A Frenchman, married and resident with the Omawhaws, one day inadvertently mentioned the name of his father-in-law, in presence of several people, who immediately declared him to be as great a fool as a Pawnee, thus to have so little respect for his father-in-law, as to treat him with as little ceremony as he would a dog.
The more distinguished and respectable the parties are, the more rigidly is this rule observed; and if either of the parties should be treated otherwise, the departure from the observance would be regarded as a mark of disrespect for a trifling fellow.
Fraternal affection is very strong and permanent. The chief and almost exclusive sources of infraction of this natural bias, are adultery with each other's wives, and conflicting intrigues for the attainment of the honour of a chieftain.
Two Omawhaw brothers had stolen a squaw from an individual of their nation, and were on their journey to seek a refuge in the Puncaw village. But they had the misfortune, in a large prairie, to meet with a war-party of Sioux, their implacable enemies. They immediately concealed themselves in a deep ravine, which at bottom was covered with dry reed grass. The Sioux surrounded this spot, and set fire to the windward side of the reeds, in order to drive them out. When the conflagration had nearly reached the fugitives, one of the brothers remarked, that the Wahconda had certainly not created him to be smoked out like a racoon; (the Indians smoke this animal out of hollow trees by kindling a fire at the root;) he urged his brother to attempt his escape in one direction, whilst he would attract the attention of the enemy, by sallying out upon them alone, and {235} endeavouring to destroy as many of them as possible, in anticipated revenge for that death which he considered as inevitable; "One or both of us," said he, "must certainly be sacrificed; save yourself if you can; I will be the victim, and may fortunately receive a death-blow in the conflict, and thus escape the disgrace of captivity." He then rushed forth amongst the Sioux, shot one, and with his knife wounded several before he was dispatched. His brother availing himself of the abstracted attention of the enemy, effected his escape, but the squaw was burned to death. In this magnanimous self-devotion, the gallant brother exhibits an instance of chivalric heroism which would have immortalized a Roman warrior.
The young men are generally coupled out as friends; this tie is very strongly knit in youth, but is usually enfeebled by matrimony or the concerns of more advanced age; yet it is sometimes as lasting as the life of the individuals.
The Omawhaws, as we before observed, preserve no account of their ages; they think that some evil will attend the numbering of their years. Me-chah-pa the Horse-head, who is an intelligent medicine man, asked one of our party, whom he was informed was an eminent medicine man of the white people, amongst many other questions, how old he was; he was answered, about forty-five, at which he expressed his regret that he had lived so long in the world, and to so little purpose.
Old age amongst the Omawhaws is generally loquacious, but it does not seem to be distinguished, as in civilized life, by an accumulation of maladies. Aged Indians, whether male or female, generally continue in apparent good health to the last, and the visitation of death is most frequently sudden and unexpected; an instance of this has already been related, which occurred to old Loutre, an individual of the Missouri nation.
{236} They become bowed and very much wrinkled with age, and their joints become less flexible. But their hair does not so generally change to gray as that of men in a state of civilization. The hair of the sides of the head, which is so frequently shorn or extracted, often assumes the gray appearance at a comparatively early age, and is almost universally of that tint in aged persons; whilst that of the top and back of the head, which is always permitted to attain a moderate length, is simply interspersed with a few grey hairs. Many aged squaws preserve the hair of the usual youthful colour; in others we observe an intermixture of gray, and it may be remarked that the aged of this sex are more frequently gray-haired than the men.
We saw a middle aged woman whose hair had pretty generally changed to gray; but this appearance at her age was so unusual, that the Indians attributed it to her having infracted the injunctions of her medicine by eating forbidden food.[8]
In proportion as persons of either sex approach to the state of superannuation, the respect of their family and acquaintances is withdrawn from them, and they are finally regarded as useless burdens upon the community. They are subjected to the pranks and ridicule of the young people, which, however, they seem rather to invite by drollery, jokes, and stories, than to discourage by a repulsive demeanour.