CHAPTER FOUR THE GREAT ENCAMPMENT
It was the custom of the Shoshone chieftains in those early days to gather all of their tribe every three years. As this was the year for the great tribal meeting, we started for the big camp ground. After traveling for three days, we reached a large river, which the Indians called Piupa (Snake River). Here we were joined by another large band of the same tribe.
In order to cross the river, the squaws built boats of bulrushes tied in bundles; these bundles were lashed together until they made a boat big enough to hold up from six to eight hundred pounds. The Indians made the horses swim over, and some of the papoose boys rode their ponies across. I wanted to swim my horse, but my mother would not let me. It took about a week to get across the river; but during that time I had some of the best fun of my life.
My mother gave me a fishhook and a line made out of hair from a horse’s tail. With this tackle I caught my first fish, and some of them were very large ones, too. The other boys became more friendly, and we had jolly times together; but mother kept pretty close watch over me, for fear I would kick them, and get into more trouble. After I began to play with the papooses, I picked up the Shoshone language much faster.
Nothing else of importance happened until we reached Big Hole Basin. There I saw the first buffalo I had seen since crossing the plains. Seven head of them appeared one morning on a hill about a mile away. Ten Indians started after them. One, having a wide, blade-like spear-head attached to a long shaft, would ride up to a buffalo and cut the hamstrings of both legs, then the others would rush up and kill the wounded animal.
Meat drying before the tepee of a Crow Indian.
About fifteen squaws followed the hunters to skin the buffaloes and get the meat. Mother and I went with them. The squaws would rip the animals down the back from head to tail, then rip them down the belly and take off the top half of the hide and cut away all the meat on that side from the bones. They would tie ropes to the feet of the carcass and turn it over with their ponies, to strip off the skin and flesh from the other side in the same way.
The meat was then carried to camp to be sliced in thin strips and hung up to dry. When it was about half dry, the squaws would take a piece at a time and pound it between two stones till it was very tender. It was then hung up again to dry thoroughly. The dried meat was put into a sack and kept for use in the winter and during the general gatherings of the tribe. The older it got the better it was. This is the way the Indians cured all of their buffalo meat. Washakie had about five hundred pounds of such meat for his own family when we reached Deer Lodge Valley, now in Montana, the place of our great encampment.
J. E. Stimson
Snake River (Piupa), in the land of the Shoshones.
It was about the last of August before all of the tribe had assembled. What a sight it was to see so many Indians together! The tepees were strung up and down the stream as far as I could see, and the whole country round about was covered with horses and dogs. As nearly as I could find out, about six thousand Indians had gathered. When I asked the chief how many there were, he said that he could not count them. And to think that I was the only white person within hundreds of miles, perhaps! It gave me rather a queer feeling.
Mother kept very close watch over me for fear that I should get hurt or lost among so many Indians. Whenever I went around to see what was going on, she was nearly always by my side. She warned me especially against Pocatello’s Indians, telling me that they were very bad, that they would steal me and take me away off and sell me to Indians that would eat me up. She scared me so badly that I stuck pretty close to her most of the time.
The Indians spent much of their time horse-racing and gambling. They would bet very heavily; I saw an Indian win fifty head of ponies on one race. Two Indians were killed while racing their horses, and a squaw and her papoose were run over; the papoose was also killed.
Dr. T. M. Bridges
Shoshone Indians dancing.
Some of Pocatello’s Indians had several scalps they had taken from some poor emigrants they had killed. I saw six of these scalps. One was of a woman with red hair, one a girl’s scalp with dark hair, and four were men’s scalps, one with gray hair, the rest with dark hair. I cannot describe the feelings I had when I saw the red devils dancing around those scalps. It made me wish that I were home again herding sheep and living on “lumpy dick” and greens.
Washakie’s Indians had a few Crow scalps, for at this time the Shoshones and Crows were at war with each other. I am pretty sure that they had no white scalps; or if they had, they did not let me see them.
The Indians had great times dancing around the scalps. They would stick a small pole in the ground and string scalps on it. Then they would dance around it, singing and yelling at the top of their voices, making the most horrible noises I ever heard. The leaders of the different bands would take the inside, the warriors would circle about them and the squaws and papooses would dance around the outside. The noise they made would shame a band of coyotes. As many as five hundred Indians would be dancing in this way at one time, and they would keep at it for hours. I got sick and tired of their hideous noises; but they thought they were having a high time. This singing and dancing was kept going at intervals for a week or more.
The time was drawing near when we were to separate, and I was glad of it. Some of Pocatello’s Indians left a few days ahead of the rest of his band. A day or two before our band was to start my pinto pony ran off with some other horses. I slipped away from my mother and went after him. Before I had gone far I met some Indians hunting horses, but they said they had not seen mine. I kept on going until another Indian came up to me. He said he had seen some horses go over a ridge about a mile away.
“If you will get on my horse behind me,” he said, “I will take you over and see if your horse is there.” Thinking no harm, I got on his horse and off we started; but when we got to the top of the hill no horses were to be seen. After we got over the hill he began to ride fast. I got scared, for I thought of the man-eating savages my mother had told me about. I asked him to stop and let me get off, but he only whipped his horse harder and went faster.
Watching my chance, I jumped off and almost broke my neck; but I got up and put back towards camp as hard as I could run. The Indian turned, dashed up, and threw his lasso over me. After dragging me several rods he stopped, and hit me with his quirt, telling me to get back on his horse or he would put an arrow through me. I cried and begged him to let me go; but he made me get on again, and then he struck off as fast as he could go. I noticed, however, that he kept looking back every little while.
Pretty soon he stopped and told me to get off. As I jumped he gave me a lick over the head with his quirt that made me see stars for a few minutes. Then he started off on the run again; but after going about fifty yards he stopped, pulled his bow and arrow out of his quiver and started towards me as if he intended to put an arrow through me. He came but a few steps, then suddenly whirled his horse and off he went over the prairie.
I soon saw what caused his hurry. A short distance away were some Indians coming towards me as fast as they could travel. When they reached me, they stopped, and one of them told me to get on behind him and he would take me to my mother. I climbed up double quick. Before we got to the tepees I met mother coming out to find me. She was crying. She took me off the horse and threw her arms around me. One of Pocatello’s Indians, she said, was trying to steal me and she never expected to find her white papoose again.
Some Indians happened to see me get on my horse behind the Indian and told my mother, and Washakie had sent those Indians after me, before we got very far away. Mother stayed close to me after that; but I had had such a scare that I didn’t go very far from the tepee without her. The chief told me never to go alone after my horse if he got away again, but to let him know and he would have the pony brought back. “If Pocatello’s Indians,” he said, “could get you, they would swap you for a whole herd of ponies, and then it would be ‘good-by Yagaki.’” “Yagaki,” by the way, was my Indian name. It meant “the crier.” They gave it to me because I mimicked the squaws and papooses one day when they were bawling about something.
“I jumped from my horse and raised her up.”