The request was carried out to the letter. On the appointed day, the whole tribe, together with a vast concourse of spectators, repaired to the bluff, leaving an open space in the middle, where the chief was to be buried.
Presently, the body of the dead chief was borne up the sides of the bluff, and after him was led his war horse, a noble milk-white steed which he had valued exceedingly. When the funeral procession reached the top of the bluff, the dead chief was clothed in full panoply of war, the feather plumes on his head, the strung bow, quiver, arrows, shield, and medicine bag slung on his back, his scalps, which no other man might take, hung to his horse’s bridle and to his weapons, and his favorite spear in his hand. He was also furnished with food and drink, to sustain him in his passage to the spirit land, and with his pipe and filled tobacco pouch, flint, and steel, so that he might solace himself with the luxury of smoking.
This done, he was mounted on the back of his horse, and all the chiefs advanced in their turn to make their farewell speeches to their dead leader. Each, after delivering his address, rubbed his right hand with vermilion, pressed it against the white coat of the horse, and left there the scarlet imprint of his hand. Then began the burial. The warriors brought in their hands pieces of turf, and with them began to raise a huge mound, in the middle of which the chief and his horse were to be enclosed. One by one they placed their turves around the feet of the devoted horse, and so, by degrees, they built the mound over the animal while yet alive.
The mound, when completed, rose high above the head of the chief thus strangely buried in its centre, and there he and his horse were left to decay together. On the top of the mound a cedar post was erected; and this mound has been, ever since it was built, a familiar landmark to all the surrounding country. This green, flower spotted mound is visited by great numbers of travellers, both white and red. The former ascend the bluff partly out of curiosity to see so strange a tomb, and partly for the sake of the magnificent view from its summit, while the latter visit it for the sake of paying their respects at the burial-place of one of their most renowned chiefs and greatest medicine men.
The custom of burying wives and other victims with the deceased husband seems now to be extinct among the North American tribes, but such an event has happened within comparatively late years. There was a Nachez chief, called the Stung Serpent, who died; and as he was the head chief of the tribe, a considerable number of victims were devoted for sacrifice. The French, however, remonstrated, and induced the friends of the dead chief to limit the number to eight or ten. Among them was a beautiful girl, who, though not his wife, had loved him greatly, and desired to share his grave.
On the day appointed a procession was formed, in which the victims were led in great state, accompanied by eight relatives of the deceased, who were to act as executioners, and who bore the fatal cord, the deer-skin which was thrown over the head of the victim, the tobacco pills which were to be taken before the ceremony, and the other implements required. When they were all placed at the grave, the chief wife made a speech, in which she took leave of her children; and the victims, after being strangled, were deposited in the grave.
As the object of this work is to present the manners and customs of tribes and races in their primitive state, and not those semi-civilized, it will be enough to merely introduce the names of the Cherokees, Choctaws, Creeks, Chickasaws, Senecas, Delawares, etc. Nor is it necessary to consider those, now extinct, that occupied the country when first settled by white men. For the same general characteristics, now presented, pertain to all the North American races. The Indian tribes are rapidly retreating or vanishing before the steady, irresistible march of civilization, and the growing grandeur of the great Republic in North America. The line, where the echoes of the Indian’s yell blends with the shout of advancing pioneers and the sound of the wood-chopper’s axe, is continually moving westward. In a few years we have seen it pass from the Mississippi River, to the base of the Rocky Mountains. The settler’s cabin is unceasingly encroaching upon the wigwams of the Red Men. With sadness, having smoothed the graves of their fathers, and taken a last look of their hunting grounds, they retreat before a power which they vainly strive to resist. Pressed backward in two centuries and a half, across three-quarters of the continent, from Massachusetts Bay almost to the Pacific, except a few decaying remnants of tribes, their history and doom cannot but awaken sympathy for an unfortunate and overpowered race.
Even though we do not form our estimate of the Indian from the romantic creations of Cooper, every right-thinking person will accord them the tribute of many qualities that constitute a real grandeur of character. Their marvellous bravery, their ardent rage, their steadfast, fiery enthusiasm in the fight or in the chase, their manly sports, their grave, philosophic demeanor in the council, their stern, stoical endurance in misfortune, their disdain of death, are traits that have given to the Indian a character unique and noble, a character and history that the annalist, poet, and novelist, have transferred to their immortal pages, and over which multitudes of old and young alike have bent with eager, breathless interest. As Mr. Mangin in his “Desert World” says:—“There was poetry in their faith, in their customs, in their language, at once laconic and picturesque—and even in the names they bestowed on each tribe, each chief and warrior, on mountain and river. One can hardly suppress a feeling of regret that so much of wild romance and valor should have been swept from the face of the earth, unless we call to mind the shadow of the picture—the Indian’s cruelty, perfidiousness and savage lust. Even then, our humanity revolts from the treatment to which he has been subjected by the white man.” Tracked and hunted like wild beasts, driven from their hunting grounds and the territory of their ancestors, imbruted by drink, decimated and dying by epidemics and vices contracted from white men, the poor Indians vainly struggling to avert their doom of extermination have elicited the sympathy and commiseration of the civilized world. The theory advocated in the preceding part of this work, (see page 790), in regard to the decay and extinction of savage races, does not forbid regrets that such a people should have suffered so grievously at the hands of the United States Government, by the greed of its agents, the frauds of traders and the fatal contagion of the vices of a civilized people. What with American rifles and American whiskey, their extinction has been rapid, and their doom certain.
These tribes, contending in a most unequal strife with the forces of modern civilization, more readily falling victims to the vices of white men than accepting their virtues, are entitled to the just consideration and protection of the government, as its wards, from whom, or their ancestors, have been taken their soil and their homes.
It is gratifying to know that a more humane policy is about being inaugurated, and though the wrongs of the past may not be redressed, that their rights in future may be recognized and maintained. Major-General Thomas, of the U. S. army, whose name and history are the guarantee of candid and wise judgment, says, in respect to an instance of cold-blooded, unprovoked, unpunished outrage upon an Indian boy (it is given only as a representative fact of many more and bitter wrongs):—“I see no better way than to extend civil authority over the Indians and enable them to appear as witnesses in all cases affecting their own status and that of the whites toward them. This is a fair instance of the cause of the Indian troubles; and until white murderers and robbers of the Indians are punished, a large force of troops will be necessary to protect peaceful white settlers from Indian avengers.” And Gen. Sherman, in whose opinion the utmost confidence can be reposed, makes the following indorsement to General Thomas’ view:—“This case illustrates the origin of most of the Indian wars on the frontier. A citizen may murder an Indian with impunity, but if the Indian retaliate, war results, and the United States must bear the expense.”