Part 19 (2/2)

_Austin._ It is a very strange thing that white men will not let red men alone. What right have they to cheat them of their hunting-grounds?

_Hunter._ I will relate to you an account, that appeared some time ago in most of the newspapers (though I cannot vouch for the truth of it,) of a chief who, though he was respected by his tribe before he went among the whites, had very little respect paid to him afterwards.

_Brian._ I hope it is a long account.

_Hunter._ Not very long: but you shall hear. ”In order to a.s.sist the officers of the Indian department, in their arduous duty of persuading remote tribes to quit their lands, it has been found advisable to incur the expense of inviting one or two of their chiefs some two or three thousand miles to Was.h.i.+ngton, in order that they should see with their own eyes, and report to their tribes, the irresistible power of the nation with which they are arguing. This speculation has, it is said, in all instances, more or less effected its object. For the reasons and for the objects we have stated, it was deemed advisable that a certain chief should be invited from his remote country to Was.h.i.+ngton; and accordingly, in due time, he appeared there.”

_Austin._ Two or three thousand miles! What a distance for him to go!

_Hunter._ ”After the troops had been made to manoeuvre before him; after thundering volleys of artillery had almost deafened him; and after every department had displayed to him all that was likely to add to the terror and astonishment he had already experienced, the President, in lieu of the Indian's clothes, presented him with a colonel's uniform; in which, and with many other presents, the bewildered chief took his departure.”

_Brian._ He would hardly know how to walk in a colonel's uniform.

_Hunter._ ”In a pair of white kid gloves; tight blue coat, with gilt b.u.t.tons, gold epaulettes, and red sash; cloth trowsers with straps; high-heeled boots; c.o.c.ked hat, and scarlet feather; with a cigar in his mouth, a green umbrella in one hand, and a yellow fan in the other; and with the neck of a whiskey bottle protruding out of each of the two tail-pockets of his regimental coat; this 'monkey that had seen the world' suddenly appeared before the chiefs and warriors of his tribe; and as he stood before them, straight as a ramrod, in a high state of perspiration, caused by the tightness of his finery, while the cool fresh air of heaven blew over the naked, unrestrained limbs of the spectators, it might, perhaps not unjustly, be said of the costumes, 'Which is the savage?' In return for the presents he had received, and with a desire to impart as much real information as possible to his tribe, the poor jaded traveller undertook to deliver to them a course of lectures, in which he graphically described all that he had witnessed.”

_Austin._ An Indian in white kid gloves, blue coat, high-heeled boots, and c.o.c.ked hat and feather! Why his tribe would all laugh at him, in spite of his lectures.

_Hunter._ ”For a while he was listened to with attention; but as soon as the minds of his audience had received as much as they could hold, they began to disbelieve him. Nothing daunted, however, the traveller still proceeded.”

_Austin._ I thought they would laugh at him.

_Hunter._ ”He told them about wigwams, in which a thousand people could at one time pray to the Great Spirit; of other wigwams, five stories high, built in lines, facing each other, and extending over an enormous s.p.a.ce: he told them of war canoes that would hold twelve hundred warriors.”

_Austin._ They would be sure never to believe him.

_Hunter._ ”Such tales, to the Indian mind, seemed an insult to common sense. For some time he was treated merely with ridicule and contempt; but, when, resolutely continuing to recount his adventures, he told them about a balloon, and that he had seen white people, who, by attaching a great ball to a canoe, as he described it, could rise in it up to the clouds, and travel through the heavens, the medicine, or mystery men of his tribe p.r.o.nounced him to be an impostor; and the mult.i.tude vociferously declaring that he was too great a liar to live, a young warrior, in a paroxysm of anger, levelled a rifle and shot him dead!”

_Austin._ Well, I am very sorry! It was very silly to be dressed up in that way; but they ought not to have killed him, for he told them the truth, after all.

_Brian._ I could never have thought that an Indian chief would have dressed himself in a blue coat and gilt b.u.t.tons.

_Basil._ And, then, the fan and green umbrella!

_Austin._ Ay, and the whiskey bottles sticking out of his tail-pockets. He would look a little different from Mah-to-toh-pa.

_Hunter._ I have frequently spoken of the splendid head-dress of the chiefs of some tribes. Among the Mandans, (and you know Mah-to-toh-pa was a Mandan,) they would not part with one of their head-dresses of war-eagle plumes at a less price than two horses. The Konzas, Osages, p.a.w.nees, Sacs, Foxes and Iowas shave their heads; but all the rest, or at least as far as I know of the Indian tribes, wear long hair.

_Brian._ Yes; we remember the Crows, with their hair sweeping the ground.

_Hunter._ Did I tell you, that some of the tribes glue other hair to their own to make it long, as it is considered so ornamental?

_Basil._ I do not remember that you told us that.

_Hunter._ There are a few other things respecting the Indians that I wish to mention, before I tell you what the missionaries have done among them. In civilized countries, people turn out their toes in walking; but this is not the case among the Indians. When the toes are turned out, either in walking or running, the whole weight of the body falls too much on the great toe of the foot that is behind, and it is mainly owing to this circ.u.mstance, that so many have a deformity at the joint of the great toe. When the foot is turned in, the weight of the body is thrown equally on all the toes, and the deformity of the great toe joint is avoided.

_Austin._ What! do the Indians know better how to walk than we do? If theirs is the best way to walk, why do not we all walk so?

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