Stirring scenes in savage lands : $b An account of the manners, customs, habits and recreations, peaceful and warlike, of the uncivilised worldGreenwood, James
History
Stirring scenes in savage lands : $b An account of the manners, customs, habits and recreations, peaceful and warlike, of the uncivilised world
Greenwood, James
Anthropology
toilette, arranging his dress and ornamenting his body for his picture.
“At that hour then, bedaubed and streaked with paints of various
colours, with bear’s-grease and charcoal, with medicine-pipes in his
hands, and foxes’ tails attached to his heels, entered Mah-to-he-bah
(the old bear) with a train of his profession, who seated themselves
around him, and also a number of boys whom it was requested should
remain with him, and whom I supposed it possible might have been his
pupils whom he was instructing in the mysteries of his art. He took
his position in the middle of the room, waving his evil calumets in
each hand and singing the medicine song which he sings over his dying
patient, looking me full in the face until I completed his picture at
full length. His vanity has been completely gratified in the operation;
he lies for hours together day after day in my room in front of his
picture gazing intently upon it, lights my pipe for me while I am
painting, shakes hands with me a dozen times each day, and talks of me
and enlarges upon my medicine virtues and my talents wherever he goes,
so that this new difficulty is now removed, and instead of preaching
against me he is one of my strongest and most enthusiastic friends and
aids in the country.
“Perhaps nothing ever more completely astonished these people than the
operations of my brush. The art of portrait painting was a subject
entirely new to them and of course unthought of, and my appearance here
has commenced a new era in the arcana of _medicine_ or mystery.
Soon after arriving here I commenced and finished the portraits of
the two principal chiefs. This was done without having awakened the
curiosity of the villagers, as they had heard nothing of what was going
on, and even the chiefs themselves seemed to be ignorant of my designs
until the pictures were completed. No one else was admitted into my
lodge during the operation, and when finished it was exceedingly
amusing to see them mutually recognizing each other’s likeness and
assuring each other of the striking resemblance which they bore to the
originals. Both of these pressed their hand over their mouths awhile in
dead silence (a custom amongst most tribes when anything surprises them
very much); looking attentively upon the portraits and myself and upon
the palette and colours with which these unaccountable effects had been
produced.
“Then they walked up to me in the most gentle manner, taking me in
turn by the hand with a firm grip, and, with head and eyes inclined
downwards, in a tone of a little above a whisper, pronounced the words
_te-ho-pe-nee Wash-ee_, and walked off.
“Readers, at that moment I was christened with a new and a great name,
one by which I am now familiarly hailed and talked of in this village,
and no doubt will be as long as traditions last in this strange
community.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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