Trails of the Pathfinders

by George Bird Grinnell

“On the twenty-seventh, in the morning, we discovered the print of snow-shoes, demonstrating that several persons had passed that way the day before. These were the first marks of other human feet than our own which we had seen since our leaving Cumberland House, and it was much to feel that we had fellow-creatures in the wide waste surrounding us. In the evening we reached the fort.”

At Fort des Prairies, Henry saw more provisions than he had ever before dreamed of. In one heap he saw fifty tons of buffalo meat, so fat that the men could hardly find meat lean enough to eat. Immediately south of this plains country, which he was on the edge of, was the land of the Osinipoilles [Assiniboines, a tribe of the Dakota or Sioux nation], and some of these people being at the fort, Henry determined to visit them at their village, and on the 5th of February set out to do so. The Indians whom they accompanied carried their baggage on dog travois. They used snow-shoes and travelled swiftly, and at night camped in the shelter of a little grove of wood. There were fourteen people in the tent in which Henry slept that night, but these were not enough to keep each other warm. They started each morning at daylight, and travelled as long as they could, and over snow that was often four feet deep. During the journey they saw buffalo, which Henry calls wild oxen, but did not disturb them, as they had no time to do so, and no means of carrying the flesh if they had killed any. One night they met two young men who had come out to meet the party. They had not known that there were white men with it, and announced that they must return to advise the chief of this; but before they could start, a storm came up which prevented their departure. All that night and part of the next day the wind blew fiercely, with drifting snow. “In the morning we were alarmed by the approach of a herd of oxen, who came from the open ground to shelter themselves in the wood. Their numbers were so great that we dreaded lest they should fairly trample down the camp; nor could it have happened otherwise but for the dogs, almost as numerous as they, who were able to keep them in check. The Indians killed several when close upon their tents, but neither the fire of the Indians nor the noise of the dogs could soon drive them away. Whatever were the terrors which filled the wood, they had no other escape from the terrors of the storm.”

Two days later they reached the neighborhood of the camp, which was situated in a woody island. Messengers came to welcome them, and a guard armed with bows and spears, evidently the soldiers, to escort them to the home which had been assigned them. They were quartered in a comfortable skin lodge, seated on buffalo robes; women brought them water for washing, and presently a man invited them to a feast, himself showing them the way to the head chief’s tent. The usual smoking, feasting, and speech-making followed.

These Osinipoilles seemed not before to have seen white men, for when walking about the camp, crowds of women and children followed them, very respectfully, but evidently devoured by insatiable curiosity. Water here was obtained by hanging a buffalo paunch kettle filled with snow in the smoke of the fire, and, as the snow melted, more and more was added, until the paunch was full of water. During their stay they never had occasion to cook in the lodge, being constantly invited to feasts. They had with them always the guard of soldiers, who were careful to allow no one to crowd upon or annoy the travellers. They had been here but a short time when the head chief sent them word that he was going to hunt buffalo the next day, and asked them to be of the party.

“In the morning we went to the hunt accordingly. The chief was followed by about forty men and a great number of women. We proceeded to a small island [of timber] on the plain, at the distance of five miles from the village. On our way we saw large herds of oxen at feed, but the hunters forebore to molest them lest they should take the alarm.

“Arrived at the island, the women pitched a few tents, while the chief led his hunters to its southern end, where there was a pound or inclosure. The fence was about four feet high, and formed of strong stakes of birch wood, wattled with smaller branches of the same. The day was spent in making repairs, and by the evening all was ready for the hunt.

“At daylight several of the more expert hunters were sent to decoy the animals into the pound. They were dressed in ox skins, with the hair and horns. Their faces were covered, and their gestures so closely resembled those of the animals themselves that, had I not been in the secret, I should have been as much deceived as the oxen.

“At ten o’clock one of the hunters returned, bringing information of the herd. Immediately all the dogs were muzzled; and, this done, the whole crowd of men and women surrounded the outside of the pound. The herd, of which the extent was so great that I cannot pretend to estimate the numbers, was distant half a mile, advancing slowly, and frequently stopping to feed. The part played by the decoyers was that of approaching them within hearing and then bellowing like themselves. On hearing the noise, the oxen did not fail to give it attention, and, whether from curiosity or sympathy, advanced to meet those from whom it proceeded. These, in the meantime, fell back deliberately toward the pound, always repeating the call whenever the oxen stopped. This was reiterated till the leaders of the herd had followed the decoyers into the jaws of the pound, which, though wide asunder toward the plain, terminated, like a funnel, in a small aperture or gateway, and within this was the pound itself. The Indians remark that in all herds of animals there are chiefs, or leaders, by whom the motions of the rest are determined.

“The decoyers now retired within the pound, and were followed by the oxen. But the former retired still further, withdrawing themselves at certain movable parts of the fence, while the latter were fallen upon by all the hunters and presently wounded and killed by showers of arrows. Amid the uproar which ensued the oxen made several attempts to force the fence, but the Indians stopped them and drove them back by shaking skins before their eyes. Skins were also made use of to stop the entrance, being let down by strings as soon as the oxen were inside. The slaughter was prolonged till the evening, when the hunters returned to their tents. Next morning all the tongues were presented to the chief, to the number of seventy-two.

“The women brought the meat to the village on sledges drawn by dogs. The lumps on the shoulders, and the hearts, as well as the tongues, were set apart for feasts, while the rest was consumed as ordinary food, or dried, for sale at the fort.”