Amongst the foremost and most renowned of their warriors, is Bro-cas-sie, the broken arm ([plate 30]), in a handsome dress; and by the side of him ([plate 31]), his wife, a simple and comely looking woman. In [plate 33], will be seen the full length portrait of a young woman with a child on her back, shewing fairly the fashion of cutting and ornamenting the dresses of the females in this tribe; which, without further comment, is all I shall say at this time, of the valorous tribe of Crees or Knisteneaux.
The Ojibbeways I have briefly mentioned in a former place, and of them should say more; which will be done at a proper time, after I shall have visited other branches of this great and scattered family.
The chief of that part of the Ojibbeway tribe who inhabit these northern regions ([plate 35]), and whose name is Sha-co-pay (the Six), is a man of huge size; with dignity of manner, and pride and vanity, just about in proportion to his bulk. He sat for his portrait in a most beautiful dress, fringed with scalp locks in profusion; which he had snatched, in his early life from his enemies’ heads, and now wears as proud trophies and proofs of what his arm has accomplished in battles with his enemies. His shirt of buckskin is beautifully embroidered and painted in curious hieroglyphics, the history of his battles and charts of his life. This, and also each and every article of his varied dress, had been manufactured by his wives, of which he had several; and one, though not the most agreeable ([plate 36]), is seen represented by his side.
I have much to see of these people yet, and much consequently to write; so for the present I close my book.
[1] Several years since writing the above, I held a conversation with Major Pilcher (a strictly correct and honourable man, who was then the agent for these people, who has lived amongst them, and is at this time superintendent of Indian affairs at St. Louis), who informed me, much to my surprise, that the Blackfeet were not far from 60,000 in numbers, including all the confederacy of which I have just spoken.
LETTER—No. 9.
MOUTH OF YELLOW STONE, UPPER MISSOURI.
Since the dates of my other Letters from this place, I have been taking some wild rambles about this beautiful country of green fields; jolted and tossed about, on horseback and on foot, where pen, ink, and paper never thought of going; and of course the most that I saw and have learned, and would tell to the world, is yet to be written. It is not probable, however, that I shall again date a letter at this place, as I commence, in a few days, my voyage down the river in a canoe; but yet I may give you many a retrospective glance at this fairy land and its amusements.
A traveller on his tour through such a country as this, has no time to write, and scarcely time enough to moralize. It is as much as he can well do to “look out for his scalp,” and “for something to eat.” Impressions, however, of the most vivid kind, are rapidly and indelibly made by the fleeting incidents of savage life; and for the mind that can ruminate upon them with pleasure, there are abundant materials clinging to it for its endless entertainment in driving the quill when he gets back. The mind susceptible of such impressions catches volumes of incidents which are easy to write—it is but to unfold a web which the fascinations of this shorn country and its allurements have spun over the soul—it is but to paint the splendid panorama of a world entirely different from anything seen or painted before; with its thousands of miles, and tens of thousands of grassy hills and dales, where nought but silence reigns, and where the soul of a contemplative mould is seemingly lifted up to its Creator. What man in the world, I would ask, ever ascended to the pinnacle of one of Missouri’s green-carpeted bluffs, a thousand miles severed from his own familiar land, and giddily gazed over the interminable and boundless ocean of grass-covered hills and valleys which lie beneath him, where the gloom of silence is complete—where not even the voice of the sparrow or cricket is heard—without feeling a sweet melancholy come over him, which seemed to drown his sense of everything beneath and on a level with him?