Farnham's Travels in the Great Western Prairies, etc., part 1, May 21-October 16, 1839

by Thomas Jefferson Farnham

The Great Spirit had also placed the floods of his displeasure between himself and them. He had cast a mist over the eyes of their conjurors, that they might not know the remedial incantation. Their hunts were ended; their bows were broken; the fire in the Great Pipe was extinguished for ever; their graves called for them; and the call was now answered by a thousand dying {35} groans. Mad with superstition and fear, brother forsook sister; father his son; and mother her sucking child; and fled to the elevated vales among the western heights, where the influences of the climate, operating upon the already well-spent energies of the disease, restored the remainder of the tribe again to health. Of the two thousand five hundred families existing at the time the pestilence commenced, one or more members of eight hundred only survived its ravages; and even to this hour do the bones of seven or eight thousand Blackfeet lie unburied among the decaying lodges of their deserted village, on the banks of the Yellowstone. But this infliction has in no wise humanized their blood-thirsty nature. As ever before, they wage exterminating war upon the traders and trappers, and the Oregon Indians.[160]

The Arrapahoes reside south of the Snakes.[161] They wander in the winter season over the country about the head of the Great Kenyon of the Colorado of the West, and to a considerable distance down that river; and in summer hunt the buffalo in the New Park, or "Bull Pen," in the "Old Park" on Grand River, and in "Boyou Salade," on the south fork of the Platte. Their {36} number is not well ascertained. Some estimate it at three thousand, others more, and others still less. They are said to be a brave, fearless, thrifty, ingenious, and hospitable people. They own large numbers of horses, mules, dogs, and sheep. The dogs they fatten and eat. Hence the name Arrapahoes—dog eaters. They manufacture the wool of their sheep into blankets of a very superior quality. I saw many of them; possessed one; and believe them to be made with something in the form of a darning-needle. They appeared to be wrought, in the first time, like a fishing-net; and on this, as a foundation, darned so densely that the rain will not penetrate them. They are usually striped or checked with yellow and red.

There is in this tribe a very curious law of naturalization; it is based upon property. Any one, whether red or white, may avail himself of it. One horse, which can run with sufficient speed to overtake a buffalo cow, and another horse or mule, capable of bearing a pack of two hundred pounds, must be possessed by the applicant.

These being delivered to the principal chief of the tribe, and his intentions being made known, he is declared a citizen of the {37} Arrapahoe tribe, and entitled to a wife and other high privileges thereunto appertaining. Thus recognized, he enters upon a life of savage independence. His wife takes care of his horses, manufactures his saddles and bridles, and leash ropes and whips, his moccasins, leggings, and hunting-shirts, from leather and other materials prepared by her own hands; beats with a wooden adze his buffalo robes, till they are soft and pleasant for his couch; tans hides for his tent covering, and drags from the distant hills the clean white-pine poles to support it; cooks his daily food and places it before him. And should sickness overtake him, and death rap at the door of his lodge, his squaw watches kindly the last yearnings of the departing spirit. His sole duty, as her lord in life, and as a citizen of the Arrapahoe tribe, is to ride the horse which she saddles and brings to his tent, kill the game which she dresses and cures; sit and slumber on the couch which she spreads; and fight the enemies of the tribe. Their language is said to be essentially the same as that spoken by the Snakes and Cumanches.[162]

This, and other tribes in the mountains, and in the upper plains, have a custom, the {38} same in its objects as was the ceremony of the "toga virilis" among the Romans.

When ripened into manhood, every young man of the tribe is expected to do some act of bravery that will give promise of his disposition and ability to defend the rights of his tribe and family. Nor can this expectation be disregarded. So, in the spring of the year, those of the age alluded to, associate themselves forty or fifty in a band, and devote themselves to the duties of man's estate in the following manner:—They take leave of their friends, and depart to some secret place near the woodlands; collect poles twenty or thirty feet in length, and raise them in the form of a cone; and cover the structure so thickly with leaves and boughs as to secure the interior from the gaze of persons outside. They then hang a fresh buffalo's head inside, near the top of the lodge where the poles meet; and below this, around the sides, suspend camp-kettles, scalps, and blankets, and the skin of a white buffalo, as offerings to the Great Spirit. After the lodge is thus arranged, they enter it with much solemnity, and commence the ceremonies which are to consecrate themselves to war, and the destruction of their own enemies, and those of the tribe. The {39} first act, is to seat themselves in a circle round a fire built in the centre of the lodge, and "make medicine;" that is,—invoke the presence and aid of protecting spirits, by smoking the great mystic pipe.

One of their number fills it with tobacco and herbs, places upon the bowl a bright coal from the fire within the lodge, draws the smoke into his lungs, and blows it thence through his nostrils. He then seizes the stem with both hands, and leaning forward, touches the ground between his feet with the lower part of the bowl, and smokes again as before. The feet, and arms, and breast, are successively touched in a similar way; and after each touching, the sacred smoke is inhaled as before. The pipe is then passed to the one on his right, who smokes as his fellow has done. And thus the Great Pipe goes round, and the smoke rises and mingles with the votive offerings to the Great Spirit which are suspended above their heads. Immediately after this smoking is believed to be a favoured time for offering prayer to the Great Spirit. They pray for courage, and victory over their foes in the campaign they are about to undertake; and that they may be protected from the spirits of evil-minded medicine men. They then make a solemn and irrevocable vow, that if {40} these medicine men do not make them sick—do not enter into their bosoms and destroy their strength and courage, they will never again see their relatives and tribe, unless they do so in garments stained with the blood of their enemies.

Having passed through these ceremonies, they rise and dance to the music of a war chant, till they are exhausted and swoon. In this state of insensibility, they imagine that the spirits of the brave dead visit them and teach them their duty, and inform them of the events that will transpire during the campaign. Three days and nights are passed in performing these ceremonies; during which time, they neither eat nor drink, nor leave the lodge. At early dawn of the fourth day they select a leader from their number, appoint a distant place of meeting; and emerging from the lodge, each walks away from it alone to the place of rendezvous. Having arrived there, they determine whose horses are to be stolen, whose scalps taken, and commence their march. They always go out on foot, wholly dependent upon their own energies for food and every other necessary. Among other things, it is considered a great disgrace to be long without meat and the means of riding.

It sometimes happens that these parties {41} are unable to satisfy the conditions of their consecration during the first season; and therefore are compelled to resort to some ingenious and satisfactory evasion of the obligations of their vow, or to go into winter quarters till another opening spring allows them to prosecute their designs. The trappers relate a case of this kind, which led to a curious incident. A war party of Blackfeet had spent the season in seeking for their enemies without success. The storms of approaching winter had begun to howl around, and a wish to return to the log fires and buffalo meat, and hilarities and friendships of the camp of the tribe in the high vales of the Upper Missouri, had become ardent, when a forlorn, solitary trapper who had long resided among them, entered their camp. Affectionate and sincere greetings passed at the moment of meeting.