“Hear my words, Shoshones! I shall soon join my father and grandfather in the happy lands, for I am old. Yet, before my bones are buried at the foot of the hills, it would brighten my heart to see the glory of the Shoshones, which I know must be in a short time. Hear my words! Long ages ago some of our children, not finding our hunting-grounds wide enough for the range of their arrows, left us. They first wandered in the south, and in the beautiful prairies of the east, under a climate blessed by the good spirits. They grew and grew in number till their families were as numerous as ours, and as they were warriors and their hearts big, they spread themselves, and, soon crossing the big mountains, their eagle glance saw on each side of their territory the salt-water of the sunrise and the salt-water of the sunset. These are the Comanches, a powerful nation. The Comanches even now have a Shoshone heart, a Shoshone tongue. Owato Wanisha has been with them; he says they are friends, and have not forgotten that they are the children of the Great Serpent.
“Long, long while afterwards, yet not long enough that it should escape the memory and the records of our holy men, some other of our children, hearing of the power of the Comanches, of their wealth, of their beautiful country, determined also to leave us and spread to the south. These are the Apaches. From the top of the big mountains, always covered with snow, they look towards the bed of the sun. They see the green grass of the prairie below them, and afar the blue salt-water. Their houses are as numerous as the stars in heaven, their warriors as thick as the shells in the bottom of our lakes. They are brave; they are feared by the Pale-faces,—by all; and they, too, know that we are their fathers; their tongue is our tongue; their Manitou our Manitou, their heart a portion of our heart; and never has the knife of a Shoshone drunk the blood of an Apache, nor the belt of an Apache suspended the scalp of a Shoshone.
“And afterwards, again, more of our children left us. But that time they left us because we were angry. They were a few families of chiefs who had grown strong and proud. They wished to lord over our wigwams, and we drove them away, as the panther drives away her cubs, when their claws and teeth have been once turned against her. These are the Arrapahoes. They are strong and our enemies, yet they are a noble nation. I have in my lodge twenty of their scalps; they have many of ours. They fight by the broad light of the day, with the lance, bow, and arrows; they scorn treachery. Are they not, although rebels and unnatural children, still the children the Shoshones? Who ever heard of the Arrapahoes entering the war-path in night? No one! They are no Crows, no Umbiquas, no Flat-heads! They can give death, they know how to receive it,—straight and upright, knee to knee, breast to breast, and their eye drinking the glance of their foe.
“Well, these Arrapahoes are our neighbours; often, very often, too much so (as many of our widows can say), when they unbury their tomahawk and enter the war-path against the Shoshones. Why; can two suns light the same prairie, or two male eagles cover the same nest? No. Yet numerous stars appear during night all joined together and obedient to the moon. Blackbirds and parrots will unite their numerous tribes, and take the same flight to seek all together a common rest and shelter for a night; it is a law of nature. The Red-skin knows none but the laws of nature. The Shoshone is an eagle on the hills, a bright sun in the prairie, so is an Arrapahoe; they must both struggle and fight till one sun is thrown into darkness, or one eagle, blind and winged, falls down the rocks and leaves the whole nest to its conqueror. The Arrapahoes would not fight a cowardly Crow except for self-defence, for he smells of carrion; nor would a Shoshone.
“Crows, Umbiquas, and Flat-heads, Cayuses, Bonnaxes, and Callapoos can hunt all together, and rest together; they are the blackbirds and the parrots; they must do so, else the eagle should destroy them during the day, or the hedgehog during the night.
“Now, Owato Wanisha, or his Manitou, has offered a bold thing. I have thought of it, I have spoken of it to the spirits of the Red-skin; they said it was good; I say it is good! I am a chief of many winters; I know what is good, I know what is bad! Shoshones, hear me! my voice is weak, come nearer; hearken to my words, hist! I hear a whisper under the ripples of the water, I hear it in the waving of the grass, I feel it on the breeze!—hist, it is the whisper of the Master of Life,—hist!”
At this moment the venerable chief appeared abstracted, his face flushed; then followed a trance, as if he were communing with some invisible spirit. Intensely and silently did the warriors watch the struggles of his noble features; the time had come in which the minds of the Shoshones were freed of their prejudices, and dared to contemplate the prospective of a future general domination over the western continent of America. The old chief raised his hand, and he spoke again:—
“Children, for you are my children! Warriors, for you are all brave! Chiefs, for you are all chiefs! I have seen a vision. It was a cloud, and the Manitou was upon it. The cloud gave way; and behind I saw a vast nation, large cities, rich wigwams, strange boats, and great parties of warriors, whose trail was so long that I could not see the beginning nor the end. It was in a country which I felt within me was extending from the north, where all is ice, down to the south, where all is fire! Then a big voice was heard! It was not a war-whoop, it was not the yell of the fiends, it was not the groan of the captive tied to the stake; it was a voice of glory, that shouted the name of the Shoshones—for all were Shoshones. There were no Pale-faces among them,—none! Owato Wanisha was there, but he had a red skin, and his hair was black; so were his two fathers, but they were looking young; so was his aged and humble friend, but his limbs seemed to have recovered all the activity and vigour of youth; so were his two young friends, who have fought so bravely at the Post, when the cowardly Umbiquas entered our grounds. This is all what I have heard, all what I have seen; and the whisper said to me, as the vision faded away, ‘Lose no time, old chief, the day has come! Say to thy warriors Listen to the young Pale-face. The Great Spirit of the Red-skin will pass into his breast, and lend him some words that the Shoshone will understand.’
“I am old and feeble; I am tired, arise, my grandson Owato Wanisha; speak to my warriors; tell them the wishes of the Great Spirit. I have spoken.”
Thus called upon, I advanced to the place which the chief had left vacant, and spoke in my turn:—