"Gradually, as we rode on, Indian after Indian came dropping along, laden with meat; and by the time we had neared the lodges, the backward road was covered with the returning horsemen. It was a pleasant contrast with the desert road we had been traveling. Several had joined company with us, and one of the chiefs invited us to his lodge. The village consisted of about one hundred and twenty-five lodges, of which twenty were Cheyennes; the latter pitched a little apart from the Arapahoes. They were disposed in a scattering manner on both sides of a broad, irregular street, about one hundred and fifty feet wide, and running along the river. As we rode along, I remarked near some of the lodges a kind of tripod frame, formed of three slender poles of birch, scraped very clean, to which were affixed the shield and spear, with some other weapons of a chief. All were scrupulously clean, the spear-head was burnished bright, and the shield white and stainless. It reminded me of the days of feudal chivalry; and when, as I rode by, I yielded to the passing impulse, and touched one of the spotless shields with the muzzle of my gun, I almost expected a grim warrior to start from the lodge and resent my challenge. The master of the lodge spread out a robe for me to sit upon, and the squaws set before us a large wooden dish of buffalo meat. He had lit his pipe in the mean while, and when it had been passed around, we commenced our dinner while he continued to smoke. Gradually, five or six other chiefs came in, and took their seats in silence. When we had finished, our host asked a number of questions.... A storm had been gathering for the past hour, and some pattering drops on the lodge warned us that we had some miles to our camp.... We found our companions under some densely foliaged old trees, about three miles up the river.... Nearly opposite was the mouth of one of the most considerable affluents of the South fork, la Fourche aux Castors, (Beaver fork,) heading off in the ridge to the southeast." (Fremont, (1), pp. 29-30.) This would have been near the eastern boundary of the present Morgan County, Colorado, a region approaching the western edge of the great prairie, in the midst of the range of vast herds of buffalo. The entire description of the events of the day as prepared by Fremont reads more like fiction than fact and is one of the clearest and most concise accounts extant of a buffalo hunt by native tribes under such conditions. The paintings by Stanley and Wimar, as reproduced in plates [2] and [3], would serve to illustrate Fremont's narrative.
The following year (1843) Fremont, on his second expedition, reached St. Vrain's Fort; thence continuing up the South Fork of the Platte he soon arrived in the vicinity of the present city of Denver, and at some point not far below the mouth of Cherry Creek discovered a large Arapaho village. This was on July 7, 1843, and to quote from his journal: "We made this morning an early start, continuing to travel up the Platte; and in a few miles frequent bands of horses and mules, scattered for several miles round about, indicated our approach to the Arapaho village, which we found encamped in a beautiful bottom, and consisting of about 160 lodges. It appeared extremely populous, with a great number of children; a circumstance which indicated a regular supply of the means of subsistence. The chiefs, who were gathered together at the farther end of the village, received us (as probably strangers are always received to whom they desire to show respect or regard) by throwing their arms around our necks and embracing us.... I saw here, as I had remarked in an Arapaho village the preceding year, near the lodges of the chiefs, tall tripods of white poles supporting their spears and shields, which showed it to be a regular custom.... Though disappointed in obtaining the presents which had been evidently expected, they behaved very courteously, and after a little conversation, I left them, and, continuing up the river, halted to noon on the bluff, as the bottoms are almost inundated; continuing in the afternoon our route along the mountains, which are dark, misty, and shrouded." (Fremont, (1), pp. 111-112.)
A photograph of a small Arapaho village, standing in Whitewood Canyon, Wyoming, about the year 1870, is reproduced in plate [16], b. The skin-covered lodges shown in this photograph were probably similar to those sketched by Bodmer a generation before.
sauk and foxes.
It is not the purpose of the present sketch to trace the early migrations of the two related tribes, or to refer to their connection, linguistically or socially. However, it is evident their villages were similar in appearance, and both had two distinct forms of habitations which were occupied during different seasons of the year. The summer villages of both tribes consisted of bark houses, and near by were gardens in which they raised corn, squashes, beans, and some tobacco, but with the coming of autumn the families scattered and sought the more protected localities where game was to be secured, and there erected the dome-shaped, mat-covered lodge, resembling the structures of other tribes of the region.
The middle of the eighteenth century found the two tribes established in villages near the mouth of Rock River, on the left bank of the Mississippi, in the present Rock Island County, Illinois. Here they were visited by Long and his small party August 1, 1817, at which time the Fox settlement "containing about thirty cabins, with two fires each," stood on the left bank of Rock River, at its junction with the Mississippi. The Sauk village was 2 miles up Rock River and consisted "of about one hundred cabins, of two, three, and in some instances, four fires each," and it was, so Long wrote, "by far the largest Indian village situated in the neighborhood of the Mississippi between St. Louis and the Falls of St. Anthony." (Long, (1), pp. 68-69.) This was the birthplace, in the year 1767, of the great Sauk leader Black Hawk. At the time of Long's visit the people of the two villages had several hundred acres of corn, "partly in the low ground and extended up the slopes of the bluffs," and were in a very prosperous condition.
The village was destroyed by the militia June 15, 1831, and those who escaped soon after crossed the Mississippi. In 1837, having ceded their hunting grounds in Iowa to the Government, they removed to a tract in Kansas beyond the Missouri, where they continued to reside for some 20 years as practically one tribe. Later the majority of the Foxes returned to Iowa and secured a small tract of land near Tama, in Tama County, on the left bank of Iowa River, where a mixed group continues to dwell. In 1867 the remaining Sauk ceded their lands in Kansas and removed to the Indian Territory.
As already mentioned, the tribes erected two distinct types of habitations. The mat-covered lodge is shown in plate [18]. The bare frames, ready for the mat coverings, are indicated in a, while the completed structure is represented in b of the same plate. Both photographs were made near Tama within the past few years.
BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY BULLETIN 77 PLATE 18
