Today, walking in Overland I noticed a sign that mentioned an old Indian burial ground... I wandered behind a church and said a prayer on the grassy slope there... honoring ancestors. I decided to research the native American, indigenous people of the st Louis area...
The largest and most powerful tribe was the Osage.
Here we see an Osage warrior.
". . . their ear[lobe]s, slit by knives, grow to be enormous, and they hang low under the weight of the ornaments with which they are laden. There is a complete lack of beard and eyebrows on their faces, for they carefully pull out the little hair which happens to grow there.
"Their calm, dignified faces show great shrewdness; there is something soldierly and serious about the expression. Their hair is black and thick. The Osage shave their heads, except for the top, from which two strands of hair branch off and grow straight back to the occiput, where they form a tuft which falls to the lower part of the neck; between these strands grow two braids, the beauty of which consists in their length. . . .
"The [Osage Indians] seldom go out without painting themselves; the colors they use are, first, vermillion, then verdigris [greenish-blue], and then yellow, which they buy from the trader; lacking these, they use ochre, chalk, or even mud.
"The Osage always paint red that part of their head around their hair, the eye-sockets, and their ears; these are the national colors, the war-time paint. The other colors, indifferently put on the other parts of their bodies, depend upon their individual fancy."
-Victor Tixier, physician, 1839
Here we see an Osage warrior.
"The men are tall and perfectly proportioned. They have at the same time all the physical qualities which denote skill and strength combined with graceful movements. . . .
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| by Charles Evret de Saint-Me |
". . . their ear[lobe]s, slit by knives, grow to be enormous, and they hang low under the weight of the ornaments with which they are laden. There is a complete lack of beard and eyebrows on their faces, for they carefully pull out the little hair which happens to grow there.
"Their calm, dignified faces show great shrewdness; there is something soldierly and serious about the expression. Their hair is black and thick. The Osage shave their heads, except for the top, from which two strands of hair branch off and grow straight back to the occiput, where they form a tuft which falls to the lower part of the neck; between these strands grow two braids, the beauty of which consists in their length. . . .
"The [Osage Indians] seldom go out without painting themselves; the colors they use are, first, vermillion, then verdigris [greenish-blue], and then yellow, which they buy from the trader; lacking these, they use ochre, chalk, or even mud.
"The Osage always paint red that part of their head around their hair, the eye-sockets, and their ears; these are the national colors, the war-time paint. The other colors, indifferently put on the other parts of their bodies, depend upon their individual fancy."
-Victor Tixier, physician, 1839
I am moved by the discipline, ritual and self respect that comes through these images and writings. I long for the days when tribal earth- and ancestral-honoring traditions connected people to each other, the past and the land. I long for a deep sense of respect for oneself and for the land as a way of life that is shared in community.
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by George Catlin |
