On our arrival we made our camp one mile below the post, on the bank of a small stream. No Indians were visible until the day appointed for the council we had ordered. Messengers had been sent out to the several Indian camps, notifying them of our presence.
They came at the appointed time in full force, men, women, and children. The council was held near our camp, in a large army hospital tent. The Snakes were represented by their great war chiefs, We-ah-we-we, E-he-gan, and O-che-o.
Before opening council, and while arranging the preliminaries, we announced the presence of Ka-ko-na,—the captive wife of Tah-home,—and the purpose for which she had been brought along.
This announcement created great excitement among the Snake Indians. They collected around the tired little squaw, and scanned her closely, for the purpose of identification. She was frightened, and shrunk from their questions, saying to Tah-home that she was “No Snake.” She had either really lost her native language, or was afraid to acknowledge that she could speak it.
Meanwhile, through the kindness of Gen. Crook, while we were encamped at Antelope valley, sending for Donald McKay, who was in Government employ,
we were supplied with an interpreter. Donald is not only a scout, but he is a linguist in Indian tongues,—speaking seven of them fluently,—the “Shoshone Snake,” included. Ka-ko-na, satisfied that she would not be forced to go with her own people, listened to the Snake talk; suddenly, as though waking from a dream, she began talking it herself, and was soon recognized and identified as a sister of one of “O-che-o’s” braves.
Her father had been killed, her mother had died, and her relatives all gone, save this one brother. Stoical as they appear to be, there is, nevertheless, deep feelings of human affection pervading the hearts of these people; especially for brother and sister, and even to cousins; but, strangely enough, they carry their ideas of practicability beyond common humanity in their treatment of mothers, by casting them off as worn-out beasts of burden when too old for labor.
This is even worse than among civilized people, who pray for the death of mothers-in-law and step-mothers.
The fathers are treated with great kindness,—at least when they are possessed of worldly goods, and even when poor they are exempt from labor,—are buried with the honors due them, and their graves held sacred as long as the graves of other fathers generally.
After the usual preliminaries of smoking the peace-pipe, both parties proffering pipes, and after drawing a puff or two, then exchanging, passing the pipes around the circle, until all had proclaimed friendly intention by smoking, Col. Otis, commander of the District of the