter regarded
by his people as graduated in the arts of
healing and sorceIy.
On the field of the fight of Wounded
Knee there was picked up an Indian baby
not more than 3 months old, a little girl
She was found strapped to the back of her
dead mother who was shot in the massa
ere. General Colby adopted the child, to
whom the name Zintka Lanuni Lost
Bird) was given and reared her as his
daughter Although the little girl neither
knows nor remembers any conditions
other than those of civilization, she has
evinced one very notable inherited trait
namely, fear of shadows. She is greatly
afraid even of her own shadow, and this
would seem very surprising were it not
known that Indians, like most other sav
ages, regard shadow as the ghost of the
person or other object by which it is
thrown
The rules of conduct by which savage
must govern his life are vastly more com
plex than those which control civilized
man. This is because of the multitude
of ghosts which surround him on every
side. The civilized man considers that he
is doing what is required of him if he
does not disturb the comfort of his neigh
bOrs, but the Indian is obliged to behave
himself in a satisfactory way in respect to
rocks, in respect to deer, in respect to the
sun and moon, and so on ad inflnitum
He has an infinite number of neighbors,
all of whom are none the less real to him
| because they are phantoms to us. For ex-
! ample, a certain line of conduct must be
fulfilled by him in respect to rabbits;
| otherwise he would not be able to catch
| any rabbits The great ancient of rabbits
| permits some of his representatives TO be
| captured only on the condition that GER
tain forms shall be carefully observed by
the captors.
Every tribe of Indians has it's ghost
| places or devil places, which are haunted
| localities. In the country Of the Tulare
H., Il.
enormous granite bowlder which is be
| lieved to be inhabited by witches. 1t is
| known as Witch rock, and nobody, least
of all children, ventures TO approach it,
| In the lower part of it is a curious open
| ing, which has the shape Of a cavern, and
here the witches are supposed to dwell
! Not far distant is pool which is supposed
to be occupied by the devil. The waters
of the pool are dark, being stained with
some vegetable matter, and close by is a
mineral spring, which lends additional
mystery. That the devil does actually
live in the pool is indisputable, because
! practically every member of the tribe has
seen him. They go, number of them
! together, and hold each others hands
while they watch for him, and they never
fail to see him in the water He is always
there watching for somebody to come
along to be gobbled up.
To the primeval savage as to the In
dian of today, everything had its phantas
NAL essence, so to speak, and the essence
was more important than the external
properties of the object From this point
of view a thing has a tangible shell, but
within it is contained a potency of spirit.
This latter is the ghost, which is at liberty
TO leave the object when it wishes. OF
/ fl,s.- . !.
of which he is vaguely conscious.
Among the most appalling spooks that
haunt the Iroquois is a carnivorous ghost
in the shape of a skeleton. Particularly
malevolent spirits are certain huge heads
without bodies that go flying about, theil
long hair serving them in lieu of wings
The Indians generally believe in super
natural beings corresponding to our fairies
and goblins, which have local abiding
places well recognized as such. They cal
them the "little people "
Formerly there dwelt under Niagara
falls a gigantic snake, which now anC
then would make its way to an Indian vii
lage in the neighborhood and coil itsel
around the town, 1t swallowed the peopl
who tried to escape and rendered itsel
further obnoxious by poisoning the we'll
with its spittle Finally the serpent wa
destroyed by a stratagem. 1t was so hug
that when the people laid its body out n
death it stretched over more than 20 arrow
flights Indeed when thrown into tn
river It was too large TO pass the rocks, s.
that it became wedged in between them
and the waters rose over it, thus fashion
ing the horseshoe, which remains to thi
day
The CherOkees are very much afraid o
certain mythical horned alligators whicl
are supposed to reside in several differen
places in deep holes in the rivers Their
is one locality in Oklahoma where a crea
ture Of this description has an under
ground tunnel from one river TO another
In the southern Allegheny region on tn
di lung ridge is an enchanted lake tina
Is the haunt Of several monstrous animal
possessed of magic powers. One of thes
is a great snake, which has the power o
fascinating its human victim, and it is s.
poisonous that a single drop of its spittl
falling upon person is death. Equal,
formidable is an enormous leech whicl
lives in the HiVassee river i'm the sam
country Occasionally "a certain ledge 0
rock Is exposed when the water is low
and any one who attempts TO walk acros
Il Is inevitably sucked down In the In
dian mythology nearly every animal
descended from an ancestral giant Of fero
ciOus and dangerous attributes, which wa
finally destroyed by some tribal hero
Boston Transcript.