[42] An expression used by the Canadian hunters for an ambush: the “câche” is also familiar to all readers of western story, as the place of deposit for peltries, or stores.
[43] The country of the Stone–eaters, or, as they are called in their own language, the Assineboins. This is a branch of the Great Sioux tribe to the northward of the Missouri river; the region is peculiarly wild and broken, and the Indians inhabiting it are famous for their pedestrian activity and endurance.
[44] Pommes de prairie are small roots, somewhat resembling white radishes, that are found in great abundance in the Western wilderness, being in some places the only esculent vegetable within a range of several hundred miles: when eaten raw they are tough, tasteless, and hard of digestion; but if boiled or stewed, are tolerably palatable and wholesome.
[45] A mixture used for smoking by the Indians of the Missouri; it is usually composed of tobacco, dried sumach–leaf, and the inner bark of the white willow, cut small and mixed in nearly equal proportions.
[46] The Indians believe that some persons have the power of injuring, or even of killing others at a distance of many hundred miles, by charms and spells: this belief in witchcraft is constantly noticed by Tanner and others, who have resided long among the Indians, and it seems to have been especially prevalent among the Oggibeways and other northern tribes. In illustration of a similar notion in the eastern hemisphere, see Borrow’s “Zincali, or the Gypsies of Spain,” vol. i. chap. ix. on the Evil Eye.
[47] This method of baffling pursuit is not unfrequently resorted to by the Indian marauders. The reader of Shakespeare (and who that can read is not?) will remember Lear’s—
“It were a delicate stratagem to shoe
A troop of horse with felt!”
[48] One of the most extraordinary specimens of the ingenuity of the tribes who inhabit the Great Missouri wilderness, and who speak many languages, so different that they can have with each other no verbal communication, is the language of Signs, common to them all, by which Pawnees, Dahcotahs, Osages, Black–feet, Upsarokas, or the Crows and other Western nations, can understand each other quite sufficiently for the ordinary purposes of their simple life. The sign for “all right” is made by holding the hand with the palm downwards, in a horizontal position, and waving it slowly outwards.
[49] It is well known that every tribe has its separate war–cry; that of the Dahcotahs resembles the short angry bark of a dog, but they utter it with a piercing shrillness that renders it terrific in the extreme.
[50] This exclamation resembles the English word “How–how,” repeated with a strong aspirate and great rapidity. It seems common to all Indian nations, for the author has heard it used by many different tribes, and it is mentioned by Charlevoix as being constantly uttered by the Natchez, Illinois, and other Indian nations, then dwelling near the banks of the Mississippi.