I returned to the Farm, where a report reached me, which was in circulation, upon strong grounds of suspicion, that a most deliberate and barbarous murder had been committed by one of the half-breeds on a Canadian freeman. He was supposed to have been instigated to the bloody deed by a woman he lived with, and whom he received from the Canadian for so many buffaloes as provision. Evidence however was wanting, it was thought, that would justify his being sent down to Montreal, or to England for trial, to convict him there; as there was no criminal jurisdiction established within the territories of the Hudson's Bay Company.
March 25.—The thaw has come on unexpectedly early, and caused many of the hunters to return from the plains with scarcely any provisions. There were a few tame buffaloes that had been reared in the colony, which have been slaughtered, and to save as much seed corn as possible, the allowance of grain is given out to the settlers with the most rigid economy by the Chargè d'Affaires. There was a general shout to day in the Settlement at the sight of some swans and geese, as the sure harbingers of Spring, and of immense flocks of wild fowl, that bend their course in the Spring to the north, as in the fall of the year they fly to the south. It was indeed a cheerful sight, as nearly all the feathered tribe leave us during a long and severe winter. In this season, we hear only, and that but very seldom the croaking of the raven, the chattering of the magpie, or the tapping of the woodpecker. But as summer bursts upon us, the call of the whip-poor-will is heard in the dusk of the evening, and the solitude of the woods is enlivened with a rich variety of birds, some of which dazzle the eye with the beauty of their colours. They have no notes however in their gay plumage, or melody of sound, which catch, and delight the ear. The wild fowl are mere birds of passage at the Red River, and but few were shot, as they passed over the colony, for our relief, in the want of provisions. Our numbers increased almost daily, from the return of the settlers from the plains, and it was the general opinion that it would be far better to kill all the horses and dogs in the Settlement for food, than distribute the whole of the grain, so as to be without seed corn.
April 5.—One of the chief officers of the Hudson's Bay Company arrived, and gave us the welcome promise, (before we were actually driven to the above extremity,) that the Colony should receive some wheat to sow from the Company's Post at Bas la Rivière, on Lake Winepeg, where there is a good farm, and the crops had escaped the ravages of the locusts. When cheered by this prospect, the information reached us, that a party of Sioux Indians were on their way to the Settlement. As their intentions in visiting us were not known, and being apprehensive that more blood would be shed by the Saulteaux if they came down to Fort Douglas, it was resolved that two boats should be manned to prevent if possible their proceeding any farther than Pembina. It was far better to present an imposing force to them on the borders of the colony, than to suffer them to come down amongst us, where we should have been completely in their power, in our scattered habitations. At the request of the chief officer I accompanied the boats, and set off with him for the Company's Post at Pembina, about the middle of May. We arrived on the Friday, and soon after divine service on the Sunday morning the Sioux Indians were seen marching over the plains, with several colours flying, towards the Colony Fort, which was immediately opposite to that of the Company. When at the distance of about five hundred yards from us, they halted, and a Saulteaux Indian who happened to be at Pembina, immediately stripped himself naked, and rushed towards them as a proof of his courage. They received him with a cold reserve, while some of them pointed their guns close to his body. He then mingled with the party, and we conducted them to the Colony Fort, as is customary when Indians are supposed to visit with peaceable and friendly intentions.
As soon as they had entered the Fort they placed two sentinels at the gate, one with a bow and arrows, and the other with a gun. There was something like military discipline among them, which they had probably learned during the late American war, in which they were engaged by the English; many of them were of a remarkably fine stature, and well-proportioned, but more formed for agility than strength. Their countenances were stamped with a fierce and barbarous expression, and being all armed with either long knives, tomahawks, guns, or bows, they soon encircled and formed a guard for the Chief of their party. After a short time, they became very restless, and searched every corner and outhouse of the Fort, under the suspicion that some treacherous attack might be made upon them. A few of them then crossed over to the Company's Post, and no idea was entertained but that they would conduct themselves peaceably. Liquor was given them at both posts; and as I was standing within the stockades of that of the Company, at eight o'clock in the evening, a Chief of the party named Wanatou, came in apparently intoxicated, and snatching a gun from an Indian who stood near him, he fired it with ball in a manner that indicated some evil design. Leaving the Fort he wrestled with another for his gun which he fired in the air, and went immediately to the other post, where it was supposed they had taken up their quarters for the night. A guard being mounted, we retired to rest, but were disturbed about eleven o'clock with the cry, that the Sioux Indians had shot and scalped an Assiniboine, who with two others had travelled a considerable distance to smoke the calumet with them at Pembina. The bloody and unsuspected deed was committed by Wanatou, whose intention was to have killed the other two had they not immediately fled, because some one, or a party of their nation had stolen a horse from him about a year before. As soon as the scalp was taken they all started for the plains with this notorious Chief, who had shed the blood of ten or twelve Indians and Americans before; and who bore the marks of having been several times pierced with balls by his enemies. It was formerly the custom to cut off the heads of those whom they slew in war, and to carry them away as trophies; but these were found cumbersome in the hasty retreat which they always make as soon as they have killed their enemy; they are now satisfied with only tearing off the scalp. This is usually taken from the crown of the head, of a small circular size; sometimes however they take the whole integuments of the skull, with which they ornament their war jackets and leggins, or twist into a brush for the purpose of keeping off the mosquitoes. The scalp is their glory and triumph, and is often carried by women stretched upon a stick, and hung with various articles so as to make a jingle to men when they perform the war-dance.
This is very animated and striking, as they generally dance completely armed, and with gestures to represent their mode of going to war, their attack upon their enemy, the scalping of those who are slain, and their triumphant return as conquerors. They go through these evolutions in such a wild and savage manner as frequently to excite the fears of the European, who witnesses the war dance, lest it should terminate, in a bloody conflict, and the death of most of the party.
We returned to the Forks, after having seen a party of half-breeds set off with their horses and carts for buffaloe meat, in the same direction the Sioux Indians were gone. They were advised not to follow their track so immediately; but the want of provisions led them to neglect this advice; and in about a fortnight afterwards we were informed, that they had been fired upon in their encampment in the dawn of the morning (the time when Indians generally make their attack) that two of them were killed, a third mortally wounded, and that all their horses were stolen. It was strongly suspected though never ascertained as a fact, that this savage deed was committed by the Indians who had so recently left Pembina; as well as the scalping of one of the Company's servants who was killed a short time afterwards within a mile of the Fort.
The Sioux are a great nation, spread over a vast tract of country, between the Missisippi and Pembina; along the banks of the Missouri, and towards the Saskashawan. They are divided into numerous tribes, called Sisatoones, Yanktoons, Wapatoones, and others, with the Assiniboines or Stone Indians, who are recognized as descendents or seceders, by a similarity of language and customs. On the banks of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers they have small villages, where they grow Indian corn, pumpkins, and water melons; but they live principally on the plains in the chase of the buffaloe. Their language is very guttural and difficult, and superstitious ceremonies and customs prevail amongst them which are similar to those observed by the Tartars. The Sioux, like the Tartars, sometimes offer water as a symbol of peace and safety to a stranger, or of pardon to an offender, which strongly corroborates the idea that they were originally from Asia. Some time ago I was informed by an officer, who had numbers of them under his influence in the American war, that a Sioux Indian was doomed to die for an offence which he had committed, and taking his station before the tribe, and drawing his blanket over his face, in expectation of the fatal shot, the Chief stepped forward and presented some water to him, as a token of pardon, when he was permitted again to join the party. They consider it also as a very bad omen in common with the Tartars, to cut a stick that has been burnt by fire, and with them they consign every thing to destruction, though it be their canoe, as polluted, if it be sprinkled with the water of animals. And it is a remarkable fact, that the laws of separation and uncleanness, being forty days for a male child and eighty for a female, observed by these Indians, exactly correspond with the Levitical law imposed upon the Jews in the birth of their children.
They are truly barbarous, like the Indians in general, towards their captive enemies. The following circumstance, as related to me by an Indian woman, whom I married to one of the principal settlers, and who was a near relation of one of the women who was tomahawked by a war party of Sioux Indians, some time ago, is calculated to fill the mind with horror. They fell upon four lodges belonging to the Saulteaux, who had encamped near Fond du Lac, Lake Superior, and which contained the wives and children of about twelve men, who were at that time absent a hunting; and immediately killed and scalped the whole party, except one woman and two or three of the children. With the most wanton and savage cruelty, they proceeded to put one of these little ones to death, by first turning him for a short time close before a fire, when they cut off one of his arms, and told him to run; and afterwards cruelly tortured him, with the other children, till he died.
It is almost incredible the torture to which they will sometimes put their prisoners; and the adult captives will endure it without a tear or a groan. In spite of all their sufferings, which the love of cruelty and revenge can invent and inflict upon them, they continue to chaunt their death song with a firm voice; considering that to die like a man, courting pain rather than flinching from it, is the noblest triumph of the warrior. In going to war, some time ago, a Sioux chief cut a piece of flesh from his thigh, and holding it up with a view to animate and encourage the party who were to accompany him to the ferocious conflict, told them to see how little he regarded pain, and that, despising torture and the scalping knife and tomahawk of their enemies, they should rush upon them, and pursue them till they were exterminated; and thereby console the spirits of the dead whom they had slain.
It does not appear that cannibalism is practised by any of the North American Indians; on the contrary, the eating of human flesh is held in great abhorrence by them: and when they are driven to eat it, through dire necessity, they are generally shunned by other Indians who know it, and who often take their lives secretly. It is not an uncommon practice, however, for them to cut flesh from their captives, and, when cooked to eat small bits of it, as well as to give some to their children, with a little of their blood, no doubt under the idea that it will give them courage, and a spirit of hatred and revenge against their enemies. What can calm these ferocious feelings, and curb this savage fury of the passions in the torturous destruction of defenceless women and sucking infants? what, but the introduction and influence of Christianity, the best civilizer of the wandering natives of these dreary wilds, and the most probable means of fixing them in the pursuit of agriculture, and of those social advantages and privileges to which they are at present strangers.