History, Manners, and Customs of the North American Indians Part 15

_Brian._ But you had no horse to ride. I was a Sioux; and the Sioux are capital riders too.

_Basil._ And so are the p.a.w.nees, I was a p.a.w.nee in the buffalo hunt.

_Hunter._ It was told me that the Camanchees--and, indeed, some of the p.a.w.nees also--were able, while riding a horse at full gallop, to lie along on one side of him, with an arm in a sling from the horse's neck, and one heel over the horse's back; and that, while the body was thus screened from an enemy, they could use their lances with effect, and throw their arrows with deadly aim. The Camanchees are so much on their horses, that they never seem at their ease except when they are flying across the prairie on horseback.

_Austin._ It would be worth going to the prairies, if it were only to see the Camanchees ride.

_Hunter._ Besides horse-races, the Indians have foot-races and canoe-races and wrestling. The Indians are also very fond of archery, in which, using their bows and also arrows so much as they do, it is no wonder they are very skilful. The game of the arrow is a very favourite amus.e.m.e.nt with them. It is played on the open prairie. There is no target set up to shoot at, as there is generally; but every archer sends his first arrow as high as he can into the air.

_Austin._ Ay, I see! He who shoots the highest in the air is the winner.

_Hunter._ Not exactly so. It is not he who shoots highest that is the victor; but he who can get the greatest number of arrows into the air at the same time. Picture to yourselves a hundred well-made, active young men, on the open prairie, each carrying a bow, with eight or ten arrows, in his left hand. He sends an arrow into the air with all his strength, and then, instantly, with a rapidity that is truly surprising, shoots arrow after arrow upwards, so that, before the first arrow has reached the ground, half a dozen others have mounted into the air. Often have I seen seven or eight shafts from the same bow in the air at once.

_Austin._ Brian, we will try what we can do to-morrow; but we shall never have so many as seven or eight up at once.

_Hunter._ The Indians are famous swimmers, and, indeed, if they were not, it would often go hard with them. They are taught when very young to make their way through the water, and though they do it usually in a manner different from that of white men, I hardly think many white men would equal them, either as to their speed, or the length of time they will continue in the water.

_Austin._ But how do they swim, if their way is different from ours? I can swim a little, and I should like to learn their way, if it is the best.

_Hunter._ I am not quite prepared to say that; for, though red men are more expert swimmers than white men, that may be owing to their being more frequently in the water. They fish a great deal in the lakes; and they have often to cross brooks and rivers in too much haste to allow them to get into a canoe. A squaw thinks but very little of plunging into a rolling river with a child on her back; for the women swim nearly or quite as well as the men.

_Austin._ But you did not tell us wherein their way of swimming is different from ours.

_Hunter._ Whites swim by striking out their legs and both arms at the same time, keeping their b.r.e.a.s.t.s straight against the water; but the Indian strikes out with one arm only, turning himself on his side every stroke, first on one side and then on the other, so that, instead of his broad chest breasting the water in front, he cuts through it sideways, finding less resistance in that way than the other. Much may be said in favour of both these modes. The Indian mode requires more activity and skill, while the other depends more on the strength of the arms, a point in which they far surpa.s.s the Indian, who has had little exercise of the arms, and consequently but comparatively little strength in those limbs. I always considered myself to be a good swimmer, but I was no match for the Indians. I shall not soon forget a prank that was once played me on the Knife River, by some of the Minatarees; it convinced me of their adroitness in the water.

_Basil._ What was it? Did they dip your head under the water?

_Hunter._ No; you shall hear. I was crossing the river in a bull-boat, which is nothing more than a tub, made of buffalo's skin, stretched on a framework of willow boughs. The tub was just large enough to hold me and the few things which I had with me; when suddenly a group of young swimmers, most of them mere children, surrounded me, and began playfully to turn my tub round and round in the stream. Not being prepared to swim, on account of my dress, I began to manifest some fear lest my poor tub should be overturned; but the more fearful I was, the better pleased were my mirthful tormentors.

_Austin._ Ah! I can see it spinning round like a peg-top, in the middle of the river.

_Brian._ And did they upset the tub?

_Hunter._ No. After amusing themselves for some time at my expense, now and then diving under the tub, and then pulling down the edge of it level with the water, on receiving a few beads, or other trifles which I happened to have with me, they drew me and my bull-boat to the sh.o.r.e in safety. They were beautiful swimmers, and, as I told you, I shall not soon forget them.

The dances among the Indians are very numerous; some of them are lively enough, while others are very grave; and, then, most of the tribes are fond of relating adventures.

There are the buffalo dance, the bear dance, the dog dance and the eagle dance. And then there are the ball-play dance, the green corn dance, the beggars' dance, the slave dance, the snow-shoe dance, and the straw dance; and, besides these, there are the discovery dance, the brave dance, the war dance, the scalp dance, the pipe-of-peace dance, and many others that I do not at this moment remember.

_Brian._ You must please to tell us about them all.

_Austin._ But not all at once, or else we shall have too short an account. Suppose you tell us of two or three of them now.

_Hunter._ To describe every dance at length would be tiresome, as many of them have the same character. It will be better to confine ourselves to a few of the princ.i.p.al dances. I have known a buffalo dance continue for a fortnight or longer, day and night, without intermission. When I was among the Mandans, every Indian had a buffalo mask ready to put on whenever he required it. It was composed of the skin of a buffalo's head, with the horns on it; a long, thin strip of the buffalo's hide, with the tail at the end of it, hanging down from the back of the mask.

_Austin._ What figures they would look with their masks on! Did you say that they kept up the dance day and night?

_Hunter._ Yes. The Mandans were strong in their village, but comparatively weak whenever they left it, for then they were soon in the neighbourhood of their powerful enemies. This being the case, when the buffaloes of the prairie wandered far away from them, they were at times half starved. The buffalo dance was to make buffaloes come back again to the prairies near them.

_Brian._ But how could they bring them back again?

_Hunter._ The buffalo dance was a kind of homage paid to the Great Spirit, that he might take pity on them, and send them supplies. The dancers a.s.sembled in the middle of the village, each wearing his mask, with its horns and long tail, and carrying in his hand a lance, or a bow and arrows. The dance began, by about a dozen of them thus attired, starting, hopping, jumping and creeping in all manner of strange, uncouth forms; singing, yelping, and making odd sounds of every description, while others were shaking rattles and beating drums with all their might; the drums, the rattles, the yelling, the frightful din, with the uncouth antics of the dancers, altogether presented such a scene, that, were you once to be present at a buffalo dance, you would talk of it long after, and would not forget it all the days of your lives.

_Basil._ And do they keep that up for a fortnight?

_Hunter._ Sometimes much longer, for they never give over dancing till the buffaloes come. Every dancer, when he is tired, (and this he makes known by crouching down quite low,) is shot with blunt arrows, and dragged away, when his place is supplied by another. While the dance is going on, scouts are sent out to look for buffaloes, and as soon as they are found, a shout of thanksgiving is raised to the Great Spirit, to the medicine man, and to the dancers, and preparation is made for a buffalo hunt. After this, a great feast takes place; all their sufferings from scarcity are forgotten, and they are as prodigal, and indeed wasteful, of their buffalo meat, as if they had never known the want of it.

_Austin._ Well, I should like to see the buffalo dance. Could not we manage one on the lawn, Brian?

_Brian._ But where are we to get the buffalo masks from? The buffalo hunt did very well, but I hardly think we could manage the dance Please to tell us of the bear dance.

_Hunter._ I think it will be better to tell you about that, and other dances, the next time you visit me; for I want to read to you a short account, which I have here, of a poor Indian woman of the Dog-ribbed tribe. I have not said much of Indian women, and I want you to feel kindly towards them. It was Hearne, who went with a party from Hudson's Bay to the Northern Ocean, many years ago, who fell in with the poor woman.

_Basil._ Oh, yes; let us hear all about her; and you can tell us of the dances when we come again.

_Hunter._ Now, then, I will begin. One day in January, when they were hunting, they saw the track of a strange snow-shoe, which they followed, and at a considerable distance came to a little hut, where they discovered a young woman sitting alone. On examination, she proved to be one of the Dog-ribbed Indians, who had been taken prisoner by another tribe, in the summer of 1770; and, in the following summer, when the Indians that took her prisoner were near this place, she had escaped from them, intending to return to her own country. But the distance being so great, and having, after she was taken prisoner, been carried in a canoe the whole way, the turnings and windings of the rivers and lakes were so numerous that she forgot the track; so she built the hut in which she was found, to protect her from the weather during the winter, and here she had resided from the first setting-in of the fall.

_Brian._ What, all by herself! How lonely she must have been!

_Hunter._ From her account of the moons pa.s.sed since her escape, it appeared that she had been nearly seven months without seeing a human face; during all which time she had supplied herself very well, by snaring partridges, rabbits and squirrels: she had also killed two or three beavers, and some porcupines. She did not seem to have been in want, and had a small stock of provisions by her when she was discovered. She was in good health and condition, and one of the finest of Indian women.

_Austin._ I should have been afraid that other Indians would have come and killed her.

_Hunter._ The methods practised by this poor creature to procure a livelihood were truly admirable, and furnish proof that necessity is indeed the mother of invention. When the few deer sinews, that she had an opportunity of taking with her, were expended, in making snares and sewing her clothing, she had nothing to supply their place but the sinews of the rabbits' legs and feet. These she twisted together for that purpose with great dexterity and success. The animals which she caught in those snares, not only furnished her with a comfortable subsistence, but of the skins she made a suit of neat and warm clothing for the winter. It is scarcely possible to conceive that a person in her forlorn situation could be so composed as to be capable of contriving and executing any thing that was not absolutely necessary to her existence; but there was sufficient proof that she had extended her care much farther, as all her clothing, besides being calculated for real service, showed great taste, and exhibited no little variety of ornament. The materials, though rude, were very curiously wrought, and so judiciously placed, as to make the whole of her garb have a very pleasant, though rather romantic appearance.

_Brian._ Poor woman! I should like to have seen her in the hut of her own building, and the clothes of her own making.

_Hunter._ Her leisure hours from hunting had been employed in twisting the inner rind or bark of willows into small lines, like net-twine, of which she had some hundred fathoms by her. With these she intended to make a fishing-net, as soon as the spring advanced. It is of the inner bark of the willows, twisted in this manner, that the Dog-ribbed Indians make their fishing-nets; and they are much preferable to those made by the Northern Indians.

Five or six inches of an iron hoop, made into a knife, and the shank of an arrow-head of iron, which served her as an awl, were all the metals this poor woman had with her when she escaped; and with these implements she had made herself complete snow-shoes, and several other useful articles.

_Austin._ Capital! Why, she seems able to do every thing.

_Hunter._ Her method of making a fire was equally singular and curious, having no other materials for that purpose than two hard stones. These, by long friction and hard knocking, produced a few sparks, which at length communicated to some touch-wood. But as this method was attended with great trouble, and not always successful, she did not suffer her fire to go out all the winter.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Indian Canoes.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _c_, drum. _d, d_, rattles. _e_, drum. _f_, mystery whistle. _g_, deer-skin flute.]

CHAPTER XII.

Never, sure, did young people make a more grotesque appearance, than did Austin, Brian, and Basil Edwards, in their attempt to get up a buffalo dance. Each had a mat over his shoulders, and a brown paper mask over his face; two wooden pegs on a string made a very respectable pair of horns; bows and arrows were in abundance; a toy rattle and drum, with the addition of an iron spoon and a wooden trencher, supplied them with music; and neither Mandan, p.a.w.nee, Crow, Sioux, Blackfoot, nor Camanchee, could have reasonably complained of the want of either noise or confusion.

Then, again, they were very successful in bringing buffaloes, without which the dance, excellent as it was, would have been but an unsatisfactory affair. Black Tom had been prudently shut up in the tool-house, and Jowler tied up to a tree hard by, so that, when it became expedient for buffaloes to appear, the house of Black Tom was opened, and Jowler was set at liberty. All things considered, the affair went off remarkably well.