Dahcotah Part 1

Dahcotah.

by Mary Eastman.

TO HENRY SIBLEY, ESQ.,

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

It was my purpose to dedicate, exclusively, these pages to my beloved parents. What correctness of sentiment appears in this book is mainly ascribable to a principle they endeavored to instil into the minds of their children, that purity of heart and intellectual attainment are never more appropriately exercised than in promoting the good of our fellow-creatures.

Yet the sincere sentiments of respect and regard that I entertain for you, the remembrance of the many acts of friends.h.i.+p received from you during my residence at Fort Snelling, and the a.s.surance that you are ever prompt to a.s.sist and protect the Indian, induce me to unite your name with those most dear to me in this dedication.

An additional inducement is, that no one knows better than yourself the opportunities that presented themselves to collect materials for these legends, and with what interest these occasions were improved. With whatever favor this little work may be received it is a most pleasing reflection to me, that the object in publis.h.i.+ng it being to excite attention to the moral wants of the Dahcotahs, will be kindly appreciated by the friends of humanity, and by none more readily than yourself.

Very truly yours,

MARY H. EASTMAN.

New London, March lst, 1849.

PREFACE.

My only t.i.tle to the office of editor in the present case is some practice in such matters, with a very warm interest in all, whether relating to past or present, that concerns our western country. Mrs.

Eastman,--wife of Captain Eastman, and daughter of Dr. Henderson, both of the U. S. army,--is thoroughly acquainted with the customs, superst.i.tions, and leading ideas of the Dahcotahs, whose vicinity to Fort Snelling, and frequent intercourse with its inmates, have brought them much under the notice of the officers and ladies of the garrison.

She has no occasion to present the Indian in a theatrical garb--a mere thing of paint and feathers, less like the original than his own rude delineation on birch-bark or deer-skin. The reader will find in the following pages living men and women, whose feelings are in many respects like his own, and whose motives of action are very similar to those of the rest of the world, though far less artfully covered up and disguised under pleasant names. "Envy, hatred and malice, and all uncharitableness," stand out, unblus.h.i.+ng, in Indian life. The first is not called emulation, nor the second just indignation or merited contempt, nor the third zeal for truth, nor the fourth keen discernment of character. Anger and revenge are carried out honestly to their natural fruit--injury to others. Among the Indians this takes the form of murder, while with us it is obliged to content itself with slander, or cunning depreciation. In short, the study of Indian character is the study of the unregenerate human heart; and the writer of these sketches of the Dahcotahs presents it as such, with express and solemn reference to the duty of those who have "the words of eternal life" to apply them to the wretched condition of the red man, who is, perhaps, with all his ignorance, quite as well prepared to receive them as many of those who are already wise in their own eyes. The very degradation and misery in which he lives, and of which he is not unable to perceive some of the causes, prepare him to welcome the instruction which promises better things. Evils which are covered up under the smoothness of civilization, stand out in all their horrible deformity in the _abandon_ of savage life; the Indian cannot get even one gleam of light, without instantly perceiving the darkness around him. Here, then, is encouragement to paint him as he is, that the hearts of the good may be moved at his dest.i.tute and unhappy state; to set forth his wants and his claims, that ignorance may no longer be pleaded as an excuse for withholding, from the original proprietor of the soil, the compensation or atonement which is demanded at once by justice, honor, and humanity.

Authentic pictures of Indian life have another and a different value, in a literary point of view. In the history and character of the aborigines is enveloped all the distinct and characteristic poetic material to which we, as Americans, have an unquestioned right. Here is a peculiar race, of most unfathomable origin, possessed of the qualities which have always prompted poetry, and living lives which are to us as shadowy as those of the Ossianic heroes; our own, and pa.s.sing away--while we take no pains to arrest their fleeting traits or to record their picturesque traditions. Yet we love poetry; are ambitious of a literature of our own, and sink back dejected when we are convicted of imitation. Why is it that we lack interest in things at home? Sismondi has a pa.s.sage to this effect:--

"The literature of other countries has been frequently adopted by a young nation with a sort of fanatical admiration. The genius of those countries having been so often placed before it as the perfect model of all greatness and all beauty, every spontaneous movement has been repressed, in order to make room for the most servile imitation; and every national attempt to develop an original character has been sacrificed to the reproduction of something conformable to the model which has been always before its eyes."

This is certainly true of us, since we not only adopt the English view of everything, but confine ourselves to the very subjects and imagery which have become consecrated to us by love and habit. Not to enter into the general subject of our disposition to parrotism, our neglect of Indian material in particular may be in part accounted for, by our having become acquainted with the aborigines after the most unpoetical fas.h.i.+on, in trying to cheat them out of their lands, or shooting them when they declined being cheated; they, in their turn, driven to the resource of the weak and the ignorant, counterplotting us, and taking, by means of blood and fire, what we would not give them in fair compensation. This has made our business relations very unpleasant; and everybody knows that when this becomes the case, it is hard for parties to do justice to each other's good or available qualities.

If we had only read about the Indians, as a people living in the mountain-fastnesses of Greece, or the, broad plains of Transylvania, we should without difficulty have discovered the romantic elements of their character. But as the effect of remoteness is produced by time as well as distance, it is surely worth while to treasure up their legends for our posterity, who will justly consider us very selfish, if we throw away what will be a treasure to them, merely because we cannot or will not use it ourselves.

A prominent ground of the slight regard in which the English hold American literature, or at least one of the most plausible reasons given for it, is our want of originality, particularly in point of subject matter. It is said that our imitativeness is so servile, that for the sake of following English models, at an immeasurable distance, we neglect the new and grand material which lies all around us, in the sublime features of our country, in our new and striking circ.u.mstances, in our peculiar history and splendid prospects, and, above all, in the character, superst.i.tions, and legends of our aborigines, who, to eyes across the water, look like poetical beings. We are continually reproached by British writers for the obtuse carelessness with which we are allowing these people, with so much of the heroic element in their lives, and so much of the mysterious in their origin, to go into the annihilation which seems their inevitable fate as civilization advances, without an effort to secure and record all that they are able to communicate respecting themselves.

And the reproach is just. In our hurry of utilitarian progress, we have either forgotten the Indian altogether, or looked upon him only in a business point of view, as we do almost everything else; as a thriftless, treacherous, drunken fellow, who knows just enough to be troublesome, and who must be cajoled or forced into leaving his hunting-grounds for the occupation of very orderly and virtuous white people, who sell him gunpowder and whiskey, but send him now and then a missionary to teach him that it is wrong to get drunk and murder his neighbor. To look upon the Indian with much regard, even in the light of literary material, would be inconvenient; for the moment we recognize in him a mind, a heart, a soul,--the recollection of the position in which we stand towards him becomes th.o.r.n.y, and we begin dimly to remember certain duties belonging to our Christian profession, which we have sadly neglected with regard to the sons of the forest, whom we have driven before us just as fast as we have required or desired their lands. A few efforts have been made, not only to bring the poetry of their history into notice, but to do them substantial good; the public heart, however, has never responded to the feelings of those who, from living in contact with the Indians, have felt this interest in them. To most Americans, the red man is, to this day, just what he was to the first settlers of the country--a being with soul enough to be blameable for doing wrong, but not enough to claim Christian brotherhood, or to make it _very_ sinful to shoot him like a dog, upon the slightest provocation or alarm. While this feeling continues, we shall not look to him for poetry; and the only imaginative writing in which he is likely to be generally used as material, will be kindred to that known by the appropriate t.i.tle of "Pirate Literature." Mr. Cooper and Miss Sedgwick are, perhaps, alone among our writers in their attempts to do the Indian justice, while making him the poetical machine in fiction.

Missionaries, however, as well as others who have lived among the aborigines for purely benevolent purposes, have discovered in them capabilities and docility which may put to the blush many of the whites who despise and hate them. Not only in individual cases, but in more extended instances, the Indian has been found susceptible of religious and moral instruction; his heart has warmed to kindness, like any other man's; he has been able to perceive the benefits of regular industry; his head has proved as clear in the apprehension of the distinction between right and wrong as that of the more highly cultivated moralist; and he receives the fundamental truths of the gospel with an avidity, and applies them--at least to the lives and characters of his neighbors--with a keenness, which show him to be not far behind the rest of mankind in sensibility and acuteness. Without referring to the testimony of the elder missionaries, which is abundant, I remember a most touching account, by Rev. George Duffield, jr., of piety in an Indian wigwam, which I would gladly transfer to these pages did their limits admit. It could be proved by overwhelming testimony, that the Indian is as susceptible of good as his white brother. But it is not necessary in this place to urge his claim to our attention on the ground of his moral and religious capabilities. Setting them aside, he has many qualifications for the heroic character as Ajax, or even Achilles. He is as brave, daring, and ruthless; as pa.s.sionate, as revengeful, as superst.i.tious, as haughty. He will obey his medicine man, though with fury in his heart and injurious words upon his lips; he will fight to the death for a wife, whom he will afterwards treat with the most sovereign neglect. He understands and accepts the laws of spoil, and carries them out with the most chivalric precision; his torture of prisoners does not exceed those which formed part of the "triumphs" of old; his plan of scalping is far neater and more expeditious than that of dragging a dead enemy thrice round the camp by the heels. He loves splendor, and gets all he can of it; and there is little essential difference, in this regard, between gold and red paint, between diamonds and wampum. He has great ancestral pride--a feeling much in esteem for its enn.o.bling powers; and the _totem_ has all the meaning and use of any other armorial bearing. In the endurance of fatigue, hunger, thirst, and exposure, the forest hero has no superior; in military affairs he fully adopts the orthodox maxim that all stratagems are lawful in war. In short, nothing is wanting but a Homer to build our Iliad material into "lofty rhyme," or a Scott to weave it into border romance; and as we are encouraged to look for Scotts and Homers at some future day, it is manifestly our duty to be recording fleeting traditions and describing peculiar customs, before the waves of time shall have swept over the retreating footsteps of the "salvage man," and left us nothing but lake and forest, mountains and cataracts, out of which to make our poetry and romance.

The Indians themselves are full of poetry. Their legends embody poetic fancy of the highest and most adventurous flight; their religious ceremonies refer to things unseen with a directness which shows how bold and vivid are their conceptions of the imaginative. The war-song--the death-song--the song of victory--the cradle-chant--the lament for the slain--these are the overflowings of the essential poetry of their untaught souls. Their eloquence is proverbially soaring and figurative; and in spite of all that renders gross and mechanical their ordinary mode of marrying and giving in marriage, instances are not rare among them of love as true, as fiery, and as fatal, as that of the most exalted hero of romance. They, indeed, live poetry; it should be ours to write it out for them.

Mrs. Eastman's aim has been to preserve from destruction such legends and traits of Indian character as had come to her knowledge during long familiarity; with the Dahcotahs, and nothing can be fresher or more authentic than her records, taken down from the very lips of the red people as they sat around her fire and opened their hearts to her kindness. She has even caught their tone, and her language will be found to have something of an Ossianic simplicity and abruptness, well suited to the theme. Sympathy,--feminine and religious,--breathes through these pages, and the unaffected desire of the writer to awaken a kindly interest in the poor souls who have so twined themselves about her own best feelings, may be said to consecrate the work. In its character of aesthetic material for another age, it appeals to our nationality; while, as the effort of a reflecting and Christian mind to call public attention to the needs of an unhappy race, we may ask for it the approbation of all who acknowledge the duty to "teach all nations."

C. M. K.

NEW YORK, _March_, 1849.

INTRODUCTION.

The materials for the following pages were gathered during a residence of seven years in the immediate neighborhood--nay--in the very midst of the once powerful but now nearly extinct tribe of Sioux or Dahcotah Indians.

Fort Snelling is situated seven miles below the Falls of St. Anthony, at the confluence of the Mississippi--and St. Peter's rivers--built in 1819, and named after the gallant Colonel Snelling, of the army, by whom the work was erected. It is constructed of stone; is one of the strongest Indian forts in the United States; and being placed on a commanding bluff, has somewhat the appearance of an old German castle, or one of the strongholds on the Rhine.

The then recent removal of the Winnebagoes was rendered troublesome by the interference of Wabashaw, the Sioux chief, whose village is on the Mississippi, 1800 miles from its mouth. The father of Wabashaw was a noted Indian; and during the past summer, the son has given some indications that he inherits the father's talents and courage. When the Winnebagoes arrived at Wabashaw's prairie, the chief induced them not to continue their journey of removal; offered them land to settle upon near him, and told them it was not really the wish of their Great Father, that they should remove. His bribes and eloquence induced the Winnebagoes to refuse to proceed; although there was a company of volunteer dragoons and infantry with them. This delay occasioning much expense and trouble, the government agents applied for a.s.sistance to the command at Fort Snelling. There was but one company there; and the commanding officer, with twenty men and some friendly Sioux, went down to a.s.sist the agent.

There was an Indian council held on the occasion. The Sioux who went from Fort Snelling promised to speak in favor of the removal. During the council, however, not one of them said a word--for which they afterwards gave a satisfactory reason. Wabashaw; though a young man, had such influence over his band, that his orders invariably received implicit obedience. When the council commenced, Wabashaw had placed a young warrior behind each of the friendly Sioux who he knew would speak in favor of the removal, with orders to shoot down the first one who rose for that purpose. This stratagem may be considered a characteristic specimen of the temper and habits of the Sioux chiefs, whose tribe we bring before the reader in their most conspicuous ceremonies and habits.

The Winnebagoes were finally removed, but not until Wabashaw was taken prisoner and carried to Fort Snelling. Wabashaw's pike-bearer was a fine looking warrior, named "Many Lightnings."

The village of "Little Crow," another able and influential Sioux chief, is situated twenty miles below the Falls of St. Anthony. He has four wives, all sisters, and the youngest of them almost a child. There are other villages of the tribe, below and above Fort Snelling.

The scenery about Fort Snelling is rich in beauty. The falls of St.

Anthony are familiar to travellers, and to readers of Indian sketches.

Between the fort and these falls are the "Little Falls," forty feet in height, on a stream that empties into the Mississippi. The Indians call them Mine-hah-hah, or "laughing waters." In sight of Fort Snelling is a beautiful hill called Morgan's Bluff; the Indians call it "G.o.d's House."

They have a tradition that it is the residence of their G.o.d of the waters, whom they call Unk-ta-he. Nothing can be more lovely than the situation and appearance of this hill; it commands on every side a magnificent view, and during the summer it is carpeted with long gra.s.s and prairie flowers. But, to those who have lived the last few years at Fort Snelling, this hill presents another source of interest. On its top are buried three young children, who were models of health and beauty until the scarlet fever found its way into regions. .h.i.therto s.h.i.+elded from its approach. They lived but long enough on earth to secure them an entrance into heaven. Life, which ought to be a blessing to all, was to them one of untold value; for it was a short journey to a better land--a translation from the yet unfelt cares of earth to the bright and endless joys of heaven.

Opposite the Fort is Pilot k.n.o.b, a high peak, used as a burial-place by the Indians; just below it is the village of Mendota, or the "Meeting of the Waters."

But to me, the greatest objects of interest and curiosity were the original owners of the country, whose teepees could be seen in every direction. One could soon know all that was to be known about Pilot k.n.o.b or St. Anthony's falls; but one is puzzled completely to comprehend the character of an Indian man, woman, or child. At one moment, you see an Indian chief raise himself to his full height, and say that the ground on which he stands is his own; at the next, beg bread and pork from an enemy. An Indian woman will scornfully refuse to wash an article that might be needed by a white family--and the next moment, declare that she had not washed her face in fifteen years! An Indian child of three years old, will cling to its mother under the walls of the Fort, and then plunge into the Mississippi, and swim half way across, in hopes of finding an apple that has been thrown in. We may well feel much curiosity to look into the habits, manners, and motives of a race exhibiting such contradictions.

There is a great deal said of Indian warriors--and justly too of the Sioux. They are, as a race, tall fine-looking men; and many of those who have not been degraded by a.s.sociation with the frontier cla.s.s of white people, nor had their intellects destroyed by the white man's fire-water, have minds of high order, and reason with a correctness that would put to the blush the powers of many an educated logician. Yet are these men called savages, and morally a.s.sociated with the tomahawk and scalping knife. Few regard them as reasonable creatures, or as beings endowed by their creator with souls, that are here to be fitted for the responsibilities of the Indians hereafter.

Good men are sending the Bible to all parts of the world. Sermons are preached in behalf of fellow-creatures who are peris.h.i.+ng in regions known only to us in name. And here, within reach of comparatively the slightest exertion; here, not many miles from churches and schools, and all the moral influences abounding in Christian society; here, in a country endowed with every advantage that G.o.d can bestow, are peris.h.i.+ng, body and soul, our own countrymen: peris.h.i.+ng too from disease, starvation and intemperance, and all the evils incident to their unhappy condition. White men, Christian men, are driving them back; rooting out their very names from the face of the earth. Ah! these men can seek the country of the Sioux when money is to be gained: but how few care for the sufferings of the Dahcotahs! how few would give a piece of money, a prayer, or even a thought, towards their present and eternal good.

Yet are they not altogether neglected. Doctor Williamson, one of the missionaries among the Sioux, lives near Fort Snelling. He is exerting himself to the utmost to promote the moral welfare of the unhappy people among whom he expects to pa.s.s his life. He has a school for the Indian children, and many of them read well. On the Sabbath, divine service is regularly held, and he has labored to promote the cause of temperance among the Sioux. Christian exertion is unhappily too much influenced by the apprehension that little can be done for the savage. How is it with the man on his fire-water mission to the Indian? Does he doubt? Does he fail?

As a great motive to improve the moral character of the Indians, I present the condition of the women in their tribes. A degraded state of woman is universally characteristic of savage life, as her elevated influence in civilized society is the conspicuous standard of moral and social virtue. The peculiar sorrows of the Sioux woman commence at her birth. Even as a child she is despised, in comparison with the brother beside her, who is one day to be a great warrior. As a maiden, she is valued while the young man, who wants her for a wife, may have a doubt of his success. But when she is a wife, there is little sympathy for her condition. How soon do the oppressive storms and contentions of life root out all that is kind or gentle in her heart. She must bear the burdens of the family. Should her husband wish it, she must travel all day with a heavy weight on her back; and at night when they stop, her hands must prepare the food for her family before she retires to rest.

Her work is never done. She makes the summer and the winter house. For the former she peels the bark from the trees in the spring; for the latter she sews the deer-skin together. She tans the skins of which coats, moca.s.sins, and leggins are to be made for the family; she has to sc.r.a.pe it and prepare it while other cares are pressing upon her. When her child is born, she has no opportunities for rest or quiet. She must paddle the canoe for her husband--pain and feebleness must be forgotten.

She is always hospitable. Visit her in her teepee, and she willingly gives you what you need, if in her power; and with alacrity does what she can to promote your comfort. In her looks there is little that is attractive. Time has not caused the wrinkles in her forehead, nor the furrows in her cheek. They are the traces of want, pa.s.sion, sorrows and tears. Her bent form was once light and graceful. Labor and privations are not preservative of beauty.

Let it not be deemed impertinent if I venture to urge upon those who care for the wretched wherever their lot may be cast, the immense good that might be accomplished among these tribes by schools, which should open the minds of the young to the light of reason and Christianity.

Even if the elder members are given up as hopeless, with the young there is always encouragement. Many a bright little creature among the Dahcotahs is as capable of receiving instruction as are the children of civilization. Why should they be neglected when the waters of benevolence are moving all around them?

It is not pretended that all the incidents related in these stories occurred exactly as they are stated. Most of them are entirely true; while in others the narrative is varied in order to show some prevalent custom, or to ill.u.s.trate some sentiment to which these Indians are devoted. The Sioux are as firm believers in their religion as we are in ours; and they are far more particular in the discharge of what they conceive to be the obligations required by the objects of their faith and wors.h.i.+p. There are many allusions to the belief and customs of the Dahcotahs that require explanation. For this purpose I have obtained from the Sioux themselves the information required. On matters of faith there is difference of opinion among them--but they do not make more points of difference on religion, or on any other subject, than white people do.

The day of the Dahcotah is far spent; to quote the language of a Chippeway chief, "The Indian's glory is pa.s.sing away." They seem to be almost a G.o.d-forgotten race. Some few have given the missionary reason to hope that they have been made subjects of Christian faith--and the light, that has as yet broken in faint rays upon their darkness, may increase. He who takes account of the falling of a sparrow, will not altogether cast away so large a portion of his creatures. All Christian minds will wish success to the Indian missionary; and a.s.suredly G.o.d will be true to his mercy, where man is found true to his duty.

The first impression created by the Sioux was the common one--fear. In their looks they were so different from the Indians I had occasionally seen. There was nothing in their aspect to indicate the success of efforts made to civilize them. Their tall, unbending forms, their savage hauteur, the piercing black eye, the quiet indifference of manner, the slow, stealthy step--how different were they from the eastern Indians, whose a.s.sociations with the white people seem to have deprived them of all native dignity of bearing and of character. The yells heard outside the high wall of the fort at first filled me with alarm; but I soon became accustomed to them, and to all other occasional Indian excitements, that served to vary the monotony of garrison life. Before I felt much interest in the Sioux, they seemed to have great regard for me. My husband, before his marriage, had been stationed at Fort Snelling and at Prairie du Chien. He was fond of hunting and roaming about the prairies; and left many friends among the Indians when he obeyed the order to return to an eastern station. On going back to the Indian country, he met with a warm welcome from his old acquaintances, who were eager to shake hands with "Eastman's squaw."

The old men laid their bony hands upon the heads of my little boys, admired their light hair, said their skins were very white; and, although I could not then understand their language, they told me many things, accompanied with earnest gesticulation. They brought their wives and young children to see me. I had been told that Indian women gossiped and stole; that they were filthy and troublesome. Yet I could not despise them: they were wives and mothers--G.o.d had implanted the same feelings in their hearts as in mine.

Some Indians visited us every day, and we frequently saw them at their villages. Captain E. spoke their language well; and without taking any pains to acquire it, I soon understood it so as to talk with them. The sufferings of the women and children, especially during the winter season, appealed to my heart. Their humility in asking for a.s.sistance contrasted strongly with the pompous begging of the men. Late in a winter's afternoon, Wenona, wife of a chief named the "Star," came to my room. Undoing a bundle that she took from under her blanket, she approached and showed it to me. It was an infant three days old, closely strapped to an Indian cradle. The wretched babe was shrivelled and already looking old from hunger. She warmed it by the fire, attempting to still its feeble cries.