Chapter I: Part 1

PREPARER’S NOTE

Please note that this book contains a photograph of a burial platform, which some may find offensive. The elegaic tone, typical of the time, of much of the book may also annoy the modern reader. Some of the Indian interviews are still quoted today, however, and some of the photos are still reproduced.

[The Last Outpost]

The Last Outpost

The Vanishing Race

The Last Great Indian Council a record in picture and story of the last great indian council, participated in by eminent indian chiefs from nearly every indian reservation in the united states, together with the story of their lives as told by themselves—their speeches and folklore tales—their solemn farewell, and the indians’ story of the custer fight By Dr. Joseph K. Dixon

Garden City, New York Doubleday, Page, and Company

1913

DEDICATION

To the man of mystery— The earth his mother— The sun his father— A child of the mountains and the plains— A faithful worshipper in the great world cathedral— Now a tragic soul haunting the shores of the western ocean— My brother the Indian

ILLUSTRATIONS

The Last Outpost The Approach of the Chiefs A Glimpse Backward The Sacrament of Winter The Lone Tepee Singing to the Spirits The Voice of the Water Spirits Trail of the Death Spirit A Leaf from the Indian’s Book The Song of the Arrows An Imperial Warrior A Sunset in Camp Lighting the Smoke Signal Answering the Smoke Signal The Attack on the Camp Buffalo Thundered Across the Plains An Indian Home An Indian Burden Bearer An Indian Woman’s Dress—Mrs. Wolf Plume The Flower of the Wigwam Little Friends A Bath in the Little Big Horn The Crown of Eagle Feathers Warriors of Other Days Chief Plenty Coups The Peaceful Camp Chief Red Whip The Pause in the Journey Chief Timbo The Downward Trail Chief Apache John Climbing the Great Divide Chief Running Bird Chiefs Fording the Little Bighorn Chief Brave Bear Skirting the Sky-Line Chief Umapine Down the Western Slope The Last Arrow Chief Tin-Tin-Meet-Sa Chief Runs the Enemy Scouting Party on the Plains Scouts passing under cover of the Night Map of the Custer Battlefield Chief Pretty Voice Eagle A War Council The War Party The Swirl of the Warriors Chief White Horse Chief Bear Ghost Chief Running Fisher Chief Bull Snake Mountain Chief War Memories Chief Red Cloud Chief Two Moons Here Custer Fell Custer Scouts White Man Runs Him—Custer Scout Hairy Moccasin—Custer Scout Curly—Custer Scout Goes Ahead—Custer Scout On the War Trail In Battle Line The Custer Battlefield Scouts on the March Sunset on the Custer Field The Reno Battlefield Two Moons as he fought Custer The Council Pipe Chief Plenty Coups Addressing the Council Chief Koon-Ka-Za-Chy Addressing the Council Chief Two Moons Addressing the Council An Indian Communion The Final Trail The Fading Sunset Vanishing into the Mists Facing the Sunset The Sunset of a Dying Race The Empty Saddle

CONTENTS

Acknowledgment
INDIAN IMPRINTS A GLIMPSE BACKWARD
THE STORY OF THE CHIEFS
Chief Plenty Coups
Chief Red Whip
Chief Timbo
Chief Apache John
Chief Running Bird
Chief Brave Bear
Chief Umapine
Chief Tin-Tin-Meet-Sa
Chief Runs-the-Enemy
Chief Pretty Voice Eagle
Folklore Tales—Sioux
Chief White Horse
Folklore Tales—Yankton Sioux
Chief Bear Ghost
Chief Running Fisher
Bull Snake
Mountain Chief
Mountain Chief’s Boyhood Sports
Chief Red Cloud
Chief Two Moons
THE STORY OF THE SURVIVING CUSTER SCOUTS
White-Man-Runs-Him
Folklore Tale—Crow
Hairy Moccasin
Curly
Goes-Ahead-Basuk-Ore
THE INDIANS’ STORY OF THE CUSTER FIGHT
THE LAST GREAT INDIAN COUNCIL
INDIAN IMPRESSIONS OF THE LAST GREAT COUNCIL
THE FAREWELL OF THE CHIEFS

THE CONCEPT

In undertaking these expeditions to the North American Indian, the sole desire has been to perpetuate the life story of the first Americans and to strengthen in their hearts the feeling of allegiance and friendship for their country.

For this purpose two expeditions were sent forth to gather historic data and make picture records of their manners, customs, their sports and games, their warfare, religion, and the country in which they live.

As a result, on Washington’s Birthday, 1913, thirty-two Indian chiefs, representing eleven tribes, assembled with the President of the United States together with many eminent citizens and details from the Army and Navy to open ground for the Indian Memorial authorized by act of Congress to be erected in the harbour of New York.

The Indian chiefs assembled, hoisted the American flag, the first time in their history. This act and the flag gave birth to a thrill of patriotism. These warriors of other days laid claim to a share in the destiny of our country. So deeply were these First Americans impressed with a sense of loyalty to the flag that, again under the authority of the President of the United States, a third Expedition was sent forth to every Indian tribe. The purpose of this Expedition was twofold, the linking of every tribe in the country with the National Indian Memorial, and the inspiring of an ideal of patriotism in the mind of the red man—a spirit of patriotism that would lead to a desire for citizenship—a feeling of friendship and allegiance, to be eternally sealed as a convenant in the Indian Memorial.

Here, under the blessing of God, on the shores of our beloved country, where the red man first gave welcome to the white man, this Memorial will stand in eternal bronze, in memory of a noble, though vanishing race, and a token to all the world of the one and indivisible citizenship of these United States.

RODMAN WANAMAKER.
[The Approach of the Chiefs]

The Approach of the Chiefs

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

FIRST of all, William Howard Taft, President of the United States, gave his sanction to this Expedition, and Hon. Robert Grosvenor Valentine, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, gave his permission to assemble eminent chiefs from the prominent Indian Reservations of the United States, and complemented his courtesy by helpful interest and cooperation. The Superintendents of the various Indian Reservations gave spontaneous and willing service; Major S. G. Reynolds, Superintendent of the Crow Reservation by sympathetic and efficient interest made possible the achievement of the Last Great Indian Council; Hon. Frederick Webb Hodge, in charge of the Bureau of American Ethnology confirmed the data secured. The Hand Book of American Indians made possible the larger scope of the suggestions on Indian dress. The great chiefs who participated in the Council in noble and faithful fashion lived out the history and tradition of their tribes. Heartfelt appreciation is merited and given to all.

Since the publication of the first edition of “The Vanishing Race”, further grateful acknowledgment is accorded. While conducting a nation-wide Expedition of Citizenship to the North American Indian, embracing 189 tribes and extending over 26,000 miles, the author was adopted into the Wolf clan of the Mohawk nation,—Iroquois Confederacy. They said, “You have traveled so far, traveled so fast, and brought so much light and life to the Indian that we call you ‘Ka-ra-Kon-tie, Flying Sun’.”

THE AUTHOR.

PERSONÆ

Representative North American Indian Chiefs, scouts, and warriors participating in the Last Great Indian Council, held in the valley of the Little Horn, Montana, September, 1909, with their English, tribal, and Indian designations.

CHIEF PLENTY COUPS, Chief of the Crow Nation, bearing the Indian name of Aleck-shea-Ahoos, signifying Many Achievements.

CHIEF RED WHIP, an eminent Chief of the Gros Ventres Tribe, bearing the Indian name of Bein-es-Kanach.

CHIEF TIMBO, OR HAIRLESS, Head Chief of the Comanche Tribe, bearing the Indian name of Tah-cha-chi.

CHIEF APACHE JOHN, an eminent Apache Chief, bearing the Indian name of Koon-kah-za-chy, signifying Protector of his Tepee.

CHIEF RUNNING BIRD, an eminent Chief of the Kiowa Tribe, bearing the Indian name of Ta-ne-haddle.

CHIEF BRAVE BEAR, Head Chief of the Southern Cheyennes, bearing the Indian name of Ni-go High-ez, Ni-go, bear—High-ez, brave.

CHIEF UMAPINE, Head Chief of the Cayuse Tribe, bearing the Indian name of Wa-kon-kon-we-la-son-mi.

CHIEF TIN-TIN-MEET-SA, Chief of the Umatilla Tribe, bearing the Indian name of Wil-Lou-Skin.

CHIEF RUNS-THE-ENEMY, Chief of the Teton Sioux, bearing the Indian name of Tok-kahin-hpe-ya.

CHIEF PRETTY VOICE EAGLE, Chief of the Yankton Sioux, bearing the Indian name of Wambli-ho-waste.

CHIEF WHITE HORSE, Chief of the Southern Yankton Sioux, bearing the Indian name of Sung-ska.

CHIEF BEAR GHOST, Chief of the Crow Creek Tribe, bearing the Indian name of Mato-Wanagi, signifying the Ghost of a Bear.

CHIEF RUNNING FISHER, an eminent Chief of the Gros Ventres Tribe, bearing the Indian name of Itn-tyi-waatyi.

BULL SNAKE, an eminent Crow warrior and scout, bearing the Indian name of Ear-Ous-Sah-Chee-dups, signifying Male Snake.

MOUNTAIN CHIEF, Chief of the Blackfoot Tribe, bearing the Indian name of Omaq-kat-tsa, signifying Big Brave.

CHIEF RED CLOUD, Chief of the Ogallalla Sioux, bearing the Indian name of Marpiya-Luta.

CHIEF TWO MOONS, Head Chief of the Northern Cheyennes, bearing the Indian name of Ish-hayu-Nishus, meaning Two Moons or Two Suns.

WHITE-MAN-RUNS-HIM, Chief of the Custer scouts, an eminent Crow warrior, bearing the Indian name of Mias-tas-hede-Karoos, signifying The White Man Runs Him.

HAIRY MOCCASIN, a noted Custer scout, of the Crow Tribe, bearing the Indian name of Esup-ewyshes.

CURLY, a noted Custer scout, of the Crow Tribe, bearing the Indian name of Shes-his.

GOES-AHEAD, a noted Custer scout, of the Crow Tribe, bearing the Indian name of Basuk-Ose, signifying Goes First.

[A Glimpse Backward]

A Glimpse Backward

INDIAN IMPRINTS A GLIMPSE BACKWARD

We are exchanging salutations with the uncalendared ages of the red man. We are measuring footsteps with moccasined feet whose trail leads along the receding sands of the western ocean. A bit of red colour set in immemorial time, now a silent sentinel, weeping unshed tears with eyes peering into a pitiless desert.

Life without humour is intolerable. The life of the Indian has been a series of long and bitter tragedies. There is a look in his face of bronze that frightens us, a tone lights up the gamut of his voice that makes it unlike any other voice we have ever heard—a voice that will echo in the tomb of time—a Spartan courage that shall be regnant a millennium beyond the Thermopylæ of his race.

We have come to the day of audit. Annihilation is not a cheerful word, but it is coined from the alphabet of Indian life and heralds the infinite pathos of a vanishing race. We are at the end of historical origins. The impression is profound.

A vision of the past and future confronts us. What we see is more wonderful than a view the points of which can be easily determined. We behold a dead sea of men under the empty and silent morning, a hollow land into which have flowed thousands upon thousands—at last the echo of a child’s cry. The door of the Indian’s yesterdays opens to a new world—a world unpeopled with red men, but whose population fills the sky, the plains, with sad and spectre-like memories—with the flutter of unseen eagle pinions. A land without the tall and sombre figure worshipping the Great Mystery; without suns and snows and storms—without the scars of battle, swinging war club, and flashing arrow—a strange, weird world, holding an unconquered race, vanquished before the ruthless tread of superior forces—we call them the agents of civilization. Forces that have in cruel fashion borne down upon the Indian until he had to give up all that was his and all that was dear to him—to make himself over or die. He would not yield. He died. He would not receive his salvation by surrender; rather would he choose oblivion, unknown darkness—the melting fires of extermination. It is hard to think this virile, untamed creation has been swept like hurrying leaves by angry autumn gusts across the sunlit plains into a night without a star.

The white is the conquering race, but every-whither there is a cry in the heart to delve into the mystery of these ancient forerunners. This type of colour holds the eye, rivets and absorbs the interest.

Men are fast coming to recognize the high claim of a moral obligation to study the yesterdays of this imperial and imperious race. The preservation of this record in abiding form is all the more significant because all serious students of Indian life and lore are deeply convinced of the insistent fact that the Indian, as a race, is fast losing its typical characters and is soon destined to pass completely away. So rapidly are the remaining Western tribes putting aside their native customs and costumes, their modes of life and ceremonies, that we belong to the last generation that will be granted the supreme privilege of studying the Indian in anything like his native state. The buffalo has gone from the continent, and now the Indian is following the deserted buffalo trail. All future students and historians, all ethnological researches must turn to the pictures now made and the pages now written for the study of a great race.

It is little short of solemn justice to these vanishing red men that students, explorers, artists, poets, men of letters, genius, generosity, and industry, strive to make known to future generations what manner of men and women were these whom we have displaced and despoiled. Indisputable figures, the result of more than five years of painstaking research on the part of the Bureau of Ethnology at Washington, place the decrease of Indian population in the United Sates, north of Mexico, since the coming of the white man, at 65 per cent. They have gone from the forests and plains, from the hills and valleys over which they roamed and reigned for uncounted ages. We have taken their land, blotted out their faith and despoiled their philosophy. It has been the utter extinction of a whole type of humanity. The conquering Anglo-Saxon speech has swept out of existence over a thousand distinct languages. These original Americans _Deserve a Monument_. They have moved majestically down the pathway of the ages, but it culminates in the dead march of Saul.

The record of the North American Indian has naught to do with the tabulation of statistics, the musty folios of custom reports, the conquests of commerce. He has never walked up to the gates of the city and asked entrance to its portals, nor subscribed himself as a contestant in the arena of finance. He has had no share in the lofty ideals of statecraft, nor the spotless ermine of the judiciary. He lived and moved and had his being in the sanctuary of the hills, the high altar-stairs of the mountains, the sublime silences of the stately pines—where birds sung their matins and the “stars became tapers tall”; where the zitkada_n_to—the blue bird—uttered its ravishing notes. He sought the kat-yi-mo—the “enchanted mesa”—as the place of prayer, the hour in which to register his oath. On the wide extended plain, rolling green, like the billows of the ocean, he listened for wana’gipi tah’upahupi—“the wings of the spirits.” In wana’gi ta’ca_n_ku—the milky way—he saw the footprints of departed warriors. His moccasined feet penetrated wa-koniya—“the place where water is born”—the springs that gushed forth to give life, and refreshing to all the earth. Ca_n_hotka ska—the “white frost”—became the priest’s robe as he petitioned at the sacrament of winter. The universe to him became a sounding-board of every emotion that thrilled his being. He found in its phenomena an answer to his longings and the high expression of every fervour of his soul. We cannot understand this, because the Indian chased the ethereal, the weird, the sublime, the mysterious: we chase the dollar. He heard the voice of nature; we listen for the cuckoo clock of commerce.

[The Sacrament of Winter]

The Sacrament of Winter

The camera, the brush, and the chisel have made us familiar with his plumed and hairy crests, but what of the deep fountains of his inner life? What did he think? How did he feel? What riotous impulses, or communion with the Great Mystery, carved his face of bronze? These no scientist, no discoverer, no leader of expeditions have ever borne into the light. No footprints along the trail can spell out for us his majestic mien, his stolid dignity, his triumphant courage, his inscrutable self-poise, and all of these dyed with a blood-red struggle for survival such as crowns no other page of American history.

To gain this close measure of the Indian mind, his friendship and confidence must not suffer eclipse. It is a superlative task, for the inner Indian shrine is crossed by only a favoured few. The Indian is averse to being photographed, for he feels that every picture made of himself by so much shortens his life. He looks at his portrait, then feels of his person; he realizes that he has not lost a hand or a foot, but feels most profoundly that his soul will be that much smaller in the future world. His medicine is sacred, and you may not interrupt the daily tenure of his life without destroying some ceremonial purpose. It is meaningful, therefore, that these red men allowed us daily communion. This story is then simply instinct with the Indian’s inner self: how we sat with him in his wigwam, and amid his native haunts, surrounded by every element of the wild life we were to commemorate; how his confidence was gained, and he was led to put aside his war-shirt and eagle feathers, and pull in twain the veil of his superstitious and unexplained reserve and give to the world what the world so much craves to know—what the Indian thinks and how he feels.

Memorable hours these under clear Montana skies, or at the midnight hour by the dim campfire light, the rain beating its tattoo on the tepee above our heads—surrounded by an army of shining tepees, like white ghosts of the plains, while these pathetic figures told the story of their lives. The warrior of other days gave himself up to mirthful tale, to boyhood’s transports, to manhood’s achievements, to the wild chase of the hunter, to the weaponry and woes of savage warfare, to the hallowed scenes of home life, to the primitive government of the tribe, and the busy and engaging activities of the camp; finally, to the royalty of the Great Council, when the chiefs assembled in solemn conclave to hold communion, to say a long and last farewell.

[The Lone Tepee]

The Lone Tepee

Months of arduous labour were spent in the effort to make a comprehensive and permanent record of an old-time Indian council. For this purpose eminent Indian chiefs were assembled in the Valley of the Little Big Horn in Montana, from nearly every Indian tribe in the United States. This council involved permission and unstinted aid from the Bureau of Indian Affairs at Washington, the cooperation of the Indian superintendents on all the reservations; the selection of the most distinguished chiefs—chiefs eminent for ability and honourable achievement among their tribes. The council involved the necessity of interpreters from each tribe, for they could only talk in the sign language. It involved the construction of a primitive council lodge along the lines of history and tradition, and again, the reproduction of primitive customs and traditions, both in paraphernalia, costume, and conduct.

These imprints are the trail marks left by this Great Council of Chiefs—the last Great Indian Council that will ever be held on American soil. The story most faithfully records the idiom and phrasing and atmosphere of the Indian’s speech as it came from Indian lips. The language of the landscape where the Indian made his home, where he fought his battles and lived his life, where this solemn council was held, is manifest in the accompanying photogravures. On the Indian trail, we may note as a hint of the many, a few of his imprints.

[Singing to the Spirits]

Singing to the Spirits

HIS RELIGION

The life of the Indian is one vast and glittering mosaic of rite and ritual. His warfare, his dress, his medicine, his ceremonies, his wooing, and his dying are all of them expressive of a dominant idea that pervades his life and controls his purpose. He lives constantly and absorbingly in a mystic land. He is beckoned by unseen hands and is lured into the realms of mystery by the challenge of voices silent to all other ears. His dress is studded with resplendent colours significant of the green earth, the blue sky, and the cry of his soul for a place in the great beyond. Like the high priest of old, he wears on his breast the fiery filaments of his faith.

The Indian sits in the tabernacle of the mighty forest or on the heights of some deserted and wind-swept mesa, beats his tomtom or drones song upon song, prays to the Great Mystery, pleads with the fires of the sun to give him strength and life and health, and calls the sun his father. The whispering winds tell his tale to the clouds. He peers into the depths of the stars, watches the aurora as the death dance of the spirits, answers the high call of the thunder as the voice of the Great Mystery, utters the cry of his soul to the lightnings—the arrows of taowity—communes with the rivers and the lakes, the moon, and the legion of wild beasts, and all of it with a pitiful longing that his days of fasting and his vicarious devotion may bring upon his life and his tribe the favour of the gods.

These primitive men hold time and money and ambition as nothing. But a dream, or a cloud in the sky, or a bird flying across the trail from the wrong direction, or a change of the wind will challenge their deepest thoughts. To the Indian mind all signs are symbolic. Their ceremonies are as complicated as any of ancient Hebrew or Greek tradition. The Indian aspires to be a great hunter, he seeks fame as a noble warrior; he struggles for the eagle feathers of distinction, but his greatest longing is to become a Medicine Man and know the Great Mystery. All medicine people of the tribes carry on their necks, or in a pouch at the belt, some sacred thing used in their magic practices—the claw of a bear, the rattle of a snake, a bird’s wing, the tooth of an elk, a bit of tobacco. Every Indian carries his individual medicine, and his medicine is good or bad according to his success. If he finds a feather at wrong angle in his path, his medicine is bad for that day. The Indian fasts and dances and chants, using his mind, his spirit, and his body as pliable instruments in the making of his prayer. He finds in the veritable exhaustion of his body the spirit path made clear for his dreams, until the very stars seem as the eyes of the gods, and the sighing of the pines comes to him as the rustle of eagle wings to bear his spirit to loftier realms. Instead of the common acceptation that the Indian has no religion whatever, every single act of his life carries with it some ceremonial function, and his whole being is surrounded by a shining host of ceremonial spirits. The Indian goes with prayer thoughts to the water. His bath is a sacrament. He cuts the long supple willow withes that grow on the banks of the stream, enters the sharpened end into the soil, bends and ties the feathery tops into an arch; over the arches thus made he throws his blankets; meanwhile, gathered stones have been heated in the burning fire. These stones glowing white with heat are placed in a tiny pit underneath the covering of this booth, now to be called his sweat bath. First one stone until four have been counted are placed by the attendant in the pit, and then the fiery pile is thrown in promiscuous fashion on the heap. The Indians enter the closed covering, the ceremonial pipe is smoked, a gourd of cold water is handed to each; they then disrobe, the attending priest lowering the blanket over the entrance. Cold water is then poured over the heated stones, filling the enclosure with steam. In silence they commune with the Great Mystery until one of their number is blessed with a vision; then a call is made and the attendant lifts the blanket, almost immediately lowering it again. This action is repeated until the vision has been vouchsafed four times, when they all come forth and plunge into the river. These sweat baths are always located on the banks of a flowing stream. The Indian sees in every ripple of the flashing water that comes to meet him a shining token of the medicine he has seen in his vision. They then repair to the wigwam and listen in solemn silence to the chanting cadences of the Indian who has been favoured.

[The Voice of the Water Spirits]

The Voice of the Water Spirits

The curling smoke from the long-stemmed pipe breathes forth the fumes of war or the pale quiet of peace. With his pipe he pacifies the elements. On festal occasions, or when the camp rejoices at the joys of harvest, the priest smokes his pipe, blowing the smoke first to the earth, then to the sky, to the north, the south, the east, and the west, in token of gratitude for the favour of the gods. With the pipe the Indian also seals his councils.

[Trail of the Death Spirit]

Trail of the Death Spirit

The Indian buries his dead upon some high elevation, because it is a nearer approach to the spirit world. They bury on scaffolds and in trees that in some mute, sorrowful way they may still hold communion with their loved and their lost. At the grave they go to the four points of the compass and mourn, singing all the while a weird chant. They bury with their dead all of the belongings of the deceased, the playthings of the Indian child, for the Indian boy and girl have dolls and balls and baubles as does the white child: you may see them all pendent from the poles of the scaffold or the boughs of a tree. When the great Chief Spotted Tail died they killed his two ponies, placing the two heads toward the east, fastening the tails on the scaffold toward the west. The war-bonnets and war-shirts are folded away with the silent dead; then follow the desolate days of fasting and mourning. In some instances hired mourners are engaged, and for their compensation they exact oftentimes the entire possessions of the deceased. The habitation in which the death occurs is burned, and many times when death is approaching the sick one is carried out so that the lodge may be occupied after the loved one has been laid to rest. The grief of the sorrowing ones is real and most profound. They will allow no token of the departed to remain within sight or touch. In their paroxysms of sorrow the face and limbs are lacerated, and often the tips of fingers are severed. Until the days of mourning are over, which is for more than a year, they absent themselves from all public gatherings. The bereaved fold themselves in a white blanket, repair to some desolate hillside overlooking the valley, the camp and the distant weird scaffold, and sit, amid cloud, sunshine, and storm, with bowed head, in solemn silence. White blankets are worn by the mourners as they move through the camp, significant of the white trail of the stars whither the Indian feels his loved ones have gone.

The Indian has a sublime idea of creation. He loves the brown earth and calls it his mother, because it has creative power and because it nourishes. And thus we might gather in from the thirty-two points of the compass the forces operant in earth and sky, and each would become a herald of the Indian’s life of faith.

[A Leaf from the Indian’s Book]

A Leaf from the Indian’s Book

THE BOOKS OF HIS LIBRARY

The Indian child is nursed on Indian song and story. Tribal traditions are handed down from age to age by enacting in the dance, on the part of the warriors and braves, their deeds of valour in war, their triumphs in the chase, their prowess against all foes. Forest lore is a constant text book. He is taught to observe which side of a tree has the lightest bark—which side the most branches; why the tree reaches forth longer arms on the edge of the wood than in the depths of the forest where his eye is taught to penetrate. The squirrel, the rabbit and the birds all become his little friends: where and how they get their food, their manner of life, their colour, and how they call their mates, who are their enemies, and how they may be protected. His ear is trained to hear sounds ordinarily inaudible, his nostrils are early taught to distinguish the scent of the different wild animals. Then came his ability to imitate the call of this wild life, sometimes by direct vocalization, or by placing two reeds to the lips so dexterously that the timid fawn is led to his feet. This literature the Indian child studies, until his arms are strong enough to bend the bow and send an arrow speeding to its mark. He soon essays the rôle of a warrior. His study of the birds enables him to find the eerie of the eagle, for a victory means that he may add an eagle feather to his war bonnet or coup stick. His study of the hills enables him to find in their vermilion and golden seams the colours for his war paint. In the crimson berries festooning the banks of the stream, when crushed, he finds still another element of decoration. The white man makes a book whose leaves talk. The sunshine bears speech and light to the Indian. He lives by communion with the stars. The Great Bear of the stars is called the great animal of cold weather. When a shadow crosses his mind he watches the clouds that touch the moon when it is new. He reads the stars, for they travel to him in a familiar pathway across the sky. They are bright spirits sent earthward by the Great Mystery, and when thick worlds gather in clusters, there are so many souls of earth people that their trail makes luminous the white way of the sky. The wing of a bird is the symbol of thoughts that fly very high. From the bird that soars nearest the blue he plucks prayer feathers. These he dyes and cherishes with jealous care. The Indian possesses a strange love for growing things, tall grasses with lace-like plumes forming a lattice for the deep green of the slender bushes that bear the rich clusters of crimson buffalo berries. He knows and loves the wild flowers that hang their golden heads along the banks of the purling stream or that in gleaming colours enamel the wide stretches of the plain. There are a thousand leaves in every book, and with every book in nature’s library he is familiar to the point of success.

[The Song of the Arrows]

The Song of the Arrows

HIS ADORNMENT

To the casual observer the costume and character of the Indian all look alike. The mind is confused amid a riotous and fantastic display of colours. The fact is that the minor details of Indian dress are an index to Indian character and often tell the story of his position in the tribe, and surely tell the story of his individual conception of the life here, and what he hopes for in the life hereafter, and like the laurel wreath on the brow of the Grecian runner, they spell out for us his exploits and achievements. To the white man all these decorations are construed as a few silly ornaments, the indulgence of a feverish vanity, but they open like a book the life of the Indian. His motive in adornment is to mark individual, tribal, or ceremonial distinction. The use of paint on the face, hair, and body, both in colour and design, generally has reference to individual or clan beliefs, or it indicates relationship, or personal bereavement, or is an act of courtesy. It is always employed in ceremonies, religious and secular, and is an accompaniment of gala dress for the purpose of honouring a guest or to celebrate an occasion. The face of the dead was frequently painted in accordance with tribal or religious symbolism. Paint is also used on the faces of children and adults as a protection from wind and sun. Plucking the hair from the face and body is a part of the daily program. The male Indian never shaves and the beard is a disgrace. A pair of tweezers becomes his razor. Sweet grasses and seeds serve as a perfume. Ear ornaments are a mark of family thrift, wealth or distinction, and indicate honour shown to the wearer by his kindred.

Among the Plains Indians the milk teeth of the elk were the most costly adornments. They were fastened in rows on a woman’s tunic and represented the climax of Indian fashion, the garment possessing a value of several hundred dollars. Head bands, armlets, bracelets, belts, necklaces, and garters of metal and seeds and embroidered buckskin were in constant use. They were not only decorative but often symbolic. Archaeological testimony tells of the almost general use of sea shells as necklace ornaments, which found their way into the interior by barter or as ceremonial gifts. The chiefs of the tribe were fond of wearing a disk cut from a conch-shell, and these were also prominent in religious rites, ranking among the modern tribes as did the turquoise among the people of the Southwest. A necklace of bear claws marks the man of distinction, and sometimes was worn as an armlet. In the buffalo country the women seldom ornamented their own robes, but embroidered those worn by the men. Sometimes a man painted his robe in accordance with a dream or pictured upon it a yearly record of his own deeds, or the prominent events of the tribe. Among the southern tribes a prayer rug was made on deer skin, both the buffalo and deer skins having been tanned and softened by the use of the brains taken from the skull of the animal. The skins were painted with intricate ornamentation, symbols and prayer thoughts adorning the skin in ceremonial colours; white clouds and white flowers, the sun god, and the curve of the moon with its germ of life, the morning star, and also a symbol of the messengers from the gods. Above it all zigzag lines ran through the blue of the sky to denote the lightning by which the children above sent their decrees to the earth children who roamed the plains.

[An Imperial Warrior]

An Imperial Warrior

Footgear often proclaimed the tribal relation, the peculiar cut and decoration of the moccasin denoting a man’s tribe. The war-shirt was frequently ornamented to represent the life story of the man wearing it. The breast contained a prayer for protection, and on the back might be found woven in beaded tapestry the symbols of victory. He had conquered the trail behind him. The shirt was often decorated with a fringe of human hair, the more warlike appending the scalps of the slain. The warrior wore no regalia so imposing as his war-bonnet with its crown of golden eagle feathers. Before the coming of the horse the flap at the back rarely extended below the waist, but when the warriors came to be mounted, the ruff of feathers was so lengthened that when the Indian was dismounted it trailed on the ground. The making of a war-bonnet was accompanied by song and ceremony. Each feather before it was placed in position was held in the hand and had recounted over it the story of some war honour. A bonnet could not be made without the consent of all the warriors and it stood as a record of tribal valour and a special mark of distinction granted to the man by his tribe. Every Indian takes great joy in laying out his colour scheme. It becomes a mosaic of artistic talent. Feathers are gathered from the eagles’ flight. Skins are taken from the wild beasts. Bones, beads, sparkling metals, soft-tinted sea shells, and all of them blended with the varicoloured paints that he has compounded in nature’s mortar. The woman enters into the work with intelligent zest, and when completed the whole array of blended colours is beyond the criticism of the tribe. The back of an Indian’s war-bonnet and war-shirt is always more gaudy and sumptuous than the front view and this because when Indians pass each other their salutation is brief and formal. They ride right on. But after the meeting they turn in the saddle and look back to take an inventory. The wealth of the Indian, his position in the tribe, his ceremonial attainment are all passed upon and estimate entered. This colour scheme goes on through the entire Indian wardrobe to pipe sack, coup stick and moccasins. The Indian could not have received his suggestion for a colour scheme from the tinted leaves of autumn for they are dull in comparison. He may have had a hint from the glowing sunsets that in that western land fill earth and sky with a glory so transcendent that mere rhetoric is a profanation. More likely is it that when free and unrestrained he roamed over plain and hill his soul became enamoured with the dazzling array of colours, beyond the genius of the proudest palette, to be found in the marvellous formations that surround the great geysers of the Yellowstone, colours more exquisitely beautiful than the supremest refinement of art. Every-whither down the cone-shaped mounds are tiny steam-heated rivulets interlacing each other, edged with gold and vermilion and turquoise and orange and opal. Indian trails have been found also interlacing each other all through this wonderland. Deep furrows in the grassy slopes of these ancient footprints are still plainly visible. Thither we may believe came the red man imbued with the spirit of reverence and awe before all this majesty and beauty, and from this exhaustless laboratory claimed the vivid colouring for the expression of his life of faith.

[A Sunset in Camp]

A Sunset in Camp

[Lighting the Smoke Signal]

Lighting the Smoke Signal

HIS WARFARE

The Indian has lived such a life of hazard for long centuries that he has had trained into him a first great instinct to fight. They have a war star in the sky, and when it moves the time to make war is heavy upon them. There are many cogent reasons for the belief that before the coming of the white man there were no general or long-continued wars among the Indians. There was no motive for war. Quarrels ensued when predatory tribes sought to filch women or horses. Strife was engendered on account of the distribution of buffalo, but these disturbances could not be dignified by the name of war. The country was large and the tribes were widely separated. Their war implements were of the crudest sort. A shield would stop a stone-headed arrow, and it necessitated a hand-to-hand conflict for the use of a flint-headed lance and the ponderous war club. The white man came, and for hundreds of years their contest has been waged against a superior force. They have disputed every mile of territory which has been acquired from them. During all that time they could not make a knife, a rifle or a round of ammunition. Their method of communication was confined to the smoke signal, signal fires and scouts. They had no telegraph, no heliograph, no arsenal. Modern implements of war they have been able to obtain only in late years and then in meagre quantities, even then only by capture or at exorbitant rates. The Indian has proved himself a redoubtable and masterful foe. For more than three hundred years millions of civilized white people have fought a bitter battle with three hundred thousand red men. During all these tragic years the nations of the world have moved on to discovery, subjugation, and conquest. Nation has taken up arms against nation. England, France, and Spain have put a rim of colonies about the globe. Our own great civil struggle has been written down on the pages of history with letters of blood. England, France, Spain, and the United States have during this period tried their prowess with these less than three hundred thousand braves and only now has the decimation become complete. No such striking example of endurance, power of resistance, and consummate generalship has been recorded in the annals of time. Sitting-Bull, Red Cloud, Looking-Glass, Chief Joseph, Two Moons, Grass, Rain-in-the-Face, American Horse, Spotted Tail, and Chief Gall are names that would add lustre to any military page in the world’s history. Had they been leaders in any one of the great armies of the nation they would have ranked conspicuously as master captains. The Indian, deprived of the effectiveness of supplies and modern armament, found his strongest weapon in the oratory of the council lodge. Here, without any written or established code of laws, without the power of the press and the support of public sentiment, absolutely exiled from all communication with civilized resources, unaided and alone, their orators presented the affairs of the moment to the assembled tribe, swaying the minds and wills of their fellows into concerted and heroic action. The wonderful imagery of the Indian orator—an imagery born of his baptism into the spirit of nature—his love of his kind, and the deathless consciousness of the justice of his cause made his oratory more resistless than the rattle of Gatling guns, and also formed a model for civilized speech. It was an oratory that enabled a few scattering tribes to withstand the aggressions of four great nations of the world for a period of several centuries, and to successfully withstand the tramping columns of civilization. The science and art of Indian warfare would take volumes to compass. His strategy and statesmanship compelled victory. He was almost always assured of victory before he proceeded to battle. He knew no fear. A thousand lives would have been a small gift had he the power to lay them on the altar of his cause. He pitted the perfection of details against the wily strategy of his own colour and the pompous superiority of the white man’s tactics. On the trail care was taken to cover up or obliterate his footprints. When a fire became necessary he burned fine dry twigs so that the burning of green boughs would not lift to the wind an odour of fire, nor carry a trail of smoke. He conceived and carried out a wonderful deception in dress. In winter a band of warriors were painted white. They rode white horses and their war dress was all of it made of the plainest white so that a group of warriors, stationed on the brow of a hill, would appear in the distance like a statuesque boulder clad in snow. This disguise also enabled them to come with stealthy step upon wild game. In autumn their horses were painted yellow and they wore a garb of yellow so that fringing the edge of the forest they could not be distinguished from the leaves of the dying year. The blue-green of the sagebrush, so conspicuously omnipresent on the prairies, furnished the Indian with another helpful form of disguise. He would almost completely disrobe and paint his face, his arms, and his hair, as well as the body of his horse, exactly the colour of the sagebrush; and when scouting, after their crouching fashion, among the clusters of sagebrush, or riding in the distance along the verdure-covered banks of a stream, the disguise would be so absolutely complete that detection became a difficult task. It was an ingenious and artistic display of war talent.

[Answering the Smoke Signal]

Answering the Smoke Signal

We are led to wonder often concerning the Indian’s passion for his coup stick (pronounced coo). This rod, bedecked with eagle feathers and his own colour scheme, is the Indian’s badge of empire. It is the “Victoria Cross” of his deeds of valour. In battle he rushes amid his foes, touches the enemy with his coup stick—that man is his prisoner, and he has counted a coup. He slays an enemy, then rushes up and touches him with the stick, takes his scalp; another coup is counted. The credit of victory was taken for three brave deeds: killing an enemy, scalping an enemy, or being the first to strike an enemy, alive or dead; any one of these entitles a man to rank as a warrior and to recount his exploit in public; but to be the first to touch an enemy is regarded as the bravest deed of all, as it implied close approach in battle. In the last Great Indian Council and on the journey home the attention of the writer was called to the prominence given to the coup stick. They are present at all ceremonial functions and are carried on all ceremonial parades. The warrior who can strike a tepee of the enemy in a charge upon a home camp thus counted coup upon it and is entitled to reproduce its particular design in the next new tepee which he made for his own use, and to perpetuate the pattern in his family. The eagle feathers on the stick can only be placed there after the warrior has counted his coup, recounted it in public, and the deed has met with the approval of all the warriors. The eagle, the proudest and most victorious of birds, then yielded a feather, which is deftly fastened with a circle of shining beads to the stick, and the proud victor flaunts another emblem of his bravery.

[The Attack on the Camp]

The Attack on the Camp

The buffalo, once the king of the prairies, has been practically exterminated. Perhaps no greater grief has ever entered into the life of the Indian than this wilful waste and irreparable loss. To this hour the Indian mourns the going away of the buffalo. He cannot be reconciled. He dates every joyful and profitable event in his life to the days of the buffalo. In the assembly of chiefs at the last Great Council the buffalo was the burden of every reminiscence. These veteran chiefs studied with melancholy eyes the old buffalo trails, and in contemplation of the days of the chase they said, as they thought backward, “My heart is lonely and my spirit cries.” So much did they love the buffalo that the Indian children played hunting the buffalo. The animal furnished food and clothing, and many parts of the stalwart frame they counted as sacred. The annihilation of these vast herds aroused the darkest passions in the heart of the Indian, and many times stirred his war spirit and sent him forth to do battle against the aggressors. Within the nine years between 1874 and 1883 over eight millions of buffalo were ruthlessly slain. But the war curtain of the Indian has been rung down, and the vast area which twoscore years ago supported these vast herds of wild game is covered to-day with domestic animals and teems with agricultural life, furnishing food supplies for millions upon millions all over the civilized world.

[Buffalo Thundered Across the Plains]

Buffalo Thundered Across the Plains

[An Indian Home]

An Indian Home

HIS HOME LIFE

Far stretches of prairie, winding watercourses, leagues of white desert with only the clouds in the sky and the shadow of the clouds on the blistering sand, an army of buttes and crags, storm carved, forests whose primeval stillness mocks the calendar of man, the haunts of the eagle, the antelope, the deer and the buffalo—and the edge of the curtain is lifted on the land where the Indian roamed and where he made his home.

Game has been found, a semi-circle of cone-shaped tepees dot the green of the plain; a stream, tree-fringed, fresh from the mountains, flows by the camp—a camp that in earlier times was pitched upon some tableland as an outlook for the enemy, white or red. Horses are browsing near at hand or far afield; old warriors and medicine men sit in the shade and smoke the long-stemmed, red sandstone pipe, and tell of the days of yore. Gayly clad figures dart hither and yon as the women are bent upon their tasks. Great loads of wood are brought into camp on an Indian woman’s back. She carries water from the river, bakes the cake, upturned against the fire, boils the coffee and then all are seated on the ground when they partake of jerked beef, coffee, bread, and berries. Hands are better than knives and forks, one cup answers for many, and the strip of dried beef is passed along that all may cut off his desired portion. A noisy, gleeful group of children play with their dolls and their dogs—dogs that are made to serve as beasts of burden and instruments of torture. At night beds are made on the ground around the interior circle of the tepee and the chill of frost is driven out by a fire in the very centre—the most perfectly ventilated structure in the world—the air passing underneath the edge of the tepee in the loop where it is tied at the bottom of the poles, then passing on out through the opening at the top, carrying with it all dust and smoke. The Indian never knew anything about tuberculosis until the white man confined him in log cabins where a score of people live in one room, the cracks and keyhole entirely filled, and where they breath each other over times without number. Within the tepee the chief has the place of honour. A rest is made with supports like an easel. A lattice-work of slender willow rods passed down the front, which is covered by a long strip of buffalo hide. Against this the chief rests. Each member of the family has his allotted place inside the lodge and he may decorate his own section according to ability or fancy. Here the warrior hangs his war-bonnet and sometimes records his achievements in the chase or on the warpath. Lying all about the circle are many highly coloured parflesche bags containing the minor details of dress or any personal possession. Many of the tepees in an Indian village are embellished with Indian paintings setting forth the heroic deeds of the warriors who abide in the lodge. The figures are often grotesque and without parallel in the realm of art. The medicine is given a conspicuous place in the lodge. No one sits or lies down on the side of the tepee where they have placed the medicine of the household, and when they pass it on entering or leaving the lodge all heads are bowed. The medicine tepee is distinct from all others. It is painted a maroon, with a moon in green surrounded by a yellow circle. The medicine of the ordinary Indian family is hung over the entrance of the doorway or suspended on a pole, and may consist of a wolf skin or a dark blanket rolled in oblong fashion containing the sacred tokens of the family. Every Indian family takes pride in the ownership of a bevy of dogs. They are rich in dogs. In our camp of about thirty tepees a reliable Indian estimated that there were over three hundred dogs. These canines have free run of the lodge, and at night they crawl in under the edge of the canvas and sleep by their Indian master. Let an intruder enter the camp during the hours of darkness and they rush out simultaneously, howling like a pack of wolves until one might think the bowels of the earth had given forth an eruption of dogs. The Indian warrior makes a companion of his dog, and he can show no greater hospitality to a guest than to kill his favourite friend and serve his visitor with dog soup. To refuse this diet is an insult most vital.

[An Indian Burden Bearer]

An Indian Burden Bearer