This is the name of a tribe that formerly occupied, and of course
owned, a vast tract of country lying on the East of the Mississippi,
and between its banks and the Ohio, and now forming a considerable
portion of the great and populous state of Illinois. History furnishes
us a full and extraordinary account of the once warlike character and
numbers of this tribe; and also of the disastrous career that they have
led, from their first acquaintance with civilized neighbours; whose
rapacious avarice in grasping for their fine lands—with the banes of
whiskey and small-pox, added to the unexampled cruelty of neighbouring
hostile tribes, who have struck at them in the days of their adversity,
and helped to erase them from existence.
Perhaps there has been no other tribe on the Continent of equal power
with the Kas-kas-ki-as, that have so suddenly sank down to complete
annihilation and disappeared. The remnant of this tribe have long
since merged into the tribe of Peorias of Illinois; and it is doubtful
whether one dozen of them are now existing. With the very few remnants
of this tribe will die in a few years a beautiful language, entirely
distinct from all others about it, unless some enthusiastic person may
preserve it from the lips of those few who are yet able to speak it. Of
this tribe I painted _Kee-mon-saw_ (the little chief), half-civilized,
and, I should think, half-breed (+plate+ 191); and _Wah-pe-seh-see_
(+plate+ 192), a very aged woman, mother of the same.
This young man is chief of the tribe; and I was told by one of the
Traders, that his mother and his son, were his only subjects! Whether
this be true or not, I cannot positively say, though I can assert with
safety that there are but a very few of them left, and that those,
like all of the last of tribes, will soon die of dissipation or broken
hearts.
[Illustration: 189 190]
[Illustration: 191 192]
[Illustration: 193 194]
[Illustration: 195 196]