The Soshonees, or Root-diggers, appeared in great numbers at the common rendezvous, where the deputations from all the tribes assemble every year, to exchange the products of their rude industry. They inhabit the southern part of the Oregon, in the vicinity of California. Their population, consisting of about ten thousand souls, is divided into several parties, scattered up and down in the most uncultivated quarter of the West. They are called Snakes, because in their indigence they are reduced, like such reptiles, to burrow in the earth and live upon roots. They would have no other food if some hunting parties did not occasionally pass beyond the mountains in pursuit of the buffalo, while a part of the tribe proceeds along the banks of the Salmon River, to make provision for the winter, at the season when the fish come up from the sea.[115] Three hundred of their warriors wished, in honor of the whites, to go through a sort of military parade: they were hideously painted, armed with their clubs, and covered over with feathers, pearls, wolves' tails, the teeth and claws of animals and similar strange ornaments, with which each of them 35 had decked himself, according to his caprice. Such as had received wounds in battle, or slain the enemies of their tribe, showed ostentatiously their scars, and had floating, in the form of a standard, the scalps which they won from the conquered. After having rushed in good order, and at full gallop, upon our camp, as if to take it by assault, they went several times round it, uttering at intervals cries of joy. They at length dismounted, and came and gave their hands to all the whites in token of union and friendship.
Whilst I was at the rendezvous, the Snakes were preparing for an expedition against the Black-Feet. When a chief is about to wage war, he announces his intention to his young warriors in the following manner. On the evening before his departure, he makes his farewell dance before each cabin; and everywhere receives tobacco, or some other present. His friends wish him great success, scalps, horses, and a speedy return. If he brings back women as prisoners, he delivers them as a prey to the wives, mothers, and sisters of his soldiers, who kill them with the hatchet or knife, after having vented against their unhappy captives the most outrageous insults: "Why are we unable," howl these furies, "to devour the heart of thy children, and bathe in the blood of thy nation!"
At the death of a chief, or other warrior, renowned for his bravery, his wives, children, and relatives cut off their hair: this is a great mourning with the savages. The loss of a parent would seem but little felt, if it only caused his family to shed tears; it must be deplored with blood; and the deeper the incisions, the more sincere is the affection for the deceased. "An overwhelming sorrow," they say, "cannot be vented unless through large wounds." I know not how to reconcile these sentiments respecting the dead with their conduct towards the living. Would you believe 36 that these men, so inconsolable in their mourning, abandon, without pity, to the ferocious beasts of the desert, the old men, the sick, and all those whose existence would be a burden to them?
The funeral of a Snake warrior is always performed by the destruction of whatever he possessed; nothing, it seems, should survive him but the recollection of his exploits. After piling up in his hut all the articles he made use of, they cut away the props of the cabin, and set the whole on fire. The Youts, who form a separate people, although they belong to the tribe of the Soshonees,[116] throw the body of the deceased upon the funeral pile, together with a hecatomb of his best horses. The moment that the smoke rises in thick clouds, they think that the soul of the savage is flying towards the region of spirits, borne by the manes of his faithful coursers; and, in order to quicken their flight, they, all together, raise up frightful yells. But in general, instead of burning the body, they fasten it upon his favourite charger, as on a day of battle; the animal is then led to the edge of a neighboring river, the warriors are drawn up in a semicircular form, in order to prevent his escape; and then, with a shower of arrows, and a universal hurra, they force him to plunge into the current which is to engulf him. They next, with redoubled shouts, recommend him to transport his master without delay to the land of spirits.[117]
37 The Sampeetches are the next neighbours of the Snakes.[118] There is not, perhaps, in the whole world, a people in a 38 deeper state of wretchedness and corruption; the French commonly designate them "the people deserving of pity," and this appellation is most appropriate.[119] Their lands are uncultivated heaths; their habitations are holes in the rocks, or the natural crevices of the ground, and their only arms, arrows and sharp-pointed sticks. Two, three, or at most four of them may be seen in company, roving over their sterile plains in quest of ants and grasshoppers, on which they feed. When they find some insipid root, or a few nauseous seeds, they make, as they imagine, a delicious repast. They are so timid, that it is difficult to get near them; the appearance of a stranger alarms them; and conventional signs quickly spread the news amongst them. Every one, thereupon, hides himself in a hole; and in an instant this miserable people disappear and vanish like a shadow. Sometimes, however, they venture out of their hiding places, and offer their newly born infants to the whites in exchange for some trifling articles.
I have had the consolation of baptizing some of these unfortunate beings, who have related to me the sad circumstances which I have just mentioned. It would be easy to find guides among these new converts, and be introduced 39 by them to their fellow countrymen, to announce to them the Gospel, and thus to render their condition, if not happy, at least supportable through the hope of a better futurity. If God allows me to return to the Rocky Mountains, and my superiors approve of it, I shall feel happy to devote myself to the instruction of these pitiable people.
The country of the Utaws is situated to the east and south east of the Soshonees, at the sources of the Rio Colorado. The population consists of about 4,000 souls. Mildness, affability, simplicity of manners, hospitality towards strangers, constant union amongst themselves, form the happy traits in their character. They subsist by hunting and fishing, and on fruits and roots; the climate is warm, and the land very fit for cultivation.
I shall join to this account a brief exposition of the belief of the savages.[120] Their religious tenets are composed of a few primitive truths and of gross errors: they believe in the existence of a Supreme Being, the source of every good, and consequently that he alone is adorable; they believe that he created whatever exists, and that his providence over-rules the principal events of life, and that the calamities which befall the human race are chastisements inflicted by his justice on our perversity. They suppose, that with this, their God, whom they call the Great Spirit, there exists an evil genius, who so far abuses his power as to oppress the innocent with calamities. They also believe in a future life, where every one shall be treated according to his works; that the happiness reserved for the virtuous will consist in the enjoyment of such goods as they most anxiously desired upon earth; and that the wicked shall be punished by suffering, without consolation, the torments invented by the spirit of evil. According to their opinion, 40 the soul, upon its entry into the other world, resumes the form which our bodies have had in the present life.[121]