Part 3 (2/2)

_Brian._ Duhk-pitch a--Duck pits--I cannot p.r.o.nounce the word--why that is worse to speak than any.

_Austin._ Hear me p.r.o.nounce it then: _Duhk-pits-o-hoot-shee_. No; that is not quite right, but very near it.

_Basil._ You must not go among the Crows yet, Austin; you cannot talk well enough.

_Hunter._ Oh, there are much harder names among some of the tribes than those I have mentioned; for instance there is _Au-nah-kwet-to-hau-pay-o_, ”the one sitting in the clouds;” and _Eh-tohk-pay-she-pee-shah_, ”the black moca.s.sin;” and _Kay-ee-qua-da-k.u.m-ee-gish-k.u.m_, ”he who tries the ground with his foot;” and _Mah-to-rah-rish-nee-eeh-ee-rah_, ”the grizzly bear that runs without fear.”

_Brian._ Why these names are as long as from here to yonder. Set to work, Austin! set to work! For, if there are many such names as these among the Indians, you will have enough to do without going to a buffalo hunt.

_Austin._ I never dreamed that there were such names as those in the world.

_Basil._ Ay, you will have enough of them, Austin, if you go abroad.

You will never be able to learn them, do what you will. Give it up, Austin; give it up at once.

Though Brian and Basil were very hard on Austin on their way home, about the long names of the Indians, and the impossibility of his ever being able to learn them by heart, Austin defended himself stoutly.

”Very likely,” said he, ”after all, they call these long names very short, just as we do; Nat for Nathaniel, Kit for Christopher, and Elic for Alexander.”

[Ill.u.s.tration: Wigwams.]

CHAPTER IV.

It was not long before Austin, Brian, and Basil were again listening to the interesting accounts given by their friend, the hunter; and it would have been a difficult point to decide whether the listeners or the narrator derived most pleasure from their occupation. Austin began without delay to speak of the aborigines of North America.

”We want to know,” said he, ”a little more about what these people were, and when they were first found out.”

_Hunter._ When America was first discovered, the inhabitants, though for the most part partaking of one general character, were not without variety. The greater part, as I told you, were, both in hot and cold lat.i.tudes, red men with black hair, and without beards. They, perhaps, might have been divided into four parts: the Mexicans and Peruvians, who were, to a considerable extent, civilized; the Caribs, who inhabited the fertile soil and luxuriant clime of the West Indies; the Esquimaux, who were then just the same people as they are now, living in the same manner by fis.h.i.+ng; and the Red Men, or North American Indians.

_Austin._ Then the Esquimaux are not Red Indians.

_Hunter._ No; they are more like the people who live in Lapland, and in the North of Asia; and for this reason, and because the distance across Behring's Straits is so short, it is thought they came from Asia, and are a part of the same people. The red men are, however, different; and as we agreed that I should tell you about the present race of them, perhaps I may as well proceed.

_Austin._ Yes. Please to tell us first of their wigwams, and their villages, and how they live.

_Brian._ And what they eat, and what clothes they wear.

_Basil._ And how they talk to one another.

_Austin._ Yes; and all about their spears and tomahawks.

_Hunter._ The wigwams of the Indians are of different kinds: some are extremely simple, being formed of high sticks or poles, covered with turf or the bark of trees; while others are very handsome. The Sioux, the Blackfeet, and the Crows, form their wigwams nearly in the same manner; that is, by sewing together the skins of buffaloes, after properly dressing them, and making them into the form of a tent. This covering is then supported by poles. The tent has a hole at the top, to let out the smoke, and to let in the light.

_Austin._ Ay, that is a better way of making a wigwam than covering over sticks with turf.

_Hunter._ The wigwams, or lodges, of the Mandans are round. A circular foundation is dug about two feet deep; timbers six feet high are set up all around it, and on these are placed other long timbers, slanting inwards, and fastened together in the middle, like a tent, leaving s.p.a.ce for light and for the smoke to pa.s.s. This tent-like roof is supported by beams and upright posts, and it is covered over outwardly by willow boughs and a thick coating of earth; then comes the last covering of hard tough clay. The sun bakes this, and long use makes it solid. The outside of a Mandan lodge is almost as useful as the inside; for there the people sit, stand, walk, and take the air. These lodges are forty, fifty, or sixty feet wide.

<script>