DAYS IN CAMP
The heavy snow that came on the night that Fort Pitt fell soon melted
and the glory of the North-west spring covered the land. How we joyed
in those bright warm days, so full of light and promise if only this
dreadful time should pass! The yellow grass of the old year, turning
so quickly that one could almost see the change to brilliant green;
the murmur of the creeks; the boom of rending ice; the straining of
the buds in their sheaths; the twitter of the birds; the hum of insect
life—all helped us to shake off the depression that had well-nigh
overwhelmed us and to take a fresh interest in existence. Our captors,
too, began to look with more friendly eyes upon us and our danger
seemed to grow less. We obtained more freedom and wandered farther from
the lodges. Came a day when guns were even loaned to Stanley Simpson
and myself and we made occasional short hunting excursions in the
afternoons with some of the Indians.
Shortly after the Indians returned from Pitt, camp was moved two miles
to a position commanding from flanking hills a view of the surrounding
country, the camp itself being hidden by belts of spruce.
An ambitious youth named The Wolf had contrived a buckboard out of two
pairs of horse-rake wheels, the property of the Indian department,
connected by a platform of boards nailed securely to the front and
rear axles, on which he had mounted a soap-box seat. The maiden cruise
of this ship of the wilderness for ever blasted the aspirations
of the designer to the rôle of a master of the carriage-builder’s
craft. Such a thing as a straight trail was unknown in the Frog Lake
region, and with its rigid axles his carriage would move in only two
directions—straight ahead or straight back. The Wolf’s first attempt
to follow the trail furnished his friends much hilarity. His buckboard
persisted in laying out a trail of its own, and when he swung his pony
to the right the vehicle turned over on his head. The pony bolted.
Later The Wolf recovered the pony and the shafts. He had spent a whole
week making his buckboard and got just five minutes’ utility out of it.
Our new camp was near Frog Lake. Huge blocks of crumbling ice from the
lake were running in its channel and the Indians told us the stream was
full of pike. Stanley Simpson and I got permission to go fishing. We
drove down with Louis Patenaude to the ruins of the settlement.
It was a month after the massacre and I had not visited the spot
since that terrible day in the beginning of April. And what a change
presented itself to me! Where was all the quiet, home-like charm
of that beautiful landscape? There were the charred ruins of the
buildings. Before what had been Delaney’s house lay the head of poor
Tom Quinn’s little brown-and-white cocker, the dog he had been at such
pains to train and whose clever tricks were his pride and delight.
Death and desolation now. That was all.
Among the ashes of the stables we found the iron parts of some
pitchforks and turned back to camp. Patenaude followed the trail down
which Dill, my former partner, and Gilchrist had been chased and
overhauled by the Indians on that fatal day, and in a slight hollow
rimmed by wooded hills, lying in the middle of the trail, where he
had been shot down beside his master, we came across Gilchrist’s
black-and-white dog. Off to the right in the grass beside the trees lay
the bodies of the two men, left unburied by command of the Indians.
Louis had pulled up close to them. It was a horrible sight. I held my
breath. “For heaven’s sake, Louis, drive on!” I muttered.
At the camp Simpson and I fixed poles in the pitchfork irons and went
to the creek to spear fish. Discarding our shoes, trousers rolled
above our knees, we tramped up and down in the icy water. The shallows
swarmed pike. We drove them into corners, caught them on the forks and
tossed them on the bank. Within an hour we had forty and returned to
camp. Supper that night was a feast. While the pike is supposed to be
somewhat flavourless, the change from a steady diet of beef was most
agreeable. Louis had secured tea, sugar, rice and flour at Pitt and his
wife made excellent bread.
Let me attempt the difficult task of describing the Cree Grass or War
Dance as I saw it day after day in Big Bear’s camp:
On a fine afternoon, Kahneepotaytayo, the head dancer or whipper-in,
made the round of the lodges to summon the warriors to the dancing
or soldiers’ lodge, erected in each camp of three or four ordinary
ones commandeered from their owners. The families so signalized for
attention were presumed to regard the deprivation as an honour and
sought shelter under their carts or in some adjacent bluff of poplar.
Kahneepotaytayo is decked in all his finery. His limbs are bare but
for the bands of fur about knees and elbows and streaked with white
mud. Broad bracelets of shining brass encircle his wrists. A crossbelt
of bells hangs upon one shoulder and across his chest and smaller
strings about his ankles jingle melodiously as he walks. He wears
beaded moccasins and about his hips and the upper parts of his muscular
thighs is fixed his fancy breechcloth. The royal skin of a silver fox
trails down his back. His eyes form the centre of stars from which
radiate shafts of black and yellow paint. Sable bars alternate with
the vermilion on his bronze cheeks, while from his mouth to his throat
is perfect blackness. A bunch of jet-tipped eagle plumes bristles from
behind his blue-black plaited hair. His hand grasps a staff, to one end
of which is bound with beaded red cloth a sword and to the other more
feathers. So much of the blade is covered that only a foot of it is
visible.
The drum begins its swelling beat and the dancers assemble. They seat
themselves in a circle inside the great dancing lodge, one end of which
is open. The drum looks like a large wooden grain-measure, the ends
covered with parchment painted half black, half red. Around it sit the
six drummers, beating a steady even beat and chanting the war song.
Their faces wear a look of expectancy—the ceremony of Spearing the
White Dog’s Head is about to begin.
Kahneepotaytayo and his understudy are seated a little apart. As the
chant commences he rises and walks toward the centre of the circle. The
women appear carrying the huge copper pot in which the dog strangled
for the occasion is still simmering. They set it down beside the
centre-pole and retire, for none but warriors may dance in the Grass
Dance.
Kahneepotaytayo kneels before the kettle, his understudy beside him.
The chant is a weird and slow one. The palms of the chief actors
are outspread on the hard smooth earth, their bodies thrown forward
on them, their staffs planted in front. The chant rises, and to the
rhythmic beat of the drum falls gradually until the lowest strain, a
deep bass, is reached and dwelt upon. Thence it jumps abruptly to the
shrill beginning, and again it falls, gradually, to the bass. Again it
jumps to the treble, to sink once more—and again.
See the painted and befeathered Kahneepotaytayo! His lithe figure
begins to sway, back and forth from side to side in time with the chant
and his palms to rub lightly the damp bare soil. He raises and brushes
them softly together, muttering some incantation—for it is a religious
ceremony—then drops and moves them over the earth again. The chant
grows faster, changing to the Horse Song; he springs suddenly to his
feet and begins to dance. His eyes flash. The thews and sinews of his
limbs and chest stand out like ropes or roll and ripple beneath the
smooth coppery skin like the coils of a moving snake.
He circles about the White Dog’s Head as though it were an enemy ready
to strike should he approach too near—darts away with a shrill war-cry,
crouching along the ground, all the while keeping step to the measured
_pom! pom! pom! pom!_ of the big drum and the wild plaintive voices
of the drummers. His body leans and sways, pitches and glides, as he
draws nearer to the kettle, with all the grace and agility of a panther
stealing upon its prey. His companion is close behind, his shadow in
the flesh, doubling his every motion. Sweat pours from their dark satin
skins and glistens on their naked painted limbs and chests and faces.
The eagle plumes on Kahneepotaytayo’s head toss with the twistings of
his body. His eyes glow fiercely in the warm light. His face is set and
drawn.
He creeps nearer the kettle. He lifts his spear, and with a swift
bound launches it at the head of the White Dog. The drum stops. He
draws himself up, places his fingers over his lips and a long piercing
staccato yell echoes through the camp. It is the _coup_—the death. He
raises the kettle and carries it three times round in a circle. A roar
of applause comes from the seated warriors and a volley rolls from the
big drum. Then he walks over, takes Wandering Spirit by the wrist and
conducts him to a seat upon a blanket set apart for the councillors and
goes back for Four-Sky Thunder, Little Poplar and Nopahchass. These
are first served from the kettle; afterward it is passed to the other
dancers and all give their attention to the feast—the food of warriors.
The feasting over, dancing, in which all now join, is resumed. The
drummers again start the Horse Song, echoing the steps of a horse at
a smart trot. Kahneepotaytayo springs to his feet; he dances round
the circle before the other dancers, spurring them with guttural
cries of “_Hy-aw-aw!_” afoot, holding the whip he has exchanged for
his sword threateningly over their heads. They rise as he passes and
soon all are moving in a bewildering maze, shuffling along the ground
bent double, turning suddenly as though attacked from behind, shouting
shrill war-cries and otherwise imitating their old habits and practices
in time of war. Abruptly the drum stops and they walk back to their
places to rest. When held at night the weird effect of the dance was
heightened.
Wandering Spirit was always conspicuous in the Grass Dance. Between the
intervals of dancing it is customary for the distinguished warriors to
“count their _coups_”—to tell off the scalps they have taken and the
horses they have stolen from the enemy.
One fine afternoon shortly after Fort Pitt, I listened to the war
chief count his _coups_. It was in one of the intervals of rest. With
a motion of his hand, he started the drummers. Leaping to his feet, he
danced toward the drum, rifle in hand, crouching and wheeling, much as
Kahneepotaytayo had done in spearing the Dog’s Head. Brilliant paints
covered his face and the plaits of his curling black hair were bound
with strips of otter fur. He looked ferocious as he danced stealthily
toward the booming drum, swinging his rifle now here, now there,
retreating and advancing again.
A small willow stick lay beside the drum. Presently he picked this
up, crouched nearer and nearer and at length tossed it with a war
whoop among the sticks of the drummers. The drumming ceased and the
war chief drew himself up and began to speak. He numbered off the
Blackfoot—eleven, I think—he had slain, pointing with his rifle in the
direction of each successive exploit.
“And then,” he concluded, “there were another and another.” (No names
were mentioned, but he referred I knew to Indian Agent Quinn and Father
Fafard.) “_How! Aywaik! Ahnis, N’keesaynewin!_ (So! That’s something!
I’m getting old, you see!)” he added with a laugh.
The dancing lodge is also the soldiers’ lodge. The war chief was head
soldier, or commander, and his followers the soldiers. Such laws
as were ordained for the regulation of the camp were enforced by
the soldiers’ lodge. Occasionally it became necessary to discipline
refractory members of the band.
One afternoon I was standing near the soldiers’ lodge, watching the
dance, when Oskatask, a Big Bear Indian, came down the trail close
by. At a word from the war chief, Kahneepotaytayo and his assistant,
knives in their hands, jumped to their feet, ran out, caught Oskatask
by either arm and marched him into the dancing lodge. He was much
older, bigger and more powerful than either of the young bucks, but
beyond a sullen protest he made no show of insubordination. He stood
expostulating before the war chief, but his harangue had no effect upon
Wandering Spirit. He sat with the face of a sphinx and heard him to the
end, while the young men stood with a hand on either shoulder of the
speaker, their long naked blades in their other hands. Then Wandering
Spirit gestured, and they turned and with the knives sliced the blanket
coat of the prisoner to ribbons.
Oskatask stood as if carved in stone. Had he stirred his flesh also
would have been in ribbons. They released him then and he stalked away,
his face black with smothered fury.
He had killed cattle belonging to another Indian. This was his
punishment.
On another afternoon some time later the soldiers gave the camp a
general shaking-up.
Some of the warriors, apparently tired of the endless dancing, had
disregarded the formal summons to the dancing lodge. I was standing
before Patenaude’s tent. I heard a chorus of yells and looking up saw
the soldiers coming on the run around the wide circle enclosed by the
camp. They carried knives and axes. They stopped before a lodge, and
in a moment slashed it to shreds, while the inmates sat cowed and in
no little danger as their habitation fell about their ears. Then the
soldiers snatched furs and blankets from about their trembling owners
and cut or tore them to bits in their teeth as they ran on to the next
lodge singled out for discipline. In this way they destroyed in a few
minutes no less than ten lodges, but the attendance at the dances was
for some time materially improved. The soldiers stayed in the dancing
lodge all night and took turns in acting as guards to the camp, to
prevent the escape of white prisoners and anticipate surprise by troops.
When word was given to strike camp and march, a fair interval was
allowed for compliance with the order. Then, Wandering Spirit leading,
the soldiers marched around the camp and assisted the tardy ones to
take down their lodges. This they did by lifting the lodge bodily from
over the heads of its inmates and laying it flat on the ground some
distance away.
At length the carts are packed and the caravan moves. One by one the
carts fall into line, sending up a creaking chorus from the wooden
axles audible miles away on the prairie, until all have left camp.
Up and down the long train ride the chiefs and headmen, waking the
laggards and preserving order. Here rides Wandering Spirit on a tall
gaunt grey mare taken from the Indian department at Onion Lake, her
flanks plentifully striped with white mud and her foretop and tail
ornamented with tufts of feathers. The war chief wears his lynx-skin
cap, a whole skin, head fixed to tail, open at the top, making a huge
double loop of long grey fur. The five eagle plumes, for each of which
he boasts he means to have a white man’s scalp, float above the cap.
Thrown loosely about his shoulders is his long blue-and-white blanket
coat. Green cloth leggings cover his legs and beaded moccasins his
feet. His sheath knife shows in his belt of yellow cartridges. His
right hand holds lightly the slack bridle-rein and in the crook of his
left arm rests his Winchester—the rifle commandeered from Henry Quinn
at Pitt.
Young bucks, two on a pony, dash in and out through the line, followed
by the imprecations of old wrinkled women, toiling painfully along with
bent shoulders, dragging by cords dejected-looking curs which are also
beasts of burden and pull travoys. Some are hunting ducks and rabbits
among the numerous bluffs and lakes along the route. Seated in the
carts on rolls of bedding, tepees, lodge poles, boxes and provisions
are the squaws, and papooses embracing the inevitable family puppies.
Here goes another old woman, leading a pony with a travoy—a contrivance
formed of two poles lashed together near their tops, the angle thus
engineered resting across the pony’s back, the butts dragging on the
ground in the rear. Behind the horse and a couple of feet from the
earth the load is fixed—blackened kettles and pans, with perhaps an
infant in a mossbag filling the biggest of the kettles. Here a young
and pretty squaw perches above the travoy, astride the pony’s back.
Or perhaps her feet are crossed on the ample seat like a Turk’s. The
half-naked boys are scattered along the train, yelling and shooting
arrows to keep the loose animals up and the caravan in motion.
Now a cart collapses and the line comes together like an accordion. An
old woman ties her dog by the leading cord to the wheel of the cart
in front and shambles off to a seat under a bluff to rest and smoke.
Presently the line starts again. The ancient crone tumbles forward
shrilling “_Tesqua!—tesqua!_” at the top of her cracked old voice. Her
dog is being hanged on his leading line by the great revolving wooden
wheel. But suddenly the rotten cord breaks and he comes down with
a clatter among his load of kettles and pans and howling terrified
infant. The long train stretches out once more like an uncoiling snake.
Everywhere there is a glint of gun barrels, a reckless galloping to
and fro, a lowing of cattle, a waving of blankets, shouts, dust and
confusion.
A halt is made at noon, the kettle is boiled for tea and the animals
are loosed to feed on the rich grass. Then the march is resumed and
goes on till evening. The lodges are pitched in a great circle, each
with its camp fire, and the dancing lodge near the centre. Night and
darkness fall, but not silence. The drum booms from the red walls of
the dancing lodge, the sneaking dogs snarl and scuffle over the scraps
tossed from the tents, perhaps a shot goes off by accident sending
a hard chilling note through the camp’s drowsing voices. Four-Sky
Thunder, painkiller drugged, trolls tipsily in a near-by lodge. From
another the sound of a gambling song rises. The half-Blackfoot chief
stalks through the camp, crying his dolorous wailing chant because
there is bad blood between the bands. He is trying to exorcise the
devils that have caused it.
Wearied, I at length drop into a troubled sleep. But suddenly I find
myself bolt upright on my blanket. My heart is beating not at all. But
presently it starts again, very slowly, the halted blood resumes its
flow and I fall back and close my eyes once more. A horse has stumbled
against the taut guy-ropes of the lodge, that is all, and they snap
like whips in my startled ear. But it might have been a painted man,
entering stealthily with a knife in his teeth and murder in his heart.