Three Years on the Plains

E >> Edmund B. Tuttle >> Three Years on the Plains

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Dog-soldiers were with them, well equipped for a big fight, and these
white men beguiled, would all have been slain only for Mo-ke-ta-va-ta.
A "dog-soldier" is a youth who has won, gradually, by successful use of
the bow and arrow, a position to use the gun, and stand to the warriors
just as our police force do to us, in guarding property, etc. These
boys have a stick, called a "coo," on which they make a notch for
everything they kill,--a kind of tally,--and when the coo is of a
certain length, they are promoted to the rank of a "dog-soldier."

INDIANS DON'T BELIEVE HALF THEY HEAR.

When several chiefs are allowed to visit Washington on errands for
their tribes, to get more given them, they tell their people how
numerous are the children of their Great Father they have met on their
way, and what big guns they saw, etc. But those at home believe it is a
lie, gotten up by the "white man's medicine," as they call it. All have
heard of a young chief whose father gave a stick, on which he should
cut a notch for every white man he met. But it soon got full, and he
threw it away.

The most amusing experience is told of a lot of Indians having been
induced to go into a photographer's and have their likenesses taken.
The operator asked a chief to look at his squaw (sitting for her phiz)
through the camera. It looks as though one was sitting, or rather
standing on his head,--reversing one's position. The chief was very
angry at seeing his squaw in such an uncomely attitude, and he walked
over and beat her. She denied it, but he saw it. He looked again, and
again she was turned upside down. He said it was the white man's
medicine, and would have nothing to do with it!

An Indian boy was asked some questions by one of the Peace
Commissioners about some trouble, and he said to a chief, "Does the boy
tell the truth?"

"Yes," replied the chief, "you may believe what he says; he never saw a
white man before!"

ARMY OFFICERS.

The army officers are generally friends of the Indians. They are
certainly, as a rule, just to the well-behaved Indians, and ready to
sacrifice their lives in punishing bad ones.

General W. S. Harney, a retired army officer, is among the most noted.
His life will be a most interesting one, full of adventure with the red
men. General Harney graduated at West Point when nineteen years old,
was sent out to the frontier, where he has lived fifty years. Grown
gray in their companionship, and cradled in experience with the Indian
tribes, says "I never knew an Indian chief to break his word!"

Major-General George H. Thomas, who commanded at Camp Cooper, Texas,
some ten years ago, made a forced march of a hundred miles, with one
hundred and twenty cavalry, to protect a village of Comanches from
Baylor and three thousand rangers that were marching to destroy them.
General Thomas was successful. He then marched in rear of the Indians
hundreds of miles to shield them from the Texans. This gallant and
chivalric officer died with a reputation dear to our country.

Major-General John Sedgwick, who fell during the war of the rebellion,
rendered similar services on the plains, in defense of the Arapahoes,
at about the same time; and Colonel Edward W. Wynkoop, five years
later, in behalf of the Cheyennes.

Other officers might be mentioned for similar services, among them
Generals Z. Taylor, W. S. Harney, and Alfred H. Terry. The last
mentioned, two years ago, with a strong head, heart, and hand,
squelched a conspiracy in Montana to exterminate the Crow Indians.
Again, the next summer, flying across the plains, and up the Missouri
river as fast as steam could carry him, to rescue a Sioux village from
the border settlers. This splendid officer was removed from the command
of the Department of Dakota, to make room for Hancock.

Captain Silas S. Soule, in Colorado, a few years ago, and Lieutenant
Philip Sheridan, in Oregon, ten years since, might also be referred to
in this connection, as drawing their swords in defense of the Indians
and the right.

WHAT SHALL BE DONE?

The question is, How can the problem be solved, so as to best protect
and secure the rights of the Indians, and at the same time promote the
welfare of both races?

Within the memory of the writer, the tomahawk once reflected the light
of burning cabins along the Tennessee, Ohio, Illinois, and Missouri
Rivers, and the scalping-knives dripped with the blood of our border
settlers, as we have driven the Indians back, back, to the setting sun!

But behold the change to-day, where the church has missions, and the
red men are treated like immortal beings, with souls to be saved.

Mr. Wm. Welsh says of what he saw in Nebraska: "The blanket and bow
discarded; the spear is broken, and the hatchet and war-club lie
buried. The skin-lodge (tepee) has given place to the cottage and the
mansion. Among the Santee Sioux, on Niobrara River, in Nebraska, the
Episcopal Church has a mission, where one can see the murderous weapons
and the conjuror's charms, by aid of which the medicine-man wrought his
fiendish arts.

"That is the _pipe-stem_,--never smoked except on the war-path,--always
blackened, being associated with deeds of darkness.

"These," he says, "are laid at the feet of our Christian missionaries,
such as Bishops Whipple and Clarkson, and Rev. Mr. Hinman; where
school-houses abound, and the feet of many thousand little children,
thirsting after knowledge, are seen entering those vestibules of
science; while churches, consecrated to the Christian's God, reflect
for miles the sun's rays, tokens of a brighter light to their darkened
heathen souls!

"Dear children, thanks to our holy religion, a few faithful men, taking
their lives in their hands, have gone forth at the church's
call,--bearing precious seed,--struggled and toiled, endured severe
privations, afflictions, and trials, and saved in tears the germs of
light, truth, and hope, which to-day have ripened into a glorious
harvest of intelligence and Christian civilization! Christ said, 'It
must needs be that offenses come, but woe unto that man by whom the
offense cometh.'"

Now, if the wrongs accumulated, done to the poor, ignorant pagan
Indians for years and years since the Mayflower landed her pilgrims on
these shores, are to be redressed in this world (for there is no
repentance for nations after), and if a God of justice so require that
we atone to them, or suffer greater torments from their children, who
shall say it is not a righteous retribution?

If we find them fierce, hostile, and revengeful, if they are cruel, and
sometimes perpetrate atrocities that sicken the soul, and almost
paralyze us with horror,--burning and pillaging,--let us remember that
two hundred and fifty years of injustice, oppression, and wrong, heaped
upon them by _our_ race, with cold, calculating, and relentless
perseverance, have filled them with the passion of revenge and made
them desperate. If you and I, boys, were Indians, we would do just as
Indians do. _Their tender mercies are cruel, but there is a reason why
it is so._

The former Indian agents, on a salary of eighteen hundred dollars a
year, got very rich in a short time. How could they do so but by
swindling the poor Indians, who have no idea of the relative value of
money, or the cost of goods?

Not long since a tribe just above us was paid off their annuities in
shoddy blankets; they were bought back again with whisky, and another
tribe was paid with the same blankets; and one agent took out several
thousand "elastics" (girls know what I mean) to pay the Indians (among
other things), and yet no wild Indian ever wore a stocking!

Again, as the Indian is crowded back beyond the tide of emigration, and
hanging like the froth of the billows upon the very edge is generally a
host of law-defying whites, who introduce among the Indians every form
of demoralization and disease with which depraved humanity in its most
degraded form is afflicted. These the Indian see more of than anybody
else (except the military, whom they look upon mostly as protectors),
as good people come along, the Indian must _push on_, still farther
toward the setting sun!

A GOOD JOKE BY LITTLE RAVEN.

Little Raven, an Arapahoe chief, laughed heartily when we told him
something about heaven and hell; remarking, "All good men--white and
red men--would go to heaven; all bad men, white or red, would go to
hell." 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 hardships 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 hardship 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 entitled 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 cassimere 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 fishing, 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 nobody.

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 superstitious
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 worship.

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 fashion,--_i.e._ with paint on his
face, feathers in his hair, and brass 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."

INDIANS MAKING SIGNALS.

The Indians can make signals to the distance of eight or ten miles to
their confederates. This is done in two ways: first, by lighting one or
more fires; secondly, by flashing the sunlight by small mirrors from
one bluff to another. Thus, by day or by night, they can communicate at
great distances. They have "field-glasses" also.

If an Indian is benighted on the plains, he can make himself quite
comfortable, where a white man would perish in the winter with cold. He
will gather some buffalo chips, and strike a fire with a flint, sitting
close to it, and throwing his blanket around him in shape of a tent,
and let the smoke go out of a hole at the top. He thus looks at night
like a stump on fire.

MERCIFUL INDIANS.

A poor old German was traveling in Colorado with his wagon, when he was
set upon by a lot of Indians. They drew their bows to shoot him, when
he dropped upon his knees and began to pray vehemently. "Oh," said he,
"mine goot friends, please don't shoot me! I'm joost the best friends
what you have got. I never killed not nobody, and please don't shoot a
poor fellow like me." The Indians did not understand a word he said,
but he acted in such a ludicrous manner, they thought he was crazy, and
so they let him pass unharmed. They seemed to have a sense of the
ludicrous, as they went off laughing at the poor Dutchman quite
heartily.

A SCENE AT NORTH PLATTE.

After the treaty with the Indians at Fort Laramie, in 1868, the Peace
Commission adjourned, part to go with General Sherman to New Mexico, a
part to meet at Fort Rice, Dakota, with General Terry, part to go up to
Fort Bridger, in Wyoming, with General Augur, and another with
Commissioner Taylor at North Platte, Nebraska, to meet different tribes
not present at Laramie. There I went to see Spotted Tail's band, and
learn all I could of Indian life. Spotted Tail was off on the
Republican River, in Kansas, hunting buffalo with White Bear and
Man-who-owns-his-Horses, nephew of Spotted Tail. Mr. Goodell, of
Chicago, was there, to see if he could not induce the Indians to
undertake the weaving of blankets and shawls, etc. by hand-looms, such
as are in use in the Ohio Penitentiary. I went with him to hear what
they would say. Rolled up in a blanket were specimens of woolen yarn of
bright colors, and a piece of cloth partly woven, and he had a picture
of a girl sitting at the loom in the act of weaving. Around us gathered
all the young squaws, who expressed great delight at the whole thing
and seemed to comprehend it; while young Indian lads stood at a
distance and only gave a grunt of qualified satisfaction, or
reservation. I should think there would be no difficulty in introducing
such work, as the squaws will readily labor on anything that promises
to add to their comfort or adornment of their persons.

Then quite an amusing incident occurred, which I must relate, though
the joke was upon myself, or my friend, Mr. G----. Seeing a tall young
squaw standing in front of her tent, I said, "Let us go and see what
she is doing." She had made her morning toilet, and was very prettily
dressed in gay colors, with a long red shawl on, coming down to her
feet. I should say the entrance to the tepees or tents is through a
hole hidden by a round hoop, covered with deer-skin, hanging by a
string only, so as to be thrust aside easily when one wants to enter.

I said to her, "Me wa-se-na-cha-wa-kon!" That is to say, I am a
medicine-man, or minister of the Great Spirit. "Wa-kon" means Great
Spirit. Looking first at me, then at Mr. G----, she raised her finger
and said, "Me no want." Then she turned and rushed into her tent,--shot
in like a prairie-dog into his hole,--leaving us to feel rather silly
by being so suddenly "cut" by a young beauty on the plains. I said,
"Mr. G----, she evidently don't like your good looks or mine," and we
walked off quite mortified. The interpreter explained her conduct,
saying she was not "sick," and therefore did not want any "charm" to
make her well.

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