The heights behind the station were our old friends the Black Hills, which, according to the Canadian, extend with few breaks as far as Denver City. They are covered with dark green pine; at a distance it looks black, and the woods shelter a variety of wild beasts, the grizzly bear among the number. In the more grassy spaces mustangs, sure-footed as mountain goats, roam uncaught; and at the foot of the hills the slopes are well stocked with antelope, deer, and hares, here called rabbits. The principal birds are the sage-hen (Tetrao urophasianus) and the prairie-hen (T. pratensis). The former, also called the cock of the plains, is a fine, strong-flying grouse, about the size of a full-grown barn-door fowl, or, when younger, of a European pheasant, which, indeed, the form of the tail, as the name denotes, greatly resembles, and the neck is smooth like the partridge of the Old World.[84] Birds of the year are considered good eating: after their first winter the flesh is so impregnated with the intolerable odor of wild sage that none but a starving man can touch it. The prairie-hen, also called the “heath-hen” and the “pinnated grouse,” affects the plains of Illinois and Missouri, and is rarely found so far west as the Black Hills: it is not a migratory bird. The pinnæ from which it derives its name are little wing-like tufts on both sides of the neck, small in the female, large in the male. The cock, moreover, has a stripe of skin running down the neck, which changes its natural color toward pairing-time, and becomes of a reddish yellow: it swells like a turkey-cock’s wattles, till the head seems buried between two monstrous protuberances, the owner spreading out its tail, sweeping the ground with its wings, and booming somewhat like a bittern. Both of these birds, which are strong on the wing, and give good sport, might probably be naturalized in Europe, and the “Société d’Acclimatisation” would do well to think of it.
[84] The trivial names for organic nature are as confused and confusing in America as in India, in consequence of the Old Country terms applied, per fas et nefas, to New Country growths: for instance, the spruce grouse is the Canadian partridge; the ruffled grouse is the partridge of New England and New York, and the pheasant of New Jersey and the Southern States; while in the latter the common quail (O. Virginiana) is called “partridge.”
THE WAR-PARTY.Returning to the station, I found that a war-party of Arapahoes had just alighted in a thin copse hard by. They looked less like warriors than like a band of horse-stealers; and, though they had set out with the determination of bringing back some Yuta scalps and fingers,[85] they had not succeeded. On these occasions the young braves are generally very sulky—a fact which they take care to show by short speech and rude gestures, throwing about and roughly handling, like spoiled children, whatever comes in their way. At such times one must always be prepared for a word and a blow; and, indeed, most Indian fighters justify themselves in taking the initiative, as, of course, it is a great thing to secure first chance. However we may yearn toward our “poor black brother,” it is hard not to sympathize with the white in many aggressions against the ferocious and capricious so-called Red Man. The war-party consisted of about a dozen warriors, with a few limber, lither-looking lads. They had sundry lean, sore-backed nags, which were presently turned out to graze. Dirty rags formed the dress of the band; their arms were the usual light lances, garnished with leather at the handles, with two cropped tufts and a long loose feather dangling from them. They had bows shaped like the Grecian Cupid’s, strengthened with sinews and tipped with wire, and arrows of light wood, with three feathers—Captain Marcy says, two intersecting at right angles; but I have never seen this arrangement—and small triangular iron piles. Their shields were plain targes—double folds of raw buffalo hide, apparently unstuffed, and quite unadorned. They carried mangy buffalo robes; and scattered upon the ground was a variety of belts, baldricks, and pouches, with split porcupine quills dyed a saffron yellow.
[85] The enemy’s fore or other finger, crooked and tied with two bits of the skin which are attached to the wrist or the forehead, is a favorite and picturesque ornament. That failing, the bear’s (especially the grizzly’s) talons, bored at the base, and strung upon their sinews, are considered highly honorable.
The Arapahoes, generally pronounced ’Rapahoes—called by their Shoshonee neighbors Sháretikeh, or Dog-eaters, and by the French Gros Ventres—are a tribe of thieves living between the South Fork of the Platte and the Arkansas Rivers. They are bounded north by the Sioux, and hunt in the same grounds with the Cheyennes. This breed is considered fierce, treacherous, and unfriendly to the whites, who have debauched and diseased them, while the Cheyennes are comparatively chaste and uninfected. The Arapaho is distinguished from the Dakotah by the superior gauntness of his person, and the boldness of his look; there are also minor points of difference in the moccasins, arrow-marks, and weapons. His language, like that of the Cheyennes, has never, I am told, been thoroughly learned by a stranger: it is said to contain but a few hundred words, and these, being almost all explosive growls or guttural grants, are with difficulty acquired by the civilized ear. Like the Cheyennes, the Arapahoes have been somewhat tamed of late by the transit of the United States army in 1857.
Among the Prairie Indians, when a war-chief has matured the plans for an expedition, he habits himself in the garb of battle. Then, mounting his steed, and carrying a lance adorned with a flag and eagle’s feathers, he rides about the camp chanting his war-song. Those disposed to volunteer join the parade, also on horseback, and, after sufficiently exhibiting themselves to the admiration of the village, return home. This ceremony continues till the requisite number is collected. The war-dance, and the rites of the medicine-man, together with perhaps private penances and propitiations, are the next step. There are also copious powwows, in which, as in the African parlance, the chiefs, elders, and warriors sit for hours in grim debate, solemn as if the fate of empires hung upon their words, to decide the momentous question whether Jack shall have half a pound more meat than Jim. Neither the chief nor the warriors are finally committed by the procession to the expedition; they are all volunteers, at liberty to retire; and jealousy, disappointment, and superstition often interpose between themselves and glory.
The war-party, when gone, is thoroughly gone; once absent, they love to work in mystery, and look forward mainly to the pleasure of surprising their friends. After an absence which may extend for months, a loud, piercing, peculiar cry suddenly announces the vanguard courier of the returning braves. The camp is thrown at once from the depths of apathy to the height of excitement, which is also the acmé of enjoyment for those whose lives must be spent in forced inaction. The warriors enter with their faces painted black, and their steeds decorated in the most fantastic style; the women scream and howl their exultation, and feasting and merriment follow with the ceremonious scalp-dance. The braves are received with various degrees of honor according to their deeds. The highest merit is to ride single-handed into the enemy’s camp, and to smite a lodge with lance or bow. The second is to take a warrior prisoner. The third is to strike a dead or fallen man—an idea somewhat contrary to the Englishman’s fancies of fair play, but intelligible enough where it is the custom, as in Hindostan, to lie upon the ground “playing ’possum,” and waiting the opportunity to hamstring or otherwise disable the opponent. The least of great achievements is to slay an enemy in hand-to-hand fight. A Pyrrhic victory, won even at an inconsiderable loss, is treated as a defeat; the object of the Indian guerrilla chief is to destroy the foe with as little risk to himself and his men as possible; this is his highest boast, and in this are all his hopes of fame. Should any of the party fall in battle, the relatives mourn by cutting off their hair and the manes and tails of their horses, and the lugubrious lamentations of the women introduce an ugly element into the triumphal procession.
In the evening, as Mrs. Dana, her husband, and I were sitting outside the station, two of the warriors came and placed themselves without ceremony upon the nearest stones. They were exceedingly unprepossessing with their small gipsy eyes, high, rugged cheek-bones, broad flat faces, coarse sensual mouths everted as to the lips, and long heavy chins; they had removed every sign of manhood from their faces, and their complexions were a dull oily red, the result of vermilion, ochre, or some such pigment, of which they are as fond as Hindoos, grimed in for years. They watched every gesture, and at times communicated their opinions to each other in undistinguishable gruntings, with curious attempts at cachinnation. It is said that the wild dog is unable to bark, and that the tame variety has acquired the faculty by attempting to imitate the human voice; it is certain that, as a rule, only the civilized man can laugh loudly and heartily. I happened to mention to my fellow-travelers the universal dislike of savages to any thing like a sketch of their physiognomies; they expressed a doubt that the Indians were subject to the rule. Pencil and paper were at hand, so we proceeded to proof. The savage at first seemed uneasy under the operation, as the Asiatic or African will do, averting his face at times, and shifting position to defeat my purpose. When I passed the caricature round it excited some merriment; the subject, forthwith rising from his seat, made a sign that he also wished to see it. At the sight, however, he screwed up his features with an expression of intense disgust, and managing to “smudge” over the sketch with his dirty thumb, he left us with a “pooh!” that told all his outraged feelings.
Presently the warriors entered the station to smokeSMOKING. and tacitly beg for broken victuals. They squatted in a circle, and passed round the red sandstone calumet with great gravity, puffing like steam-tugs, inhaling slowly and lingeringly, swallowing the fumes, and with upturned faces exhaling them through the nostrils. They made no objection to being joined by us, and always before handing the pipe to a neighbor, they wiped the reed mouth-piece with the cushion of the thumb. The contents of their calumet were kinnikinik, and, though they accepted tobacco, they preferred replenishing with their own mixture. They received a small present of provisions, and when the station-people went to supper they were shut out.
MORMONLAND NEAR.We are now slipping into Mormonland; one of the station-keepers belonged to the new religion. The “madam,” on entering the room, had requested him to depose a cigar which tainted the air with a perfume like that of greens’-water; he took the matter so coolly that I determined he was not an American, and, true enough, he proved to be a cabinet-maker from Birmingham. I spent the evening reading poor Albert Smith’s “Story of Mont Blanc”—Mont Blanc in sight of the Rocky Mountains!—and admiring how the prince of entertainers led up the reader to what he called the crowning glory of his life, the unperilous ascent of that monarch of the Alps, much in the spirit with which one would have addressed the free and independent voters of some well-bribed English borough.