Breaking the Wilderness / The Story of the Conquest of the Far West, From the Wanderings of Cabeza de Vaca, to the First Descent of the Colorado by Powell, and the Completion of the Union Pacific Railway, With Particular Account of the Exploits of Trappers and Traders

by Frederick Samuel Dellenbaugh

A Young Cocopa.

Photograph by Delancy Gill.

Many tribes laid away stores for winter, but these were the more sedentary, though dried buffalo meat, and pemmican, were accumulated as far as possible by the tribes living upon the plains. But when the diet of a people is confined to meat alone, an enormous supply, per capita, is required for a whole winter, hence some tribes ran out of provisions, especially when the numbers of buffalo began to diminish, and were in hard straits before spring came again. The fisher tribes put away great amounts of dried salmon, but here again was the danger of shortage that always threatened meat-eaters. The same might be true of people living on the products of agriculture if the population pressed on the supply, but with agriculture the returns are so bountiful that the supply was always adequate among those tribes cultivating the ground, except there was a failure of crops, which was rare. The Puebloans provided against this by retaining a considerable extra store from year to year. They used the lower inside rooms of the village which were much like cellars, as the village, resembling a pile of huge packing cases, was built over and around them. Thus they were admirably adapted for storage in that dry climate. The ears of corn were piled up evenly and neatly one beside the other. Watermelons were treated in the same way, and were preserved in perfect condition till the end of February at least. Naturally the tribes which moved about considerably could not well make such ample provision for the future, but they often stored food, and other goods in holes dug in the ground, well concealed. Such storage places were also used by the whites, and the name cache was applied to this method by the early French trappers. Where the cache was in dry ground the contents would remain in good preservation for a long time.

Rear View of Mandan Village, Showing Burial-Ground.

Drawing by Catlin, plate 48, vol. i., Catlin's Eight Years. Reproduction from Smithsonian Report, 1885, part ii.

It is plain that the people of the Wilderness possessed everywhere an abundant food supply, whether in the arid Southwest, whereat first glance it would seem no cereal could grow, in the buffalo country, or in the region of the salmon streams. It was the preservation of these supplies, over-abundant at certain times, scarce at others, which was their greatest difficulty.

With us the unit of our social organisation is the family: father, mother, children. With the Amerind the unit was generally the clan (or gens) as we call it, a group of several families related on the mother's side, for descent was usually counted in the female line. The Omahas and some others had changed to descent in the male line. The clan held property in common exactly as one of our families does to-day; that is not all property, but general property and food. There were articles and objects which were exclusively individual property and did not belong to the clan any more than certain articles a daughter or a son may individually possess belong to the parents in one of our families. Hunting, farming, and such affairs were conducted, as a rule, for the clan, hence food was clan property free to all members, or for that matter to almost any one, because in the Amerind village, or camp, every house was open to the hungry guest. The white man was always fed as well as the supplies would permit; special stews of dog, or buffalo, or succotash, were prepared for his special delectation, and he was expected to eat all given him or take it away. To these people, therefore, it was a rather painful surprise when, as they began to unravel the peculiarities of their new acquaintances, they found that the white man was perfectly willing to accept the boundless hospitality of the native, but when the latter visited fort or camp, he was received as a beggar. When the hospitality he expected was not granted, he asked for it; and this, to a white man, was begging. In dealing with Amerinds the white man went on the principle of what is yours is mine and what is mine is my own. Perhaps there were two exceptions to this, the early French, and the great Hudson Bay Company.

Marriage within the clan was forbidden, therefore a man had to seek a wife in another clan or another tribe. A violation of this rule, or of any other moral precept of their code, brought punishment from the clan of the individual or from the officers of the tribe. Sometimes this was nothing more than a flogging; sometimes it was death. A man always retained allegiance to his own clan and the wife to hers, the children belonging to their mother's clan. As a rule there was no limit to the number of wives a man could have, though polygamy was not general. In the Amerind code the bona fide acceptance of a wife was a marriage, and the husband was expected to assume the duties of a husband seriously. The white adventurer did not do it. He was quite apt to abandon his wife as cheerfully as he had taken her.