Ten years in the ranks, U.S. Army

by Augustus Meyers

I was invited to eat with them and did so a few times when they had cooked meat of some sort; but I excused myself when I saw any mysterious dish. I brought them some coffee and sugar once in a while and showed the squaws how to make coffee, of which they became very fond. When any of them visited the cantonment, which happened almost daily, I often gave those that I knew, part of my ration of bread for the papooses, or a piece of tobacco for the bucks. This, in a measure, repaid their hospitality. A singular thing which I noticed was that many of their children, from about three to five years of age, had abnormally developed paunches, which made them look ridiculous when they toddled almost naked about the teepee.

When the children attained their fifth or sixth year they became slender and graceful. I was told that an almost constant meat diet was supposed to be the cause of their curious development.

One day I saw a little toddler step into his father's dish of food. The man, without a word of scolding, took off the child's moccasin, scraped it clean with his horn spoon, then dug a hole in the dirt floor beside his dish, buried and covered up the scrapings and continued his meal, undisturbed by the incident.

Both parents showed affection for their children, and in my presence, at least, I never saw the Indians act with brutality toward their squaws or children. The children had dolls and played much as white children do. The older boys often practised shooting at a mark with a bow and arrow. They were very shy with the soldiers and so were the wolfish looking dogs. It was almost impossible to win the confidence of either. Nevertheless, a soldier of company I got the consent of the parents to take an Indian boy to our quarters and keep him there. He made a suit of soldier's clothes for him and slept with him all the winter. "Paddy," as we called him, became quite a pet in the company and was learning English with a comical Irish accent, acquired from his tutor, when his mother came and took him away in the spring. At the same time the rest of the Indians went away, and we never saw or heard of him again.

The Indians played games among themselves, and the soldiers tried to teach them the use of cards, but they were unable to learn or understand the simplest of such games. We, therefore, invented a special game for them, in which the greatest number of spots on a card took the trick, for they could count up to ten at least. They admired the Jacks more than the Kings. They were the big chiefs and the Kings next. Any card could beat the Queen, which was the "Wee-a" or squaw. They took great interest in this game. I could do a few simple tricks with cards, which mystified and amused them. Some of them had a considerable sense of humor and often laughed heartily.

I was shown some Indian scalps, which had long black hair dangling from them. The skin was soft, and looked and felt as though it had been tanned. To me it seemed very thick. I do not know if they had any white scalps. If so, they never showed us any.

Sometimes one of the Indians produced a buckskin bag ornamented with beads, wherein he kept his most cherished treasures, and drew therefrom a written paper, which some white trader or hunter had given to him. This he would proudly hand to us for examination. These papers were very much of the same tone as this model: "O-kee-ha (red heart) is a good and trustworthy Indian, and I recommend him to anyone who wants a safe guide and a good hunter." One of the Indians had several such papers, one of which he would always show last. This had evidently been written by some wag or, perhaps, a truthful man, and ran something like this: "Beware of this Indian, Big Crow, he is a thief and a liar, and will murder you if he gets a chance. Take warning!" As this paper never failed to provoke a laugh, he no doubt set a greater value on it than on all the others he owned.

When the weather was bad I sometimes watched the bucks making arrows and pipes, while the squaws were industriously employed on moccasins or some article of clothing. The making of arrows was quite a delicate operation, with the few tools they had. The stem of the arrow had to be true, straight and balanced properly. The feathers must be carefully glued on and the head firmly affixed with sinew, thread and gum. Metal arrow heads were made by laboriously grinding pieces of hoopiron, or the like, which they had picked up somewhere, to the required size and shape. Other heads were made of chipped flint. War arrow heads were made with sharp barbs to prevent them from being easily extracted.

Some of the pipes they manufactured were plain, and others handsomely inlaid with lead. They were made of a dense, fine grained but soft working stone of a beautiful red color. To obtain this stone they made long and weary journeys to the Pipe Mountain, which was somewhere in the northern part of Minnesota Territory. There, it is said, they prayed to the Great Spirit before removing any of the stone which they esteemed so highly. The pipes were carefully bored and finished with a high polish, which took many hours of patient labor. The long pipe stems were made of some tough, flexible wood, the same that they made their bows of. They were round or flat in shape, sometimes twisted, and the wood polished and ornamented. The hole through the stem was made slowly and carefully with a piece of wire heated red hot. The mouth piece was neatly tapered and rounded. These pipes were a valuable article of trade. A fine pipe was worth a pony in trade with the Indians in remote parts of the country. I bought one and paid a good price for it. I had great difficulty to persuade an Indian to sell me a piece of the stone to make a pipe for myself.

I have at times witnessed the entire performance of an Indian feast. A squaw selected a fat-looking dog, and tied him fast in some secluded place for several days, giving him nothing to eat, and only water to drink. She then fed him with a mixture of pemican and dried fruits made into a moist soft paste, and let him eat all he could of it. This, I suppose, was to serve as a stuffing or forcemeat, for she killed him by knocking him on the head with a tomahawk, before digestion commenced. His hind legs were then tied together, and he was hung by a cord head down from a pole supported on two forked sticks over a low fire. With a firebrand the squaw burnt off every hair on his body close to the skin, and rubbed him with buffalo fat. The squaw would sit for many hours turning and basting the carcass with melted fat. The dog was thus roasted whole, for he had not been disemboweled. In the evening the family were joined by relatives and friends whom they had invited. The teepee was well crowded when the feast commenced. The dog was cut up, and all gorged themselves to their full capacity. The most desired morsels seemed to be the bowels and other soft parts. When the eating was over, the squaws beat the drums, chanted songs, and all made merry until long after we soldiers were in bed. I looked in at some of these feasts and was invited to partake. Although it was considered an honor, I declined. A few of the soldiers did eat some roasted dog, and declared it tasted good. The Indians preferred it to the finest venison.