I acknowledge myself a debtor to this good hearted fellow for much kindness and attention to me whilst in the Indian country, and also for a superb dress and robe, which had been manufactured and worn by his wife, and which he insisted on adding to my Indian Gallery since her death, where it will long remain to be examined.[11]
[6] When passing by the site of the Puncah village a few months after this, in my canoe, I went ashore with my men, and found the poles and the buffalo skin, standing as they were left, over the old man’s head. The firebrands were lying nearly as I had left them, and I found at a few yards distant the skull, and others of his bones, which had been picked and cleaned by the wolves; which is probably all that any human being can ever know of his final and melancholy fate.
[7] On this march we were all travelling in moccasins, which being made without any soles, according to the Indian custom, had but little support for the foot underneath; and consequently, soon subjected us to excruciating pain, whilst walking according to the civilized mode, with the toes turned out. From this very painful experience I learned to my complete satisfaction, that man in a state of nature who walks on his naked feet, must walk with his toes turned in, that each may perform the duties assigned to it in proportion to its size and strength; and that civilized man can walk with his toes turned out if he chooses, if he will use a stiff sole under his feet, and will be content at last to put up with an acquired deformity of the big toe joint which too many know to be a frequent and painful occurrence.
[8] Several years after I painted the portrait of this extraordinary man, and whilst I was delivering my Lectures in the City of New York, I first received intelligence of his death, in the following singular manner:—I was on the platform in my Lecture-room, in the Stuyvesant Institute, with an audience of twelve or fourteen hundred persons, in the midst of whom were seated a delegation of thirty or forty Sioux Indians under the charge of Major Pilcher, their agent; and I was successfully passing before their eyes the portraits of a number of Sioux chiefs, and making my remarks upon them. The Sioux instantly recognized each one as it was exhibited, which they instantly hailed by a sharp and startling yelp. But when the portrait of this chief was placed before them, instead of the usual recognition, each one placed his hand over his mouth, and gave a “hush—sh—” and hung down their heads, their usual expressions of grief in case of a death. From this sudden emotion, I knew instantly, that the chief must be dead, and so expressed my belief to the audience. I stopped my Lecture a few moments to converse with Major Pilcher who was by my side, and who gave me the following extraordinary account of his death, which I immediately related to the audience; and which being translated to the Sioux Indians, their chief arose and addressed himself to the audience, saying that the account was true, and that Ha-wan-je-tah was killed but a few days before they left home.
The account which Major Pilcher gave was nearly as follows:—
“But a few weeks before I left the Sioux country with the delegation, Ha-wan-je-tah (the one horn) had in some way been the accidental cause of the death of his only son, a very fine youth; and so great was the anguish of his mind at times, that he became frantic and insane. In one of these moods he mounted his favourite war-horse with his bow and his arrows in his hand, and dashed off at full speed upon the prairies, repeating the most solemn oath, ‘that he would slay the first living thing that fell in his way, be it man or beast, or friend or foe.’
“No one dared to follow him, and after he had been absent an hour or two, his horse came back to the village with two arrows in its body, and covered with blood! Fears of the most serious kind were now entertained for the fate of the chief, and a party of warriors immediately mounted their horses, and retraced the animal’s tracks to the place of the tragedy, where they found the body of their chief horribly mangled and gored by a buffalo bull, whose carcass was stretched by the side of him.
“A close examination of the ground was then made by the Indians, who ascertained by the tracks, that their unfortunate chief, under his unlucky resolve, had met a buffalo bull in the season when they are very stubborn, and unwilling to run from any one; and had incensed the animal by shooting a number of arrows into him, which had brought him into furious combat. The chief had then dismounted, and turned his horse loose, having given it a couple of arrows from his bow, which sent it home at full speed, and then had thrown away his bow and quiver, encountering the infuriated animal with his knife alone, and the desperate battle resulted as I have before-mentioned, in the death of both. Many of the bones of the chief were broken, as he was gored and stamped to death, and his huge antagonist had laid his body by the side of him, weltering in blood from an hundred wounds made by the chief’s long and two-edged knife.”
So died this elegant and high-minded nobleman of the wilderness, whom I confidently had hoped to meet and admire again at some future period of my life. (Vide [plate 86]).
[9] Wampum is the Indian name of ornaments manufactured by the Indians from vari-coloured shells, which they get on the shores of the fresh water streams, and file or cut into bits of half an inch, or an inch in length, and perforate (giving to them the shape of pieces of broken pipe stems), which they string on deers’ sinews, and wear on their necks in profusion; or weave them ingeniously into war-belts for the waist.