Thirty-five miles before arriving at Bent's Fort, at which point the
Old Trail crossed the Arkansas, the valley widens and the prairie falls
toward the river in gentle undulations. There for many years the
three friendly tribes of plains Indians--Cheyennes, Arapahoes, and
Kiowas--established their winter villages, in order to avail themselves
of the supply of wood, to trade with the whites, and to feed their herds
of ponies on the small limbs and bark of the cottonwood trees growing
along the margin of the stream for four or five miles. It was called Big
Timbers, and was one of the most eligible places to camp on the whole
route after leaving Council Grove. The grass, particularly on the south
side of the river, was excellent; there was an endless supply of fuel,
and cool water without stint.
In the severe winters that sometimes were fruitful of blinding
blizzards, sweeping from the north in an intensity of fury that was
almost inconceivable, the buffalo too congregated there for shelter, and
to browse on the twigs of the great trees.
The once famous grove, though denuded of much of its timber, may still
be seen from the car windows as the trains hurry mountainward.
Garrard, in his _Taos Trail_, presents an interesting and amusing
account of a visit to the Cheyenne village with old John Smith, in 1847,
when the Santa Fe trade was at its height, and that with the various
tribes of savages in its golden days.
Toward the middle of the day, the village was in a great
bustle. Every squaw, child, and man had their faces
blackened--a manifestation of joy.[44]
Pell-mell they went--men, squaws, and dogs--into the icy
river. Some hastily jerked off their leggings, and held
moccasins and dresses high out of the water. Others, too
impatient, dashed the stream from beneath their impetuous
feet, scarce taking time to draw more closely the always
worn robe. Wondering what caused all this commotion, and
looking over the river, whither the yelling, half-frantic
savages were so speedily hurrying, we saw a band of Indians
advancing toward us. As the foremost braves reined their
champing barbs on the river-bank, mingled whoops of triumph
and delight and the repeated discharge of guns filled
the air. In the hands of three were slender willow wands,
from the smaller points of which dangled as many scalps--
the single tuft of hair on each pronouncing them Pawnees.[45]
These were raised aloft, amid unrestrained bursts of joy
from the thrice-happy, blood-thirsty throng. Children ran
to meet their fathers, sisters their brothers, girls their
lovers, returning from the scene of victorious strife;
decrepit matrons welcomed manly sons; and aged chiefs their
boys and braves. It was a scene of affection, and a proud
day in the Cheyenne annals of prowess. That small but
gallant band were relieved of their shields and lances by
tender-hearted squaws, and accompanied to their respective
homes, to repose by the lodge-fire, consume choice meat,
and to be the heroes of the family circle.
The drum at night sent forth its monotony of hollow sound,
and my Mexican Pedro and I, directed by the booming,
entered a lodge, vacated for the purpose, full of young men
and squaws, following one another in a continuous circle,
keeping the left knee stiff and bending the right with a
half-forward, half-backward step, as if they wanted to go on
and could not, accompanying it, every time the right foot
was raised, with an energetic, broken song, which, dying
away, was again and again sounded--"hay-a, hay-a, hay-a,"
they went, laying the emphasis on the first syllable.
A drum, similar to, though larger than a tambourine, covered
with parfleche,[46] was beaten upon with a stick, producing
with the voices a sound not altogether disagreeable.
Throughout the entire night and succeeding day the voices
of the singers and heavy notes of the drum reached us,
and at night again the same dull sound lulled me to sleep.
Before daylight our lodge was filled with careless dancers,
and the drum and voices, so unpleasing to our wearied ears,
were giving us the full benefit of their compass. Smith,
whose policy it was not to be offended, bore the infliction
as best he could, and I looked on much amused. The lodge
was so full that they stood without dancing, in a circle
round the fire, and with a swaying motion of the body
kept time to their music.
During the day the young men, except the dancers, piled up
dry logs in a level open space near, for a grand demonstration.
At night, when it was fired, I folded my blanket over my
shoulders, comme les sauvages, and went out. The faces
of many girls were brilliant with vermilion; others were
blacked, their robes, leggings, and skin dresses glittering
with beads and quill-work. Rings and bracelets of shining
brass encircled their taper arms and fingers, and shells
dangled from their ears. Indeed, all the finery collectable
was piled on in barbarous profusion, though a few, in good
taste through poverty, wore a single band and but few rings,
with jetty hair parted in the middle, from the forehead
to the neck, terminating in two handsome braids.
The young men who can afford the expense trade for dollars
and silver coin of less denomination--coin as a currency
is not known among them--which they flatten thin, and fasten
to a braid of buffalo hair, attached to the crown lock,
which hangs behind, outside of the robe, and adds much to
the handsome appearance of the wearer.
The girls, numbering two hundred, fell into line together,
and the men, of whom there were two hundred and fifty,
joining, a circle was formed, which travelled around with
the same shuffling step already described. The drummers
and other musicians--twenty or twenty-five of them--marched
in a contrary direction to and from and around the fire,
inside the large ring; for at the distance kept by the
outsiders the area was one hundred and fifty feet in diameter.
The Apollonian emulators chanted the great deeds performed
by the Cheyenne warriors. As they ended, the dying strain
was caught up by the hundreds of the outside circle, who,
in fast-swelling, loud tones, poured out the burden of
their song. At this juncture the march was quickened,
the scalps of the slain were borne aloft and shaken with
wild delight, and shrill war-notes, rising above the
furious din, accelerated the pulsation and strung high
the nerves. Time-worn shields, careering in mad holders'
hands, clashed; and keen lances, once reeking in Pawnee
blood, clanged. Braves seized one another with an iron
grip, in the heat of excitement, or chimed more tenderly
in the chant, enveloped in the same robe with some maiden
as they approvingly stepped through one of their own
original polkas.
Thirty of the chiefs and principal men were ranged by the
pile of blazing logs. By their invitation, I sat down with
them and smoked death and its concomitant train of evils to
those audacious tribes who doubt the courage or supremacy
of the brave, the great and powerful, Cheyenne nation.
It is Indian etiquette that the first lodge a stranger enters on
visiting a village is his home as long as he remains the guest of the
tribe. It is all the same whether he be invited or not. Upon going in,
it is customary to place all your traps in the back part, which is the
most honoured spot. The proprietor always occupies that part of his
home, but invariably gives it up to a guest. With the Cheyennes, the
white man, when the tribe was at peace with him, was ever welcome, as
in the early days of the border he generally had a supply of coffee, of
which the savage is particularly fond--Mok-ta-bo-mah-pe, as they call
it. Their salutation to the stranger coming into the presence of the
owner of a lodge is "Hook-ah-hay! Num-whit,"--"How do you do? Stay with
us." Water is then handed by a squaw, as it is supposed a traveller is
thirsty after riding; then meat, for he must be hungry, too. A pipe is
offered, and conversation follows.
The lodge of the Cheyennes is formed of seventeen poles, about three
inches thick at the end which rests on the ground, slender in shape,
tapering symmetrically, and eighteen feet or more in length. They are
tied together at the small ends with buffalo-hide, then raised until
the frame resembles a cone, over which buffalo-skins are placed, very
skilfully fitted and made soft by having been dubbed by the women--that
is, scraped to the requisite thinness, and made supple by rubbing with
the brains of the animal that wore it. They are sewed together with
sinews of the buffalo, generally of the long and powerful muscle that
holds up the ponderous head of the shaggy beast, a narrow strip running
towards the bump. In summer the lower edges of the skin are rolled up,
and the wind blowing through, it is a cool, shady retreat. In winter
everything is closed, and I know of no more comfortable place than a
well-made Indian lodge. The army tent known as the Sibley is modelled
after it, and is the best winter shelter for troops in the field that
can be made. Many times while the military post where I had been ordered
was in process of building, I have chosen the Sibley tent in preference
to any other domicile.
When a village is to be moved, it is an interesting sight. The young and
unfledged boys drive up the herd of ponies, and then the squaws catch
them. The women, too, take down the lodges, and, tying the poles in two
bundles, fasten them on each side of an animal, the long ends dragging
on the ground. Just behind the pony or mule, as the case may be, a
basket is placed and held there by buffalo-hide thongs, and into these
novel carriages the little children are put, besides such traps as are
not easily packed on the animal's back.
The women do all the work both in camp and when moving. They are doomed
to a hopeless bondage of slavery, the fate of their sex in every savage
race; but they accept their condition stoically, and there is as much
affection among them for their husbands and children as I have ever
witnessed among the white race. Here are two instances of their
devotion, both of which came under my personal observation, and I could
give hundreds of others.
Late in the fall of 1858, I was one of a party on the trail of a band of
Indians who had been committing some horrible murders in a mining-camp
in the northern portion of Washington Territory. On the fourth day out,
just about dusk, we struck their moccasin tracks, which we followed all
night, and surprised their camp in the gray light of the early morning.
In less than ten minutes the fight was over, and besides the killed we
captured six prisoners. Then as the rising sun commenced to gild the
peaks of the lofty range on the west, having granted our captives half
an hour to take leave of their families, the ankles of each were bound;
they were made to kneel on the prairie, a squad of soldiers, with loaded
rifles, were drawn up eight paces in front of them, and at the instant
the signal--a white handkerchief--was dropped the savages tumbled over
on the sod a heap of corpses. The parting between the condemned men and
their young wives and children, I shall never forget. It was the
most perfect exhibition of marital and filial love that I have ever
witnessed. Such harsh measures may seem cruel and heartless in the
light of to-day, but there was none other than martial law then in the
wilderness of the Northern Pacific coast, and the execution was a stern
necessity.
The other instance was ten years later. During the Indian campaign in
the winter of 1868-69 I was riding with a party of officers and enlisted
men, south of the Arkansas, about fourty miles from Fort Dodge. We were
watching some cavalrymen unearth three or four dead warriors who had
been killed by two scouts in a fierce unequal fight a few weeks before,
and as we rode into a small ravine among the sand hills, we suddenly
came upon a rudely constructed Cheyenne lodge. Entering, we discovered
on a rough platform, fashioned of green poles, a dead warrior in full
war-dress; his shield of buffalo-hide, pipe ornamented with eagles'
feathers, and medicine bag, were lying on the ground beside him. At his
head, on her knees, with hands clasped in the attitude of prayer, was a
squaw frozen to death. Which had first succumbed, the wounded chief, or
the devoted wife in the awful cold of that winter prairie, will never be
known, but it proved her love for the man who had perhaps beaten her a
hundred times. Such tender and sympathetic affection is characteristic
of the sex everywhere, no less with the poor savage than in the dominant
white race.
To return to our description of the average Indian village: Each lodge
at the grand encampment of Big Timbers in the era of traffic with the
nomads of the great plains, owned its separate herd of ponies and mules.
In the exodus to some other favoured spot, two dozen or more of these
individual herds travelled close to each other but never mixed, each
drove devotedly following its bell-mare, as in a pack-train. This useful
animal is generally the most worthless and wicked beast in the entire
outfit.
The animals with the lodge-pole carriages go as they please, no special
care being taken to guide them, but they too instinctively keep
within sound of the leader. I will again quote Garrard for an accurate
description of the moving camp when he was with the Cheyennes in 1847:--
The young squaws take much care of their dress and horse
equipments; they dash furiously past on wild steeds,
astride of the high-pommelled saddles. A fancifully
coloured cover, worked with beads or porcupine quills,
making a flashy, striking appearance, extended from withers
to rump of the horse, while the riders evinced an admirable
daring, worthy of Amazons. Their dresses were made of
buckskin, high at the neck, with short sleeves, or rather
none at all, fitting loosely, and reaching obliquely to
the knee, giving a Diana look to the costume; the edges
scalloped, worked with beads, and fringed. From the knee
downward the limb was encased in a tightly fitting legging,
terminating in a neat moccasin--both handsomely wrought
with beads. On the arms were bracelets of brass, which
glittered and reflected in the radiant morning sun, adding
much to their attractions. In their pierced ears, shells
from the Pacific shore were pendent; and to complete the
picture of savage taste and profusion, their fine
complexions were eclipsed by a coat of flaming vermilion.
Many of the largest dogs were packed with a small quantity
of meat, or something not easily injured. They looked
queerly, trotting industriously under their burdens; and,
judging from a small stock of canine physiological
information, not a little of the wolf was in their
composition.
We crossed the river on our way to the new camp. The alarm
manifested by the children in the lodge-pole drays, as they
dipped in the water, was amusing. The little fellows,
holding their breath, not daring to cry, looked imploringly
at their inexorable mothers, and were encouraged by words
of approbation from their stern fathers.
After a ride of two hours we stopped, and the chiefs,
fastening their horses, collected in circles to smoke their
pipe and talk, letting their squaws unpack the animals,
pitch the lodges, build the fires, and arrange the robes.
When all was ready, these lords of creation dispersed to
their several homes, to wait until their patient and
enduring spouses prepared some food. I was provoked, nay,
angry, to see the lazy, overgrown men do nothing to help
their wives; and when the young women pulled off their
bracelets and finery to chop wood, the cup of my wrath was
full to overflowing, and, in a fit of honest indignation,
I pronounced them ungallant and savage in the true sense
of the word.
The treatment of Indian children, particularly boys, is something
startling to the gentle sentiments of refined white mothers. The girls
receive hardly any attention from their fathers. Implicit obedience is
the watchword of the lodge with them, and they are constantly taught
to appreciate their inferiority of sex. The daughter is a mere slave;
unnoticed and neglected--a mere hewer of wood and drawer of water. With
a son, it is entirely different; the father from his birth dotes on him
and manifests his affection in the most demonstrative manner.
Garrard tells of two instances that came under his observation while
staying at the chief's lodge, and at John Smith's, in the Cheyenne
village, of the discipline to which the boys are subjected.
In Vi-po-nah's lodge was his grandson, a boy six or seven
months old. Every morning his mother washed him in cold
water, and set him out in the air to make him hardy;
he would come in, perfectly nude, from his airing, about
half-frozen. How he would laugh and brighten up, as he felt
the warmth of the fire!
Smith's son Jack took a crying fit one cold night, much to
the annoyance of four or five chiefs, who had come to our
lodge to talk and smoke. In vain did the mother shake and
scold him with the severest Cheyenne words, until Smith,
provoked beyond endurance, took the squalling youngster in
his hands; he shu-ed and shouted and swore, but Jack had
gone too far to be easily pacified. He then sent for a
bucket of water from the river and poured cupful after
cupful on Jack, who stamped and screamed and bit in his
tiny rage. Notwithstanding, the icy stream slowly descended
until the bucket was emptied, another was sent for, and
again and again the cup was replenished and emptied on the
blubbering youth. At last, exhausted with exertion and
completely cooled down, he received the remaining water
in silence, and, with a few words of admonition, was
delivered over to his mother, in whose arms he stifled his
sobs, until his heartbreaking grief and cares were drowned
in sleep. What a devilish mixture Indian and American
blood is!
The Indians never chastise a boy, as they think his spirit would be
broken and cowed down; instead of a warrior he would be a squaw--a
harsh epithet indicative of cowardice--and they resort to any method but
infliction of blows to subdue a refractory scion.
Before most of the lodges is a tripod of three sticks, about seven feet
in length and an inch in diameter, fastened at the top, and the lower
ends brought out, so that it stands alone. On this is hung the
shield and a small square bag of parfleche, containing pipes, with an
accompanying pendent roll of stems, carefully wrapped in blue or red
cloth, and decorated with beads and porcupine quills. This collection is
held in great veneration, for the pipe is their only religion. Through
its agency they invoke the Great Spirit; through it they render homage
to the winds, to the earth, and to the sky.
Every one has his peculiar notion on this subject; and, in passing the
pipe, one must have it presented stem downward, another the reverse;
some with the bowl resting on the ground; and as this is a matter
of great solemnity, their several fancies are respected. Sometimes I
required them to hand it to me, when smoking, in imitation of their
custom; on this, a faint smile, half mingled with respect and pity for
my folly in tampering with their sacred ceremony, would appear on their
faces, and with a slow negative shake of the head, they would ejaculate,
"I-sto-met-mah-son-ne-wah-hein"--"Pshaw! that's foolish; don't do so."
Religion the Cheyennes have none, if, indeed, we except the respect paid
to the pipe; nor do we see any sign or vestige of spiritual worship;
except one remarkable thing--in offering the pipe, before every fresh
filling, to the sky, the earth, and the winds, the motion made in so
doing describes the form of a cross; and, in blowing the first four
whiffs, the smoke is invariably sent in the same four directions. It is
undoubtedly void of meaning in reference to Christian worship, yet it is
a superstition, founded on ancient tradition. This tribe once lived
near the head waters of the Mississippi; and, as the early Jesuit
missionaries were energetic zealots, in the diffusion of their religious
sentiments, probably to make their faith more acceptable to the Indians,
the Roman Catholic rites were blended with the homage shown to the pipe,
which custom of offering, in the form of a cross, is still retained by
them; but as every custom is handed down by tradition merely, the true
source has been forgotten.
In every tribe in whose country I have been stationed, which comprises
nearly all the continent excepting the extreme southwestern portion,
his pipe is the Indian's constant companion through life. It is his
messenger of peace; he pledges his friends through its stem and its
bowl, and when he is dead, it has a place in his solitary grave, with
his war-club and arrows--companions on his journey to his long-fancied
beautiful hunting-grounds. The pipe of peace is a sacred thing; so held
by all Indian nations, and kept in possession of chiefs, to be smoked
only at times of peacemaking. When the terms of treaty have been agreed
upon, this sacred emblem, the stem of which is ornamented with eagle's
quills, is brought forward, and the solemn pledge to keep the peace is
passed through the sacred stem by each chief and warrior drawing the
smoke once through it. After the ceremony is over, the warriors of the
two tribes unite in the dance, with the pipe of peace held in the left
hand of the chief and in his other a rattle.
Thousands of years ago, the primitive savage of the American continent
carried masses of pipe-stone from the sacred quarry in Minnesota across
the vast wilderness of plains, to trade with the people of the far
Southwest, over the same route that long afterward became the Santa Fe
Trail; therefore, it will be consistent with the character of this work
to relate the history of the quarry from which all the tribes procured
their material for fashioning their pipes, and the curious legends
connected with it. I have met with the red sandstone pipes on the
remotest portions of the Pacific coast, and east, west, north and south,
in every tribe that it has been my fortune to know.
The word "Dakotah" means allied or confederated, and is the family
name now comprising some thirty bands, numbering about thirty thousand
Indians. They are generally designated Sioux, but that title is seldom
willingly acknowledged by them. It was first given to them by the
French, though its original interpretation is by no means clear. The
accepted theory, because it is the most plausible, is that it is a
corruption or rather an abbreviation of "Nadouessioux," a Chippewa word
for enemies.
Many of the Sioux are semi-civilized; some are "blanket-Indians," so
called, but there are no longer any murderous or predatory bands, and
all save a few stragglers are on the reservations. From 1812 to 1876,
more than half a century, they were the scourge of the West and the
Northwest, but another outbreak is highly improbable. They once
occupied the vast region included between the Mississippi and the Rocky
Mountains, and were always migratory in their methods of living. Over
fifty years ago, when the whites first became acquainted with them, they
were divided into nearly fifty bands of families, each with its
separate chief, but all acknowledging a superior chief to whom they were
subordinate. They were at that time the happiest and most wealthy tribe
on the continent, regarded from an Indian standpoint; but then the great
plains were stocked with buffalo and wild horses, and that fact alone
warrants the assertion of contentment and riches. No finer-looking tribe
existed; they could then muster more than ten thousand warriors,
every one of whom would measure six feet, and all their movements were
graceful and elastic.
According to their legends, they came from the Pacific and encountered
the Algonquins about the head waters of the Mississippi, where they
were held in check, a portion of them, however, pushing on through
their enemies and securing a foothold on the shores of Lake
Michigan. This bold band was called by the Chippewas Winnebagook
(men-from-the-salt-water). In their original habitat on the great
northern plains was located the celebrated "red pipe-stone quarry," a
relatively limited area, owned by all tribes, but occupied permanently
by none; a purely neutral ground--so designated by the Great
Spirit--where no war could possibly occur, and where mortal enemies
might meet to procure the material for their pipes, but the hatchet was
invariably buried during that time on the consecrated spot.
The quarry has long since passed out of the control and jurisdiction
of the Indians and is not included in any of their reservations, though
near the Sisseton agency. It is located on the summit of the high divide
between the Missouri and St. Peter's rivers in Minnesota, at a point not
far from where the ninety-seventh meridian of longitude (from Greenwich)
intersects the forty-fifth parallel of latitude. The divide was named
by the French Coteau des Prairies, and the quarry is near its southern
extremity. Not a tree or bush could be seen from the majestic mound
when I last was there, some twenty years ago--nothing but the apparently
interminable plains, until they were lost in the deep blue of the
horizon.
The luxury of smoking appears to have been known to all the tribes on
the continent in their primitive state, and they indulge in the habit
to excess; any one familiar with their life can assert that the American
savage smokes half of his time. Where so much attention is given to a
mere pleasure, it naturally follows that he would devote his leisure and
ingenuity to the construction of his pipe. The bowls of these were, from
time immemorial, made of the peculiar red stone from the famous quarry
referred to, which, until only a little over fifty years ago, was never
visited by a white man, its sanctity forbidding any such sacrilege.
That the spot should have been visited for untold centuries by all the
Indian nations, who hid their weapons as they approached it, under fear
of the vengeance of the Great Spirit, will not seem strange when the
religion of the race is understood. One of the principal features of the
quarry is a perpendicular wall of granite about thirty feet high, facing
the west, and nearly two miles long. At the base of the wall there is
a level prairie, running parallel to it, half a mile wide. Under this
strip of land, after digging through several slaty layers of rock, the
red sandstone is found. Old graves, fortifications, and excavations
abound, all confirmatory of the traditions clustering around the weird
place.
Within a few rods of the base of the wall is a group of immense gneiss
boulders, five in number, weighing probably many hundred tons each, and
under these are two holes in which two imaginary old women reside--the
guardian spirits of the quarry--who were always consulted before any
pipe-stone could be dug up. The veneration for this group of boulders
was something wonderful; not a spear of grass was broken or bent by his
feet within sixty or seventy paces from them, where the trembling Indian
halted, and throwing gifts to them in humble supplication, solicited
permission to dig and take away the red stone for his pipes.
Near this spot, too, on a high mound, was the "Thunder's nest," where
a very small bird sat upon her eggs during fair weather. When the skies
were rent with thunder at the approach of a storm, she was hatching her
brood, which caused the terrible commotion in the heavens. The bird was
eternal. The "medicine men" claimed that they had often seen her, and
she was about as large as a little finger. Her mate was a serpent whose
fiery tongue destroyed the young ones as soon as they were born, and the
awful noise accompanying the act darted through the clouds.
On the wall of rocks at the quarry are thousands of inscriptions and
paintings, the totems and arms of various tribes who have visited there;
but no idea can be formed of their antiquity.
Of the various traditions of the many tribes, I here present a few. The
Great Spirit at a remote period called all the Indian nations together
at this place, and, standing on the brink of the precipice of red-stone
rock, broke from its walls a piece and fashioned a pipe by simply
turning it in his hands. He then smoked over them to the north, the
south, the east, and the west, and told them the stone was red, that it
was their flesh, that they must use it for their pipes of peace, that
it belonged to all alike, and that the war-club and scalping-knife must
never be raised on its ground. At the last whiff of his pipe his head
went into a great cloud, and the whole surface of the ledge for miles
was melted and glazed; two great ovens were opened beneath, and two
women--the guardian spirits of the place--entered them in a blaze of
fire, and they are heard there yet answering to the conjurations of the
medicine men, who consult them when they visit the sacred place.
The legend of the Knis-te-neu's tribe (Crees), a very small band in the
British possessions, in relation to the quarry is this: In the time of
a great freshet that occurred years ago and destroyed all the nations of
the earth, every tribe of Indians assembled on the top of the Coteau des
Prairies to get out of the way of the rushing and seething waters. When
they had arrived there from all parts of the world, the water continued
to rise until it covered them completely, forming one solid mass of
drowned Indians, and their flesh was converted by the Great Spirit into
red pipe-stone; therefore, it was always considered neutral ground,
belonging to all tribes alike, and all were to make their pipes out of
it and smoke together. While they were drowning together, a young woman,
Kwaptan, a virgin, caught hold of the foot of a very large bird that was
flying over at the time, and was carried to the top of a hill that was
not far away and above the water. There she had twins, their father
being the war-eagle that had carried her off, and her children have
since peopled the earth. The pipe-stone, which is the flesh of their
ancestors, is smoked by them as the symbol of peace, and the eagle
quills decorate the heads of their warriors.
Severed about seven or eight feet from the main wall of the quarry by
some convulsion of nature ages ago, there is an immense column just
equal in height to the wall, seven feet in diameter and beautifully
polished on its top and sides. It is called The Medicine, or Leaping
Rock, and considerable nerve is required to jump on it from the main
ledge and back again. Many an Indian's heart, in the past, has sighed
for the honour of the feat without daring to attempt it. A few,
according to the records of the tribes, have tried it with success, and
left their arrows standing up in its crevice; others have made the leap
and reached its slippery surface only to slide off, and suffer instant
death on the craggy rocks in the awful chasm below. Every young man of
the many tribes was ambitious to perform the feat, and those who had
successfully accomplished it were permitted to boast of it all their
lives.