Dancing at Halftime: Sports and the Controversy over American Indian Mascots

Races of Living Things

Races of Living Things Chief Illiniwek is an invention, a fictional character, but he is legitimized by his connection to real Indians, whom he is supposed to recall to our minds. The real Indians in this particular story are the Illinois. They entered the historical record when the French explorer Louis Jolliet and the Jesuit priest who accompanied him, Father Marquette, arrived at one of their villages in 1673. According to Marquette ’s account in the Jesuit Relations, when he and Jolliet went ashore and found “footprints of men by the water-side, and a beaten path entering a beautiful prairie,” they followed the path and came to a large Peoria-Illinois village. They gave a cry and then waited to see what would happen. At the sight of the two Frenchmen, the Peoria sent four old men to them. Two carried tobacco-pipes well-adorned, and trimmed in many kinds of feathers. They marched slowly, lifting their pipes toward the sun, as if offering them to him to smoke, but yet without uttering a single word. They were a long time coming the little way from the village to us. Having reached us at last, they stopped to consider us attentively. I now took courage, seeing these ceremonies, which are used by them only with friends, and still more on seeing them covered with stuffs [European cloth], which made me to judge them to be allies. I, therefore, spoke to them first, and asked them who they were; they answered that they were Ilinois, and in token of peace, they presented their pipes to smoke. Marquette and Jolliet were taken to a lodge where another old man stood, arms raised, completely naked, greeting the sun. They smoked with him and were taken to another lodge, where three more old men, also naked and holding 38 pipes, greeted them. After smoking with this group, they were given a slave boy and a tobacco pipe of their own and treated to a feast. The first dish was sagamite, boiled Indian corn mixed with fat. Their host fed them bites himself, as if they were children. Next came fish, and he also placed bites in their mouths. The third course was a large dog, killed for the occasion, but when they learned that the Frenchmen did not eat dog, the dish was removed. The fourth course was bison meat, and again the choicest morsels were fed to them. Before leaving the next day, Marquette promised to return the following year to live with the Illinois. Marquette goes on to describe the tobacco pipe the French called a calumet; the word was derived from an old French word for a flute: There is nothing more mysterious or more respected among them. Less honor is paid to the crowns and scepters of kings than the savages bestow on this. It seems to be the god of peace and war, the arbiter of life and death. It has but to be carried upon one’s person, and displayed, to enable one to walk safely through the midst of enemies, who in the hottest of the fight, lay down their arms when it is shown. Marquette says the calumet dance is “done so well, with slow and measured steps, and to the rhythmic sound of the voices and drums, that it might pass for a very fine opening of a ballet in France.” The calumet spread throughout the central United States during these turbulent times; it was used to create alliances and enter into negotiations. It is not surprising that the guests were immediately invited to a feast; feasts were common among the Illinois; giving them was the means by which a man gained prestige and consolidated his influence. Farmers, gatherers, and hunters, the Illinois grew corn, beans, squash, and pumpkins in the river valleys during the summer. Grapes, plums, persimmons, apples, strawberries, raspberries, mulberries , and many nuts and roots grew wild on the prairies, and were gathered. RACES OF LIVING THINGS 39 Bison had moved to the east side of the Mississippi River sometime around 1600 and Marquette describes huge herds, whose paths “are beaten like our great roads in Europe.” They were hunted with bows and arrows even after the Illinois had guns because gunshots frightened and scattered the herds; also, many arrows could be shot in the time it took to reload a musket. The meat was dried over fires; Marquette...