Page:Don Coronado through Kansas.djvu/364

HUNTING AND WAR THEIB PASnME. 347 honor/ Such a course tvoald teach the lesson practi^ caUy, that it is manhood and womanhood which count. , Amongr our Indians, there were three classes: the warriors, hunters and cooks, and the medicine men or priest^. The doctors combined with their profession religion, so as to. awe the Indian, and were composed of the men who had snap enough to study, which means to work, for knowledge is acquired only by persistent industry. The medicine men of the average tribe were just as keen for wealth as are the professional men of today, and when they treated persons who had any personal property; they were made to pay Well. So these priests or medicine men Were usUaUy the wealthy citizens of the tribe. It can be more truthfully said of the Osage Indi- ans than the average tribe, that war and hunting was their employment and pleasure. The male did no manual labor so long as he was considered a warrior, but the women were the slaves and drudges. To an Indian it was considered the height of heroism to kill an enemy at close quarters with a tomahawk, and al- though in early times the Osages may not have scalped, yet it became their habit and craze, for by it they were able to give an ocular demonstration to a "doubting. Thomas." All the books agree that when an Indian believed himself to have been wronged, it was heaven ux)on earth for him to revenge the act. It may s6em disgraceful (and it is), but to the Indian it was not considered cowardly to kill the women, children and old men during the ab^nce of the war- riors from the village, so no doubt this is the excuse