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THIRTY YEARS
I'M x'^. '^
OF
ARMY LIFE ON THE BORDER.
COMPRISING
DESCRIPTIONS OF THE INDIAN NOMADS OF THE PLAINS;
EXPLORATIONS OF NEW TERRITORY;
A TRIP ACROSS THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS IN THE WINTER;
DESCRIPTIONS OF THE HABITS OF DIFFERENT ANIMALS FOUND IN THE WEST, AND THE METHODS OF HUNTING THEM ;
WITH INCIDENTS IN THE LIFE OF DIFFERENT FRONTIER MEN,
&o., &o.
BY COLONEL R. b/mAECT, U. S. A.,
ADTHOR OF "THE PKAIKIE TRAVELEK."
JEJ^ftj) "Numerous Jtllustrations,
NEW YORK:
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS,
KRANKLI.N SQUARE.
1866.
///-^ /^ ^, /;a
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one tliousand eight hundred and sixty-six, by
HARPER & BROTHERS,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of
Now York.
31/^ £j
4
-^>'.'
INTRODUCTORY.
In this age of many books, it is hardly possible that any new publication can need an apology or an explanation. I have been persuaded by many friends that the contents of the book which is herewith presented to the public are not without value as records of a fast vanishing age, and as truthful sketches of men of various races, whose memory will shortly depend only on romance, unless some one who knew them shall undertake to leave outlines of their pecul- iar characteristics.
More than thirty years of service in the United States Army, a large portion of the time on the frontiers, on the prairies, or among the far Western mountains, have given me some experience in the life of the frontiersman, as well as made me the frequent companion of the hardy trappers, the pioneers, the advance-guards of civilization, while it has been necessary for me to meet on either friendly or hostile terms nearly all the aboriginal tribes of the prairies.
If any excuse were needed for the publication of sketches somewhat desultory and disconnected as these will prove, I am persuaded that excuse may be found in ihe simple fact that all these subjects of my descriptid^ — men, condi- tions of life, races of aboriginal inhabitants, and adventur- ous hunters and pioneers^are passing away. A few years more, and the prairie will be transformed into farms, the
X INTKODUCTORY.
mountain ravines will be the abodes of busy manufactur- ers, the aboriginal races will have utterly disappeared, and the gigantic power of American civilization will have taken possession of the land from the great river of the West to the very shores of the Pacific. It can not be entirely in vain that any one contributes that which he knows from personal experience, however little, to aid in preserving the memory of the people and the customs of the West in the middle of the nineteenth century. The wild animals that abound on the great plains to-day will soon be as unknown as the Indian hunters who have for centuries pursued them. The world is fast filling up. I trust I am not in error when I venture to place some value, however small, on every thing which goes to form the truthful history of a condi- tion of men incident to the advance of civilization over the continent — a condition which forms peculiar types of char- acter, produces remarkable developments of human nature — a condition, also, which can hardly again exist on this or any other continent, and which has therefore especial value in the sum of human history. This is the only apology which I have to offer for the anecdotes of persons and the sketches of frontier life which I have ventured to make a part of this volume. Such people will probably not again be found in the future life of the race, and unless some rec- ord be made of them, it is by no means certain that genera- tions to come will not regard them as solely the creatures of fiction, in whose pages they have for the most part hith- erto been described.
The portions of the volume devoted to relations of per- sonal adventure, as well as those which refer to the gener- al characteristics of the Western country, to modes of travel
INTRODUCTORY. xi
and life on the prairies, the advice 1 have given to those who may be called, either in public service or for private purposes, to cross the great plains, the accounts of hunting, and descriptions of Western game and the methods of pur- suing and killing it — all these parts of the volume are of- fered to the public in the hope that they may have prac- tical value, and be of public as well as private benefit.
•
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
THE INDIANS OF THK PLAINS.
The Indians of the Plains not described in Bancroft's History.— Different in Habits from the Eastern Tribes. — First discovered by Coronado. — Simi- larity in Habits with the Arabs. — Pantomimic Language. — Characteristics of diiferent Tribes Page 17
CHAPTER II.
COMANCHE INDIANS.
Comanche Indians. — Local Subdivisions of the Tribe. — Nomads. — Dimin- nishing in Numbers. — Fear of visiting the Whites. — Courtship. — Poly- gamy.— Is-sa-keep. — Receiving Guests. — Council. — Singular Custom. — Propensity for Horse-racing. — Kickapoo Horse-race. — War Expeditions. — Method of Recruiting. — Mexican Prisoners. — Parker Family. — Treat- ment of Negroes. — Visit to the Fort. — Mourning Ceremonies. — Ideas of the Bible. — Opinion of the Whites. — Medicine Lodges. — Ideas of their own Importance. — Way to treat them. — Belief in the Deity 43
CHAPTER IlL
INDIAN WARFARE.
Indian Warfare. — French Army in Algeria. — Turkish Method of Warfare. — Tracking Indians. — Telegraphing by Smokes. — Delawares, Shawnees, and Kickapoos. — Guides in the Great Desert. — The Khebir. — Delaware's Idea of the Compass. — Black Beaver. — Jealousy of his Wife. — Coman- che's Ideas of the Whites. — John Bushman. — Marriage Relations. — Jim Ned. — Great Horse-thief. — Comanche Law. — Juan Galvan. — Kickapoos good Hunters. — Respect for Law 67
B
XIV CONTENTS.
CHAPTER IV.
PUEBLO INDIANS.
Pueblo Indians. — Early Discovery. — Situations of their Towns. — Moquis. — Coronado's Expedition. — Visit to Santa Domingo. — Laguna. — Christmas Ceremonies. — Church Services. — Bird Orchestra. — Dances. — Moqui Vil- lages.— Peculiar Dances. — Feasting. — Origin of the Moquis. — Marriage Ceremony. — Estufas. — Pottery. .— Extensive Ruins. — Large Houses. — Casas Grandes Page 97
CHAPTER V.
EED RIVEE EXPEDITION.
Red River Expedition. — Order. — Early Efforts to explore it, — Navigable Portion. — Copper Ores. — New Ore. — Dr. Hitchcock's Opinion. — Great Gypsum Belt.— Cause of bad Taste in the Water. — Witchita Mountains. — Extent of Choctaw Reservation. — Beautiful Country. — Visit of Witche- taws.— Buffaloes.— Comanche Trails.— Buffalo Chase.— Panther killed. — Unaccountable Appearance of Water. — South Winds. —Encamping. — Head of North Fork. — Visit to Canadian River. — Mirage.— Head of Salt 'FoYk.—Lan.o-Estacado. — Prairie Dog Town. — Leaving the Train. — Bad Water. — Suffering from the Effects of bad Water. — Reach the Head of the main Fork of Red River. — Beautiful Scenery. — Bears. — Remarkable Canon 114
CHAPTER VI. Turning homeward. — Peculiar Basin. — Another Panther killed. — Witchita Mountains. — Mount Scott. — Buffalo Chase. — Witchetaw Villages. — Fine Soil. — Reported Massacre. — Mexican Prisoners. — Accused of Horse-steal- ing.— Arrival at Fort Arbuckle. — Anxiety of Friends. — Review of Char- acteristics of the Country passed over. — Ranges of the Indians 154
CHAPTER VII.
INDIAN RESERVATIONS.
Arrival at Fort Belknap. — Troubles of the Small Tribes of Texas. — Jose Maria. — Council. — Major Neighbors. — Wolf Dance. — Comanche Visit to the Tonkawas. — Admiration for the Major's Wardrobe. — Enlists in a War Expedition. — Little Witchita River.— Big Witchita River, — Perilous Position of Major Neighbors. — Head of Big Witchita. — Bad Water. — Reach Brazos River. — Head of the Brazos. — Abundance of Game. — Ke- tumsee. — Clear Fork of the Brazos. — Council. — Location of the Reserva- tions.— Summary. — Double Mountain Fork. — Mesquit Tree. — Mesquit Gum. — Civilizing Comanches 170
CONTENTS. XV
CHAPTER VIII.
WINTER EXPEDITION OVER THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS.
Winter Expedition over the Kocky Mountains. — Objects of the Expedition. — General Scott's Opinions. — Leaving Fort Bridger. — Desertion of Indian Guide. — Descending Mountain. — Singular Corral. — Reach Grand River. — Ute Indians. — Commence the Ascent of the Rocky Mountains. — Snow. — Cache Luggage. — Mules giving out and dying. — Provisions consumed. — Commence eating Mules. — Ptarmigan. — Getting lost. — New Guide. — Excellent Conduct of the Soldiers. — Destitute Condition. — Bivouac. — Reach the Summit of the Mountains. — Send Messengers to Fort Massa- chusetts.— Return of the Messengers. — Joy of the Party. — Mariano. — Overeating. — Arrival at Fort Massachusetts. — Arrival at Taos. — Compar- ative Qualities of different Animals in Snow Page 224
CHAPTER IX.
RETURN TRIP TO UTAH.
Return Trip to Utah. — Route of the March. — Organization of the Party. — Order to Halt. — Fonta'me-qid-bouilk. — Herd of Elk. — Arrival of Re-en- forcements.— Terrible Snow-storm. — Stampede. — Storms. — Platte River. — DenvefCity. — Arrival at Fort Bridger. — Entrance into Salt Lake City. — Scarcity of Mormons. — Salt Lake. — Bathing. — Mormon Industry. — Proclamation by Brigham Young. — Mormon Depredations. — Order of Daniel H. Wells. — Interview with Captain Van Vliet. — Tone of the Pul- pit and Press. — Benediction by Heber Kimball 251
CHAPTER X.
UNEXPLORED TERRITORY.
Unexplored Territory. — Lack of geographical Information in 1849. — Wagon Road from Fort Smith. — New Road from Dona Ana. — Great Canon of the Colorado. — Visit of the Spaniards. — Mr. Kern's Opinions. — Tall Race of Men. — Height of the Canon. — Attempts to explore it. — Splendid Scen- ery. — Mineral Considerations. — Method for exj)loring the Canon sug- gested 276
CHAPTER XI.
HUNTING.
Hunting. — Its Benefits to the Soldier. — Disposition of Fire-arms. — Nama- quas. — Tracking. — Horse Tracks. — Elk Hunt. — Faculties of Indians. — Deer Hunting. — Rifles. — Antelope. — Bear. — Lassoing Grizzlies. — Am- ateur Sportsman. — Big -Horn. — Buffalo. — Rapidly diminishing. — H. H. Sibley's Remarks. — Range of the Buffalo. — Chasing on Horseback. —
XVI CONTENTS,
Stalking. — Winter Hunting. — The Beaver. — The Prairie Dog. — Hints to Sportsmen Page 283
CHAPTER XII.
PIONEERS OP THE WEST.
Pioneers of the West. — Frontier Settlers. — Night at a Log Cabin. — Effects of drinking Mint Juleps. — A young Cadefs Arrival at West Point. — Prai- rie Belle. — Texas Surveyor. — Dinner in Arkansas. — Night in Arkansas. — New Use of Tea. — Yankee Curiosity illustrated. — Propensity for roam- ing.— Meeting a Fellow-statesman in Mexico. — An old Acquaintance. — Southern Curiosity. — Virginia Hospitality. — Pervcrtion of the English Language. — Arrival in the Settlements in 1849. — A Texas Clergyman's Experience. — Frontier Settlers of Texas. — Major Neighbors's Experience. — The Six-man Team. — Texas Volunteers. — Recuperative Character of the Frontiersman illustrated 35G
CHAPTER XIII.
MOUNTAINEERS.
Mountaineers. — Jim Bridger. — His Troubles with the "Danites." — Sir George Gore. — Tim Goodale and Jim Baker. — Bear Fight. — Singular Duel. — Mariano. — Mr. Clyburn. — His Adventures in the Mountains. — His Return to the Settlements. — Narrow Escape on Rock River. — Indian Law 399
CHAPTER XIV.
CAPTAIN MARTIN SCOTT.
Captain Martin Scott. — The Coon Story. — The Bear-hunter. — The Hoi'se- race. — Courting Days. — Rifle and Pistol Shooting. — His Duel. — Expedi- tion with E.xplorers. — Hunting in Texas. — Wonderful Dog. — "Tally Ho !" — Return Home to Bennington. — His Death 424
THIRTY YEARS OF ARMY LIFE ON THE BORDER.
CHAPTER I.
THE INDIANS OF THE PLAINS.
The Indians of the Plains not described in Bancroft's History. — Different in Habits from the Eastern Tribes. — First discovered by Coronado. — Simi- larity in Habits with the Arabs. — Pantomimic Language. — Characteristics of different Tribes.
In the third volume of Bancroft's History of the United States may be found a very circumstantial, comprehensive, and reliable account of the aborigines, who, from the time of the advent of Europeans, have inhabited that portion of our territory lying east of the Mississippi River, and the author, in this connection, has presented many highly in- teresting facts relative to their habits, languages, institu- tions, and religions ; but, with the exception of a brief allu- sion to the partially civiliz.ed eastern Sioux or Dacotahs, he as yet has said nothing concerning the Comanche, Kio- way, Cheyenne, and other numerous and warlike tribes that range over the great plains west of the Mississippi.
Several years' service in the district of country frequent- ed by this peculiar type of the Indian race has frequently thrown me in contact with different tribes, and thereby af- forded me good opportunities for observing their peculiari- ties and habits, and for collecting the facts which follow.
Whatever common anatomical or phrenological charac- teristics physiologists may have detected in the skulls of the great families of the Algonquin, Iroquois, Cherokee, or
B*
18 DISCOVERY OF THE PRAIRIE INDIANS.
Catawba tribes, and those of the natives on the Pacific Coast, yet between the habits, languages, and institutions of the Eed Men who roam over the Plains, and those of the Indians so elaborately described by our distinguished histo- rian, there exists as wide a contrast as can be found be- tween the Bedouins of the desert and the denizens- of Lon- don, Paris, or New York,
The earliest information we have of the prairie tribes is contained in Castenada's account of the daring expedition of Coronado, which was sent out from Cicuya, New Mexico, in search of the " golden city" of Quivera, during the sum- mer of 1541.
After marching for several days, the party encountered "an Arab people called Querechos, who lived in buffalo- skin tents, and subsisted exclusively on the raw flesh of those animals." Continuing their march in an easterly di- rection, the Spaniards reached extensive plains, covered with countless herds of buffalo and their erratic enemies, the Indian nomads of the prairies. These people had no horses then, but they possessed great numbers of dogs, which were used to transport their luggage as they follow- ed the migrations of the buffalo. They were a mild, peace- able race of people, who extended to the Spaniards the warmest hospitality and friendship, and they were not ad- dicted to those horrible practices which prevailed among some of the Indians in New Mexico and Sonora. They "jerked" or dried the meat, and made the pemmican, at that early period, in precisely the same manner as it is pre- pared at the present day by the half-breeds upon the Eed Eiver of the North, and they still continue to use the dogs as pack animals.
From this it appears that the Indians seen by the Spanish explorers were the same type of aborigines as are now found roaming over the vast prairies of North America, and with
HABITS OF THE NATIVES. 19
the exception of the changes incident to the introduction of the horse, their habits and manner of living in the six- teenth century were precisely the same as they are at the present moment. The whimsical caprices of fashion hold no tyrannical sway over their beaux and belles. They are not obliged to send three thousand miles- to ascertain what particular colored ribbon would be authorized to adorn a bonnet during the succeeding month, or what spe- cial style of neck-tie would meet the approbation of the heau monde in Paris, The material and cut of their gar- ments to-day are precisely the same as they were three hundred years ago ; indeed, so uniform and permanent is their method of conducting all the affairs of life, that an expert has only to examine the remains of an old camp- fire, or even a moccasin, in order to determine what partic- ular tribe of Indians passed that way.
The habits of all the prairie tribes assimilate very closely to each other in some respects, as, for example, they all fol- low the buffaloes ; use the bow and arrow, lance and shield ; take the war-path, and fight their battles mounted on horse- back, in the open prairie; transport their lodges and all their worldly effects wherever they go ; never till the ground, but subsist exclusively on fresh-meat diet. . All use the sweat or medicine lodges, and religiously believe in the efficacy of incantations and jugglery in curing diseases, preparing for war, the chase, etc. On the contrary, the na- tives of the Eastern States, from the time of the first dis- covery of the country, lived in permanent villages, where they cultivated fields of corn, and possessed strong attach- ment for their ancestral abodes and sepulchres. Seldom wandering far from home, they did not use horses, but al- ways made their war and hunting expeditions on foot, and sought the cover of trees on going into action.
In their treatment of prisoners of war there has been
20 ARABS AND PRAIRIE INDIANS.
also a very marked dissimilarity. The Eastern aborigines, although they put their victims to tortures of the most ap- palling character, seldom, if ever, violated the chastity of the females ; while, on the contrary, the prairie Indians do not put their prisoners to death by prolonged tortures, but invariably compel the females to submit to their lewd em- braces. I have known of .several well-authenticated in- stances wliere their barbarous treatment of females has proved this conclusively.
As there seems to be a most striking physical similitude between the deserts of Arabia, and the steppes of Central Asia, and the prairie mesas of our own country, a marked resemblance is also observed in the habits and customs of tlie respective inhabitants. The Arabs of the desert, the Tartar tribes, and the aboriginal occupants of the prairies, are alike wanderers, having no permanent abiding-places, transporting their lodges or tents wherever they go, and where these are pitched there are their homes. They alike permit no authorities to control them but such as receive the unanimous sanction of the masses, and the rule of their leaders is guided by the counsels of their wise old men, who in many instances allay dissensions and curb the impetuos- ity of ambitious younger warriors, whose thirst for fame would otherwise involve the nation in protracted wars. Their government is essentially patriarchal, guided by wise and fraternal councils. They are insensible to the wants and luxuries of civilization, and know neither poverty nor riches, vice or virtue, and are alike exempt from the de- plorable vicissitudes of fortune. Theirs is a happy state of social equality, which knows not the perplexities of po- litical ambition or the crimes of avarice. They are alike the most expert horsemen in the world, and possess the same fond attachment for the animal. I once made an ef- fort to purchase a favorite horse from a chief of one of the
BEDOUIN HORSE. 21
bands of the Southern Comanches (Se-na-co), and olBfered him a large price, but he could not be persuaded to part with him. He said the animal was one of the fleetest in their possession, and if he were to sell him it would prove a calamity to his whole band, as it often required all the speed of this animal to insure success in the buffalo chase ; that his loss would be felt by all his people, and he would be regarded as very foolish ; moreover, he said (patting his favorite on the neck), "I love him very much."
The like estimation in which the horse is held among the Eastern nomads is illustrated in a very interesting story related by Mr. W. C. Prime in his " Boat Life in Egypt and Nubia." He says : " Speaking of horses as we rode along, one of the governor's officers told me a story of an old sheik of the Bedouins that I have seen in print in two or three forms, but never precisely in this :
" He was old and poor. The latter virtue is common to his race. He owned a tent, a Nubian slave, and a mare ; nothing else. The mare was the fleetest animal on the des- ert. From the Nile to the Euphrates fame of this animal had gone out, and kings had sought in vain to own her. The love of the Bedouin for his horse is not that fabled af- fection that we read of in books. This love is the same af- fection that an American nabob has for his gold, or rather that a poor laborer has for his wages. His horse is his life. He can rob, plunder, kill, and destroy ad libitum if he have a fleet steed. If he have none, he can do nothing, but is the prey of every one who has. Acquisition is a prominent feature of Arab character, but accumulation is not found in the brain of a son of Ishmael. The reason is obvious. If he have wealth he has nowhere to keep it. He would be robbed in the night. He would, indeed, have no desire to keep it ; for the Bedouin who murders you for a shawl, or a belt, or some gay trapping, will give it away the next day.
22 NUBIAN SLAVE.
"Living this wandering life, tlie old sheik was rich in this one mare, which was acknowledged to be the fleetest horse in Arabia.
"Ibrahim Pasha wished the animal, as his father had wished before him. He sent various offers to the old sheik, but in vain. At length he sent a deputation, with five hundred purses (a purse is five pounds), and the old man laughed at them.
" ' Then,' said Ibrahim Pasha, ' I will take your mare.'
" ' Try it.'
" He sent a regiment into the desert, and the sheik rode around them, and laughed at them, and the regiment came home.
" At last the sheik died from a wound received in a fray with a neighboring tribe. Dying, he gave to his Nubian slave all that he had — this priceless mare — and the duties of the blood revenge.
"The faithful slave accepted both, and has ever since been the terror of the Eastern desert. Yearly he comes down like a hawk on the tents of that devoted tribe, and leaves a ball or a lance in man or woman. No amount of blood satisfies his revenge ; and the mare and the black rider are as celebrated in Arabia as the wild huntsman in European forests, and much better known."
The only property of these people, with the exception of a few articles belonging to their domestic economy, consists entirely in horses and mules, of which they possess great numbers. These are mostly pillaged from the Mexicans, as is evident from the brand which is found upon them. The most successful horse-thieves among them own from fifty to two hundred animals.
In their political and domestic relations there is also a similarity to the Old World nomads. They are governed by a chief, the tenure of whose office is hereditary so long
AVAR EXPEDITIONS. 23
as his administration meets tlie approbation of his follow- ers. He leads them to war, and presides at their delibera- tions in council ; but should he disgrace himself by any act of cowardice or maladministration, they do not hesitate to depose him and place a more competent man in his stead. Their laws are such as are adapted to their peculiar situa- tion, and are sanctioned by the voice of the people. Their execution is vested in the subordinate chiefs, or captains, as they are called, and they are promptly and rigidly enforced. In respect to the rights of property, their code is strictly Spartan. They are perhaps as arrant freebooters as can be found upon the face of the earth ; and they regard stealing from strangers as perfectly legitimate and honorable, and that man who has been most successful in this is the most highly honored by his tribe ; indeed, a young man who has not made one or more of these expeditions into Mexico is held in but little repute. In evidence of this, I was told by an old chief of the Northern Comanches, called Is-sa- keep, that he was the father of four sons, who he said were as fine young men as could be found ; that they were a great source of comfort to him in his old age, and could steal more horses than any young men in his band.
As these forays are often attended with much toil and danger, they are called " war expeditions." It not unfre- quently happens that but six or eight young men set out upon one of these adventures, and the only outfit each re- quires is a horse, with the war equipments, consisting of the bow and arrows, lance and shield, with occasionally a gun. Thus prepared, they set out upon a journey of a thousand miles or more, through a perfectly wild and deso- late country, dependent for subsistence wholly upon such game as they may chance to find. They make their way to the northern provinces of Mexico, where they lie in wait near some hacienda until a favorable opportunity offers to
24 BOW AND ARROW.
sweep down upon a solitary herdsman, and, with the most terrific yells, drive before them all the animals they desire. Wo to the panic-stricken ranchero who fails to make a precipitate retreat, as they invariably kill such -men as of- fer the slightest impediment to their operations, and take women and children prisoners, whom they hold in bondage of the most servile character. They are sometimes absent from their tribes two years or more before their success is sufficient to justify their returning with credit to them- selves.
The use of the bow, which is the favorite arm and con- stant appendage of the prairie Indian, and which he makes use of exclusively in hunting the buffalo, is taught the boys at a very early age ; and by constant and careful practice, they acquire a degree of proficiency in the art that renders them, when grown up to manhood, formidable in war, as well as successful in the chase. Their bows are made of the tough and elastic wood of the "bois d'arc," or Osage orange {Madura auraniiaca), strengthened and re-enforced with the sinews of the deer wrapped firmly around them, and strung with a cord made of the same material. They are not more than one half the length of the old English long-bow, which was said to have been sixteen hands' breadth in length. The arrows are twenty inches long, of flexible wood, with a triangular point of iron at one end, and two feathers, intersecting each other at right angles, at the opposite extremity. At short distances the bow, in the hands of the Indian, is effective, and frequently throws the arrow entirely through the huge carcass of the buffalo. In using this instrument, the Indian warrior protects himself from the missiles of an enemy with a shield of circular form, covered with two thicknesses of hard, undressed buf- falo hide, separated by a space of about an inch, which is stuffed with hair; this is fastened to the left arm by two
INDIAN WOMEN. 26
bands, in such a manner as not to interfere with the free use of the hand, and offers such resistance that a rifle-ball will not penetrate it unless it strikes perpendicular to the surface. They also make use of a war-club, made by bend- ing a withe around a hard stone of about two pounds weight, which has been previously prepared with a groove in which the withe fits, and is thereby prevented from slip- ping off. The handle is about fourteen inches long, and bound with buffalo hide.
The men are about the medium stature, with bright, cop- per-colored complexions and intelligent countenances, in many instances with aquiline noses, thin lips, black eyes and hair, with but little beard. They never cut the hair, but wear it of very great length, and ornament it upon state occasions with silver and beads. Their dress consists of leggins and moccasins, with a cloth wrapped around the loins. The body is generally naked above the middle, ex- cept when covered with the buffalo robe, which is a con- stant appendage to their wardrobe. The women are short, with crooked legs, and are obliged to crop their hair close to their heads. They wear, in addition to the leggins and moccasins, a skirt of dressed deer-skin. They also tattoo their faces and breasts, and are far from being as good look- ing as the men.
Notwithstanding these people are hospitable and kind to strangers, and apparently amiable in their dispositions, yet, when a warrior conceives himself injured, his thirst for revenge knows no satiety. Grave and dignified in his deportment, and priding himself upon his coolness of tem- per and the control of his passions, yet, when once pro- voked, he, like the majority of his race, is implacable and unrelenting ; an affront is laid up and cherished in his breast, and nothing can efface it from his mind until ample
reparation has been made. He has no idea of forgiveness :
0
26 INDIAN TOILET.
the insult must be atoned for by blood. With other tribes, quarrels can often be settled by presents to the injured party ; but with the prairie Indians, the law of equity is such that no reconciliation can take place unt^l the reproach is wiped out with the blood of their enemy. They make no use of money except for ornaments. Like other tribes, they are fond of decking themselves with paint, beads, and feathers ; and the young warrior often spends more time at his toilet than the most conceited coxcomb that can be found in civilized life. Bright red and blue are their favorite col- ors ; and vermilion is an important article in the stock of goods of one of their traders. This they always carry about their persons; and whenever they expect to meet stran- gers, they always (provided they have time) make their toilet with care, and paint their faces. Some few of their chiefs who have visited theii' Great Father at Washington have returned strongly impressed with the numerical pow- er and prosperity of the whites ; but the great majority of them, being entirely ignorant of every thing that relates to us, and a portion of them having never even seen a white man, believe the prairie Indians to be the most powerful people in existence ; and the relation of facts which conflict with this notion, by their own people, to the masses of the tribes at their prairie firesides, only subjects the narrator to ridicule, and he is set down as one whose brain has been turned by the necromancy of the pale-faces, and is thence- forth regarded as wholly unworthy of confidence.
The Northern and Middle Comanches, as well as the Ki- oways, Cheyennes, Sioux, and other tribes, subsist almost exclusively upon the flesh of the buffalo, and are known among the Indians as "buffalo eaters;" and they are gen- erally found upon the trails of those animals, migrating with them from place to place, as the seasons come around, over those vast and inhospitable plains of the West, which
HEALTH OF THE PRAIRIES, 27
are, for the most part, not susceptible of cultivation, and seem destined in the future, as in the past, to be the abode of these wandering savages. This barren district, however, exhibits one characteristic which compensates for many of its asperities, as, perhaps, no part of the habitable globe is more favorable to health and the continuation of human existence than this. Free from marshes, stagnant water, great bodies of timber, and all other sources of poisonous malaria, and open to every wind that blows, this immense grassy expanse is purged from impurities of every . kind, and the air imparts a force and vigor to the body and mind which repays the occupant in a great measure for his de- privations. Nature, which almost every where exhibits some compensation to man for great hardships, has here conferred upon him health, the first and best of her gifts. It is a fact worthy of remark that man, in whatever situa- tion he may be placed, is influenced in his modes of exist- ence, his physical and moral condition, by the natural re- sources of climate, soil, and other circumstances around him, over the operations of which he has no control. Fortunate- ly, such is the flexibility of his nature that he soon learns to adapt himself to the hardest and most untoward circum- stances, and, indeed, ultimately becomes not only reconciled to his lot, but persuades himself that his condition is far preferable to that of most others.
The example of our Western -border settlers is illustra- tive of this fact, as they continue to move farther and far- ther west as the settlements encroach upon them, prefer- ring a life of dangerous adventure and solitude to personal security and the comforts and enjoyments of society ; and what was at first necessity to them becomes in time a source of excitement and pleasure.
The nomadic Indian of the prairies demonstrates the po- sition still more forcibly ; free as the boundl^^s plains over
28 LASSOING ANTELOPE.
which he roams, he neither knows nor wants any luxuries beyond what he finds in the buffalo or the deer around him. These serve him with food, clothing, and a covering for his lodge, and he sighs not for the titles and distinctions which occupy the thoughts and engage the energies of civil- ized man. His only ambition consists in being able to cope successfully with his enemy in war, and in managing his steed with unfailing adroitness. He is in the saddle frorn boyhood to old age, and his favorite horse is his constant comjDanion. It is when mounted that the prairie warrior exhibits himself to the best advantage ; here he is at home, and his skill in various manoeuvres which he makes avail- able in battle — such as throwing himself entirely upon one side of his horse, and discharging his arrows with great ra- pidity toward the opposite side from beneath the animal's neck while he is at full speed — is truly astonishing. Many of the women are equally expert, as equestrians, with the men. They ride upon the same saddles and in the same manner, with a leg upon each side of the horse. As an example of their skill in horsemanship, two young women of one of the bands of the Northern Comanches, while we were encamped near them, upon seeing some antelopes at a distance from their camp, mounted horses, and, with las- sos in their hands, set off at full speed in pursuit of this fleetest inhabitant of the plains. After pursuing them for some distance, and taking all the advantages which their cir- cuitous course permitted, they finally came near them, and, throwing the lasso with unerring precision, secured each an animal, and brought it back in triumph to the camp. Every warrior has his war-horse, which is the fleetest that can be obtained, and he prizes him more highly than any thing else in his possession, and it is seldom that he can be induced to part with him at any price. He never mounts him "except \j:hen going into battle, the buffalo chase, or
GUARD DETAILS, 29
^ uponstate occasions. On his return from an excursion he is met at the door of his lodge by one of his wives, who takes his horse and attends to its wants with the utmost care. The prairie warrior performs no menial labor ; his only occupation is in war and the chase. His wives, who are but little dearer to him than his horse, perform all the drudgery. He follows the chase, he smokes his pipe, he eats and sleeps ; and thus he passes his time, and in his own estimation he is the most lordly and independent sov- ereign in the universe.
The mode of life of the prairie tribes, owing to their un- settled and wandering habits, is such as to render their con- dition one of constant danger and apprehension. The se- curity of their numerous animals from the encroachments of their enemies, and their constant liability to attacks, make it imperatively necessary for them to be at all times upon the alert. Their details for herdsmen are made with as much regularity as the guard details at a military post ; and even in times of the most profound peace, they guard their animals both night and d^y, while scouts are often patrolling upon the adjoining heights to give notice of the approach of strangers, when their animals are hurried to a place of security, and every thing made ready for .defense. The manner in which they salute a stranger is somewhat peculiar, as my own reception at one of their encampments will show. The chief at this encampment was a very cor- pulent old man, with exceedingly scanty attire, who, imme- diately on our approach, declared himself a great friend of the Americans, and persisted in giving me evidence of his sincerity by an embrace, which, to please him, I forced my- self to submit to, although it was far from agreeable to my own feelings. Seizing me in his brawny arms while we were yet in the saddle, and laying his greasy head upon my shoulder, he inflicted upon me a most bruin -like
30 INDIAN RECEPTIONS.
squeeze, which I endured with a degree of patient forti- tude worthy of the occasion ; and I was consoling myself upon the completion of the salutation, when the savage again seized me in his arms, and I was doomed to another similar torture, with his head on my other shoulder, while at the same time he rubbed his greasy face against mine in the most affectionate manner ; all of which proceeding, he gave me to understand, was to be regarded as a most dis- tinguished and signal mark of affection for the American people in general, whom, as he expressed it, he loved so much that it almost broke his heart ; and in particular for myself, who, as their representative, can bear testimony to the strength of his attachment. On leaving his camp, the chief shook me heartily by the hand, telling me at the same time that he was not a Comanche, but an American ; and as I did not feel disposed to be outdone in politeness by an Indian, I replied in the same spirit that there was not a drop of Anglo-Saxon blood in my veins, but that I was wholly and absolutely a Comanche, at which he seemed de- lighted, duly understanding and appreciating the compli- ment. These people are hospitable and kind to all with whom they are not at war; and on the arrival of a stranger at their camps a lodge is prepared for him, and he is enter- tained as long as he chooses to remain among them. They are also kind and affectionate to each other, and as long as any thing comestible remains in the camp, all are permitted to share alike; but with these exceptions, they are pos- sessed of but few virtues. Polygamy is sanctioned, and is very common among them, every man being allowed as many wives as he can support.
A few years ago the Comanches (for what reason I could not learn) took an inveterate dislike to the negroes, and massacred several small parties of those who attempted to escape from the Seminoles and cross the Plains for the pur-
HOSTILITY TO NEGROES. 31
pose of joining Wild Cat upon the Eio Grande Upon in- quiring of them the cause of their hostility to the blacks, they replied that it was because they were slaves to the whites ; that they were sorry for them. I suspect, howev- er, that they were actuated by other motives than they cared about acknowledging, and that instead of wishing to better their condition by sending them to another world, where they would be released from the fetters of bondage, they were apprehensive, if they permitted them to pass quietly, that in time Wild Cat's followers upon the Rio Grrande would augment to such a degree that he would in- terfere with their marauding operations along the Mexican borders. These people, who are so extremely jealous of their own freedom that they will often commit suicide rath- er than be taken prisoners, are the more prone to enslave others, and this dominant principle is carried to the great- est extreme so far as regards their women. A beast of burden and a slave to the will of her brutal master, yet, strange as it may appear, the woman seems contented with her lot, and submits to her fate without a murmur. The hardships imposed upon the females are most severe and cruel. The distance of rank and consideration which ex- ists between the black slave and his master is not greater than between the prairie warrior and his wife. Every de- grading office that is imposed upon the black by the most tyrannical master, falls, among these people, to the lot of the wretched female. They, in common with other In- dians, are not a prolific race; indeed, it is seldom that a woman has more than three or four children. Many of these, owing to unavoidable exposure, die young ; the boys, however, are nurtured with care, and treated with great kindness by their mothers, while the girls are frequently' beaten and abused unmercifully. I have never seen an idiot, or one that was naturally deformed, among them.
32 PANTOMIME.
Of all the Indians I had before encountered, there were none who had not an extreme fondness for spirituous liq- uors. The prairie tribes that I have seen say the taste of such liquor is not pleasant, that it makes fools of them, and that they do not desire it. If there are exceptions to this, I think they may be set down as factitious rather than nat- ural, the appetite having been created by occasional mdul- gence in the use of a little at a time.
Their diet is very simple; as I said before, from infan- cy to old age, their only food, with the exception of a few wild plants which they find on the prairies, is fresh meat, of which, in times of plenty, they consume enormous quan- tities. In common with many other tribes, they can, when necessity demands it, abstain from eating for several days without inconvenience, and they are enabled to make up at one meal the deficiency. All of them are extravagantly fond of tobacco, which they use for smoking, mixed with the dried leaves of the sumach, inhaling the smoke into their lungs, and giving it out through their nostrils. Their language is verbal and pantomimic. The former consists of a very limited number of words, some of which are com- mon to all the prairie tribes. The latter is used and under- stood with great facility and accuracy by all the tribes from the Gila to the Columbia, the motions and signs to express ideas being common to all.
This pantomimic vocabulary, which is exceedingly grace- ful and significant, when oral communication is impractica- ble, constitutes the court language of the Plains ; and, what was a fact of much astonishment to me, I discovered that it was nearly the same as that practiced by the mutes in one of our deaf and dumb institutions that I visited. For ex- ample, there were some five or six boys directed to take their places at the black-boards and interpret what I pro- posed to say. I then, by pantomimic signs, told them that
INDIANS AND MUTES. 38
I went on a buffalo hunt, saw a herd, chased them on horse- back, fired my gun and killed one, cut it up, ate some of the meat, and went to sleep — every word of which was written down upon the black-board by each boy as rapidly as the signs were made, excepting that all made the com- mon mistake of taking the buffalo for deer.
The name of each tribe of Indians has a signification, which is represented by a sign that is well understood by them all.
The Comanche, or "Snake," is indicated by making with the hand a waving motion, in imitation of the crawling of the reptile.
The Cheyenne, or "Cut Arm," by drawing the hand across the arm to imitate cutting it with a knife.
The Arapahoes, or " Smellers," by seizing the nose with the thumb and forefinger.
The Sioux, or "Cut-throats," by drawing the hand across the throat.
The Pawnees, or "Wolves," by placing a hand on each side of the forehead, with two fingers pointing to the front, to represent the narrow, sharp ears of the wolf.
The Crows, by imitating the flapping of the bird's wings with the palms of the hands.
On approaching strangers the prairie Indians put their horses at full speed, and persons not familiar with their pe- culiarities and habits might interpret this as an act of hos- tility; but it is their custom with friends as well as ene- mies, and should not occasion groundless alarm.
When a party is discovered approaching thus, and are near enough to distinguish signals, all that is necessary in order to ascertain their disposition is to raise the right hand with the palm in front, and gradually push it forward and back several times. They all understand this to be a com-
34 MARTIAL AMBITION.
mand to halt, and if they are not hostile it will at once be obeyed.
After they have stopped, the right hand is raised again as before, and slowly moved to the right and left, which signifies "I do not know you. Who are you?" They will then answer the inquiry by giving their signal. If this should not be understood, they may be asked if the^^ are friends by raising both hands grasped in the manner of shaking hands, or by locking the two forefingers firmly while the hands are held up. If friendly, they will respond with the same signal ; but if enemies, they will probably disregard the command to halt, or give the signal of anger by closing the hand, placing it against the forehead, and turning it back and forth while in that position.
No people, probably, on the face of the earth are more ambitious of martial fame, or entertain a higher apprecia- tion for the deeds of a daring and successful warrior than the North American savages of the Plains. The attain- ment of such reputation is the paramount and absorbing object of their lives ; all their aspirations for distinction in- variably take this channel of expression. A young man is never considered worthy to occupy a seat in council until he has encountered an enemy in battle, and he who can • count the greatest number of scalps is the most highly hon- ored by his tribe. This idea is inculcated from their earli- est infancy. It is not surprising, therefore, that with such weighty inducements before him, the young man who, as yet, has gained no renown as a brave or warrior, should be less discriminate in his attacks than older men who have already acquired a name. The young braves should, there- fore, be closely watched when encountered on the Plains.
The prairie tribes are seldom at peace with all their neighbors, and some of the young braves of a tribe are al- most always absent upon a war excursion. These forays
YOUNG WARRIORS. 35
sometimes extend into the heart of the northern states of Mexico, where the Indians have carried on successful inva- sions for many years. They have devastated and depopu- lated a great part of Sonora and Chihuahua. The objects of these forays are to steal horses and mules, and to take prisoners ; and if it so happens that a war-party has been unsuccessful in the accomplishment of these ends, or has had the misfortune to lose some of its number in battle, they become reckless, and will often attack a small party with whom they are not at war, provided they hope to es- cape detection. The disgrace attendant upon a return to their friends without some trophies as an offset to the loss of their comrades is a powerful incentive to action, and they extend but little mercy to defenseless travelers who have the misfortune to encounter them at such a conjunc- ture.
While en route from New Mexico to Arkansas in 1849 I was encamped near the head of the Colorado Eiver, and 'wishing to know the character of the country for a few miles in advance of our position, I desired an officer to go out and make the reconnoissance. I was lying sick in my bed at the time, or I should have performed the duty my- self. I expected the officer would have taken an escort with him, but he omitted to do so, and started off alone. After proceeding a short distance he discovered four mount- ed Indians coming at full speed directly toward him, when, instead of turning his own horse toward camp, and endeav- oring to make his escape (he was well mounted), or halt- ing and assuming a defensive attitude, he deliberately rode up to them ; after which the tracks indicated that they pro- ceeded about three miles together, when the Indians most brutally killed and scalped my most unfortunate but too credulous friend, who might probably have saved his life had he not, in the kindness of his excellent heart, imagined
o/:;
6 MURDER OF AN OFFICER.
that the savages would reciprocate his friendly advances. He was' most woefully mistaken, and his life paid the for- feit of his generous and noble disposition.
I have never been able to get any positive information as to the persons who committed this murder, yet circum- stances render it highly probable that they were a party of young Indians who were returning from an unsuccessful foray, and they were unable to resist the temptation of tak- ing the scalp and horse of the lieutenant.
A small number of white men, in traveling upon the Plains, should not allow a 'party of strange Indians to ap- proach them unless able to resist an attack under the most unfavorable circumstances.
It is a safe rule, when a man finds himself alone in the prairies, and sees a party of Indians approaching, not to al- low them to come near him, and if they persist in so doing, to signal themto keep away. If they do not obey, and he be mounted upon a fleet horse, he should make for the near- est timber. If the Indians follow and press him too close- ly, he should halt, turn around, and point his gun at the foremost, which will often have the effect of turning them back, but he should never draw trigger unless he finds that his life depends upon the shot ; for, as soon as his gun is discharged, his sole dependence, unless he have time to re- load, must be upon the speed of his horse.
The Indians of the Plains, notwithstanding the encomi- ums that have been heaped upon their brethren who for- merly occupied the Eastern States for their gratitude, have not, so far as I have observed, the most distant conception of that sentiment. You may confer numberless benefits upon them for years, and the more that is done for them the more they will expect. They do not seem to compre- hend the motive which dictates an act of benevolence or charity, and they invariably attribute it to fear or the ex-
T)
baker's views. 39
pectation of reward. When they make a present, it is with a view of getting more than its equivalent in return.
I have never yet been able to discover that the Western wild tribes possessed any of those attributes which among civilized nations are regarded as virtues adorning the hu- man character. They have yet to be taught the first rudi- ments of civilization, and they are at this time as far from any knowledge of Christianity, and as worthy subjects for missionary enterprise, as the most untutored natives of the South Sea Islands.
The only way to make these merciless freebooters fear or respect the authority of our government is, when they mis- behave, first of all to chastise them well by striking such a blow as will be felt for a long time, and thus show them that we are superior to them in war. They will then re- spect us much more than when their good-will is purchased with presents.
The opinion of a friend of mine (Jim Baker), who has passed the last twenty-five years of his life among the In- dians of the Rocky Mountains, corroborates the opinions I have advanced upon this head, and although I do not en- dorse all of his sentiments, yet many of them are deduced from long and matured experience and critical observation. He says :
" They are the most onsartainest varmints in all creation, and I reckon tha'r not mor'n half human ; for you never seed a human, arter you'd fed and treated him to the best fixins in your lodge, jist turn round and steal all your horses, or ary other thing he could lay his hands on. No, not adzackly. He would feel kinder grateful, and ask you to spread a blanket in his lodge ef you ever passed that a- way. But the Injun he don't care shucks for you, and is ready to do you a heap of mischief as soon as he quits your feed. No, Cap.," he continued, "it's not the right way to
40 baker's views.
give una presents to buy peace ; but ef I war governor of these yeer United States, I'll tell you what I'd do. I'd in- vite um all to a big feast, and make b'lieve I wanted to have a big talk ; and as soon as I got um all together, I'd pitch in and sculp about half of um, and then t'other half would be mighty glad to make a peace that would stick.' That's the way I'd make a treaty with the dog'ond, red- bellied varmints; and as sure as you're born. Cap., that's the only way."
I suggested to him the idea that there would be a lack of good faith and honor in such a proceeding, and that it would be much more in accordance with my notions of fair dealing to meet them openly in the field, and there en- deavor to punish them if they deserve it. To this he re- plied :
"Tain't no use to talk about honor with them, Cap.; they hain't got no such thing in um ; and they won't show fair fight, any way you can fix it. Don't they kill and sculp a white man when-ar they get the better on him? The mean varmints, they'll never behave themselves until you give um a clean out-and-out licking. They can't onder- stand white folks' ways, and they won't learn um ; and ef you treat um decently, they think you are afeard. You may depend on't. Cap., the only way to treat Injuns is to thrash them well at first, then the balance will sorter take to you and behave themselves."
It is highly important to every man passing through a country frequented by Indians to know some of their hab- its, customs, and propensities, as this will facilitate his in- tercourse with friendly tribes, and enable him, when he wishes to avoid a conflict, to take precautions against com- ing in collision with those who are hostile.
Almost every tribe has its own way of constructing its lodges, encamping, making fires, its own style of dress, by
INDIAN LODGES. 41
some of which peculiarities the experienced frontiersman can generally distinguish them.
The Osages, for example, make their lodges in the shape of a wagon-top, of bent rods or willows covered with skins, blankets, or the bark of trees.
The Kickapoo lodges are made in an oval form, some- thing like a rounded haystack, of poles set in the ground, bent over, and united at top ; this is covered with cloths or bark.
The Witchetaws, Wacos, Towackanies, and Tonka was erect their hunting lodges of sticks put up in the form of the frustum of a cone and covered with brush.
All these tribes leave the frame-work of their lodges standing when they move from camp to camp, and this, of course, indicates the particular tribe that erected them.
The Delawares and Shawnees plant two upright forked poles, place a stick across them, and stretch a canvas cov- ering over it, in the same manner as with the " tente d''abrV
The Sioux, Arapahoes, Cheyennes, Utes, Snakes, Black- feet, and Kioways, make use of the Comanche lodge, cov- ered with dressed buffalo hides.
All the prairie Indians I have met with are the most in- veterate beggars. They will flock around strangers, and, in the most importunate manner, ask for every thing they see, especially tobacco and sugar ; and, if allowed, they will handle, examine, and occasionally pilfer such things as hap- pen to take their fancy. The proper way to treat them is to give them at ontje such articles as are to be disposed of, and then, in a firm and decided manner, let them under- stand that they are to receive nothing else.
A party of Keechis once visited my camp with their principal chief, who said he had some important business to discuss, and demanded a council with the capitan. After consent had been given, he assembled his principal men,
D*
42 KEECHI COUNCIL.
and, going tlirougli the usual preliminary of taking a hiy smoke, he arose, and with a great deal of ceremony com- menced his pompous and flowery speech, which, like all others of a similar character, amounted to nothing, until he touched upon the real object of his visit. He said he had traveled a long-distance over the prairies to see and have a talk with his white brothers; that his people were very hungry and naked. He then approached me with six small sticks, and, after shaking hands, laid one of the sticks in my hand, which he said represented sugar, another sig- nified tobacco, and the other four, pork, flour, whisky, and blankets, all of which he assured me his people were in great need of, and must have. His talk was then con- cluded, and he sat down, apparently much gratified with the graceful and impressive manner with which he had ex- ecuted his part of the performance.
It then devolved upon me to respond to the brilliant ef- fort of the prairie orator, which I did in something like the following manner. After imitating his style for a short time, I closed my remarks by telling him that we were poor infantry soldiers, who were always obliged to go on foot; that we had become very tired of walking, and would like very much to ride. Furthermore, I had observed that they had among them many fine horses and mules. I then took two small sticks, and imitating as nearly as possible the manner of the chief, placed one in his hand, which I told him was nothing more nor less than a first-rate horse, and then the other, which signified a good large mule. I closed by saying that I was ready to exchange presents whenever it suited his convenience.
They looked at each other for some time without speak- ing, but finally got up and walked away, and I was not troubled with them again.
COJNtANCHE INDIANS. 43
CHAPTER 11.
COMANCHE INDIANS.
Comanche Indians. — Local Subdivisions of the Tribe. — Nomads. — Dimin- nishing in Numbers. — Fear of visiting the Whites. — Courtship. — Poly- gamy.— Is-sa-keep. — Receiving Guests. — Council. — Singular Custom. — Propensity for Horse-racing. — Kickapoo Horse-race. — War Expeditions. — Method of Recruiting. — Mexican Prisoners. — Parker Family. — Treat- ment of Negroes. — Visit to the Fort. — Mourning Ceremonies. — Ideas of the Bible. — Opinion of the Whites. — Medicine Lodges. — Ideas of their own Importance. — Way to treat them. — Belief in the Deity.
Of all the prairie tribes, with perhaps the exception of the Dacotahs or Sioux, the Comancheg are the most numer- ous and warlike. They have been variously estimated as numbering from 12,000 to 18,000 souls ; probably the for- mer is nearest the truth. They have three local grand di- visions, namely, the Northern, Middle, and Southern, and designated by them as Tennawas, Yamparacks, and Coman- ches. These are subdivided into smaller bands, each hav- ing its separate chief or captain.
The division of the nation known as the " Southern Co- manches" remains permanently within the limits of the ter- ritory pertaining to Texas. It consists of two bands, each of which has its principal and subordinate chiefs, and -they do not of late years acknowledge the sovereignty of a com- mon ruler and leader in their united councils nor in war. The names of their two principal chiefs were in 1854 "Se- naco" and " Ketumsee." The asfffres-ate number in the two bands at that period was about 1100 souls.
These people lead a predatory and pastoral life, roving
44 SOUTHERN COMAIiCHES.
from place to place in search of game for their own sub- sistence and grass for their animals. Their range extends from the Red River to the Colorado. In the summer they are sometimes found upon the former stream, but the win- ters are always passed upon the waters of the Brazos and Colorado, where the grass remains fresh and green during the winter season, and the climate is mild and agreeable.
As the buffaloes have entirely abandoned their hunting grounds, and do not now extend their migrations south of Red River in this direction, and as these Indians do not venture to cross that stream in pursuit of them, they derive no sustenance from the flesh of these animals, or clothing from their skins, and they are reduced to the necessity of depending upon the deer and antelope for food and raiment. Fortunately, in this mild and genial climate they require but little clothing.
In a country like theirs, where the game is by no means abundant, the means for sustaining life are exceedingly pre- carious and uncertain, and the Indians who depend exclu- sively upon the fruits of the chase are often subjected to great privations and sufferings; and were it not for their horses and mules, which are made use of for food when nothing else can be obtained, many of them would perish from hunger. They formerly possessed great numbers of these animals, but they are rapidly diminishing, and I ob- served a very sensible decrease in five years.
They have lived so long near the border white settlers that they are familiar with many of their customs and hab- its, but, like their red kindred in other places, they unfortu- nately only see fit to adopt such as are detrimental to them. They are becoming addicted to the use of that bane of their race, ardent spirits, and are much more idle and licentious than before they came in contact with the pale-faces. Dis- eases induced by their immoral practices, with the almost
MIDPLE COMANCHES. 45
continual wars in which they have been engaged, have probably contributed largely to the great aggregate of mor- tality among them. Tliey themselves acknowledge that their numbers are rapidly diminishing, and that it is only a few years since they were much more populous than at present. Many of them have the discernment to foresee that the only means by which they can preserve their iden- tity as a nation, for any great length of time, is in an im- mediate abandonment of their present nomadic life, and the adoption of agricultural habits.
It can not be expected that the male adults of the present generation will cast aside their national prejudices against tilling the soil (which they regard as the occupation of a slave), and at once fall into habits of industry ; but may it not be hoped that the women and children can be taught the rudiments of agriculture, and the next generations de- rive profit therefrom ?
The " Middle Comanches," as their designation implies, occupy the country lying between the other divisions of the tribe. There are two bands in this branch of the na- tion, called " No-co-nies" and " Ten-na-was." Their prin- i- cipal chiefs are named " Pah-hah-eu-ka," " Po-hah-cot-o- wit," and " Choice."
From the best information that can be obtained, they are supposed to number about 3500 souls. They spend the winters in Northwestern Texas, and in the summer move north, across the Red and Canadian Rivers, toward the Ar- kansas, in pursuit of the buffaloes. They migrate with the game and seasons. They are more in a state of nature than the Southern Comanches, still using the buffalo skin for a covering, and seldom visiting the white settlements.
They are on terms of peace and friendship with their neighboring brethren on either side of them, and seem to form an intermediate connecting link between them.
46 NORTHERN COMANCHES.
They interchange visits with their neighbors, and one of their sub-chiefs was present with them when they met us upon the Brazos.
They have occasionally seen the white traders, and a few of them have visited some of the outer settlements upon the Colorado, but they generally have but a very vague conception of the customs, numbers, and power of the whites. Some years since I chanced to meet with one of their chiefs at a trading-post near the Canadian. He had left his band on Eed River, and come in alone to visit a Cherokee trader, and stated that he had endeavored to pre- vail upon some of his people to accompany him, but they all declined, upon the supposition that he was embarking upon a desperate expedition, where his life would be placed in imminent jeopardy, and they were not disposed to en- counter the risks attending such a reckless adventure.
The " ISTorthern Comanches" are much more wild than either of the others we have spoken of Through summer and winter they range the plains upon tbe trails of the buf- faloes. At one time their larder is overstocked and they gorge themselves to repletion, while at another time they are famishing for the aliment necessary to sustain life. All of them are alike a race of hunters, depending from day to day upon the results of the chase.
The country they inhabit extends from the Arkansas to Red River, and it is but seldom that they have met with any whites, and when I saw them in 1849 none of them had ever seen a house, with the exception of a few who had been in Mexico.
Although I have not been able to obtain sufiicient data to enable me to arrive at any thing like a satisfactory esti- mate of the numbers of this branch of the nation, yet there is no doubt that they greatly exceed the aggregate of the other two.
COMANCHE COURTSHIP. 49
The Comanches suppose their original progenitors came from the west.
Polygamy is prevalent among them, every man having as many wives as he can support.
Their courtship is as brief as it is peculiar. When he de- sires to marry, the suitor provides himself with horses, and such goods as he thinks will be acceptable to the father of his intended, takes them to the lodge occupied by the head of the family, and then seats himself near by to await the result of the negotiation. The father then comes out, ex- amines what has been offered, and, if it is satisfactory, leads out his daughter and hands her over to the bridegroom, and the marriage ceremony is completed. The girl has no voice in the matter, and has no alternative but to submit to the decision of her father.
This summary method of match-making often leads to family dissension ; and as young girls are often compelled to unite their fortunes with old men, this not unfrequently results in subsequent elopements with younger lovers. In such cases, the husband pursues the truants ; and their for- mer practice authorized him, in case he overtook them, to put them to death ; but now they generally compromise the matter by an equivalent in horses, after which the girl be- comes the property of her lover.
Ketumsee, the chief of one of the bands of Southern Co- manches, a man at least sixty years old, had four wives, the eldest of whom was not over twenty years of age. They seemed very fond of the old man, and would sit by the hour combing his hair and caressing him. I showed one of them a photographic likeness of my wife, which seemed to interest her very much, and she frequently requested me to allow her to look at it afterward. She seemed to imag- ine that it was living, and would point to the eyes and smile, as much as to say it could see.
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50 IS-SA-KEEP.
I upon one occasion asked her how she would like to leave Ketumsee and go home with me. She in reply pointed to the photograph, and drew her other hand across her throat, most significantly indicating that, in her judg- ment, my house would be any thing but a safe place for her, and as I was rather inclined to the same opinion my- self, I did not feel dis^DOsed to discuss the subject any far- ther.
It was formerly regarded by the Comanches as an essen- tial part of genuine hospitality that their guests should have wives assigned to them during their stay in camp. This custom, however, is now pretty much abandoned. In 1849, while en route to New Mexico, I met with a very large band of Northern Comanches, commanded by a venerable old chief called Is-sa-keep (Wolf's Shoulder). He requested us to encamp at a certain place, as he wished to hold a council with us. I complied with his request, and the next morn- ing he, with about a dozen of his principal men, dressed and painted in the most fantastic manner, rode into our camp with great pomp and ceremony, dismounted at my tent, and after embracing me a la Mexicano (only, to use a trite phrase, "a good deal more so," as they nearly squeezed the breath out of my body), they seated themselves around the door of my tent, and intimated that they were ready for a "big talk." I informed them that we were escorting emigrants to California, and that in all- probability many more would, from time to time, travel over the same road, and that our authorities would hold them responsible if these people were molested. I also informed them that our gov- ernment, by treaty with Mexico, had obligated itself to put a stop to farther depredations upon the people of that coun- try by Indians living within our territory, and that all Mex- ican prisoners in their hands must be turned over to our au- thorities forthwith, etc.
AVERSION TO LIQUOR. 51
Is-sa-keep replied that the talk was very good except in the two particulars of horse-stealing and returning prison- ers, which made him very sad.
After the council was concluded I mixed a glass of weak brandy toddy and offered it to the chief. He tasted the beverage and passed it to the next, and from him it went around the entire circle, all the Indians taking a sip, but at the same time making grimaces, as if it was not pleasant. The glass was handed back to me by the chief, with the re- mark that it was not good, as it took away their senses and made fools of them.
Shortly after this I observed my interpreter, Black Bea- ver, engaged in quite an animated discussion with the chief, which led me to inquire what they were talking about. At this time there were probably five hundred emigrants and soldiers collected directly around our circle, all manifesting the utmost curiosity to hear every thing that was said. Bea- ver, in reply to my question, then said, "He say, captain, he bring two wife for you," pointing to two girls who were sitting near by. I was a good deal embarrassed at such a proposition, made in presence of so large an assembly, but told Beaver to inform the chief that this was not in accord- ance with the customs of the white people ; that they only had one wife at home, and were not at all disposed to mar- ry others when abroad. This was interpreted to Is-sa-keep, and, after a brief consultation, Beaver interpreted, "He say, captain, you the strangest man he never see ; every man he seen before, when he been travlin' long time, the fust thing- he want, ?(;?/e."
Lieutenant John Buford (afterward General Buford), who was attached to my command at this time, had, just previ- ous to our departure from Arkansas, received from his un- cle in Kentucky a present of one of the finest of his large stud of thorough-bred horses, and he had taken great pains
52 PROPENSITY FOR RACING.
to keep him up in good running condition during our trip. He had heard of the inveterate propensity of the Coman- ches for horse-racing, and expected they might be disposed to try the speed of some of their own animals with his. As we were all anxious to witness the comparative racing qual- ities of the full-blooded stock and the Indian horses, we in- quired of the chief if he was inclined to enter any of his horses against that of the lieutenant. He said he was very fond of the sport, but that, unfortunately, all of their fleetest horses were then absent on a buffalo hunt ; but if, on our re- turn, we still wished to try the experiment, he would will- ingly bet as many horses as we chose to risk upon the re- sult, provided we would consent to run fourteen miles.
The race did not, therefore, come off at that time, but Beaver seemed to be fully impressed with the conviction that if it had, our thoroughbred would have been beaten.
As an evidence in favor of this supposition, he said he once accompanied a party of Kickapoos, who had pur- chased a very fleet race-horse from a white man in Mis- souri, and took him a long distance out into the Plains for the express purpose of running him against the Comanche horses. They conducted him very carefully, packing grain for him the entire distance, and took with them a large number of other horses to wager with Comanches, and they all expected confidently to make a good speculation.
They arrived at the Comanche camp, and made bets of all their horses and their blankets, and the preliminaries of the contest were satisfactorily arranged for all parties. Beaver, who was the guest of the principal chief, felt the most perfect confidence, and was disposed to venture every thing he possessed, but his host endeavored to dissuade him from betting on the race at all, telling him he would be certain to lose his property. He persisted, however, and the chief took all his bets. The race was run, and, to
WAR EXPEDITIONS. 53
the astonishment and discomfiture of the Kickapoos, their horse was badly beaten. The magnanimous chief then told Beaver to take back his horses, and never again to venture in a speculation, the success of which depended upon beating the Comanches in horse-racing.
The vanquished sportsmen, with the single exception of my friend Beaver, returned home on foot, partially deprived of their clothing, and a good deal chopfallen, and, as I un- derstand, resolved from thenceforth never to repeat the ex- periment.
WAR EXPEDITIONS.
When a chief desires to organize a war-party, he pro- vides himself with a long pole, attaches a red flag to the end of it, and trims the top with eagle feathers. He then mounts his horse in his war costume, and rides around through the camp singing the war-song. Those who are disposed to join the expedition mount their horses and fall into the procession ; after parading about for a time, all dis- mount, and the war-dance is performed. This ceremony is continued from day to day until a sufficient number of vol- unteers are found to accomplish the objects desired, when they set out for the theatre of their intended exploits.
As they proceed upon their expedition, it sometimes hap- pens that the chief with whom it originated, and who inva- riably assumes the command, becomes discouraged at not finding an opportunity of displaying his warlike abilities, and abandons the enterprise; in which event, if others of the party desire to proceed farther, they select another lead- er and push on, and thus so long as any one of the party holds out.
A war-party is sometimes absent for a great length of time, and for days, weeks, and months their friends at home anxiously await their return, until suddenly, from afar, the
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54 PRISONEES.
sTirill war-cry of an avaoit courier is beard proclaiming the approach of the victorious warriors. The camp is in an in- stant alive with excitement and commotion. Men, women, and children swarm out to meet the advancing party. Their white horses are painted and decked out in the most fantastic style, and led in advance of the triumphant pro- cession ; and, as they pass around through the village, the old women set up a most unearthly howl of exultation, after which the scalp-dance is performed with all the pomp and display their limited resources admit of, the warriors having their faces painted black.
When, on the other hand, the expedition terminates dis- astrously by the loss of some of the party in battle, the rel- atives of the deceased cut off their own hair and the tails and manes of their horses as symbols of mourning, and howl and cry for a long time.
The Comanches always have among them Mexican pris- oners, whom they have captured when they were young children, and have raised and adopted into the nation- They seem readily to embrace the habits of the Indians, and intermarry with them.
I had in my employ for some considerable time a young man named Parker, who, with a sister, were captured by the Comanches on the borders of Texas when they were only six or eight years old. The Indians murdered all the family with the exception of these two children and their mother ; th« latter, fortunately, was absent from home at the time. They carried the children away to their prairie haunts, where they kept them for several years, until at length a Delaware trader purchased the boy and brought him to Fort Gibson, from whence he was sent home to his mother's house. She was, of course, greatly rejoiced to see him again, but deplored the loss of her daughter, and pre- vailed upon the young man to return into the Plains, hunt
TREATMENT OF PRISONERS. 55
up the Comanches, and endeavor to purcbase his sister from them,
lie went, found the camp, and used every argument in his power to prevail upon his sister to leave the Indians and return home with him, but it was of no avail. She told him that she knew no mother except her adopted In- dian parent; that her husband, children, and friends, and all else that she held dear on earth, were there, and there she was resolved to remain for the remainder of her life. He left her and returned home alone, and, if she is living, she is probably with the savages yet.
A few years since there was another white man living in Western Texas who was captured by the Comanches when a small boy, and lived with them until he was grown up. On his return to his relatives he had become so thorough- ly Comancheized that, at times when he felt hungry, he would take his rifle, go out into his father's pasture, shoot down an ox, and, after cutting off a steak, build a fire, and cook it on a stick, leaving the remainder for the wolves ; and it was some considerable tim6 before his family could convince him of the impropriety of this improvident pro- ceeding.
A Delaware trader, in 1850, brought into the settlements two negro girls which he had obtained from the Comanches. It appeared that they had been with a number of Seminole negroes who attempted to cross the Plains to join Wild Cat upon the Rio Grande.
The party had been intercepted by the Indians, and ev- ery one, with the exception of these two girls, put to death. They were taken to the camp, where the most inhuman barbarities were perpetrated upon them. Among other fiendish atrocities, the savages scraped through their skin into the flesh, believing that beneath the cuticle the flesh was black like the color upon the exterior. They burned
^
66 - SWAPPING WIVES.
them with live coals to ascertain whether fire produced the same sensations of pain as with their own people, and tried various other experiments which were attended with most acute torture. The poor girls were shockingly scarred and mutilated when I saw them.
While I was stationed at Camp Arbuckle, on the Cana- dian River, in 1850, a band of prairie Indians came in to see us, and, as this_ was probably the first time they had ever entered a white man's habitation, every thing was novel to them, and their curiosity was very much excited. The chief examined various articles of furniture, books, and pictures, but nothing seemed to attract his attention so much as an oil-cloth rug upon the floor. It was covered with bright colors, which appeared to take his fancy amaz- ingly, and he scrutinized it very closely. He scraped it with his finger nails, and, wetting his fingers, tried to wash off the coloring; and, after he had seen all that interested him, inquired if the President had sent me all those things from Washington. My wife showed him specimens of em- broidery, which pleased him so much that he paid her the compliment of proposing to exchange wives with me, and, upon my referring him to her for a decision, he informed me that he was not in the habit of trading with squaws, but if I would only say the word, he was ready to sioa]p right off.
When a Comanche warrior dies, he is buried on the sum- mit of a high hill, in a sitting posture, with his face to the east, and his bufflilo robe and all his scanty wardrobe with him. His best horses and all his war implements are killed and destroyed, and the remainder of his animals have their manes and tails shaved close, and the women of the family crop their hair as a symbol of affliction and mourning. ' Aft- er the death the relatives and friends of the deceased as- semble morning and evening outside the camp, where they
MRS. SANTA ANA. 57
cry and cut themselves with knives for half an hour or more ; and this sometimes lasts for a month.
When any person dies the corpse is buried immediate- ly. The death of a young warrior is always greatly la- mented, and the mourning ceremonies continue a long time ; but when an old man dies they only mourn for him a few days, upon the principle that his services were no longer useful to his people.
In 1849 I met with the widow of a prominent chief of the Southern Comanches, " Santa Ana," who had then been dead about three years; yet she still continued the mourn- ing ceremonies, and every evening, just before sunset, she could be seen on a hill adjacent to the camp crying and howling most piteously. This woman possessed a large number of very valuable horses and mules, and she had re- ceived several very advantageous offers to renew matrimo- nial relations with leading men of the tribe, but she declined them all, and seemed devoted to the memory of her depart- ed husband.
She did not associate much with the men, but pitched her lodge at a distance from all others ; and I was informed that there was no man in the tribe who could excel her in hunting. She was said to have killed in one morning near Fort Chadbourn fourteen deer. '
She was one of the most dignified and distinguished-look- ing persons we saw in the tribe.
These Indians believe that all, after death, go to a place in the spirit world where there is no scarcity of buffjilo, and where their condition is supremely happy provided they have taken a plenty of scalps and stolen a goodly number of horses in this world. They also believe that the Great Spirit permits them to revisit the earth in the night-time, but requires them to return to the spirit hunting-grounds before the dawn of day.
58 IDEAS OF THE BIBLE.
While with the Southern Comanches I showed a Bible to Senaco, and endeavored, through the medium of a good in- terpreter, to make him comprehend its import. Among oth- er things, I stated to him that it was a talk which had been communicated to our forefathers by the Great Spirit, and by them carefully handed down from generation to genera- tion to us.
I then asked him if his people had ever heard of this book before. He answered in the negative, and added that in his opinion this talk emanated from the God of the white man, as the Comanches' God was so far distant in the sky that they could not hear him speak, and when they wished to communicate with him they were obliged to do it through the medium of the sun, which they could see and hold con- verse with.
They are desirous of procuring from whomsoever they meet testimonials of their good behavior, which they pre- serve with great care, and exhibit upon all occasions to strangers as a guarantee of future good conduct.
On meeting with a chief of the Southern Comanches in 1849, after going through the usual ceremony of embracing, and assuring me that he was the best friend the Americans ever had among the Indians, he exhibited numerous certifi- cates from the different white men he had met with, testify- ing to his friendly disposition. Among these was one that he desired me to read with special attention, as he said he was of the opinion that perhaps it might not be so compli- mentary in its character as some of the others. It was in these words :
" The bearer of this says 'he is a Comanche chief, named Senaco ; that he is the biggest Indian and best friend the whites ever had ; in fact, that he is a first-rate fellow ; but I believe he is a d — d rascal, so look out for hwiJ''
I smiled on reading the paper, and, looking up, found the
EXCHANGING PRESENTS. 69
chief's eyes intently fixed upon mine with an expression of themost earnest inquiry. I told him the paper was not as good as it might be, whereupon he destroyed it.
Five years after this interview I met Senaco again near the same place. He recognized me at once, and, much to my surprise, pronounced my name quite distinctly.
These Indians, like most others, are accustomed, in their diplomatic intercourse, to exchange presents, and they seem to have no idea of friendship unaccompanied by a substan- tial token in this form. Moreover, they measure the strength of the attachment of their friends by the magnitude of the presents they receive. In the talk which I held with Is-sa- keep,I took occasion to say that the President of the United States was the friend of his red children, and desired to live at peace with them all. He, in reply, said he was much astonished to hear this; for, judging from the few trifling presents I had made his people, he had formed the opinion that the "Big Captain" of the pale-faces held them in but little estimation.
The limited intercourse that has existed between the Co- manches and the whites does not appear to have prepos- sessed the former much in our favor, as the following inci- dent, which was related to me by Mr. Israel Fulsom, a very intelligent and educated Chickasaw, goes to show. Upon a certain occasion, while he was visiting them, he remarked to the chief that it was only a few years since the people of his own nation were equally as uncivilized as the Co- manches, but that, through the instrumentality of the white missionaries, they had been induced to abandon their pre- carious hunting habits, and had learned to read and write, and to cultivate the soil, so that they were then enabled to live in the same manner as the white people, and were al- ways supplied with abundance of food.
The chief replied that he had no doubt there were some
60 OPINIONS OF WHITE MEN.
advantages to be derived from education, and that he had often given the subject his serious consideration, but that the pale-faces were all such arrant rascals that he was afraid to let them take up their abode with his people. Where- ujDon Mr. Folsom suggested to him that probably he had met with only the bad specimens of the white race, and that he himself had known very many good men among them who had conferred important benefits upon the Red Man.
The Comanche replied that possibly such might be the case, but he had always been under the impression that there were but few, if any honest white men. He said far- ther, that if the Chickasaws would send out one of their educated men to teach their children to read and write, they would have no objections.
Like other Indians, they submit with imperturbable sto- icism and apathy to misfortunes of the most serious charac- ter, and, in the presence of strangers, manifest no surprise or curiosity at the exhibition of novelties ; yet this appar- ent indifference is assumed, and they are, in reality, very in- quisitive people. In every village may be seen small struc- tures, consisting of a frame-work of slight poles, bent into a semi-spherical form, and covered with buffalo hides. These are called medicine lodges^ and are used as vapor-baths. The patient is seated within the lodge, beside several heated stones, upon which water is thrown, producing a dense hot vapor, which brings on a profuse perspiration, while, at the same time, the shamans, or medicine-men, who profess to have the power of communicating with the unseen world, and of propitiating the malevolence of evil spirits, are per- forming various incantations, accompanied by music, on the outside. Such means are resorted to for healing all dis- eases ; and I am also informed that their young men are obliged to undergo a regular course of steam-bathing before
OPINIONS OF THEMSELVES. 61
they are considered worthy of assuming the responsible du- ties of warriors. The knowledge they possess of their early history is very vague and limited, and does not extend far- ther back than a few generations. They say that their fore- fathers lived precisely as they do, and followed the buffalo ; that they came from a country toward the setting sun, where they expect to return after death. They acknowl- edge the existence and power of a great supernatural agent, who directs and controls all things; but this power they conceive to be vested in the sun, which they appeal to on all occasions of moment.
As I remarked before, the Northern Comanches are fully impressed with the conviction that theirs is the most pow- erful race in existence, and in 1854 some of their chiefs sent a message to the commanding officer of one of our military posts to the effect that, as soon as the grass ap- peared in the spring, he intended paying him a visit, when he might expect to receive a severe whipping, and lose all his animals. Shortly afterward the post was abandoned, and our interpreter informed me that the Indians verily be- lieved it was in consequence of the threat they had made.
The question as to what line of policy will the most speedily and effectually bring these Indians into subjection to the dictates of our authorities, and control their future movements, is one fraught with difficulties, but must sooner or later be met.
The limits of their accustomed range are rapidly con- tracting, and their means of subsistence undergoing a cor- responding diminution. The white man is advancing with rapid strides upon all sides of them, and they are forced to give way to his encroachments. The time is not far distant when the buffaloes will become extinct, and they will then be compelled to adopt some other mode of life than the chase for a subsistence.
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62 PROPER POLICY.
Excepting a portion of the Southern Comanches, they have not as yet taken the first step toward civilization, and are entire strangers to labor or husbandry. The Indians must live, and when the Plains will not afford them a main- tenance, they will unquestionably seek it from their neigh- bors. No man will quietly submit to starvation when food is within his reach, and if he can not obtain it honestly he will steal it, or take it by force. If, therefore, we do not in- duce them to engage in agricultural avocations, we shall, in a few years, have before us the alternative of exterminating the race or feeding them perpetually.
That they are destined ultimately to extinction does not, in my mind, admit of a doubt, and it may be beyond the agency of human control to avert such a result. But it seems to me in accordance with the benevolent spirit of our institutions that we should endeavor to make the pathway of their exit from the sphere of human existence as smooth and easy as possible, and I know no more effectual way of accomplishing this than by teaching them to till the soil.
For the reasons before mentioned, it may at first be nec- essary for our government to assert its authority over them by a prompt and vigorous exercise of the military arm, and as soon as this is felt and acknowledged, the fostering hand of government should be kindly extended to them, and strong inducements offered to all who are disposed to labor, and every assistance given them upon the new sphere of action. In doing this, we discharge a debt of honor to the Eed Man, and confer upon him benefits of vastly more im- portance than by giving him presents of money and goods, the greater part of which are oftentimes stolen by corrupt agents and unprincipled traders. The tendency of the policy I have indicated will be to assemble these people in communities where they will be more readily controlled, and I predict from it the most gratifying results.
TEXAS RANGERS, 63
The predatory incursions of the Northern and Middle Comanches • upon the western borders of Texas and the northern states of Mexico were carried on successfully and uninterruptedly for many years. During the existence of the republic of Texas, the pioneers of that country were continually harassed by bands of these freebooters, and the result of their efforts shows how difficult it was to subdue them in war.
From 1838 to 1842, the republic was involved in contin- ual hostilities with these Indians, and during a portion of that time they had a large force in the field, many of whom were frontier settlers, whose sinews of iron and frames of oaken firmness had undergone such a system of training that they were enabled to set at defiance the vicissitudes of the most capricious climate, and were capable of enduring almost any amount of exposure and fatigue. These men were commanded by energetic and experienced leaders, and were well qualified to fill their stations.
Thus organized, they constituted the renowned " Texas Eangers," who are to this day held up by their statesmen as examples of the most successful Indian fighters that our country has produced.
The operations of the Eangers, as with our own troops that have been stationed along the Eio Grande frontier, were generally directed against war-parties, which were well mounted, and only suffered themselves to be approached when it suited their purposes, as they could at any time make their escape to their distant homes in the north, where they were out of reach from pursuit.
In this protracted warfare it was seldom that any deci- sive advantages were gained over the Indians, and after ex- pending her utmost energies in the vain attempt to chastise them into subjection, the sparsely-populated republic was finally compelled to resort to the peace policy.
64 EELIGION.
One of the most prominent features in the religious creeds of the natives of this continent, and a coincidence of faith common to them all, so far as I have been able to learn, is the remarkable fact that they universally acknowl- edge the existence of, and pay homage to, one great and almighty Spirit.
They are Theists of the least sensual stamp ; and that they have seldom, if ever, been idolaters, is a fact that is well es- tablished in the history of the race from the discovery of America. It is true that many of the tribes are in the habit of making their supplications to the great Disposer of Events through the medium of the sun, moon, or earth. This, however, is only true so far as these media are to be considered as symbolic of the real deity. They are not re- garded as in themselves possessing the power of supreme divinity, but as intermediate agents through which wish- es are communicated to the Creator.
In some other nations of the Old "World the type has sometimes been adopted as the real and actual deity or ob- ject of worship.
"Sun-worship" seems to have been universal over the Old World. It has been found in Egj^pt, Chaldea, Persia, Greece, India, Scandinavia, Lapland, Britain, Germany, and many other countries. "The fire - worshipers" had been taught by their fathers to worship the sun and the fire, as emblems of the god of the world. They ceased to look be- yond the emblem, and worshiped it as the real deity. In Mexico and Peru the Incas and priests claimed to be "chil- dren of the sun." But the Indians of North America have continued to look beyond the symbol to the being it repre- sented. They have never been idolaters. They have nev- ,er worshiped the emblem in the place of the true deity. And still, in their figurative language, they often speak as if they considered the sun as their god. They often call
RELIGION". 65
themselves "children of the sun," as well as "souls made of fire," etc. The Indian warrior and orator Tecumseh, at the conclusion of a speech, was told that his "father," the Governor of Indiana, desired him to take a chair. He re- jected it with scorn. "My father!" said the indignant chief, throwing himself on the ground; "the sun is my fa- ther, and the earth is my mother, and I will repose npon her bosom !"*
In evidence of what I have stated, I remark that Du Pratz found the Indians in the Mississippi Valley worship- ing a " great and most perfect Spirit, compared with whom all other things were as nothing, and by whom all things were made."
Lewis and Clarke, fifty years ago, found the Indians in- habiting the Upper Missouri possessing a religious faith which consisted exclusively in a firm belief in the exist- ence of "one great Spirif who ruled the destinies of men.
Eoger Williams expressed tbe conviction that if any white man doubted the existence of the God of the uni- verse, "the Indians could teach him."
The venerable missionary Heckewelder, after forty years' residence among the Delawares, said that habitual devotion to the Supreme Being was one of the most prominent traits in the mind of the Eed Man.
Kotwithstanding the high veneration that these people entertain for the Great Spirit, and the remarkable fact that among those I have known there is nothing in their vocab- ularies that enables them to give oral expression to an oath, yet, as strange as it may appear, the first expressions they learn after coming in contact with the white race are invariably those of profanity and obscenity, and this can only be accounted for from the fact that their earliest asso-
* Theology of the American Indians, National Quarterly Review, June, 18G3.
F*
66 CIVILIZATION.
ciations among the whites are with unprincipled Indian traders and immoral frontiersmen, who teach them all our vices, and none of our virtues.
Most of the Eastern tribes of Indians have, through the efforts of missionaries and philanthropists, been taught the rudiments of our revealed religion, and many of them have been worthy Christians, exercising a good influence over their red brethren. But thus far, no such efforts have ever been made to improve the moral or physical condition of the Comanches; no missionaries have, to my knowledge, ever visited them, and they have no more idea of Christian- ity than they have of the religion of Mohammed. We find dwelling almost at our doors as barbarous and heathenish a race as exists on the face of the earth ; and while our be- nevolent and philanthropic citizens are making such efforts to ameliorate the condition of savages in other countries, should we not do something for the benefit of these wild men of the prairies? Those dingy noblemen of nature, the original proprietors of all that vast domain included be- tween the shores of the Atlantic and Pacific, have been de- spoiled, supplanted, and robbed of their just and legitimate heritage by the avaricious and rapid encroachments of the lohite man. Numerous and powerful nations have already become exterminated by unjustifiable wars that he has waged with them, and by the effects of the vices he has in- troduced and inculcated ; and of those that remain, but few can be found who are not contaminated by the pernicious influences of unprincipled and designing adventurers. It is not at this late day in our power to atone for all the in- justice inflicted upon the Red Men; but it seems to me that a wise policy would dictate almost the only recompense it is now in our power to make — that of introducing among them the light of Christianity and the blessings of civiliza- tion, with their attendant benefits of agriculture and the arts.
CIVILIZED WAKFARE. 67
CHAPTER III.
INDIAN WARFARE.
Indian Warfare. — French Army in Algeria. — Turkish Method of Warfare. — Tracking Indians. — Telegraphing by Smokes. — Delawares, Shawnees, and Kickapoos. — Guides in the Great Desert. — The Khebir. — Delaware's Idea of the Compass. — Black Beaver. — Jealousy of his Wife. — Coman- che's Ideas of the Whites. — John Bushman. — Mamage Relations. — Jim Ned. — Great Horse-thief. — Comanche Law. — Juan Galvan. — Kickapoos good Hunters. — Respect for Law.
The art of war, as taught and practiced among civilized nations at the present day, is no doubt well adapted to the purposes for which it was designed, viz., the operations of armies acting in populated districts, furnishing ample re- sources, and against an enemy who is tangible, and makes use of similar tactics and strategy. But the modern schools of military science are but illy suited to carrying on a war- fare with the wild tribes of the Plains.
The vast expanse of desert territory that has been an- nexed to our domain within the last few years is peopled by numerous tribes of marauding and erratic savages, who are mounted upon fleet and 'hardy horses, making war the business and pastime of their lives, and acknowledging none of the ameliorating conventionalities of civilized war- fare. Their tactics are such as to render the old system al- most wholly impotent.
To act against an enemy who is here to-day and there to-morrow ; who at one time stampedes a herd of mules upon the head waters of the Arkansas, and when next heard from is in the very heart of the populated districts of Mexico, laying waste haciendas, and carrying devasta-
68 TRUE MILITARY POLICY.
tion, rapine, and murder in his steps ; who is every where without being any where ; who assembles at the moment of combat, and vanishes whenever fortune turns against him ; who leaves his women and children far distant from the theatre of hostilities, and has neither towns nor maga- zines to defend, nor lines of retreat to cover; who derives his commissariat from the country he operates in, and is not encumbered with baggage-wagons or pack-trains ; who comes into action only when it suits his purpose, and never without the advantage of numbers or position — with such an enemy the strategic science of civilized nations loses much of its importance, and finds but rarely, and only in peculiar localities, an opportunity to be put in practice.
Our little army, scattered as it has been over the vast area of our possessions, in small garrisons of one or two companies each, has seldom been in a situation to act suc- cessfully on the offensive against large numbers of these marauders, and has often been condemned to hold itself al- most exclusively upon the defensive. The morale of the troops must thereby necessarily be seriously impaired, and the confidence of the savages correspondingly augmented. The system of small garrisons has a tendency to disorganize the troops in proportion as they are scattered, and renders them correspondingly inefficient. The same results have been observed by the French army in Algeria, where, in 1845, their troops were, like ours, disseminated over a vast space, and broken up into small detachments stationed in numero-us intrenched posts. Upon the sudden appearance of Abd el Kader in the plain of Mitidja, they were defeat- ed with serious losses, and -W-ere from day to day obliged to abandon these useless stations, with all the supplies they contained. A French writer, in discussing this subject, says:
" "We have now abandoned the fatal idea of defending
FRENCH IN ALGERIA. 69
Algeria by small intrenched posts. In studying the char- acter of the war, the nature of the men who are to op- pose us, and of the country in which we are to operate, we must be convinced of the danger of admitting any other system of fortification than that which is to receive our grand depots, our magazines, and to serve as places to re- cruit and rest our troops when exhausted by long expedi- tionary movements,
" These fortifications should be established in the midst of the centres of action, so as to command the principal routes, and serve as pivots to expeditionary columns.
" We owe our success to a system of war which has its proofs in twice changing our relations with the Arabs. This system consists altogether . in the great mobility we have given to our troops. Instead of disseminating our soldiers with the vain hope of protecting our frontiers with a line of small posts, we have concentrated them, to have them at all times ready for emergencies, and since then the fortune of the Arabs has waned, and we have marched from victory to victory.
" This system, which has thus far succeeded, ought to succeed always, and to conduct us, God willing, to the peaceful possession of the country."
In reading a treatise upon war as it is practiced by the French in Algeria, by Colonel A. Laure, of the 2d Alge- rine Tirailleurs, published in Paris in 1858, 1 was struck with the remarkable similarity between the habits of the Arabs and those of the wandering tribes that inhabit our Western prairies. Their manner of making war is almost precisely the same,' and a successful system of strategic operations for one will, in my opinion, apply to the other.
As the Turks have been more successful than the French in their military operations against the Arab tribes, it may not be altogether uninteresting to inquire by what means
70 TURKISH SOLDIERS.
these inferior soldiers have accomplished the best re- sults.
The author above mentioned, in speaking upon this sub- ject, says :
" In these latter days the world is occupied with the or- ganization of mounted infantry, according to the example of the Turks, where, in the most successful experiments that have been made, the mule carries the foot-soldier.
" The Turkish soldier mounts his mule, puts his provi- sions upon one side and his accoutrements upon the other, and, thus equipped, sets out upon long marches, traveling day and night, and only reposing occasionally in bivouac. Arrived near the place of operations (as near the break of day as possible), the Turks dismount in the most profound silence, and pass in succession the bridle of one mule through that of another in such a manner that a single man is suffi- cient to hold forty or fifty of them by retaining the last bridle, which secures all the others ; they then examine their arms, and are ready to commence their work. The chief gives his last orders, posts his guides, and they make the attack, surprise the enemy, generally asleep, and carry the position without resistance. The operation terminated, they hasten to beat a retreat, to prevent the neighboring tribes from assembling, and thus avoid a combat.
" The Turks had only three thousand mounted men and ten thousand infantry in Algeria, yet these thirteen thou- sand men sufficed to conquer the same obstacles which have arrested us for twenty-six years, notwithstanding the advantage we had of an army which was successively re- enforced until it amounted to a hundred thousand.
" Why not imitate the Turks, then, mount our infantry upon mules, and reduce the strength of our army?
"The response is very simple:
" The Turks are Turks — that is to say, Mussulmans —
ARABS. 71
and indigenous to the country; the Turks speak the Arabic language ; the Deys of Algiers had less country to guard than we, and they care very little about retaining possession of it. They are satisfied to receive a part of its revenues. They were not permanent ; their dominion was held by a thread. The Arab dwells in tents; his magazines are in caves. When he starts upon a war expedition, he folds his tent, drives far away his beasts of burden, which trans- port his effects, and only carries with him his horse and arms. Thus equipped, he goes every where ; nothing ar- rests him; and often, when we believe him twenty leagues distant, he is in ambush at precisely rifle range from the flanks of his enemy.
"It may be thought the union of contingents might re- tard their movements, but this is not so. The Arabs, wheth- er they number ten or a hundred thousand, move with equal facility. They go where they wish and as they wish upon a campaign ; the place of rendezvous merely is indi- cated, and they arrive there.
" What calculations can be made against such an organi- zation as this ?
"Strategy evidently loses its advantages against such enemies ; a general can only make conjectures ; he marches to find the Arabs, and finds them not ; then, again, when he least expects it, he suddenly encounters them.
" When the Arab despairs of success in battle, he places his sole reliance upon the speed of his horse to escape de- struction •, and as he is always in a country where he can make his camp beside a little water, he travels until he has placed a safe distance between himself and his enemy."
TRACKING INDIANS.
When an Indian sentinel intends to watch for an enemy approaching from the rear, he selects the highest position
72 ' TRAILING INDIANS.
available, and places himself near the summit in such an attitude that his entire body shall be concealed from the observation of any one in the rear, his head only being ex- posed above the top of the eminence. Here he awaits with great patience so long as he thinks there is any possibility of danger, and it will be difficult for an enemy to surprise him or to elude his keen and scrutinizing vigilance. Mean- while his horse is secured under the screen of the hill, all ready when required. Hence it will be evident that, in following Indian depredators, the utmost vigilance and cau- tion must be exercised to conceal from them the movements of their pursuers. They are the best scouts in the world, proficient in all the artifices and stratagems available in bor- der warfare, and when hotly pursued by a superior force, after exhausting all other means of evasion, they scatter in different directions ; and if, in a broken or mountainous country, they can do no better, abandon their horses and baggage, and take refuge in the rocks, gorges, or other hid- ing-places. This plan has several times been resorted to by Indians in Texas when surprised, and, notwithstanding their pursuers were directly upon them, the majority made their escape, leaving behind all their animals and other property.
For overtaking a marauding party of Indians who have advanced eight or ten hours before the pursuing party are in readiness to take the trail, it is not best to push forward rapidly at first, as this will weary and break down horses. The Indians must be supposed to have at least fifty or sixty miles the start ; it will, therefore, be useless to think of over- taking them without providing for a long chase. Scouts should continually be kept out in front upon the trail to re- connoitre and give preconcerted signals to the main party when the Indians are espied.
In approaching all eminences or undulations in the prai-
INDIAN FIGHTING. 73
ries, the commander should be careful not to allow any con- siderable number of his men to pass upon the summits un- til the country around has been carefully reconnoitred by the scouts, who will cautiously raise their eyes above the crests of the most elevated points, making a scrutinizing examination in all directions ; and, while doing this, should an Indian be encountered who has been left behind as a sentinel, he must, if possible, be secured or shot, to prevent his giving the alarm to his comrades. These precautions can not be too rigidly enforced when the trail becomes " warm ;" and if there be a moon, it will be better to lie by in the daytime and follow the trail at night, as the great object is to come upon the Indians when they are not an- ticipating an attack. Such surprises, if discreetly conduct- ed, generally prove successful.
As soon as the Indians are discovered in their bivouac, the pursuing party should dismount, leave their horses un- der charge of a guard in some sequestered place, and, be- fore advancing to the attack, the men should be instructed in signals for their different movements, such as all will easily comprehend and remember. As, for example, a pull upon the right arm may signify to face to the right, and a pull upon the left arm to face to the left ; a pull upon the skirt of the coat, to halt ; a gentle push on the back, to ad- vance in ordinary time ; a slap on the back, to advance in double quick time, etc., etc.
These signals, having been previously well understood and practiced, may be given by the commander to the man next to him, and from him communicated in rapid succes- sion throughout the command.
I will suppose the party formed in one rank, with the
commander on the right. He gives the signal, and the
men move off cautiously in the direction indicated. The
importance of not losing sight of his comrades on his right
G
74 INDIAN FIGHTING.
and left, and of not allowing them to get out of his reach, so as to break the chain of communication, will be apparent to all, and great care should be taken that the men do not mistake their brothers in arms for the enemy. This may be prevented by having two pass-tvords, and when there be any doubt as to the identity of two men who meet during the night operations, one of these words may be repeated by each. Above all, the men must be fully impressed with the importance of not firing a shot until the order is given by the commanding officer, and also that a rigorous person- al accountability will be enforced in all cases of a violation of this rule.
If the commander gives the signal for commencing the attack by firing a pistol or gun, there will probably be no mistake, unless it happens through carelessness by the acci- dental discharge of fire-arms.
I can conceive of nothing more appalling, or that tends more to throw men off their guard and produce confusion, than a sudden and unexpected night-attack. Even the In- dians, who pride themselves upon their coolness and self- possession, are far from being exempt from its effects ; and it is not surprising that men who go to sleep with a sense of perfect security around them, and are suddenly aroused from a deep slumber by the terrific sounds of an onslaught from an enemy, should lose their presence of mind.
TELEGRAPHING BY SMOKES.
The transparency of the atmosphere upon the Plains is such that objects can be seen at great distances; a mount- ain, fpr example, presents a distinct and bold outline at fifty or sixty miles, and may occasionally be seen as far as a hundred miles.
The Indians, availing themselves of this fact, have been in the habit of practicing a system of telegraphing by
TELEGRAPHING. 75
means of smokes during the day and fires by night, and, I dare say, there are but few travelers who have crossed the mountains to Cahfornia that have not seen these signals made and responded to from peak to peak in rapid succes- sion.
The Indians thus make known to their friends many items of information highly important to them. If enemies or strangers make their appearance in the country, the fact is telegraphed at once, giving them time to secure their ani- mals, and to prepare for attack, defense, or flight.
War or hunting parties, after having been absent a long time from their erratic friends at home, and not knowinsr where to find them, make use of the same preconcerted sig- nals to indicate their presence.
Yery dense smokes may be raised by kindling a large fire with dry wood, and piling upon it the green boughs of pine, balsam, or hemlock. This throws off a heavy cloud of black smoke which can be seen very far.
This simple method of telegraphing, so useful to the sav- ages both in war and in peace, may, in my judgment, be used to advantage in the movements of troops co-operating in separate columns in the Indian country.
I shall not attempt at this time to present a matured sys- tem of signals, but will merely give a few suggestions tend- ing to illustrate the advantages to be derived from the use of them.
For example, when two columns are marching through a country at such distances apart that smokes may be seen from one to the other, their respective positions may be made known to each other at any time by two smokes raised simultaneously or at certain preconcerted intervals.
Should the commander of one column desire to commu- nicate with the other, he raises three smokes simultaneous- ly, which, if seen by the other party, should be responded
76 SIGNALS.
to in tlie same manner. They would then hold themselves in readiness for any other communications.
If an enemy is discovered in small numbers, a smoke raised twice at fifteen minutes' interval would indicate it ; and if in large force, three times with the same intervals might be the signal.
Should the commander of one party desire the other to join him, this might be telegraphed by four smokes at ten minutes' interval.
Should it become necessary to change the direction of the line of march, the commander may transmit the order by means of two simultaneous smokes raised a certain number of times to indicate the particular direction ; for instance, twice for north, three times for south, four times for east, and five times for west ; three smokes raised twice for northeast, three times for northwest, etc., etc.
By multiplying the combinations of signals a great vari- ety of messages might be transmitted in this manner ; but, to avoid mistakes, the signals should be written down and copies furnished the commander of each separate party, and they need not necessarily be made known to other per- sons.
During the day an intelligent man should be detailed to keep a vigilant look-out in all directions for smokes, and he should be furnished with a watch, pencil, and paper, to make a record of the signals, with their number, and the time of the interval between them.
DELAWARES, SHAWNEES, AND KICKAPOOS.
It is highly important that parties making expeditions through an unexplored country should secure the services of the best guides and hunters, and I know of none who are superior to the Delawares and Shawnee Indians. They have been with me upon several different occasions, and I
KHEBIRS. 77
liave invariably found them intelligent, brave, reliable, and in every respect well qualified to fill their positions. They are endowed with those keen and wonderful powers in woodcraft which can only be acquired by instinct, practice, and necessity, and which are possessed by no other people that I have heard of, unless it be the khebirs or guides who escort the caravans across the great desert of Sahara.
General E. Dumas, in his treatise tipon the " Great. Des- ert," published in Paris, 1866, in speaking of these guides, says:
" The khebir is always a man of intelligence, of tried probity, bravery, and skill. He knows how to determine his position from the appearance of the stars ; by the expe- rience of other journeys he has learned all about the roads, wells, and pastures ; the dangers of certain passes, and the means of avoiding them ; all the chiefs whose territories it is necessary to pass through ; the salubrity of the different localities ; the remedies against diseases ; the treatment of fractures, and the antidotes to the venom of snakes and scorpions.
" In these vast solitudes, where nothing seems to indi- cate the route, where the wind covers up all traces of the track with sand, the khebir has a thousand ways of direct- ing himself in the right course. In the night, when there are no stars in sight, by the simple inspection of a handful of grass, which he examines with his fingers, which he smells and tastes, he informs himself of his locale without ever being lost or wandering.
"I saw with astonishment that our conductor, although he had but one eye, and that defective, recognized perfectly the route ; and Leon, the African, states that the conductor of his caravan became blind upon the journey from oph- thalmia, yet by feeling the grass and sand he could tell when we were approaching an inhabited place.
G*
78 DELAWARES.
"Our guide had all the qualities which make a good khebir. He was young, large, and strong ; he was a mas- ter of arms; his eye commanded respect, and his speech won the heart. But if in the tent he was affable and win- ning, once en route he spoke only when it was necessary, and never smiled."
The Delawares are but a minute remnant of the great Algonquin family, whose early traditions declare them to be the parent stock from which the other numerous branch- es of the Algonquin tribes originated. And they are the same people whom the first white settlers found so numer- ous upon the banks of the Delaware.
When William Penn held his council with the Delawares upon the ground where the city of Philadelphia now stands, they were as peaceful and unwarlike in their habits as the Quakers themselves. They had been subjugated by the Five Nations, forced to take the appellation of squaws, and forego the use of arms ; but after they moved West, beyond the influence of their former masters, their naturally inde- pendent spirit revived, they soon regained their lofty posi- tion as braves and warriors, and the male squaws of the Iroquois soon became formidable men and heroes, and so have continued to the present day. Their war-path has reached the shores of the Pacific Ocean on the west, Hud- son's Bay on the north, and into the very heart of Mexico on the south.
They are not clannish in their dispositions like most oth- er Indians, nor by their habits confined to any given local- ity, but are found as traders, trappers, or hunters among most of the Indian tribes inhabiting our continent. I even saw them living with the Mormons in Utah. They are among the Indians as the Jews among the whites, essential- ly wanderers.
The Shawnees have been associated with the Delawares
THE COMPASS. 79
185 years. They intermarry and live as one people. Their present places of abode are upon the Missouri Eiver, near Fort Leavenworth, and in the Choctaw Territory, upon the Canadian Eiver, near Fort Arbuckle. They are familiar with many of the habits and customs of their pale - faced neighbors, and some of them speak the English language, yet many of their native characteristics tenaciously cling to them.
Upon one occasion I endeavored to teach a Delaware the use of the compass. He seemed much interested in its mechanism, and very attentively observed the oscillations of the needle. He would move away a short distance, then return, keeping his eyes continually fixed upon the needle and the uniform position into which it settled. He did not, however, seem to comprehend it in the least, but regarded the entire proceeding as a species of necromantic perform- ance got up for his especial benefit, and I was about put- ting away the instrument when he motioned me to stop, and came walking toward it with a very serious but incred- ulous countenance, remarking, as he pointed his finger to- ward it, "Maybe so he tell lie sometime."
BLACK BEAVER.
In 1849 I met with a very interesting specimen of the Delaware tribe whose name was Black Beaver. He had for ten years been in the employ of the American Fur Com- pany, and during this time had visited nearly every point of interest within the limits of our unsettled territory. He had set his traps and spread his blanket upon the head wa- ters of the Missouri and Columbia ; and his wanderinsrs had led him south to the Colorado and Gila, and thence to the shores of the Pacific in Southern California. His life had been that of a veritable cosmopolite, filled with scenes of intense and startling interest, bold and reckless adventure.
80 DELAWARE CHARGE.
He was with me two seasons in the capacity of guide, and I always found him perfectly reliable, brave, and compe- tent. His reputation as a resolute, determined, and fearless warrior did not admit of question, yet I have never seen a man who wore his laurels with less vanity.
When I first made his acquaintance I was puzzled to know what to think of him. He would often, in speaking of the prairie Indians, say to me,
" Captain, if you have a fight, you mustn't count much on me, for I'ze a big coward. When the fight begins I 'spect you'll see me run under the cannon; Injun mighty 'fraid of big gun."
I expressed my surprise that he should, if what he told me was true, have gained such a reputation as a warrior ; whereupon he informed me that many years previous, when he was a young man, and before he had ever been in battle, he, with about twenty white men and four Delawares, were at one of the Fur Company's trading-posts upon the Upper Missouri, engaged in trapping beaver. While there, the stockade fort was attacked by a numerous band of Black- feet Indians, who fought bravely, and seemed determined to annihilate the little band that defended it.
After the investment had been completed, and there ap- peared no probability of the attacking party's abandoning their purpose, " One d — d fool Delaware" (as Black Beaver expressed it) proposed to his countrymen to make a sortie, and thereby endeavor to effect an impression upon the Blackfeet. This, Beaver said, was the last thing he would ever have thought of suggesting, and it startled him prodig- iously, causing him to trehible so much that it was with difficulty he could stand.
He had, however, started from home with the fixed pur- pose of becoming a distinguished brave, and made a great effort to stifle his emotion. He assumed an air of determ-
A BRAVE MAN. 81
ination, saying that was tlie very idea lie was just about to propose ; and, slapping his comrades upon the back, started toward the gate, telling them to follow. As soon as the gate was passed, he says, he took particular care to keep in the rear of the others, so that, in the event of a retreat, he would be able to reach the stockade first.
They had not proceeded far before a perfect shower of arrows came falling around them on all sides, but fortu- nately without doing them harm. Not fancying this hot reception, those in front proposed an immediate retreat, to which he most gladly acceded, and at once set ofi" at his ut- most speed, expecting to reach the fort first. But he soon discovered that his comrades were more fleet, and were rapidly passing and leaving him behind. Suddenly he stopped and called out to them, "Come back here, you cowards, you squaws; what for you run away and leave brave man to fight alone ?" This taunting appeal to their courage turned them back, and, with their united efforts, they succeeded in beating off the enemy immediately around them, securing their entrance into the fort.
Beaver says when the gate was, closed the captain in charge of the establishment grasped him warmly by the hand, saying, "Black Beaver, you are a brave man; you have done this day what no other man in the fort would have the courage to do, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart."
In relating the circumstance to me he laughed most heartily, thinking it a very good joke, and said after that he was regarded as a brave warrior.
The truth is, my friend Beaver was one of those few he- roes who never sounded his own trumpet ; yet no one that knows him ever presumed to question his courage.
At another time, while Black Beaver remained upon the- head waters of the Missouri, he was left in charge of a
82 BLACK BEAVER.
'■^cache^'' consisting of a quantity of goods buried to prevent their being stolen by the Indians. During the time he was engaged upon this duty he amused himself by hunting in the vicinity, only visiting his charge once a day. As he was making one of these periodical visits, and had arrived upon the summit of a hill overlooking the locality, he sud- denly discovered a large number of hostile Blackfeet occu- pying it, and he supposed they had appropriated all the goods. As soon as they espied him, they beckoned for him to come down and have a friendly chat with them.
Knowing that their purpose was to beguile him into their power, he replied that he did not feel in a talking humor just at that time, and started off in another direction, where- upon they hallooed after him, making use of the most in- sulting language and gestures, and asking him if he consid- ered himself a man thus to run away from his friends, and intimating that, in their opinion, he was an old woman, who had better go home and take care of the children.
Beaver says this roused his indignation to such a pitch that he stopped, turned around, and replied, "Maybe so; s'pose three or four of you Injuns come up here alone, I'll show you if I'ze old womans." They did not, however, ac- cept the challenge, and Beaver rode off.
Although the Delawares generally seem quite happy in their social relations, yet they are not altogether exempt from some of those minor discords which occasionally creep in and mar the domestic harmony of their more civilized pale-faced brethren.
I remember, upon one occasion, I had bivouacked for the night with Black Beaver, and he had been endeavoring to while away the long hours of the evening by relating to me some of the most thrilling incidents of his highly adventur- ous /md erratic life, when at length a hiatus in the conver- sation gave me an opportunity of asking him if he was a
A JEALOUS WIFE. 83
married man. He hesitated for some time; then looking up and giving his forefinger a twirl, to imitate the throwing of a lasso, replied, " One time me catch 'um wife. I pay that woman, Ms modeler^ one hoss — one saddle — one bridle — two plug tobacco, and plenty goods. I take him home to my house — got plenty meat — plenty corn — plenty every thing. One time me go take walk, maybe so three, maybe so two hours. When I come home, that woman he say, 'Black Beaver, what for you go way long time?'. I say, 'I nut go nowhere ; I just take one littel walk.' Then that woman he get heap mad, and say, ' No, Black Beavei", 3'ou not take no littel walk. I know what for you go way; you go see nodder one woman.'' I say, ' Maybe not.' Then that woman she cry long time, and all e'time now she mad. You never seen 'Merican woman that a- way ?"
I sympathized most deeply with my friend in his distress, and told him for his consolation that, in my opinion, the women of his nation were not peculiar in this respect ; that they were pretty much alike all over the world, and I was under the impression that there were well-authenticated in- stances even among white women where they had subject- ed themselves to the same causes of complaint so feelingly depicted by him. Whereupon he very earnestly asked, "What you do for cure him? Whip him?" I replied, No; that, so far as my observation extended,! was under the impression that this was generally regarded by those who had suffered from its effects as one of those chronic and vexatious complaints which would not be benefited by the treatment he suggested, even when administered in homoeopathic doses, and I believed it was now admitted by all sensible men that it was better in all such cases to let nature take its course, trusting to a merciful Providence.
At this reply his countenance assumed a dejected ex- pression, but at length he brightened up again and triumph-
84 COMANCHE INCKEDULITY.
antly remarked, " I tell you, my friend, what I do ; I ketch 'um nodder one wife when I go home."
Black Beaver had visited St. Louis and the small towns upon the Missouri frontier, and he prided himself not a lit- tle upon his acquaintance with the customs of the whites, and never seemed more happy than when an opportunity offered to display this knowledge in presence of his Indian companions. It so happened, upon one occasion, that I had a Comanche guide who bivouacked at the same fire with Beaver. On visiting them one evening according to my usual practice, I found them engaged in a very earnest and apparently not very amicable conversation. On inquiring the cause of this, Beaver answered, " I've been telling this Comanche what I seen 'mong the white folks."
I said, "Well, Beaver, what did you tell him ?" ■
"I tell him 'bout the steam -boats, and the rail-roads, and the heap o' houses I seen in St. Louis."
"Well, sir, what does he think of that?"
"He say I'ze d—d fool."
"What else did you tell him about?"
"I tell him the world is round, but he keep all e'time say, ' Hush, you fool ! do yous 'pose I'ze child. Haven't I got eyes? Can't I see the prairie? You call him round?' He say, too, ' Maybe so I tell you something you not know before. One time my grandfather he make long journey that way (pointing to the west). When he get on big mountain, he seen heap water on t'other side, jest so flat he can be, and he seen the sun go straight down on t'other side.' I then tell him all the serivers he seen, all e'time the water he run; s'pose the, world flat, the water he stand still. Maybe so he not b'lieve me?"
I told him it certainly looked very much like it. I then asked him to explain to the Comanche the magnetic tele- graph. He looked at me earnestly, and said,
JOHN BUSHMAN, 85
"What you call that magnetic telegraph?"
I said, " You have heard of New York and New Or- leans ?"
" Oh yes," he replied.
"Very well ; we have a wire connecting these two cities, which are about a thousand miles apart, and it would take a man thirty days to ride it upon a good horse. Now a man stands at one end of this wire in New York, and by touching it a few times he inquires of his friend in New Orleans what he had for breakfast. His friend in New Or- leans touches the other end of the wire, and in ten minutes the answer comes back — ham and eggs. Tell him that, Beaver."
His countenance assumed a most comical expression, but lie made no remark until I again requested him to repeat what I had said to the Comanche, when he observed,
"No, captain, I not tell him that, for I don't b'lieve that myself."
Upon my assuring him tliat sucli was tke fact, and that I had seen it myself, he said,
"Injun not very smart; sometimes he's big fool, but he holler pretty loud; you hear him maybe half a mile; you say 'Merican man he talk thousand miles. I 'spect you try to fool me now, captain ; maybe so you liey
JOHN BUSHMAN.
Previous to my departure from Fort Washita upon my Red River expedition, I employed five Delawares and Shaw- nees as guides and hunters. One of them, by the name of John Bushman, who could speak English and Comanche fluently, was constituted interpreter and the head man of the Indians.
I directed him to tell his comrades that I proposed to
pay each of tliem one dollar per day during the time we
H
86 A QUESTION OF WAGES.
should be absent. With this all seemed to be satisfied, and I supposed every thing was arranged to suit them ; but it seemed that Bushman had conversed with Black Beaver upon the subject previous to leaving home, and Beaver had informed him that he had received from me two dollars and a half per day, and suggested to John that he would prob- ably get the same compensation for his services. I was not advised of this, however, and supposed he would only expect the same pay as the other Indians, until one day, after he had acted as interpreter for me with a party of prairie Indians who had visited our camp, he came to me and said, "You not tell me yet, captain, how much you goin' give me."
I replied that I had stated to him distinctly before leav- ing Fort Washita that each Delaware would receive one dollar a day. He answered,
"I no understand um that-a-way, captain. Black Bea- ver he say maybe so give um two dollar half one day."
I told him Black Beaver was not authorized to make contracts for me ; moreover, I added, a dollar a day was good pay, but in consideration of his acting as interpreter, I would allow him an additional per diem of half a dollar, which was more than he had any right to expect; that I was disposed to compensate him liberally, but that the gov- ernment had no money to throw away by paying three prices for a thing.
John acquiesced in this decision, but in a very surly mood, and did not recover his usual spirits for some days. At length, however, he seemed to be content, and on our return to Fort Arbuckle, after I had settled with him, and as he was about leaving for his home, I said to him, " Well, John, you are going home now. In case I make another expedition into the Plains, would you like to ac- company mc?" " No," he replied, very abruptly. "And
FOLLOWING A TRAIL, 87
why not, pray ?" " Because that government he hain't got no money to throw away."
John Bushman had acted as interpreter for me at Fort Arbuckle, when I first established that post, and he was a true specimen of the Indian type — dignified, reserved, and taciturn, self-reliant, independent, and fearless.
He was a man of eminently determinate and resolute character, with great powers of endurance, and a most acute and vigilant observer, distinguished by prominent powers of locality and sound judgment. These traits of character, with the abundant experience he had upon the Plains, made him one of the very best guides I ever met with. He never sees a place once without instantly recognizing it on seeing it the second time, notwithstanding he may ap- proach it from a different direction ; and the very moment he takes a glance over a district of country he has never seen before, he will almost iavariably point out the partic- ular localities (if there are any, such) where water can be found, when to others there seems nothing to indicate it.
An incident which was related to me as occurring with one of these guides a few years since, forcibly illustrates their character. The officer having charge of the party to which he was attached sent him out to examine a trail he had met with on the prairie, for the purpose of ascertaining where it would lead to. The guide, after following it as far as he supposed he would be required to do, returned and reported that it led off into the prairie to no particular place, so far as he could discover. He was told that this was not satisfactory, and directed to take the trail again, and to follow it until he gained the required information. He accordingly went out the second time, but did not re- turn that day, nor the next, and the party, after a time, be- gan to be alarmed for his safety, fearing he might have been killed by the Indians. Days and weeks passed by,
88 EASY DIVORCE.
but still nothing was heard of the guide, until, on arriving at the first border settlement, to their astonishment, he made his appearance among them, and, approaching the commanding officer, said, "Captain, that trail which you or- dered me to follow terminates here." He had, with indom- itable and resolute energy, traversed alone several hund- red miles of wild and desolate prairie, with nothing but his gun to depend upon for a subsistence, determined this time to carry out the instructions of his employer to the letter.
John Bushman had been married for many years, and had several children when I first met him, but his wife was getting in years, and he resolved to provide himself with a younger companion. Accordingly, he one day intro- duced into his household a young Mrs. Bushman, which pro- ceeding very much exasperated the elder matron. Shortly after this innovation upon his domestic relations, I called at his cabin, and, observing the two squaws looking very demure and sad, I asked John what the trouble was. He replied, pointing to the elder, " That woman, he mad." Then, turning toward the other, he said, "That one he mad too, captain."
The day following the elder wife took her children, and left John to enjoy his honeymoon without farther molest- ation.
The marriage contract among the Delawares and Shaw- nees, it appears, is only binding so long as it suits the con- venience and wishes of the parties. It can be revoked at any time when either party feels disposed ; and a woman who leaves her husband is authorized by their laws to take with her all the persotial property which she possessed at the date of the marriage. It can not be alienated, and her husband does not acquire the slightest claim upon it.
This law of property, I think, is a very just and wise pro- vision, because it makes the woman somewhat independent
JIM NED. 89
of her husband, and, no doubt, frequently deters a tyran- nical man from maltreating his wife. In the instance al- luded to, Bushman's wife carried away all the horses be- longing to the family, as they were her property.
JIM NED.
This somewhat remarkable specimen of humanity is a Delaware, united with a slight admixture of the African. He had a Delaware wife, and adopted the habits of that tribe, but at the same time he possessed all the social vivac- ity and garrulity of the negro. He was, however, exceed- ingly sensitive upon the subject of the African element in his composition, and resorted to a variety of expedients to conceal it from strangers, one of which was by shaving off" his kinky locks, and keeping his head continually covered with a shawl " a la Turk."
When I first met Jim in 1849, he had the reputation of being one of the most expert, daring, and successful horse- thieves among the southwestern tribes. The theatre of his exploits was not confined to our territory, but his forays often extended into Mexico, and it was seldom that he re- turned empty-handed.
Although he was generous and hospitable in his disposi- tion, yet he was eminently vindictive and revengeful to- ward those who interfered with his favorite pursuit, and it was said that several of his tribe had with their lives paid the penalty of incurring his displeasure.
My friend Black Beaver used to talk to me a great deal about this noted freebooter, but was very far from being prepossessed in his favor. They had, it seems, upon a cer- tain occasion, a difficulty which came near resulting in a serious quarrel. Jim, no doubt thinking that his antece- dents were of a character to deter any one who knew him from voluntarily placing himself in a hostile attitude to-
H
*
90 UNFAITHFULNESS PUNISHED.
ward him, remarked to Beaver, in the course of the discus- sion that ensued, " I suppose, sir, you've heard of one Dela- ware man that people call Jim Nedf To which Beaver replied "that he had several times heard of the individual named."
"Very well," Jim said. "Have you not also heard that when a man incurs his displeasure, the climate becomes very sickly for him, and that he does not generally live long after it?"
Beaver was no coward, and, knowing the fact of the oth- er's sensitive disposition, he replied, " I'ze not very rich In- dian just now ; I hazn't got much money, but maybe so I'ze got enough to pay for one d — d nigger, s'poze I kill him."
Jim Ned had been a great deal among the wild tribes of the Plains, and was familiar with many of their customs and peculiarities. He was with me for several weeks in 1854, and related to me several incidents in his life, which interested me not a little.
As we were sitting by our camp-fire one evening, he asked me if I knew how the prairie Indians punished an incontinent wife. I replied that I did not, unless it was by cutting off an ear, or the end of her nose. He then related to me the following incident, which came under his own observation.
Some years before, it appeared, he had been the guest of a Comanche chief, who was encamped with his band near the head waters of the Brazos. This chief was possessed of large herds of horses, that were tended and cared for by some six or eight wives of various ages, from eighteen to fifty.
During Jim's visit, one of the youngest and most attract- ive of these damsels was prevailed upon by a young brave to leave her lord, and elope with him upon a war expedi-
JUAN GALVAN. 91
tion into Mexico. Tlie old chief expressed much indigna- tion toward his truant spouse and her lover, and threatened all manner of punishments on their return. Time passed by, and in the course of about two months the pair returned to the encampment. The chief soon learned that they were there, and on the following morning, just before daybreak, awoke Jim Ned, saying to him, "Get up, my friend ; I want you to see a specimen of Comanche law." He was dressed in his full war costume, with his face painted in various fanciful colors, and his horse saddled at the door of his lodge. He seated himself near Jim, lighted his pipe, and, pulling several whiffs, passed it to him, after which he took his lance, mounted his horse, and rode out into the camp, and in a short time returned with his truant companion behind him.
They dismounted before the lodge, and he told the wom- an to sit down in a place which he designated ; then, load- ing his rifle, he approached her, and directed her to cross her feet one above the other. When this was done, he placed the muzzle of his gun directly over them and fired, the ball passing though the centre of both feet. " Now," he said, "run away again if you like." The friends of the woman then approached and carried her off. This, Jim says, is Comanche law.
JUAN GALVAN.
While I was serving in Southern Texas, on the borders of Mexico, I became acquainted with an interesting speci- men of the primitive inhabitants of that wild and sterile region.
He was a Mexican, by the name of Juan Galvan, who had passed all his life (about fifty years) upon a ranch near Lerado, on the Eio Grande.
He had often been attacked and robbed by the prairie
92 A CUNNING TKICK.
Indians, wBo, even as late as 1854, when I was tliere, would occasionally make raids upon the country.
Galvan was regarded as one of the best guides in the country. He understood all the mysteries of trailing and "signs" perfectly, and was often employed as guide for par- ties of troops sent out on scouts in pursuit of Indians. He was a brave man, and wore the scars of many battles in which he had been engaged against the savages.
He related to me several interesting adventures in his experience, which forcibly illustrated the habits and peculi- arities of the Indian race.
Among others, he told me that he was, some years be- fore, with a command of our troops in pursuit of and upon a fresh trail of Indians, when, as they entered a dense thick- et of chaparral bordering an arroya, they suddenly came upon the enemy prepared to give battle.
Our men immediately made the attack, and charged into the chajDarral. Galvan fired at an Indian who, a moment before, had discharged his gun at him, and his shot took effect, as he supposed, for the Indian fell upon the ground uttering the most pitiful groans. He did not stop to give him another shot, supposing he had received his death- wound, but pushed on to give battle to others.
When he had passed on about one hundred yards, how- ever, much to his astonishment up jumped the identical savage, slapping his chest, and in a most triumphant tone crying out in Spanish, " Nada, nada, nada! Bueno, bueno, bueno !" (Nothing, nothing, nothing ! Good, good, good !) and at the same time he fired his gun at him, which, it ap- peared, he had loaded while in the act of playing the part of the dead Indian.
At another time Galvan was out with Lieutenant Hud- son and a detachment of our soldiers upon the trail of a party of Comanches, whom they overtook in an arroya.
KICKAPOOS. 93
The Indians, seeing there was no chance for escape, scat- tered, took cover, and commenced fighting. In a short time they espied the lieutenant, and cried out in Spanish, " Mira ! mira ! curahoe capitano Americano" (looli ! look ! d — d American captain) ; and immediately several of them seem- ed determined to kill him. One approached him very close, and discharged several arrows at him, when the lieutenant ran up and seized him by the hair of the head, and attempt- ed to cut him down with his sabre, but unfortunately the arm was so dull that he was unable to inflict much injury upon him, and the savage turned upon him with an arrow, and stabbed him so severely that he died in a few days.
KICKAPOO INDIANS.
This minute fraction of what was once a formidable tribe of Indians is now reduced to a very few wamiors, a portion of whom, in 1854, lived upon the Choctaw reservation near the Witchita Eiver,
They, like the Delawares and Shawnees, are well armed with good rifles, in the use of which they are very expert, and there are no better hunters or warriors upon the bor- ders. They hunt altogether on horseback, and after a par- ty of them have passed through a section of country, it is seldom that any game is left in their trace.
They are intelligent, active, and brave, and frequently visit and traf&c with the prairie Indians, and have no fears of meeting these people in battle, provided the odds are not more than six to one against them.
The manner 'in which they execute justice upon their own people who have been guilty of infractions of their laws is shown in the following case of the murder of the Comanche agent, Colonel Stem, and another man, who were traveling together near Fort Belknap in 1853.
They were within about ten miles of the fort when they
94 MURDER PUNISHED.
were fired upon by two Indians, who missed them, but im- mediately attacked with their rifles clubbed and beat them to death.
The murderers made their escape, and no clew could be obtained of them for a long time, until at length the com- manding officer of Fort Belknap received information that induced him to believe the perpetrators of the deed were Kickapoos, living near Fort Arbuckle. Accordingly, he sent an officer to that post, and the chief of the Kickapoos was called in, and told that there were good reasons for be- lievinfij that some of his band had committed the act. He was then told that those persons must be given up to our authorities, and, if they attempted to escape, they must be shot down, and evidence of their identity brought to the fort.
The chief replied that their head men had been in coun- cil upon the same subject all the previous night, and that they had taken the matter into very serious consideration. The facts had been reported by a boy who was in company with the Indians when the deed was perpetrated. The murderers had made their escape, but the chief stated that his young warriors were already on their trail, and would probably overtake them, and as soon as they were appre- hended they should be given up.
The chief then returned to his village, and soon afterward one of the murderers was brought in, and immediately bound, placed upon a horse, and they started with him to the fort. Before they reached there, however, he threw him- self from the horse, cut his bonds with a Ic^ife he had con- cealed in his leggins, and attempted to flee, but he was im- mediately shot down through the heart by his guard, and his body carried into the fort and exhibited to the com- manding officer. The chief then said that all his warriors were in pursuit of the other man, and would probably ap-
A brother's justice. 95
prehend him ; that he had sent them out in pairs, or twos; and that, should any of the whites meet with a single Kick- apoo out by himself in any direction, they could kill him without hesitation ; they would be certain to have executed the right one.
Several days elapsed without any information from the fugitive, when a runner came in and communicated the fol- lowing facts. It appeared that the Indian, on leaving his village, had made his way to another camp upon the Cana- dian Eiver, where he had a brother living. On entering the village, he went toward his brother's lodge, exclaiming, in a loud tone of voice, " I am the murderer of the two white men near Fort Belknap, and if any man wishes to take my life, here I am, ready to die." No one molesting him, he passed on to his brother's lodge, and seating him- self, partook of supper; then, turning to his brother, said, "Here I am, my brother, a fugitive from justice. I would have gone and joined the Comanches, but I was fearful I should starve before I found them. I am hunted down like a wild beast. I am like a wounded deer, that can not get away. I had nowhere else to go but to you." He contin- ued talking with his brother for some time, when finally the latter invited him to walk outside of the camp, where they could have a more free interchange of views. As soon as they were a short distance from the village, the brother stepped back, raised his tomahawk, and with a single blow felled the murderer to the ground, but did not kill him. He then seized him, saying, " My brother, I have repeatedly warned you of the consequences of following the path you have, and told you that it would ultimately lead you to dis- grace and ruin. You have violated the laws of your tribe and of the United States, and you have thereby brought the nation into difficulty with the pale-faces, and they expect ample reparation for the deed you have committed, and it
96 REGARD FOR LAW.
now becomes my duty to kill you." He then deliberately put him to death, and immediately went and reported the fact to the chief, who at once assembled a council of the principal men, and, after addressing them, and explaining the nature of the case, he called for a volunteer to cut off the head of the murderer, saying that the distance to the fort was too great to transport the body, and, as the command- ing officer required positive evidence that the man had been killed, it became necessary that they should take the head to him. No one volunteering, he said, "As no one seems willing to do this act, I shall be obliged to do it myself;" which he accordingly did, and carried the head, with a strong escort, to Fort Arbuckle.
The foregoing incident evinces a high regard for law, and an inflexibility of spirit in the execution of its mandates seldom found among any people, and it exhibits the Kick- apoo character in vivid and faithful colors.
PUEBLO INDIANS. 97
CHAPTER IV.
PUEBLO INDIANS.
Pueblo Indians. — Early Discovery. — Situations of their Towns. — Moquis. — Coronado's Expedition. — Visit to Santa Domingo. — Laguna. — -Christmas Ceremonies. — Church Services. — Bird Orchestra. — Dances. — Moqui Vil- lages.— Peculiar Dances. — Feasting. — Origin of the Moquis. — Marriage Ceremony. — Estufas. — Pottery. — Extensive Kuins. — Large Houses. — Casas Grandes.
Three liimdred and twenty-.nine years ago, and eighty- three years before the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, a Franciscan missionary, named Marcus de Niza, with that spirit of self-sacrifice and devotion to the interests of his Church which characterized the monks of his order, soli- tary and alone traversed the vast expanse of desert coun- try lying between the city of Mexico and the Gila Eiver, and penetrated into the very heart of New Mexico, where he discovered a class of aborigines living in houses and towns, and far more advanced in the arts than any others that have been met with since within the limits of our pos- sessions. These Indians cultivated cotton, and manufac- tured cloth from it. They also understood the art of mak- ing and coloring a very superior quality of pottery.
Their villages or towns were generally located in the most elevated and-defensible positions, and regularly laid out into streets and public squares like European cities. Their houses were two, three, four, and sometimes as many as seven stories high, and occasionally pierced with loop- holes for defense, but invariably the entrances were from the roofs, with no doors upon the sides. They cultivated
I
98 CORONADO'S EXPEDITION.
corn, were industrious and unwarlike in their habits, and seemed to live comfortably and happy.
This same class of Indians still exists in New Mexico, and, with the exceptions of some few modifications brought about by the introduction of domestic animals and the com- mingling of the Catholic religion with their own primitive forms of Aztec worship, their habits, customs, and religion are almost precisely the same to-day as they were when first seen by the Spanish priest. These Indians are now called " Puei?05," or people who live in towns.
The most remarkable specimens of the Pueblos that I have heard of are the Moquis, who occupy seven towns or villages situated in a very inaccessible locality, about raid- way between the Eio del Norte and the Colorado Eiver, and a short distance north of the Little Colorado. But very few of our people have ever visited them, and it is a most striking fact that this section, which, after Florida, was the first of our present possessions visited by Euro- peans, should be the last to be explored by the present gen- eration.
The first successful attempt to explore this region was made while Nuno de Guzman was President of New Spain in 1540, and was, as I said before, intrusted to the command of Francisco Vasquez Coronado. The expedition consisted of 300 volunteers, mostly Spaniards of good families, who were induced to join the enterprise under the belief that they were to be led direct to the veritable " El Dorado."
They marched to Sonora, and thence, crossing the Gila, traveled two weeks through the desert north of that stream, until at length they reached one of the towns they, were in search of, called Cibola, which they found built upon an elevated cliff, the houses having three and four stories, erect- ed in terrace form, and the approaches to the summit of the cliff so narrow and steep as to be very difficult of access.
A rUEBLO VISITED. • 99
Nevertheless, " Coronado assailed it sword in band, and car- ried it in an hour."
From thence he proceeded east to another larger town, called Tigoeux, on the Eio Grande, where he made his head-quarters during the winter of 1540-1. At this place, which some suppose to have been near Isletta, "some of the houses were seven stories in height, and rose above the rest like towers, having embrasures and loopholes."
From thence he made his expedition into the Plains, where he encountered the prairie Indians and vast herds of buffalo, and returned to Gran Quivera, on the Pecos River.
Upon the occasion of Coronado's visit to New Mexico lie had a large number of sheep, and it is probable that the flocks of sheep seen among the Pueblo Indians at the pres- ent day sprang from those introduced by Coronado.
I visited one of these pueblo towns {Santa Dominga) in 18-19. On our entrance the streets seemed to be deserted, and we were for some time unable to find any person to guide us to the residence of the governor (cacique). At length, however, we reached the house and ascended a lad- der to the roof, and thence by another ladder descended through a trap-door into the principal room of the house. This method of ingress and egress must have originated from purposes of defense, *as when the exterior ladder is removed there is no way of entering the establishment. Immediately on our appearance the governor set before us some meat and tortillas, and gave us an invitation " to eat^'' and the same ceremony was observed in all the houses we visited. . It seemed to be a universal custom with them.
While we were conversing with the governor, who was a very dignified and sensible old Indian, we heard strange noises in the street, and, on looking out, saw four young Indians dressed in a very peculiar tight-fitting costume of
100 CALLING OUT WORKMEN.
different colors, something like those we see upon the clowns in a circus. Around their heads were wreaths of wheat, and in their hands they carried gourds containing small pebbles, which they kept continually shaking.
They were going from house to house in a kind of mo- notonous dancing gait, at the same time crying out some- thing in Indian which we could not understand, and as they passed along they would strike the exterior ladders of cer- tain houses. The alcalde informed us that they were his criers, who were calling out the people to work in the field, and this ceremony, it appeared, was gone through with ev- ery day.
This pueblo was on the Eio Grande, in the settled part of the territory, and the Indians were accustomed to see Americans almost every day ; yet they have preserved their national characteristics intact, and have not adopted any of the habits of the whites.
The Moqui Indians, who also live in pueblos or towns, are so remote from the settlements, and in such an inac- cessible country, that but very few white men have ever visited them.
' Surgeon P. G. S. Ten Broeck, United States Army, in 1851-2, paid a visit to the Pueblo of Laguna, and also to the Moqui villages, where he spent several days, having a good opportunity afforded him t)f witnessing their peculiar ceremonies and customs; and as his description of the re- markable idiosyncracies of this anomalous race (or rathet type of a race) is highly interesting and truthful, I liave taken the liberty of making some extracts from a paper furnished by him to Mr. H. R. Schoolcraft.
He attended church on Christmas at Laguna, and gives his impressions in the following words: "The church was quite a large building of stone, laid up in mud, and is sur- mounted by a wooden cross. It is long and narrow, and
PUEBLO WOESHIP. 101
the walls are whitewashed in much the same style that the Indians paint their earthen-ware. The front is continued about ten feet above the roof, the whole overtopped by a cross, and in this wall are three arches containing as. many sized bells, whose tones are by no means Orphean, and which are tolled by Indians standing on the roof, and pulling cords attached to the different clappers. (Query : where did the bells come from ?)
" The Indians appear greatly delighted in jingling these bells upon all occasions ; but this morning they commenced very early, and made, if possible, more noise than usual. After breakfast I entered church and found the people as- sembling for worship, the men in their best blankets, buck- skin breeches, and moccasins, and .the squaws in their gay- est tilmas. Many of the latter wore blankets of red cloth thrown over the ordinary colored tilraa or manta. Candles were lighted at the altar, within the limits of which were two old men performing some kind of mystic ceremony. Soon an old, ragged, dirty-looking Mexican commenced re- citing the rosary of the Virgin Mary, and all who under- stood Spanish joined in the responses. When the rosary was finished, this same old fellow sang a long song in praise of Montezuma, which he afterward told me was written by himself, the burden of which was 'Cuando! cuando ! nabro otis Montezuma, cuando !'
" This being ended, some other ceremonies which I did not understand were gone through with by the Indians; speeches were made by the governor and some of the old men, and the congregation then quietly dispersed to pre- pare themselves for the pastimes of the afternoon. As they passed out I noticed that a great many of them carried in their hands little baskets containing images, some of sheep and goats, others of horses, cows, and other domestic ani- mals, and others, again, of deer and beasts of the chase,
I*
102 BIRD ORCHESTRA.
quite ingeniously wrought in mud or dough. Inquiring the reason of this, I was told that it was their custom from time immemorial that those who had been successful with herds, in agriculture, in the chase, or any other way, car- ry images (each of that in which he had been blessed dur- ing the past year) to the altar, there to lay them at the feet of the Great Spirit.
"But I have deferred until the last what was to me by far the most curious and interesting in this singular Christ- mas service — I mean the orchestra. Just over the entrance door there was a small gallery, and no sooner had the Mexican commenced his rosary than there issued from this a sound like the warbling of a multitude of birds, and it was kept up until he had ceased. There it went, through the whole house, bounding from side to side, echoing fi-om the very rafters — fine, tiny warblings, and deep-toned, thrill- ing sounds. The note of the wood-thrush and the trillings of the Canary bird, were particularly distinct. What could it mean ? I determined to find out, and, having worked my way up into the gallery, I there found fifteen or twenty young boys lying down upon the floor, each with a small basin two thirds full of water in front of him, and one or more short reeds perforated and split in a peculiar manner. Placing one end in the water, and blowing through the other, they imitated the notes of different birds most won- derfully. It was a curious sight; and, taken altogether, the quaintly painted church, the altar with its lighted candles and singular inmates, the kneeling Indians in their pictur- esque garbs, and, above all, the sounds sent down by the bird orchestra, formed a scene not easily forgotten. I be- lieve I was more pleased with this simple 'and natural music than I have ever been with the swelling organs and opera -singers who adorn the galleries of our churches at home. About four o'clock this afternoon a party of seven
CURIOUS DANCE, 103
men and as many sq«aws appeared in the yard in front of the church, accompanied by an old man bearing a tombe, and commenced one of their dances.
" The tombe is a pecuhar drum, used by all the Indians in l^ this country at their festivals. It is made of a hollow log about two and a half feet long, and fifteen inches in diame- ter. A dried hide, from which the hair has been removed, is stretched over either end, and to one side a short pole is lashed, to support the instrument when played upon. A • drum-stick, like those used for the bass drum, but with a longer handle, is employed in playing, and with this they pound away with great energy, producing a dull roar, which is audible at a considet'able distance, and is almost deafen- ing to one unaccustomed to it, if approached too near. The dancers were accompanied by a band of elderly men, who immediately commenced singing in time with the bum- bum of the tombe. All the dancers appeared in their best attire, the men and squaws wearing large sashes, most fancifully worked and dyed, and also eagle and turkey feathers in their hair and hanging down their backs, and from the waist of each was suspended a skin of the silver- gray fox. The men's legs were naked from the knee down, and painted red. Their hair hung loose upon their shoul- ders, and both men and women had their hands painted with white clay in such a way as to resemble open-work gloves. The women had on beautifully-worked mantas, and were barefooted, with the exception of a little piece tied about the heel, which looked like that part of an em- broidered slipper. They all wore their hair combed over their faces in a manner that rendered it utterly impossible to recognize any of them. Every man carried in his hand a gourd partly filled with little pebbles, which he shook in exact time with the music. They dance a kind of hop- step, and the figure is something like the countermarch,
104 THE MOQUIS.
the couple leading up toward the church, and then turning, filed back again. The women keep their elbows close to their sides, and their heels pressed firmly together, and do not raise the feet, but shufiie along with a kind of rolling motion, moving their arms, from the elbows down, with time to the step. At times each man dances around his squaw, while she turns herself about, as if her heels formed a pivot on which she moved. Dancers, tombe, and singers keep most excellent time, and there is ;no discord among the gourds. After dancing a short time in front of the church, they went into the Plaza and continued till dark, when they separated."
These dances were continued on the 26th, 27th, and 28th of December, in the same manner as on Christmas.
On the 31st of March, 1852, the doctor visited the Mo- quis at their villages. He says of them, " Between eleven and twelve to-day we arrived at the first towns of Moqui. All the inhabitants turned out, crowding the streets and house-tops to have a view of the white men. All the old men pressed forward to shake hands with us, and we were at once feasted upon guavas and a leg of mutton broiled on coals. After the feast we smoked with them, and they then said that we should move our camp in, and that they would give us a room and plenty of wood for the men, and sell us corn for the animals; accordingly, our command was moved into town,
" The three villages here are situated on a strong bluff about 300 feet high, and from 30 to 150 feet wide, which is approached by a trail passable for horses at only one point. This is very steep, and an hour's work in throwing down stones, with which it is in many places built up, could ren- der it utterly inaccessible to horsemen. At all other points they have constructed footpaths, steps, etc., by which they pass up and down. The side of the rock is not perfectly
DANCE OF MOQUIS. 105
perpendicular, but, after a sheer descent of 60 or 70 feet, there are ledges from five to eight yards wide, on which thej have established their sheep-folds. The bluif is about 800 yards long, and the towns are some 180 yards apart.
"The houses are built of stone, laid in mud (which must have been brought from the plain below, as there is not a particle of soil upon the rock), and in the same form as the other pueblos. They are whitewashed inside with white clay. Hanging by strings from the rafters I saw some cu- rious and rather horrible little Aztec images, made of wood or clay, and decorated with paint and feathers, which the guide told me were ' saints ;' but I have seen the children playing with them in the most irreverent manner."
Speaking of the dances of the Moquis, the doctor says : " The dance of to-day has been a most singular one, and ' differs from any I have seen among the other Pueblo In- dians, the dresses of the performers being more quaint and rich. There were twenty men and as many women, ranged in two files. The dresses of the men were similar to those before described, except that they wear on their heads large pasteboard towers, painted typically, and curiously decora- ted with feathers, and each man has his face entirely cover- ed with a visor made of small willows with the bark peeled off, and dyed a deep brown. The women all have their hair put up in the manner peculiar to virgins ; and immedi- ately in the centre, where the hair is parted, a long, straight eagle's feather is fixed. But by far the most beautiful part of their dress is a tilma of some three and a half feet square, which is thrown over the shoulders, fastened in front, and, hanging down behind, reaches half way below the knee. This tilma is pure white. Its materials I should suppose to be cotton or wool. Its texture is very fine, and it has one or more wide borders of beautiful colors, exceedingly well wrought in and of curious patterns. The women also
106 MOQUI MUSIC.
wear visors of willow sticks, which are colored a bright yel- low, and arranged in parallel rows like Pandean pipes. On each side of the files is placed a small boy, who dances or canters up and down the line, and is most accurately mod- eled after the popular representation of his satanic majes- ty's imps. With the exception of a very short-fringed tu- nic reaching just below the hip-joint, and a broad sash fast- ened around the waist, the boy is entirely naked. The whole body is painted black, relieved by white rings placed at regular intervals over the whole person. The appear- ance of these little imps as they gamboled along the line of dancers was most amusing. They had neither a tombe ac- companiment nor a band of singers ; but the dancers fur- nished their own music, and a most strange sound it was, resembling very much the noise, on a large scale, of a swarm of blue-bottle-fiies in an empty hogshead. The dance was a most monotonous one, the dancers remaining in the same place, and alternately lifting their feet in time to the song and the gourds. The only change of position was an occa- sional ' about face.'
"When they first came in, two old men, who acted as masters of ceremonies, went along the whole line, and, with a powder held between the thumb and fore finger, anoint- ed each dancer on the shoulder. After dancins; a while in the mode above described, the ranks were opened, and, rugs and blankets being spread upon the ground, the vir- gins squatted on them, while the men kept up a kind of murmuring dance in front. Every third or fourth female had at this time a large hollow gourd placed before her, on which rested a grooved piece of wood, shaped like an old- fashioned wash-board, and by drawing the dry shoulder- blade of a sheep rapidly across this, a sound was produced similar to that of a watchman's rattle. After performing the same dance on each side of the Plaza, they left, to re-
MASKS AND AMUSEMENTS. 107
turn again in fifteen minutes; and thus they kept it up from sunrise till dark, when the dancing ceased.
"As appendages to the feast, they had clowns who served as messengers and waiters, and also to amuse the spectators while the dancers were away. The first batch consisted of six or eight young men in breech -clouts, having some comical daubs of paint on their faces and persons, with wigs made of black sheepskins. Some wore rams' horns on their heads, and were amusing themselves by attempts at dancing, singing, and running races, when they were attacked by a huge grizzly bear (or rather a fellow in the skin of one), which, after a long pursuit and many hard fights, they brought to bay and killed. They then imme- diately opened him, and took from out of his body a quan- tity of guavas, green corn, etc., which his bearship had un- doubtedly appropriated from the refreshments provided for the clowns. But no sooner had they disposed of Bruin than a pew trouble came upon them in the shape of two ugly little imps, who, prowling about, took every opportu- nity to annoy them ; and when, by dint of great persever- ance, they succeeded in freeing themselves from these mis- shapen brats, in rushed eight or ten most horrible-looking figures (in masks), all armed with whips, which they did not for a moment hesitate to apply most liberally to any of the poor clowns who were so unlucky as to fall into their clutches. They even tied some hand and foot, and laid them out in the Plaza.
"It seemed they were of the same race as the imps, and came to avenge the treatment they had received at the hands of the clowns, for the ' limbs of Satan' returned al- most immediately, and took an active part in their capture, and in superintending the flaggellating operations. Such horrible masks I never saw before ; noses six inches long, mouths from ear to ear, and great goggle eyes as big as
108 GREAT FATHER AND MOTHER.
half a hen's egg, hanging by a string partly out of the socket.
" The simple Indians appeared highly delighted with these performances, and I must avow having had many a hearty laugh at their whimsicalities.
"While the dances were going on, large baskets filled with guavas of different forms and colors, roasted corn, bread, meat, and other eatables, were distributed by the vir- gins among the spectators. The old governor tells me this evening that it is contrary to their usages to permit the fe- males to dance, and that those whom I supposed to be young virgins were in fact young men, dressed for the oc- casion. This is a custom peculiar to the Moquis, I think, for in all other pueblos I visited the women dance.
" The government of these people is hereditary, but does not necessarily descend to the sons of the incumbent ; for if the people prefer any other blood relation, he is chosen.
" The population of the seven villages I should estimate j^ at 8000, of which one half is found in the first three. They say that of late years wars and diseases have greatly de- creased their numbers. They spoke of fevers and disease, which I supposed to be phthisis and pertussis. They ob- serve no particular burial rites. They believe in the exist- ence of a Great Father, who lives where the sun rises, and a Great Mother, who lives where the sun sets. The first is the author of all the evils that befall them, as war,' pesti- lence, famine, etc. ; and the Great Mother is the very re- verse of this, and from her are derived the blessings they enjoy. In the course of the 'talk,' the principal governor made a speech, in which he said, ' Now we all know that it is good the Americans have come among us, for our Great Father, who lives where the sun rises, is pacified ; and our Great Mother, who lives where the sun sets, is smiling, and, in token of her approbation, sends fertilizing showers
MOQUI AGRICULTURE. 109
(i.t was snowing at the time), which will enrich our fields, and enable us to raise the harvest whereby we subsist.' " Of their origin they give the following account: " Many, many years ago, their Great Mother brought from her home in the west nine races of men, in the following forms : first, the deer race ; second, the sand race ; third, the water race; fourth, the bear race; fifth, the hare race ; sixth, the prairie-wolf race ; seventh, the rattlesnake race ; eighth, the tobacco-plant race ; ninth, the seed-grass race. Having placed them on the spot where their villages now stand, she transformed them into men, who built the pres- ent pueblos, and the distinction of races is still kept up. One told me he was of the sand race, another the deer, etc. They are firm believers in metemjDsychosis, and say that when they die they will resolve into their original forms, and become bears, deer, etc. The chief governor is of the deer race.
" Shortly after the pueblos were built, the Great Mother came in person, and brought them all the domestic animals they now have, which are principally sheep and goats, and a few very large donkeys. The sacred fire is kept contin- ually burning by the old men, and all I could glean from them was that some great misfortune would befall their people if they allowed it to be extinguished. They know nothing of Montezuma, and have never had any Spanish or other missionaries among them. All the seeds they pos- sess were brought from where the morning star rises. They plant in May or June, and harvest in October or Novem- ber. They do not plow or irrigate, but put their seeds in the sand, and depend upon the rains for water. They raise corn, melons, pumpkins, beans, and onions; also a cotton of which I procured a specimen, and a species of mongrel tobacco. They have also a few peach-trees, and are the only Pueblo Indians who raise cotton. They have no
110 MARRIAGE CUSTOMS.
small grain of any kind. They say they have known the Spaniards ever since they can remember. About twenty years ago, a party of some fifteen Americans, the first they ever saw, came over the mountains and took the Zuni trail. Six years afterward, another party, with four females, pass- ed through.
" Their mode of marriage might well be introduced into the United States, with the Bloomer costume. Here, in- stead of the swain asking the hand of the fair one, she se- lects the young man who is to her fancy, and then her fa- ther proposes the match to the sire of the lucky youth. This proposition is never refused. The preliminaries being arranged, the young man, on his part, furnishes two pairs of moccasins, two fine blankets, two mattresses, and two sashes used at the feast ; while the maiden, for her share, provides an abundance of eatables, when the marriage is celebrated by feasting and dancing.
" Polygamy is unknown among them ; but at any time, if either of the parties become dissatisfied, they can divorce themselves, and marry others if they please. In case there are children, they are taken care of by the respective grand- parents. They are simple, happy, and most hospitable peo- ple. The sin of intoxication is unknown among them, as they have no kind of fermented liquors. When a stranger visits one of their houses, the first act is to set food before him, and nothing is done 'till lie has eaten.'
"In every village are one or more edifices underground, and you descend a ladder to get into them. They answer to our village groceries, being a place of general resort for the male population. I went into one of them. In the centre was a small square box of stone, in which was a fire of guava bushes, and around this a few old men were smoking. All around the room were Indians naked to the 'breech-clout;' some were engaged in sewing, and others spinning and knitting.
HARNO. Ill
" On a bench in the background sat a warrior most ex- travagantly painted, who was undoubtedly undergoing some ordeal, as I was not allowed to approach him. They knit, weave, and spin, as in the other pueblos, and, besides, make fabrics of cotton.
" The villages of the Moquis are seven in number, and more nearly correspond to the seven cities of Cibola than any which have yet been discovered. They are situated in the same valley — they are upon a bluff. Oraivaz, called Musquins by the Mexicans, is almost due west from the bluff, and about thirty miles distant. There is another town at twenty miles west by south, and two more about south-southwest, and some eight or ten miles distant from the first three. Of these, the two at the southern extremity of the bluff are the largest, containing probably 2000 in- habitants ; Oraivaz is the second in size. They all speak the same language except Harno, the most northern town of the three, which has a language and some customs pecul- iar to itself
"It seems a very singular fact that, being within 150 yards of the middle town, Harno should have for so long a period its own language and customs. The other Moquis say the inhabitants of this town have a great advantage over them, as they perfectly understand the common lan- guage, and none but the people of Harno understand their dialect. The women are the prettiest squaws I have yet seen, and are very industrious. Their manner of dressing the hair is very pretty. While virgins, it is done up on each side of the head in two inverse rolls, which bear some resemblance to the horns of the mountain sheep. After marriage they wear it in two large knots on each side of the face. These people make the same kind of pottery as the Zunians and Lagunians."
Notwithstanding the country west of the Rio del Norte
112 OTHER EXPEDITIONS.
presents so barren and forbidding an aspect that it is only here and there along the immediate borders of the few wa- ter-courses that the soil will yield any returns to the hus- bandman, yet this country was once much more populous than at present. The numerous ruins of houses and towns scattered all over the country most incontestably establish this fact; moreover, the character of these ruins goes to show that the people who erected them were more ad- vanced in architecture than the Pueblo's, or any other In- dians now existing in that country.
Captain Sitgreaves, in his expedition from Zuni to the Colorado, passed for nine miles through a continuous suc- cession of these ruins, in a locality where there was no wa- ter for many miles, which induced him to believe that the disintegration of the rocks from the surrounding heights had filled up the beds of the streams, and rendered the sit- uation of this ancient city uninhabitable.
Captain J. H. Simpson, United States Engineers, who in 1849 was attached to an expedition made into the Navahoe country, in Northwest New Mexico, describes the ruins of several enormous houses he met with, which were built of stone, in a style of architecture and masonry far better than that we find in the pueblos that are now occupied. Some of these houses contained from 100 to 160 rooms, each upon the ground floors, all, excepting the estufas, of small dimen- sions, and not exceeding twelve by eight feet in area ; the doors only about three feet by two, and the windows some twelve inches square, with no chimneys. They all had the large underground council-rooms, or estufas, like those in the pueblos of the present day, and this would seem to in- dicate that they were built by a race of people having sim'- ilar habits ; yet the Pueblo Indians do not pretend to know any thing about their origin. All that can be gleaned from them upon the subject is, that they are '^casas grandes''' (big
OLD WOOD. 113
houses), which is very apparent. What appears very mys- terious to me in regard to it is that the beams, rafters, and floors in some of these ruins should have remained for so great a length of time as sound and perfect as they were when put in, in some instances even exhibiting the print of the dull (probably) stone axe used in cutting them.
If the origin of these ruins was of a date anterior to the discovery of New Mexico by the Spaniards, I can only ac- count for the preservation of the wood-work from the fact of the extreme purity and dryness of the atmosphere.
K*
11 J: RED RIVER EXPEDITION.
CHAPTER V.
RED RIVER EXPEDITION.
Red River Expedition. — Order. — Early Efforts to explore it. — Navigable Portion. — Copper Ores. — New Ore. — Dr. Hitchcock's Opinion. — Great Gypsum Belt. — Cause of bad Taste in the Water. — Witchita Mountains. — Extent of Choctaw Reservation. — Beautiful Country. — Visit of Witche- taws. — Buffaloes. — Comanche Trails. — Buffalo Chase. — Panther killed. — Unaccountable Appearance of "Water. — South Winds. — Encamping. — Head of North Fork. — Visit to Canadian River. — Mirage. — Head of Salt Fork. — Laiio-Estacado. — Prairie Dog Town. — Leaving the Train. — Bad Water. — Suffering from the Effects of bad Water. — Reach the Head of the main Fork of Red River. — Beautiful Scenery. — Bears. — Remarkable Canon.
On the 5th of March, 1852, 1 received the following order:
(special orders, no. 33.) '^Adjutant GeneraVs Office, Washington, March 5, 18G2,
• " Captain R. B. Marcy, 5th Infantry, with his company as an escort, will proceed, without unnecessary delay, to make an examination of the Red River and the country border- ing upon it, from the mouth of Cache Creek to its sources, according to the special instructions with which he will be furnished.
*******
" Brevet Captain G. B, McClellan, Corps of Engineers, is assigned duty with this expedition. * * * *
" By command of Major General Scott.
" (Signed) R. Jones, Adjutant OeneraV
As some of the most interesting events connected with this expedition may possess sufficient attraction for many who feel an interest in such matters to compensate them for
EARLY RED RIVER EXPLORATIONS. 115
the perusal, I have determined to give them a passing no- tice here.
I had spent the greater portion of the three previous years in exploring the country lying upon the Canadian River of the Arkansas, and upon the head waters of the Trinity, Brazos, and Colorado Rivers of Texas.
During this time my attention had frequently been called to_ the remarkable fact that a great portion of one of the largest and most important rivers in the United States had remained up to that late period wholly unexplored and un- known. The only information we had upon the subject was derived from Indians, and was, of course, very indefi- nite and unsatisfactory ; in a word, the country embraced within the basin of Upper Red River had always been to us a ^'' terra incognita^
Several enterprising travelers had at different periods at- tempted to explore this river, but as yet none had succeed- ed in finding its head waters.
At a very early period officers were sent out by the French government to explore Red River, but their exam- inations appear to have extended no farther than the vicin- ity of the present town of Natchitoches, Louisiana. On the 3d of May, 1806, three years after the cession to the United States, by the First Consul of the French Republic, of that vast territory then known as Louisiana, a small party known as the Exploring Expedition of Red River, consisting of Captain Sparks, Mr. Freeman, Lieutenant Humphry, and Dr. Curtis, with seventeen private soldiers, embarked at St. Catharine's Landing, near Natchez, Mississippi, and started to ascend Red River to its sources.
This party encountered many difficulties and obstructions in the navigation of the river, among the numerous bayous in the vicinity of the great raft, but finally overcame them all, and found themselves above this formidable obstacle.
/
116 pike's expedition.
They were, however, here met by a large force of Spanish troops, the commander of which forced them to turn back and abandon the enterprise.
Another expedition was fitted out in 1806 by our gov- ernment, and placed under the command of that enterpris- ing young traveler, Lieutenant Pike, who was ordered to ascend the Arkansas River to its sources, thence to strike across the country to the head of the Red River, and de- scend that stream to Natchitoches. After encountering many privations and intense sufferings in the deep snows of the lofty mountains about the head waters of the Ar- kansas, Lieutenant Pike arrived finally upon a stream running to the east, which he took to be Red River, but which subsequently proved to be the Rio Grande. Here he was taken by the Governor of New Mexico and sent home by way of Chihuahua and San Antonio, thus putting a stop to his explorations.
General Wilkinson, under whose orders Lieutenant Pike was serving at the time, states, in a letter to him after his return, as follows : " The principal object of your expedi- tion up the Arkansas was to discover the true position of the sources of Red River. This was not accomplished." Lieutenant Pike, however, from the most accurate informa- tion he could obtain, gives the geographical position of the sources of Red River as in latitude 33° N, and longitude 104° W. Again, in 1819-20, Colonel Long, of the United States Topographical Engineers, on bis return from an ex- ploration of the Missouri River and the country lying be- tween that stream and the head of the Arkansas, undertook to descend the Red River from its sources. The colonel, in speaking of this in his interesting report, says: "We arrived at a creek having a westerly course, which we took to be a tributary of Red River. Having traveled down its valley about two hundred miles, we fell in with a party
long's expedition. 117
of Indians, of the nation of ' Kaskias,' or ' Bad Hearts,' who gave us to understand that the stream along which we were travehng was Eed Eiver. We accordingly continued our march down the river several hundred miles farther, when, to our no small disappointment, we discovered it was the Canadian of the Arkansas, instead of Eed Eiver, that we had been exploring.
" Our horses being nearly worn out with the fatigue of our long journey, which they had to perform barefooted, and the season being too far advanced to admit of our re- tracing our steps and going back again in quest of the source of Eed Eiver, with the possibility of exploring it before the commencement of winter, it was deemed advis- able to give over the enterprise for the present and make our way to the settlements on the Arkansas. We were led to the commission of this mistake in consequence of our not having been able to procure a good guide acquaint- ed with that part of the country. Our only dependence in this respect was upon Pike's map, which assigns to the head waters of Eed Eiver the apparent locality of those of the Canadian."
Dr. James, who accompanied Colonel Long, in his jour- nal of the expedition, says : " Several persons have recent- ly arrived at St. Louis, in Missouri, from Santa Fe, and, among others, the brother of Captain Shreeves, who gives information of a large and frequented road, which runs nearly due east from that place, and strikes one of the branches of the Canadian ; that, at a considerable distance south of this point, in the high plain, is the principal source of Eed Eiver.
" His account confirms an opinion we had previously formed, namely, that the branch of the Canadian explored by Major Long's party in August, 1820, has its sources near those of some stream which descends toward the west into
118 Humboldt's mistake.
the Eio del Norte, and, consequently, that some other re- gion must contain the head of Red River," He continues:
"From a careful comparison of all the information we have been able to collect, we are satisfied that the stream on which we encamped on the 31st of August is the Rio Raijo of Humboldt, long mistaken for the sources of Red River of Natchitoches. In a region of red clay and sand, where all the streams become nearly the color of arterial blood, it is not surprising that several rivers should have received the same name ; nor is it surprising that so accu- rate a topographer as the Baron Humboldt, having learned that a red river rises forty or fifty miles east of Santa Fe, and runs to the east, should conjecture it might be the source of Red River of Natchitoches.
" This conjecture (for it is no more) we believed to have been adopted by our geographers, who have with much confidence made their delineations and their accounts to correspond with it."
Hence it will be seen that up to this time there was no record of any traveler having reached the sources of Red River, and that the country upon the head waters of that stream had heretofore been unexplored. The Mexicans, and Indians on the borders of Mexico, are in the habit of calling any river, the waters of which have a red appear- ance, "Rio Colorado," or Red River, and they have applied this name to the Canadian in common with several others ; and as many of the prairie Indians often visit the Mex- icans, and some even speak the Spanish language, it is a natural consequence that the}'' should adopt the same nomenclature for rivers, places, etc. Thus, if a traveler in New Mexico were to inquire for the head of Red River, he would most undoubtedly be directed to the Canadian, and the same would also be the case in the adjacent Indian country. These facts will account for the mistake into
DR. Gregg's rio negro. 119
which Baron Humboldt was led, and it will also account for the error into which Colonel Long and Lieutenant Pike have fallen in regard to the sources of the stream which we call Red River.
Dr. Gregg, in his "Commerce of the Prairies," tells us that on his way down the south bank of the Canadian his Comanche guide, Manuel (who, by-the-by, traveled six hund- red miles with me upon the Plains, and whom I always found reliable), pointed out to him breaks or bluffs upon a stream to the south of the Canadian, near what we ascer- tained to be the true position of the head of the north branch of Red River, and where it approaches within twen- ty-five miles of the Canadian. These bluffs he said were upon the " Rio Negro," which the doctor supposed to be the Witchita River ; but, after having examined that section' of country, I am satisfied that the north branch of Red River must have been alluded to by the guide, as the Witchita rises farther to the east. It therefore seems prob- able that "Rio Negro" is the name which the Mexicans have applied to Red River of Louisiana.
Having organized my party, and laid in a supply of pro- visions for our expedition at Fort Belknap, on the Brazos River, in Texas, we, on the 1st day of May, left that post, and on the 9th we reached the mouth of Cache Creek, the point at which we were ordered to commence our examina- * tions.
This point was at that time about two hundred miles, by the meanderings of the river, above the remotest white set- tlements where steam-boats had yet reached. I am confi- dent, however, that at a high stage there will be suf&cient depth of water to allow small steamers to ascend the river abtout fifty miles above Cache Creek.
At a low stage of water the river becomes very shallow, and can then be forded at almost any point. At the mouth
120 MARCYLITE.
of Cache Creek the Eed Eiver was about two hundred yards wide and four feet deep, with a current of three miles per hour.
Cache Creek takes its rise in the Witchita chain of mountains. It is, at the mouth, one hundred and fifty feet wide and three feet deep, flowing rapidly over a hard clay and gravel bed, between high, abrupt banks, through a val- ley about a mile wide of rich alluvium, and bordered by timber, which is the best I met with west of the Cross Tim- bers, and well adapted for building purposes. The soil in the valley is admirably suited for the culture of all kinds of grain ; and an analysis of the subsoil by Professor Shep- hard, of Amherst College, showed that it possessed strong and enduring constituents.
Just before we reached Cache Creek we passed a small stream, where we picked up several pieces of copper ore lying upon the surface, where the rains had washed away the turf.
The analysis of these specimens by Professor Shephard is alluded to in his report as follows : " The most interest- ing of the copper ores submitted by Captain Marcy was a specimen from the main or South Fork of Red Piver, near the Witchita Mountains,
"It is a black, compact ore, strongly resembling the black oxide of copper from the Lake Superior mines, for which substance I at first mistook it. It was partially coated by a thin layer of the rare and beautiful atacamite.
" This is the first instance in which this species has been detected in North America. On subjecting the black ore to a close investigation, it proves to be a substance hitherto undescribed, and it affords me much pleasure to name it, in honor of the very enterprising and successful explorer to whom mineralogy is indebted for the discovery, Marcylite. In small fragments it melts in the heat of a candle, to the
COPPER ORE. 121
flame of which it imparts a rich blue and green color. This is especially striking when a blowpipe is employed. The slightest beat of the instrument suffices for the fusion of the ore. The chloride of copper is volatilized, and spreads over the charcoal support, from which the splendid green color rises also. Analysis gave the following as the com- ]X)sition of the ore :
Copper 54.30
Oxygen and Chlorine '. 36.20
Water 9.50
, 100.00,
with traces of Silica.
" The above is undoubtedly a very valuable ore for cop- per, as it is very rich in metal, and easy of reduction in the furnace."
"We discovered traces of copper ore in several other lo- calities on Eed Eiver, and also upon the Big Witchita, in 1854, but it generally occurred in small detached frag- ments, from the size of a pea to that of a hen's egg. With one exception, however, we saw no veins of the ore.
While upon this subject, I take occasion to relate a cir- cumstance that occurred while I was stationed at Camp Ar- buckle, on the Canadian Eiver, during the autumn of 1850.
My old Delaware guide. Black Beaver, one day came to me, and, taking me aside, very mysteriously and cautiously pulled out from his pocket several large pieces of green car- bonate of copper, at the same time saying, "Maybe so mon- ey." I assured him that it was copper, and asked him if it was abundant where he found it. He said there was "a heap." And upon my inquiring whether he was willing to show me the locality, he said, "Bob Jones (a rich Chicka- saw) he say, s'poze find um copper mine, give um four hund- red dollars." I informed him that I was willing to pay the
same amount, provided the ore was sufficiently abundant,
L
122 DELAWARE LAW.
and an arrangement. was made with him to go with me the following morning to the place where he obtained the spec- imens. I made my arrangements, accordingly, for an early departure ; but Beaver did not make his appearance ; and, after my patience was exhausted in waiting, I rode over to his house, where I found him looking very sulky, and hav- ing apparently made no preparations for the trip. I asked him if he was ready to go. He replied, "I s'pect maybe so I not go, captain." "Why not?" I inquired. He said, "Delaware law, s'poze show um 'Merican man mine, kill um." I then endeavored to convince him that there was no danger of any one knowing where we proposed to go ; but he had fully determined not to have any thing farther to do with it, and I could not persuade hini to change his resolution.
I however succeeded subsequently in discovering the lo- cality without his agency, and found a considerable quan- tity of detached pieces of the ore, some of which were as large as a man's head. It was lying upon the surface of the ground ; but we found no vein. I believe, however, as we traced the surface ore for at least three hundred yards in a direct line, that excavations might discover a vein be- neath this line.
We afterward sent a wagon, and transported a load of this ore to Fort Smith, and it was sent thence to New Or- leans and Liverpool, where it was smelted by a Welch mining company, and the proceeds paid all the expenses of the transportation. Farther than this, nothing was ever done.
Doctor Edward Hitchcock, in speaking of the prospects for copper in the country upon Red River, says :
" How much copper may be expected in such a region as that on Red River I have no means of judging, because I know of no analogous formation ; but as we have proof
GREAT GYPSUM FORMATION. 123
that it is an aqueous deposit, and that igneous agency has been active not far off (this is a strongly-marked character- istic upon the Big Witchita), it would not be strange if the vicinity of the Witchita Mountains should prove a prolific locality.'.'
From the geological formation of the Witchita Mount- ains, and the character of the quartz and the black sand which we observed there, we were induced to believe that gold might be found, but Dr. Hitchcock did not appear to regard this as of much consequence. He says: "But, though your discovery of gold (we found only one small specimen) will probably excite more attention, I feel that the great gj^psum deposits of the West which you have brought to light will be of far more consequence to the country,"
In several of my exploring expeditions I had passed through the great gypsum belt alluded to by the doctor, in an easterly and westerly direction, at six different points of latitude, from the Canadian River on the north to the Rio Grande on the south, and have observed it extending in a course nearly northeast and southwest over the entire dis- tance. It is from 50 to 100 miles wide, and about 350 miles in length, and is embraced wnthin the meridians 99 and 104| of west longitude, and the 32d and the 36th par- allels of north latitude.
In many places I have observed all the varieties of gyp- sum, from the common plaster of Paris of commerce, to pure selenite, and among specimens of the latter were some pieces three feet by four in surface, and two inches in thick- ness, and as perfectly transparent as any crown glass I ever saw. Placing one of these specimens upon the page of a book, at a short distance oflP, it was impossible to tell that any thing covered it, so perfectly plain did the letters show beneath the plate.
124 DR. Hitchcock's remarks.
It is to be regretted that I could not have brought home some of these beautiful specimens, but my means of trans- portation were too limited to allow it.
Wherever I have encountered this mineral I have* inva- riably found the water bitter and unpalatable, which arises from the decomposition of the rock, as an analysis of the water has shown that the taste depends upon the presence of three salts in nearly equal proportions, two of which, sul- phate of magnesia or Epsom salts, and chloride of sodium, are very sapid.
Dr. Hitchcock remarked upon the formation : " I do not wonder that you were deeply impressed with the vast ex- tent of this deposit."
Professor D. D. Owen, in his late valuable report of a geological survey of Wisconsin, Iowa, etc. (1852), describes a gypseous deposit twenty to thirty feet thick, and occupy- ing an area from two to three square miles ; and he says that "for thickness and extent this is by far the