Dahcotah - Mary Eastman
Let it not be deemed impertinent if I venture to urge upon those who
care for the wretched wherever their lot may be cast, the immense good
that might be accomplished among these tribes by schools, which should
open the minds of the young to the light of reason and Christianity.
Even if the elder members are given up as hopeless, with the young
there is always encouragement. Many a bright little creature among the
Dahcotahs is as capable of receiving instruction as are the children of
civilization. Why should they be neglected when the waters of
benevolence are moving all around them?
It is not pretended that all the incidents related in these stories
occurred exactly as they are stated. Most of them are entirely true;
while in others the narrative is varied in order to show some prevalent
custom, or to illustrate some sentiment to which these Indians are
devoted. The Sioux are as firm believers in their religion as we are in
ours; and they are far more particular in the discharge of what they
conceive to be the obligations required by the objects of their faith
and worship. There are many allusions to the belief and customs of the
Dahcotahs that require explanation. For this purpose I have obtained
from the Sioux themselves the information required. On matters of faith
there is difference of opinion among them--but they do not make more
points of difference on religion, or on any other subject, than white
people do.
The day of the Dahcotah is far spent; to quote the language of a
Chippeway chief, "The Indian's glory is passing away." They seem to be
almost a God-forgotten race. Some few have given the missionary reason
to hope that they have been made subjects of Christian faith--and the
light, that has as yet broken in faint rays upon their darkness, may
increase. He who takes account of the falling of a sparrow, will not
altogether cast away so large a portion of his creatures. All Christian
minds will wish success to the Indian missionary; and assuredly God will
be true to his mercy, where man is found true to his duty.
The first impression created by the Sioux was the common one--fear. In
their looks they were so different from the Indians I had occasionally
seen. There was nothing in their aspect to indicate the success of
efforts made to civilize them. Their tall, unbending forms, their savage
hauteur, the piercing black eye, the quiet indifference of manner, the
slow, stealthy step--how different were they from the eastern Indians,
whose associations with the white people seem to have deprived them of
all native dignity of bearing and of character. The yells heard outside
the high wall of the fort at first filled me with alarm; but I soon
became accustomed to them, and to all other occasional Indian
excitements, that served to vary the monotony of garrison life. Before I
felt much interest in the Sioux, they seemed to have great regard for
me. My husband, before his marriage, had been stationed at Fort Snelling
and at Prairie du Chien. He was fond of hunting and roaming about the
prairies; and left many friends among the Indians when he obeyed the
order to return to an eastern station. On going back to the Indian
country, he met with a warm welcome from his old acquaintances, who were
eager to shake hands with "Eastman's squaw."
The old men laid their bony hands upon the heads of my little boys,
admired their light hair, said their skins were very white; and,
although I could not then understand their language, they told me many
things, accompanied with earnest gesticulation. They brought their wives
and young children to see me. I had been told that Indian women gossiped
and stole; that they were filthy and troublesome. Yet I could not
despise them: they were wives and mothers--God had implanted the same
feelings in their hearts as in mine.
Some Indians visited us every day, and we frequently saw them at their
villages. Captain E. spoke their language well; and without taking any
pains to acquire it, I soon understood it so as to talk with them. The
sufferings of the women and children, especially during the winter
season, appealed to my heart. Their humility in asking for assistance
contrasted strongly with the pompous begging of the men. Late in a
winter's afternoon, Wenona, wife of a chief named the "Star," came to my
room. Undoing a bundle that she took from under her blanket, she
approached and showed it to me. It was an infant three days old,
closely strapped to an Indian cradle. The wretched babe was shrivelled
and already looking old from hunger. She warmed it by the fire,
attempting to still its feeble cries.
"Do you nurse your baby well, Wenona?" I asked; "it looks so thin and
small."
"How can I," was the reply, "when I have not eaten since it was born?"
Frequently we have heard of whole families perishing during severely
cold weather. The father absent on a winter's hunt, the mother could not
leave her children to apply to the fort for assistance, even had she
strength left to reach there. The frozen bodies would be found in the
lodges. The improvident character of the Indian is well known. Their
annuities are soon spent; supplies received from government are used in
feasting; and no provision is made for winters that are always long and
severe. Though they receive frequent assistance from the public at the
fort, the wants of all cannot be supplied. The captain of the post was
generous towards them, as was always my friend Mrs. F., whom they highly
esteemed. Yet some hearts are closed against appeals daily made to their
humanity. An Indian woman may suffer from hunger or sickness, because
her looks are repulsive and her garments unwashed: some will say they
can bear the want of warm clothing, because they have been used to
privation.
The women of the Sioux exhibit many striking peculiarities of
character--the love of the marvellous, and a profound veneration for any
and every thing connected with their religious faith; a willingness to
labor and to learn; patience in submitting to insults from servants who
consider them intruders in families; the evident recognition of the fact
that they are a doomed race, and must submit to indignities that they
dare not resent. They seem, too, so unused to sympathy, often comparing
their lives of suffering and hardship with the ease and comfort enjoyed
by the white women, it must be a hard heart, that could withhold
sympathy from such poor creatures. Their home was mine--and such a home!
The very sunsets, more bright and glorious than I had ever seen, seemed
to love to linger over the scenes amongst which we lived; the high
bluffs of the "father of many waters" and the quiet shores of the
"Minesota;" the fairy rings on the prairie, and the "spirit lakes" that
reposed beside them; the bold peak, Pilot Knob, on whose top the Indians
bury their dead, with the small hills rising gradually around it--all
were dear to the Sioux and to me. They believed that the rocks, and
hills, and waters were peopled with fairies and spirits, whose power and
anger they had ever been taught to fear. I knew that God, whose presence
fills all nature, was there. In fancy they beheld their deities in the
blackened cloud and fearful storm; I saw mine in the brightness of
nature, the type of the unchanging light of Heaven.
They evinced the warmest gratitude to any who had ever displayed kind
feelings towards them. When our little children were ill with scarlet
fever, how grieved they were to witness their sufferings; especially as
we watched Virginia, waiting, as we expected, to receive her parting
breath. How strongly they were contrasted! that fair child, unconscious
even of the presence of the many kind friends who had watched and wept
beside her--and the aged Sioux women, who had crept noiselessly into the
chamber. I remember them well, as they leaned over the foot of the bed;
their expressive and subdued countenances full of sorrow. That small
white hand, that lay so powerless, had ever been outstretched to welcome
them when they came weary and hungry.
They told me afterwards, that "much water fell from their eyes day and
night, while they thought she would die;" that the servants made them
leave the sick room, and then turned them out of the house--but that
they would not go home, waiting outside to hear of her.
During her convalescence, I found that they could "rejoice with those
that rejoice" as well as "weep with those that wept." The fearful
disease was abating in our family, and "Old Harper," as she is called
in the Fort, offered to sit up and attend to the fire. We allowed her to
do so, for the many who had so kindly assisted us were exhausted with
fatigue. Joy had taken from me all inclination to sleep, and I lay down
near my little girl, watching the old Sioux woman. She seemed to be
reviewing the history of her life, so intently did she gaze at the
bright coals on the hearth. Many strange thoughts apparently engaged
her. She was, of her own accord, an inmate of the white man's house,
waiting to do good to his sick child. She had wept bitterly for days,
lest the child should be lost to her--and now she was full of happiness,
at the prospect of her recovery.
How shall we reconcile this with the fact that Harper, or Harpstinah,
was one of the Sioux women, who wore, as long as she could endure it, a
necklace made of the hands and feet of Chippeway children? Here, in the
silence of night, she turned often towards the bed, when the restless
sleep of the child broke in on her meditation. She fancied I slept, but
my mind was busy too. I was far away from the home of my childhood, and
a Sioux woman, with her knife in her belt, was assisting me in the care
of my only daughter. She thought Dr. T. was a "wonderful medicine man"
to cure her; in which opinion we all cordially coincided.
I always listened with pleasure to the women, when allusion was made to
their religion; but when they spoke of their tradition, I felt as a
miser would, had he discovered a mine of gold. I had read the legends of
the Maiden's Rock, and of St. Anthony's Falls. I asked Checkered Cloud
to tell them to me. She did so--and how differently they were told! With
my knowledge of the language, and the aid of my kind and excellent
friend Mr. Prescott, all the dark passages in her narration were made
clear. I thought the Indian tone of feeling was not rightly
appreciated--their customs not clearly stated, perhaps not fairly
estimated. The red man, considered generally as a creature to be carried
about and exhibited for money, was, in very truth, a being immortally
endowed, though under a dispensation obscure to the more highly-favored
white race. As they affirmed a belief in the traditions of their tribe,
with what strength and beauty of diction they clothed their
thoughts--how energetic in gesture! Alas! for the people who had no
higher creed, no surer trust, for this and for another world.
However they may have been improved, no one could have had better
opportunities than I, to acquire all information of interest respecting
these Indians. I lived among them seven years. The chiefs from far and
near were constantly visiting the Fort, and were always at our house.
Not a sentiment is in the Legends that I did not hear from the lips of
the Indian man or woman. They looked on my husband as their friend, and
talked to him freely on all subjects, whether of religion, customs, or
grievances. They were frequently told that I was writing about them,
that every body might know what great warriors they were.
The men were sometimes astonished at the boldness with which I reproved
them, though it raised me much in their estimation. I remember taking
Bad Hail, one of their chiefs, to task, frequently; and on one occasion
he told me, by way of showing his gratitude for the interest I took in
his character, that he had three wives, all of whom he would give up if
I would "leave Eastman, and come and live with him." I received his
proposition, however, with Indian indifference, merely replying that I
did not fancy having my head split open every few days with a stick of
wood. He laughed heartily after his fashion, conscious that the cap
fitted, for he was in the habit of expending all his surplus bad temper
upon his wives. I have sometimes thought, that if, when a warrior, be he
chief or commoner, throws a stick of wood at his wife's head, she were
to cast it back at his, he might, perhaps, be taught better behaviour.
But I never dared to instil such insubordinate notions into the heads of
my Sioux female friends, lest some ultra "brave," in a desperate rage,
might substitute the tomahawk for the log. These opinions, too, might
have made me unpopular with Sioux and Turks--and, perchance, with some
of my more enlightened friends, who are self-constituted "lords of
creation."
I noticed that Indians, like white people, instead of confessing and
forsaking their sins, were apt to excuse themselves by telling how much
worse their neighbors were. When told how wicked it was to have more
than one wife, they defended themselves by declaring that the
Winnebagoes had twice or thrice as many as the Sioux. The attempt to
make one right of two wrongs seems to be instinctive.
I wished to learn correctly the Indian songs which they sing in
celebrating their dances. I sent for a chief, Little Hill, who is a
famous singer, but with little perseverance as a teacher of music. He
soon lost all patience with me, refused to continue the lesson,
declaring that he could never make me sing like a Sioux squaw. The low,
guttural notes created the difficulty. He very quickly became tired of
my piano and singing. The chiefs and medicine men always answered my
questions readily, respecting their laws and religion; but, to insure
good humor, they must first have something to eat. All the scraps of
food collected in the kitchen; cold beef, cold buckwheat cakes; nothing
went amiss, especially as to quantity. Pork is their delight--apples
they are particularly fond of--and, in the absence of fire-water,
molasses and water is a most acceptable beverage. Then they had to smoke
and nod a little before the fire--and by and by I heard all about the
Great Spirit, and Hookah the Giant, and the powers of the Sacred
Medicine. All that is said in this book of their religion, laws, and
sentiments, I learned from themselves, and most of the incidents
occurred precisely as they are represented. Some few have been varied,
but only where it might happily illustrate a peculiar custom or opinion.
Their medicine men, priests, and jugglers, are proverbially the greatest
scamps of the tribe. My dear father must forgive me for reflecting so
harshly on his brother practitioners, and be reconciled when he hears
that they belong to the corps of quacks; for they doubt their own
powers, and are constantly imposing on the credulity of others. On
returning from an evening walk, we met, near the fort, a notable
procession. First came an old medicine man, whose Indian name I cannot
recall; but the children of the garrison called him "Old Sneak"--a most
appropriate appellation, for he always looked as if he had just
committed murder, and was afraid of being found out. On this occasion he
looked particularly in character. What a representative of the learned
faculty! After him, in Indian file, came his wife and children, a most
cadaverous looking set. To use a western phrase, they all looked as if
they were "just dug up." Their appearance was accounted for in the
following ludicrous manner--the story is doubtless substantially true.
There was a quantity of refuse medicine that had been collecting in the
hospital at the fort, and Old Sneak happened to be present at a general
clearing out. The medicine was given to him; and away he went to his
home, hugging it up close to him like a veritable old miser. It was too
precious to be shared with his neighbors; the medicine of the white man
was "wahkun" (wonderful)--and, carrying out the principle that the more
of a good thing the better, he, with his wife and children, took it all!
I felt assured that the infant strapped to its mother's back was dying
at that time.
The "dog dance" is held by the Sioux in great reverence; and the first
time it has been celebrated near the fort for many years, was about five
summers ago.
The Chippeways, with their chief, "Hole in the Day," were down on a
visit, and the prairie outside the fort was covered with Indians of both
tribes. The Chippeways sat on the grass at a little distance, watching
the Sioux as they danced, "to show how brave they were, and how they
could eat the hearts of their enemies." Most of the officers and ladies
of the garrison were assembled on the hospital gallery to witness
the dance.
The Sioux warriors formed a circle; in the centre was a pole fastened in
the ground. One of the Indians killed a dog, and, taking out the heart
and liver, held them for a few moments in a bucket of cold water, and
then hung them to the pole. After awhile, one of the warriors advanced
towards it, barking. His attitude was irresistibly droll; he tried to
make himself look as much as possible like a dog, and I thought he
succeeded to admiration. He retreated, and another warrior advanced with
a different sort of bark; more joined in, until there was a chorus of
barking. Next, one becomes very courageous, jumps and barks towards the
pole, biting off a piece of the flesh; another follows and does the same
feat. One after another they all bark and bite. "Let dogs delight" would
have been, an appropriate melody for the occasion. They had to hold
their heads back to swallow the morceau--it was evidently hard work.
Several dogs were killed in succession, when, seeing some of the
warriors looking pale and deadly sick, Captain E. determined to try how
many of their enemies' hearts they could dispose of. He went down among
the Indians and purchased another dog. They could not refuse to eat the
heart. It made even the bravest men sick to swallow the last
mouthful--they were pale as death. I saw the last of it, and although
John Gilpin's ride might be a desirable sight, yet when the Sioux
celebrate another dog feast, "may I not be there to see."
Our intercourse with the Sioux was greatly facilitated, and our
influence over them much increased, by the success attending my
husband's efforts to paint their portraits. They thought it supernatural
(wahkun) to be represented on canvas. Some were prejudiced against
sitting, others' esteemed it a great compliment to be asked, but all
expected to be paid for it. And if anything were wanting to complete our
opportunities for gaining all information that was of interest, we found
it in the daguerreotype. Captain E., knowing they were about to
celebrate a feast he wished to paint in group, took his apparatus out,
and, when they least expected it, transferred the group to his plate.
The awe, consternation, astonishment and admiration, surpassed
description. "Ho! Eastman is all wahkun!"
The Indians are fond of boasting and communicating their exploits and
usages to those who have their confidence. While my husband has
delineated their features with the pencil, I have occupied pleasantly
many an hour in learning from them how to represent accurately the
feelings and features of their hearts--feeble though my pen be. We never
failed to gain a point by providing a good breakfast or dinner.
With the Rev. Mr. Pond and Dr. Williamson, both missionaries among the
Sioux, I had many a pleasant interview and talk about the tribe. They
kindly afforded me every assistance--and as they are perfectly
acquainted with the language of the Sioux, and have studied their
religion with the view to introduce the only true one, I could not have
applied to more enlightened sources, or better authority.
The day we left Fort Snelling, I received from Mr. Pond the particulars
of the fate of the Sioux woman who was taken prisoner by the Chippeways,
and who is represented in the legend called The Wife. Soon after her
return to her husband, he was killed by the Chippeways; and the
difficulty was settled by the Chippeways paying to the Sioux what was
considered the value of the murdered man, in goods, such as calico,
tobacco, &c.! After his death, the widow married a Sioux, named "Scarlet
Face." They lived harmoniously for a while--but soon difficulties arose,
and Scarlet Face, in a fit of savage rage, beat her to death. A most
unromantic conclusion to her eventful life.
How vivid is our recollection of the grief the Sioux showed at parting
with us. For although, at the time, it added to the pain naturally felt
at leaving a place which had so long been our home; yet the sincere
affection they evinced towards us and our children was most gratifying.
They wished us to remember them, when far away, with kindness. The
farewell of my friend Checkered Cloud can never be forgotten. She was my
constant visitor for years; and, although a poor and despised Sioux
woman, I learned to look upon her with respect and regard. Nor does my
interest in her and her nation cease, because, in the chances of life,
we may never meet again. It will still be my endeavor to depict all the
customs, feasts and ceremonies of the Sioux, before it be too late. The
account of them may be interesting, when the people who so long believed
in them will be no more.
We can see they are passing away, but who can decide the interesting
question of their origin? They told me that their nation had always
lived in the valley of the Mississippi--that their wise men had asserted
this for ages past. Some who have lived among them, think they crossed
over from Persia in ships--and that they once possessed the knowledge of
building large vessels, though they have now entirely lost it. This idea
bears too little probability to command any confidence. The most general
opinion is the often told one, that they are a remnant of God's ancient
and chosen people. Be this as it may, they are "as the setting sun, or
as the autumn leaves trampled upon by powerful riders."
They are receding rapidly, and with feeble resistance, before the giant
strides of civilization. The hunting grounds of a few savages will soon
become the haunts of densely peopled, civilized settlements. We should
be better reconciled to this manifest destiny of the aborigines, if the
inroads of civilization were worthy of it; if the last years of these,
in some respects, noble people, were lit up with the hope-inspiring rays
of Christianity. We are not to judge the Heathen; yet universal evidence
gives the melancholy fact, that the light of nature does not lead the
soul to God: and without judging of their destiny, we are bound to
enlighten their minds. We know the great Being of whom they are
ignorant; and well will it be for them and for us, in a day that awaits
us all, if yet, though late, sadly late--yet not too late, we so give
countenance and aid to the missionary, that the light of revealed truth
may cheer the remaining period of their national and individual,
existence.
Will it be said that I am regarding, with partial eye and sentimental
romance, but one side of the Sioux character? Have they no faults, as a
people and individually? They are savages--and that goes far to answer
the question. Perhaps the best answer is, the women have faults enough,
and the men twice as many as the women. But if to be a savage is to be
cruel, vindictive, ferocious--dare we say that to be a civilized man
necessarily implies freedom from these traits?
Want of truth, and habitual dishonesty in little things, are prevalent
traits among the Sioux. Most of them will take a kitchen spoon or fork,
if they have a chance--and they think it fair thus to return the
peculations of the whites. They probably have an idea of making up for
the low price at which their lands have been valued, by maintaining a
constant system of petty thefts--or perhaps they consider kitchen
utensils as curiosities, just as the whites do their mocassins and
necklaces of bear's claws. Yes--it must be confessed, however
unsentimental, they almost all steal.
The men think it undignified for them to steal, so they send their
wives thus unlawfully to procure what they want--and wo be to them if
they are found out. The husband would shame and beat his wife for doing
what he certainly would have beaten her for refusing to do. As regards
the honesty of the men, I give you the opinion of the husband of
Checkered Cloud, who was an excellent Indian. "Every Sioux;" said he,
"will steal if he need, and there be a chance. The best Indian that ever
lived, has stolen. I myself once stole some powder."
I have thus, perhaps tediously, endeavored to show, that what is said in
this work has been learned by intimate association, and that for years,
with the Indian. This association has continued under influences that
secured unreservedly their confidence, friendship--and I may say--truly,
in many instances--their affection. If the perusal of the Legends give
pleasure to my friends--how happy am I! To do more than this I hardly
dare hope.