The Vanishing Race Part 9

"We were surrounded by many different tribes, Shoshones, Sioux, Piegans, and Gros Ventres. They were all our enemies. We often went on the warpath against these people, because they were always trying to take our horses and conquer our land. When we went on the warpath sometimes we would stop and kill a buffalo and have a feast. If we could, we crawled up on the enemy's camp and stole his horses. If we met a foe we tried to kill him and bring his scalp home."

"Our custom of painting was a sign. If in a dream we saw any one painted, that was our medicine. In our dreams we would see various kinds of paints and how to use them; we would see certain birds and feathers, and we adopted this as our style of paint. Others would try to buy from us our style of paint. The kind of paint and feathers we wore made us brave to do great deeds-to kill the enemy or take his horses. We did not buy horses, but stole them. We gave the horses to our relations. If I got one or more horses, it represented so much value to me, and brought honour to me. And, besides, the girls admired the man who could go out and get horses, and in this way we won a wife. After marriage I would sell a horse, buy elk teeth, beaded leggings, and put them on my wife as a wedding present. Elk teeth and horses were a sign of wealth. Then my wife would make a tepee, and put it up; then I would settle down and have a home."

"In early days we had nothing for clothing except the skins of animals.

We used the buffalo hide or the deer hide for a breechclout. For a bucket we used the tripe of the buffalo, after thoroughly cleaning it. We would hang it up on the branch of a tree, full of water, and drink out of it."

"The white people came long before I was born, but when I first remember the white man I thought he was very funny. I never knew of any one person particularly, but I know there are good white people and bad white people, honest white people and dishonest white people, true white people and mean white people. We always take it for granted that what the white people say is true, but we have found out by experience that they have been dishonest with us and that they have mistreated us. Now when they say anything we think about it, and sometimes they are true. I am saying this about the white people in general."

"Going back to the days when we had no horses, we would see the buffalo on the plains; we then surrounded them, driving them as we did so, near to the edge of some steep precipice. When we got the buffalo up near the edge of the precipice we would all wave our blankets and buffalo robes and frighten the buffalo and they would run off the steep place, falling into the valley below, one on top of another. Of course the undermost animals were killed. Then we would go down and get them and take away the meat."

"The Indians found some dogs on the prairie. After they got the dogs they would fasten a pole on either side of the dogs with a tanned hide fastened between the poles, and the Indians would put their trappings, their meat, and their pappooses on this hide stretched between the poles. In that way they moved from place to place, the dog carrying the utensils of the camp.

We called it a travois. One day when we were moving, the dog who was carrying a baby in the travois saw a deer and ran after it. He went over a bank and carried the baby with him, and finally came back without the baby."

"In counting the dead on the battlefield we placed sticks by the dead soldiers or Indians, then gathered the sticks up, took them to one place in a pile and there counted the sticks. We count by fixing events in our mind. We have a brain and a heart, and we commit to memory an event, and then we say Chief So-and-So died when we broke camp on the Big Horn, and So-and-So were married when we had the big buffalo hunt in the snow. Or we had a big fight with the Sioux when our tepees were placed in a ring in the bend of the Yellowstone River. We dated our time from these events."

Folklore Tale-Crow

"When I was a little boy this is a story that was told around every campfire: It was called 'Old Man Coyote!' Before the white man came the coyote used to roam over all the land. The Old Man Coyote took the little coyotes he picked up on the prairies and called them his little brothers.

The little coyote was such a sly animal that the old coyote always sent him on errands, because he knew he would always be up to something. The Old Man Coyote says: 'We are alone: let us make man.' He said: 'Go and bring me some mud so that I can make a man, so that we can be together.'

The Old Man Coyote took the mud and put it together, and put hair on it, and set it up on the ground, and said: 'There is a man!' The little coyote said: 'Make some more.' And the Old Man Coyote made four-two were women and two were men. The Old Man sized them up and said they were good, and so he made a whole lot more. Old Man Coyote said: 'It is good that we live together, and I want you to open each other's eyelids.' Old Man Coyote said to these people whom he had made: 'Now, if you stay together and are good to each other, you will be happy, and you will increase in numbers.' Old Man Coyote was our creator. Old Man Coyote said to these people whom he had made: 'This is your land; live here, eat of the fruit of the trees, drink of the rivers, hunt the game, and have a good time.' From that we believe that the white people had nothing to do with the land-it belonged to the Indian. This story, told to our people so many times, and told to me since I can remember, led me to believe when I came to know and understand that this land was wholly ours, and belonged entirely to the Indians. Old Man Coyote, after he had created man and woman, did not have anything to do, so he made a bow and arrow. He took the flint for the arrowhead, and with it he killed the buffalo. Then he gave the bow and arrow to the Indian and said to him: 'This is your weapon.' The people whom Old Man Coyote created had no knife, so he took the shoulder blade of the buffalo and sharpened it and made it into a knife. These people whom Old Man Coyote had created roamed round over the land and they found a mule. It was a great big mule with great big ears, and when they brought it home the people were all afraid of it. They all gathered around the mule, staring in amazement at him, and said: 'What kind of an animal is this? It is a dangerous animal.' Just then the mule stuck up his ears, and let out an awful cry, just such a cry as only the mule can make. Then the people all ran away as hard as they could go, scared almost to death, except one Indian, who fell flat on the earth-too scared to run. And finally the people called this man, 'Not-Afraid-of-the-Mule.' And in this way we learned how to name our Indians."

[Hairy Moccasin-Custer Scout]

Hairy Moccasin-Custer Scout

Hairy Moccasin

Isapi-Wis.h.i.+sh is the name the Indians called Hairy Moccasin, a scout under Gibbon, Miles, Howard, and Custer. His frame is small and wiry, and like his brother scout, Goes-Ahead, he too will soon be numbered with the great army of the dead. Silent, un.o.btrusive, carrying no mark of distinction, his moccasined feet move slowly along the path made by others. It must be noted that however unprepossessing his personality he wears an untarnished badge for bravery and faithful service as a scout. White-Man-Runs-Him said: "I cannot say anything better about Hairy Moccasin than to say that he executed faithfully the orders of General Custer." He was the boyhood playmate of White-Man-Runs-Him. They were companions in all the sports and games and tricks of the camp. When the Custer scouts traversed the difficult and dangerous route from the Little Rosebud to the valley where they located the mighty camp of the Sioux, it was Hairy Moccasin who under the stars of that June night reached the apex of the hills at dawn. The other scouts lay down to rest. Hairy Moccasin, leaving the others asleep, went to the summit-which is called the Crow's Nest-and as the gray streaks of the dawn began to silver the east, it was Moccasin's eye which caught the vision of the myriads of white tents, of the brown hills in the distance covered with brown horses, the curling smoke from hundreds of wigwams. Word was sent back to Custer. In excited tones, he asked: "Have you seen the cut-throat Sioux?" From the vantage point of the hills where they had seen the camp Hairy Moccasin was sent still farther in advance to reconnoitre. He climbed a pine-clad hill, found the Sioux everywhere, and then he rode back and reported to General Custer the size and position of the camp. On hearing the report Custer hurried up his command. As the brave general moved out of the valley up the ridge it is the testimony of White-Man-Runs-Him that Hairy Moccasin rode immediately in advance of Custer, and when the Chey-ennes came up, "He fired at them, banged and banged at them, and the Cheyennes were afraid of Moccasin. They were afraid of all three of us. Custer would have been killed before the time he was shot if it had not been for Hairy Moccasin and myself, who were around him shooting at the Indians." When the United States soldiers were fighting the Nez Perces Hairy Moccasin got a horse away from the enemy, and brought it into the camp of the soldiers. Hairy Moccasin was always on the warpath performing brave deeds. The name and fame of Custer will live in the archives of his country, and a fadeless l.u.s.tre will forever crown the heroic deeds of this Indian Scout.

[Curly-Custer Scout]

Curly-Custer Scout

Curly

Curly, a Reno Crow, was born on the Little Rosebud, Montana, and is fifty-seven years of age. He has the bearing, grace and dignity of an orator. His name will also go down in history as one of the leading scouts who trailed for General Custer the Indian camp, and as the last of his scouts on the fated field where Custer and his command were slain. At times he is taciturn and solemn, and then bubbles over with mirthfulness.

At the council held on the Crow Reservation, in October, 1907, with reference to the opening of unoccupied lands, Curly uttered this eloquent speech:

"I was a friend of General Custer. I was one of his scouts, and will say a few words. The Great Father in Was.h.i.+ngton sent you here about this land. The soil you see is not ordinary soil-it is the dust of the blood, the flesh, and bones of our ancestors. We fought and bled and died to keep other Indians from taking it, and we fought and bled and died helping the whites. You will have to dig down through the surface before you can find nature's earth, as the upper portion is Crow. The land, as it is, is my blood and my dead; it is consecrated, and I do not want to give up any portion of it."

Accompanied by a group of Indians, Curly came to my tepee when we were camped on the Little Big Horn. The whole company were greatly agitated because an Indian possessed with the spirit of self-importance had gone to Was.h.i.+ngton to make war against other Indians in the tribe who were industrious and loyal home builders. They all made speeches around the campfire, asking my interposition at Was.h.i.+ngton. In his argument Curly said: "Which man would you believe, the man who is trying to raise wheat for the people to get flour and bread from, oats to feed his horses, who builds a house for the shelter and preservation of his family, builds a stable in which to shelter his horses, tills the soil to get the product, trying to raise vegetables so that his people may have something to eat in summer and winter, or the man who would come along and run over this man who was working and trying to do something for his family, and would not work himself, but just run around and make a renegade of himself, quarrelling with his mother and brothers-which man would you believe? A man who quarrels with his mother is not fit for any duty." Gems like these would grace any brightest page of literature, but they are the everyday eloquence of the Indian.

Curly said regarding his early life: "When I was a boy I did not do much.

I was not crazy, but I did not run into mischief. My father and mother always advised me not to get into mischief. My first remembrance of the white man was when I took the skins of buffalo calves into the trading stores and traded with the white man. I thought that was a great thing to do. I had been many times on the trail of the buffalo and had sought opportunity to go on the warpath. When I was about eighteen years old the Crow chiefs made the announcement that there were some United States officers in camp who wanted some Crow scouts. I quickly volunteered. My brother approached us after we started and took myself and Hairy Moccasin and White Swan and told us that we had a secret mission in another district. My brother was then on the warpath. We went as far with my brother as Tongue River and did not see what we were searching for and we came back home. Then the Crow scouts left the agency and camped at Clark's Ford, and Bonnie Bravo and Little Face, Indian scouts and interpreters, met us there. These scouts took us over to General Terry's camp again. The scouts who were with Terry had no horses, for the Sioux had captured them. We had with us eight horses. Then we marched down as far as the Little Rosebud. There one of Terry's officers told us we were to go out and scout for the Sioux camp. We went as far as Tongue River, and Bonnie Bravo was the first one to discover the Sioux camp. Then we came back to the command and reported. General Terry moved his cavalry forward and attempted to ford the Yellowstone River. The water was so high that many of the men and horses were drowned, and the rest came back.

Then Terry asked the scouts to go forward again, and see if the camp was still there. We found that the camp had moved from Tongue River up on the Little Rosebud. After that we reported, and General Terry did not say very much. General Terry then sent Bonnie Bravo and the two scouts back to the camp to procure horses. They sent two other scouts and the army wagons to Crow Agency for provisions. The soldiers did not leave the camp very far for fear of attack by the Sioux, for they kept close watch on them constantly, firing at any soldiers they saw. Then General Terry sent me toward Crow Agency to meet the wagons and the men who were with the horses. After we had met the wagons we stayed there all night and then went on to camp. General Terry then moved his camp, following the Yellowstone down. We were taken clear down to the mouth of the Powder River. White-Man-Runs-Him and another scout did not have any horses, so they got into the boat and went down the river, bringing a dispatch to Terry. The dispatch told us to go back and follow the Yellowstone up again. We went back and camped within ten or twelve miles of the mouth of the Big Horn, near where we had camped before. We stayed there three or four days, and then a steamboat arrived bringing Bouyer, the scout. He told us all to break camp. There were six of us who did the most of the scouting, and out of the six Terry told three of us to go and find the enemy's camp. General Terry and the commander of the infantry were in the ambulance, and Bouyer was there talking with them. Terry sent for Yellow s.h.i.+eld, then Yellow s.h.i.+eld sent for me. Bouyer then asked me who among the Crow scouts did the most scouting. I said White Swan, Hairy Moccasin, and myself. These scouts then camp up and joined me. Yellow s.h.i.+eld then told us that he wanted six men in all. Then we had a conference. We thought of White-Man-Runs-Him, but he had no horse. Then Yellow s.h.i.+eld said he would call White-Man-Runs-Him and Goes-Ahead to join us. After they had called these men they put us on the steamboat and sent us down the river, sending the other Crows home. We were taken down to the mouth of the Little Rosebud by the Yellowstone. We were told after we had had our dinner that we must dress ourselves up and paint up and get ready to scout."

Curly at this point reaches the camp of General Custer, and the remainder of the fascinating story of this warrior, orator, and scout, who followed with unfailing fidelity the fortunes of the United States soldiers, will be told in the chapter on "The Indians' Story of the Custer Fight."

[Goes Ahead-Custer Scout]

Goes Ahead-Custer Scout

Goes-Ahead-Basuk-Ore

Goes-Ahead carries about a tall, attenuated, and weakened frame. He is standing on the verge of yonder land. He is stricken with a fatal disease. In manner he is as quiet and un.o.btrusive as a brooding bird.

When reminiscent his wonted smile disappears, his eye lights up with a strange mysterious fire. He talks straight on like a man who has something to tell and is eager to tell it. We may gain better glimpses of his life if we let him tell his own tale:

"When I was quite a lad I went to war. I was the first in the battle and the others all said: 'There he goes ahead of us.' I have been first in battle ever since and thus I got my name, Goes-Ahead. The greatest pleasure I had when I was a boy, I remember, was in killing wolves. After we had shot the wolf we would run up and put our coup stick on him and play that he was our enemy. Another sport we had was playing buffalo. We divided up and part of the boys would be buffalo and part would be hunters. The boys who were playing buffalo would paw up the dust and we would run after them and shoot arrows at them, and then the buffalo bull would chase us back until he caught one of the boys, then we went on until we conquered the buffalo. When I was a young man we had buffalo skulls with the meat and skin all taken off and we would tie ropes to them and put them on the ice. The girls would sit on the buffalo head and we would draw them along the ice. That was one of our greatest pleasures. I was about fifteen years old when I first went on the war trail. It was in the winter time and I was on foot. I used a bow and arrows and my arrows were not very good. The young fellows who went with me had old Springfields, using powder and bullets. We used to make a shack by the edge of the woods, the others would kill the buffalo and then we would roast the meat by the fire. I used to cut the buffalo meat in strips, and dried it, and then put it in sacks and carried it along for the war party. When we made a little log shelter at night they made me stay by the door where it was cold and I had to do all the cooking for the party. We had no bucket with which to carry water, so when we killed a buffalo we took the tripe and used that for a pail in which to carry water. The scouts of the war party of course were away ahead of us and when we made our shack in the woods they would return at night. If they returned singing we knew that they had buffalo and we would run to get their packs. These scouts got up before daybreak and left the camp on another scouting expedition-they were looking for the enemy to see which way they were moving or what they had been killing. We found the trail by the marks of their old camps. The scouts trailed the enemy until they found the camp, then they returned howling like a wolf as they came near us, and then we knew they had found the enemy. When they approached the camp we made piles of different material and then they shook their guns at the piles and we knew that they were telling the truth, that they had seen the enemy. Then they run over the piles. Then we got ready for the night and stretched our ropes; we took our medicine and tied it on our heads. Then we all stood up in a row and they selected the bravest to take the lead to the camp of the enemy.

Then these braves started on a run, first on a dog trot and then faster and faster until they got their speed, and then we endeavoured to keep up until we reached the enemy's camp. When we got within sight of the camp we would all sit in a row and take off our moccasins and put on new ones.

Then we selected two men to go around to the camp and get all the horses they could capture and bring them back to our party. When these horses were caught and brought back to us we roped and mounted them bareback and rode away as fast as we could, driving the remainder of the horses they had captured. We kept on for days and nights without anything to eat or any rest. After we had reached our camp and had spent the night we painted ourselves and the best horses, mounted them, and started shooting guns in the air; then everybody knew that the war party was back. We rode through the camp on our horses. We did not expect the enemy to pursue us, because we had gone so far and so long that we knew we were out of their reach."

[On the War Trail]

On the War Trail

"My first battle was on the Yellowstone River. I rode a roan horse. I was scouting under General Miles. We found the trail of the Nez Perce Indians. We fought a battle twenty miles north of where Billings is now located. The Nez Perce chased the scouts back. Just at this time our interpreter, Bethune, had quit riding, for his horse had played out and he went on foot. Then many of the Nez Perce dismounted and began to surround Bethune and open fire on him. I thought then his life would be lost and I rode back as fast as I could ride into the midst of the fire, pulled him on the back of my horse and rode away, saving his life."

In his own words Goes-Ahead tells us how he became a scout in the United States Army: "I was a single man and I loved to go on the warpath. The chiefs announced to all the camp asking young men to go to the army officers and enlist as scouts. As I wanted to scout I obeyed the command of my chiefs. The army officers took the names of these young men. The young men whose names were not taken were turned back, but they always took my name, and that is how I came to be a scout." Goes-Ahead tells for us a most graphic story of his share in the Custer fight and his impressions of General Custer in the chapter on "The Indians' Story of the Custer Fight."

[In Battle Line]

In Battle Line

THE INDIANS' STORY OF THE CUSTER FIGHT