Part 20 (1/2)

_Hunter._ I suppose, because it is not so elegant in appearance to walk so. But many things are done by civilized people on account of fas.h.i.+on. Hundreds and hundreds of females shorten their lives by the tight clothing and lacings with which they compress their bodies; but the Indians do not commit such folly.

_Brian._ There is something to be learned from the Indians, after all.

_Hunter._ There is a custom among the Sacs and Foxes that I do not think I spoke of. The Sacs are better provided with horses than the Foxes: and so, when the latter go to war and want horses, they go to the Sacs and beg them. After a time, they sit round in a circle, and take up their pipes to smoke, seemingly quite at their ease; and, while they are whiffing away, the young men of the Sacs ride round and round the circle, every now and then cutting at the shoulders of the Foxes with their whips, making the blood start forth. After keeping up this strange custom for some time, the young Sacs dismount, and present their horses to those they have been flogging.

_Austin._ What a curious custom! I should not much like to be flogged in that manner.

_Hunter._ There is a certain rock which the Camanchees always visit when they go to war. Putting their horses at full speed, they shoot their best arrows at this rock, which they consider great medicine. If they did not go through this long-established custom, there would be no confidence among them; but, when they have thus sacrificed their best arrows to the rock, their hope and confidence are strong.

_Austin._ I should have thought they would have wanted their best arrows to fight with.

_Hunter._ There is no accounting for the superst.i.tions of people.

There is nothing too absurd to gain belief even among civilized nations, when they give up the truth of G.o.d's word, and follow the traditions or commandments of men. The Sioux have a strange notion about thunder; they say that the thunder is hatched by a small bird, not much bigger than the humming-bird. There is, in the Couteau des Prairies, a place called ”the nest of the thunder;” and, in the small bushes there, they will have it that this little bird sits upon its eggs till the long claps of thunder come forth. Strange as this tradition is, there would be no use in denying it; for the superst.i.tion of the Indian is too strong to be easily done away with.

The same people, before they go on a buffalo hunt, usually pay a visit to a spot where the form of a buffalo is cut out on a prairie. This figure is great medicine; and the hunt is sure to be more prosperous, in their opinion, after it has been visited.

_Austin._ I do hope that we shall forget none of these curious things.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Eliot Preaching to the Indians.]

CHAPTER XV.

For the last time but one, during their holidays, Austin and his brothers set off, with a long afternoon before them, to listen to the hunter's account of the proceedings of the missionaries among the Indians. On this occasion, they paid another visit to the Red Sand-stone Rock by the river, the place where they first met with their friend, the hunter. Here they recalled to mind all the circ.u.mstances which had taken place at that spot, and agreed that the hunter, in saving their lives by his timely warning, and afterwards adding so much as he had done to their information and pleasure, had been to them one of the best friends they had ever known. With very friendly and grateful feelings towards him, they hastened to the cottage, when the Indians, as usual, became the subject of their conversation. ”And now,” said Austin, ”we are quite ready to hear about the missionaries.”

_Hunter._ Let me speak a word or two about the Indians, before I begin my account. You remember that I told you of the Mandans.

_Austin._ Yes. Mah-to-toh-pa was a Mandan, with his fine robes and war-eagle head-dress. The rain-makers were Mandans; also the young warriors, who went through so many tortures in the mystery lodge.

_Hunter._ Well, I must now tell you a sad truth. After I left the Mandans, great changes came upon them; and, at the present time, hardly a single Mandan is alive.

_Austin._ Dreadful! But how was it? What brought it all about?

_Brian._ You should have told us this before.

_Hunter._ No. I preferred to tell you first of the people as they were when I was with them. You may remember my observation, in one of your early visits, that great changes had taken place among them; that the tomahawks of the stronger tribes had thinned the others; that many had sold their lands to the whites, and retired to the west of the Mississippi; and that thousands had fallen a prey to the small-pox. It was in the year 1838 that this dreadful disease was introduced among the Mandans, and other tribes of the fur-traders. Of the Blackfeet, Crows and two or three other tribes, twenty-five thousand perished; but of the poor Mandans, the whole tribe was destroyed.

_Brian._ Why did they not get a doctor; or go out of their village to the wide prairie, that one might not catch the disease from another?

_Hunter._ Doctors were too far off; and the ravages of the disease were so swift that it swept them all away in a few months. Their mystery men could not help them; and their enemies, the Sioux, had war-parties round their village, so that they could not go out to the wide prairie. There they were, dying fast in their village; and little else was heard, during day or night, but wailing, howling and crying to the Great Spirit to relieve them.

_Austin._ And did Mah-to-toh-pa, ”the four bears,” die too?

_Hunter._ Yes. For, though he recovered from the disease, he could not bear up against the loss of his wives and his children. They all died before his eyes, and he piled them together in his lodge, and covered them with robes. His braves and his warriors died, and life had no charms for him; for who was to share with him his joy or his grief? He retired from his wigwam, and fasted six days, lamenting the destruction of his tribe. He then crawled back to his own lodge, laid himself by his dead family, covered himself with a robe, and died like an Indian chief. This is a melancholy picture; and when I first heard of the terrible event, I could have wept.

_Austin._ It was indeed a terrible affair. Have they no good doctors among the Indians now? Why do they not send for doctors who know how to cure the small-pox, instead of those juggling mystery men?

_Hunter._ Many attempts have been made to introduce vaccination among the tribes; but their jealousy and want of confidence in white men, who have so much wronged them, and their attachment to their own customs and superst.i.tions, have prevented those attempts from being very successful.