Three Years on the Plains Part 7

A GOOD JOKE BY LITTLE RAVEN.

Little Raven, an Arapahoe chief, laughed heartily when we told him something about heaven and h.e.l.l; remarking, "All good men--white and red men--would go to heaven; all bad men, white or red, would go to h.e.l.l." Inquiring the cause of his merriment when he had recovered his breath, he said, "I was much pleased with what you say of those two places, and the kind of people that will go to each when they come to die. It is a good notion,--heap good,--for if all the whites are like the ones I know, when Indian gets to heaven but few whites will trouble him there; pretty much all go to t'other place!"

HOW THE INDIAN IS CHEATED.

It is true, as General Harney remarked, "Better to board and lodge them at the Fifth Avenue Hotel than to fight them, as a matter of economy."

Besides depleting the Indian appropriation fund, voted annually by Congress, of millions of dollars, but which was used to carry on elections, and the Indian got what was left; which may be compared to cheese-parings and cheese, or skim-milk and cream. The Indian gets the parings and the skim-milk!

The Quaker agents, as they are called, are doing a good work, because they see that honest dealings are had with the annuities paid them. If the President had done little else, this feature of reform will redound to his credit forever.

BURIAL OF A CHIEF'S DAUGHTER.

Spotted Tail, the head chief of the Brule Sioux, sent a request to the commanding officer at Fort Laramie, saying "his daughter had died in Powder River country (fifteen days' journey), and had begged her father to have her grave made among the whites." Consent was given, she having been known to the officers for several years, and her death was brought on by exposure to the hards.h.i.+ps of wild Indian life, and also from grief, that her tribe would go to war.

He was met outside the "Post" by the officers, with the honors due his station. The officer in command spoke in words of comfort, saying, "he sympathized with him, and was pleased at this mark of confidence in committing to his care the remains of his loved child. The Great Spirit had taken her, and he never did anything except for some good purpose.

Everything should be prepared for the funeral at sunset, and as the sun went down, it might remind him of the darkness left in his lodge when his daughter was taken away; but as the sun would surely rise again, so she would rise, and some day we would all meet in the land of the Great Spirit."

The chief exhibited great emotion at these words, and shed tears; a thing quite unusual in an Indian. He took the hand of the officer and said, "This must be a dream for me to be in such a fine room, and surrounded by such as you. Have I been asleep during the last four years of hards.h.i.+p and trial, dreaming that all is to be well again? or is this real? Yes, I see that it is,--the beautiful day, the sky blue, without a cloud; the wind calm and still, to suit the errand I came on, and remind me that you offer me peace! We think we have been much wronged, and ent.i.tled to compensation for damage done and distress caused by making so many roads through our country, driving and destroying the buffalo and game. My heart is very sad, and I cannot talk on business. I will wait and see the counselors the Great Father will send."

The scene, it is added, was the most impressive I ever saw, and all the Indians were awed into silence. A scaffold was erected (see print) at the cemetery, and a coffin was made. Just before sunset, the body was carried, followed by the father and other relatives, with chaplain,[2]

officers, soldiers, and Indians. The chaplain read the beautiful burial-service, interpreted by another to them.

[2] Rev. A. Wright, post-chaplain, U. S. A.

One said, "I can hardly describe my feelings at witnessing here this first Christian burial of an Indian, and one of such consideration among her tribe. The hour, the place, the solemnity, even the restrained weeping of the mother and other relatives, all combined to affect me deeply."

It is added: the officers, to gratify Monica's father, each placed an offering in her coffin. Colonel Maynadier, a pair of gauntlets, to keep her hands warm (it was winter), Mr. Bullock gave a handsome piece of red ca.s.simere to cover the coffin. To complete the Indian ceremony, her two milk-white ponies were killed and their heads and tails nailed on the coffin. These ponies the Indians supposed she would ride again in the hunting-grounds whither she had gone.

AN INDIAN RAID ON SIDNEY STATION, UNION PACIFIC RAILROAD.

In the month of April, 1868, while returning from the East, we took dinner at Sidney Station, on the railroad, four hundred and fourteen miles west of Omaha, at noon. While we were there, two freight conductors brought in their trains and dined at the same time we did, and when we started they were on the platform and said good-by to us.

They concluded to go out a fis.h.i.+ng, a mile or two from the settlement, behind one of the bluffs. We had not left on our way to Cheyenne more than about an hour, when we learned by telegraph at "Antelope Station"

(thirty-seven miles), that a band of twenty or thirty Sioux Indians had come suddenly upon the two conductors, named Cahoone and Kinney, and, after a severe conflict, had shot both through with arrows, and scalped one of them (Cahoone), besides killing some of the railroad hands at work repairing the road near by the scene of conflict. Presently we met a special train, consisting of engine and caboose-car, coming with tremendous speed,--one mile a minute,--containing Dr. Latham, surgeon of the railroad from Cheyenne. It seems that the soldiers--a small company--were completely surprised, and not being mounted, could only protect the station, but could not follow up the Indians to punish them for their audacity.

There were nearly two hundred and fifty people, including one hundred infantry soldiers, at the station; and the alarm of "Indians" being given, the whole population turned out with such arms as they could lay hold of. The sight of so many persons disconcerted the Indians, and they checked their horses within a respectable distance of the station.

About two hundred shots were fired,--many of them in the wildest manner, and mostly hurting n.o.body.

The Indians rode round the upper side of Sidney--_i.e._ west--after the affray with the conductors, and attacked the section-men, circling round and round (as usual in their mode of Indian warfare, to draw out the fire of their enemies, till they exhaust their ammunition), till they had killed several of the poor Irishmen at work. These men had with them a hand-car, and the boss had a rifle with him, and only one charge or cartridge in his gun. He did the best he could, however, by jumping on the car and taking aim at his enemies, and keeping the gun pointed towards them, while the men worked the hand-car safe into Sidney Station. He escaped with his life, and several of his comrades.

These two conductors had about seven arrows shot into each of them, several going right through their bodies, and which had to be broken off to draw them out. One--Thomas Cahoone--was scalped twice, on the top and back of his head. The other--William Kinney--kept his captor at bay by a pistol he had, and thus aiming at the Indian, saved his hair.

Both were brought up carefully in the caboose-car to Cheyenne, and next day I saw them under Dr. Latham's treatment. All thought that both would surely die, but both got well; and the one who was scalped is now living at a station on the Union Pacific Railroad. It is a terrible operation to be scalped, and few survive it. But, thanks to the surgeon's skill, these men are living, and feel very much like taking vengeance on their tormentors,--_if they ever catch them_!

WHY DO INDIANS SCALP THEIR ENEMIES?

I have been a good deal puzzled to know the origin of this custom, of always scalping a foe in battle, both among themselves and in fighting white people. A negro is never scalped by the Indians. In conversing with Major A. S. Burt, of 9th United States Infantry, at our post, who has had much experience among the Indians on the plains, I learn some things which give a clue to the matter, which agree with all I can hear. He says that each Indian wears a "scalp-lock" (see engraving), which is a long tuft of hair, into which the Indian inserts his medicine, which consists generally of a few quills of eagle's feathers.

This "_medicine_" is simply a "_charm_," as we call it, gotten by purchase of the medicine-man of the tribe. The medicine-man is the most influential man in each tribe. He professes to be able to conjure, by his arts and influence with the Great Spirit, certain articles, which he sells to the Indians of his tribe. This "medicine" the superst.i.tious believe will cure diseases, and help him against his enemy in battle.

Hence, in scalping a fallen foe, the victor deprives him of his charm, and shows it in triumph, as a token of his skill in battle. If you visit an Indian in his tent, and ask him to show you his "medicine," he will do so, if you pay him in such things as he needs to make therewith a feast, both for himself and an offering to his medicine idol; but as the idol can't eat, it goes of course into the stomach of the live Indian![3]

[3] The Indian keeps his "medicine" hung up in his tent, and prays to it,--dreams about it,--and if his dream is of good luck, he acts accordingly. This applies to hunting, going on war expeditions, etc.; in short, it is his sort of saint, to which he pays idolatrous wors.h.i.+p.

Another idea: the Indian believes that the spirit of the enemy he slays enters into himself, and he is thereby made the stronger; hence _he slays all that he can_. I have seen young warriors in the streets of Cheyenne, with their hair reaching down almost to their heels; and all along it you'd see strung round pieces of silver, from the size of a silver dollar to a tea-saucer; each one of which was a tell-tale of the number of the scalps the young fellow had taken. It was what the ladies would call a "waterfall!"

Speaking of this, as revealing the pride of Indians in showing their prowess, I learned of a _young buck_, coming into a post and walking round, dressed in the top of Indian fas.h.i.+on,--_i.e._ with paint on his face, feathers in his hair, and bra.s.s ornaments on his leggins. These young fellows put on all the gewgaws they can to make a show of importance. Well, he finally walked into the post-trader's store, and asked Mr. Bullock if he didn't think it made the officers _faint_ when they saw him? "Yes," said he, "I think you'd better take off some of your things (pointing to his trappings), they will scare somebody."

INDIAN BOY'S EDUCATION.

When an Indian gets to be eighteen years old, it is expected that he will strike out for himself, and do some act to show his bravery; and that begins in striking somebody to kill them (a white or Indian of a hostile tribe), and to steal stock, a horse, or mule, or cattle.

No young warrior can get a wife till he has taken the scalp of a white man or Indian, and have stolen a horse or pony. This being a law of the Sioux, so in proportion as he scalps and steals horses so does his number of wives increase, and the greater a warrior does he become. In short, he becomes "a big heap chief." What to us becomes a murder or a theft,--the very first act of a young Indian,--in his own tribe is a great and praiseworthy deed. So you see what blood has been shed, and other acts of cruelty caused by Spotted Tail, Red Cloud, and others, who have imbrued their hands in the blood of innocent victims with a fiendish delight that savages only know and take pleasure in.

As the arrows tell of the tribe to which they belong,--colored near the end,--green for the Sioux, blue, Cheyenne, red or brown, Arrapahoes, black feathers, Crow,--so the tribe to which an Indian murderer belongs is known by the method (usually) by which the victim is scalped. The Cheyennes remove a piece not larger than a silver dollar from immediately over the left ear; the Arrapahoes take the same from over the right ear. Others take from the crown, forehead, or nape of the neck. The Utes take the entire scalp from ear to ear, and from forehead to nape of neck.

MAKING PRESENTS.

A grocer in Julesburg had married a squaw; after awhile she left him and joined her tribe. Coming that way again, she came and looked in upon her former husband at the back-door, while all her relations stood staring around to see if she would be welcomed back again. But he took no notice of her. One of his friends said to him, "Joe, why don't you go and call her in, you know you are glad to see her back again; you certainly want her?"

"No, no," said he, "I ain't going to make any fuss over her at all. If I do, the whole crowd of her relations, uncles, aunts, and cousins, will come in to shake hands, and congratulate me with 'How, how,'

expecting each one to have a pound of sugar. No, no, you don't catch me."