The white Indian boy

by Elijah Nicholas Wilson

We followed down the Titsapa for one day’s travel and there we stayed for three days. At this place part of our band was going to leave us and make the journey to Salt Lake City to sell our robes and buckskins and what furs we had. I wanted to go with the party, but mother would not let me. Hanabi and Washakie went. They took twelve pack horses very heavily loaded and also two young horses to sell if they got a chance. They left mother and me with the camp outfit and sixty-four head of horses to look after. Those that were not going to Salt Lake City intended to go off northwest and strike the head of another river, about four days’ travel away, and stay there till the others returned.

When mother and I went to packing up for our return, we found that we did not have pack saddles enough for all of our camp outfit. Besides our tepee, bedding, clothing, and utensils, we had sixteen sacks of dried meat and two sacks of service berries. This was too much for our eight pack saddles. Mother said that we could get along if we had two more saddles so I told her to use mine for one and I would ride bareback. She did not like to do this, but she finally consented, and another boy let us have his saddle, so we packed ten horses. This took a good deal of time each morning.

After three days of slow traveling we reached the head of a stream which they called Tobitapa; the whites now call it the Portneuf River. There were fifteen squaws, about thirty-five papooses, and three old men Indians in our camp.

Washakie thought it would take them fifteen days to go to Salt Lake City and get back to where we were. I asked mother whether she was not afraid that the Crows would come and kill all of us while they were gone.

“No,” she said, “the Crows never come this far south.”

Then I asked her why she did not want me to go to Salt Lake City with the others. She said that she could not take care of so many horses without me to help, and she was afraid, too, that the white men would take me away from her.

“Is that the reason Washakie does not like to take me with him when he goes among the whites?” I asked her.

She told me that Washakie said that if I ever got dissatisfied and wanted to go home, he would give me my horse and a good outfit, and see that I got home safe. “But,” she said, “I hope that you will never want to go away, for I believe it would kill me if you should leave me.” I told her not to worry because I thought that I should always stay with her. It always made her seem happier when I would tell her that. If she ever saw me look unhappy, she would turn away and cry. She did everything she could to make me happy, and I tried to be kind to her.

Mother was afraid that I would get sick from not having bread and milk to eat, for I told her that was what I always had for supper when I was home. She thought that eating meat all the time would not agree with me and would make me unhealthy. Often she would have fried fish and fried chickens or ducks for supper. When I first went to live with her, she made a small sack and tied it to my saddle. She would keep this sack full of the best dried fish when we were traveling, so that I could eat if I got hungry; for she said that I could not go all day without eating anything, as the Indians often did. Every morning she would empty my lunch sack and refill it with fresh food. She soon found out what I liked best, and she always had it for me; so you see I had plenty to eat, even if I was with Indians; and that is more than a great many white children had at that time.

I was very healthy while I was with the Indians. I think the reason was that I did not like their way of doctoring. When any of them got a cold, they would dig a hole two or three feet deep by the side of a cold spring. Into this hole they would put a few cobblestones. Then they would build a fire in the hole, get the stones right hot, and then scrape the fire all out. The sick person had to get into the hole with a cup of water, and after being covered with a buffalo robe, he would pour the water on the hot rocks and make a steam. This would make him sweat like sixty. When he had sweated long enough some one would jerk off the robe and he would jump into the cold water of the spring. As soon as he got out of the water, they would throw a buffalo robe around him, let him sweat awhile, then they would cool him off gradually by taking the robe off a little at a time while he quit sweating. He was then supposed to be well.