THE LANCE OF MAHTOTOHPA (1822-1837)
HERO TALES BY FOUR BEARS THE MANDAN
While the United States was getting acquainted with the Western
Indians, there lived among the Mandans in the north a most noted
hero--the chief Mah-to-toh-pa, or Four Bears.
Young Captain Lewis the Long Knife Chief, and stout Captain Clark the
Red Head, who with their exploring party wintered among the Mandans in
1804-1805, and enlisted the Snake Bird-woman as guide, were the first
white men to write a clear account of the curious Mandans; but they did
not tell the half.
For a curious people indeed were these Mandans, dwelling in two
villages on the Missouri River above present Washburn in central North
Dakota.
They were polite, hospitable, and brave. Their towns were defended by
ditches and loose timber palisades, not tight like those of the
Iroquois and Hurons. Their houses were circular; of an earthern floor
sunk two feet, and heavy six-foot logs set on end inside the edge of
it, with a roof of timbers, woven willow, and thick mud-plaster; with a
sunken fire-place under a hole in the center of the roof, and with
bunks, screened by elk-hides or buffalo-robes, along the walls.
These houses were large enough to shelter twenty to forty persons; the
roofs were favorite loafing spots, for men, women, and dogs.
The Mandans formed a happy, talkative people, of strange appearance,
but exceedingly clean, fond of bathing, either in the river or in
wicker tubs. Their hair was heavy, sometimes reached to the ground,
and was black, brown, and frequently gray or pure white even on the
young. Their eyes were likely to be hazel, blue or gray, instead of
black; their skin almost white. They made glassy clay vases and bowls,
and remarkable blue glass beads. In fact, they seemed to have white
manners, white arts, and white blood. Rumor asserted that they were
partly Welsh, descended from the lost colony of the Welsh prince, Madoc.
Now this Madoc, a prince of the early Welsh people, set sail about the
year 1180, with ten ships, to found a colony in a new Western continent
that he claimed to have discovered.
He never was heard from. He and his ten shiploads vanished. But if he
reached North America, and traveled inland, to be swallowed up amidst
the red blood, the strange Mandans may have been the proof of his
arrival.
Their round boats, of bowl-like wicker-work covered with hide, and
their way of dipping the paddle from the front instead of from the
rear, were exactly the Welsh method of canoe travel.
In the days of Mah-to-toh-pa the Mandans numbered two thousand, in two
towns allied with the towns of the Minnetarees. They were beset by the
tough, winter-traveling Assiniboins to the north, and by the
treacherous Arikarees and the bold Sioux to the south. Therefore when
in 1833 the wandering artist George Catlin of Pennsylvania, who spent
eight years painting Indians in their homes all the way from Florida to
the Rocky Mountains, made a long stay among the Mandans, they rejoiced
him by their brave tales as well as with their curious habits.
According to all the reports, the "bravest of the braves" in the Mandan
towns was Mahtotohpa; second chief by rank, but first of all by deeds.
"Free, generous, elegant, and gentlemanly in his deportment--handsome,
brave and valiant," says Artist Catlin. Such words speak well for Four
Bears, but not a bit too well.
Before he arrived at the Artist Catlin lodge to have his portrait
painted, the warning ran ahead of him: "Mahtotohpa is coming in full
dress!" He was escorted by a great throng of admiring women and
children. Now it was twelve o'clock noon, and he had been since early
morning getting ready, so as to appear as befitted a noble chief.
His dress was complete: shirt, leggins, moccasins, head-dress,
necklace, belt, robe, medicine-bag, tobacco sack, pipe, quiver, bow,
knife, lance, shield, tomahawk and war-club. And as he proudly stood
erect, waiting, he made a splendid sight.
His shirt was mountain-sheep skins, one before, one behind, sewed
together at their edges. They were embroidered with porcupine quills
brightly dyed, and fringed with the black scalp-locks of the enemies
whom he had slain in combat, and tasseled with ermine tails. They were
pictured with his deeds, painted in sign language.
The leggins were of finely dressed deer-skin, worked with the porcupine
quills, fringed with the scalp-locks, and fitting tightly from
moccasins to thighs.
The moccasins were of buck-skin, armored with the dyed quills.
The head-dress was a crest of two polished buffalo horns set in a thick
mat of ermine, from which fell clear to his heels a ridgy tail of
countless eagle plumes also set in the ermine fur.
The necklace was of fifty grizzly-bear claws, strung from otter skin.
The belt was of tanned buck-skin, supporting tomahawk and broad-bladed
scalping knife with elk-horn haft.
The robe slung from his shoulders like a Roman toga was the softened
hide of a young buffalo bull worn fur side in; and on the white skin
side all the battles of his life had been painted.
The medicine-bag was a beaver skin, ornamented with hawk-bills and
ermine. He held it in his right hand.
His tobacco sack was of otter skin decorated with porcupine quills. In
it were dried red-willow bark, flint and steel, and tinder.
His pipe was of curiously carved red pipe-stone from the peace quarries
in present Minnesota. The stem was ash, three feet long, wound with
porcupine quills to form pictures of men and animals; decorated with
wood-peckers' skins and heads, and the hair of the white buffalo's
tail. It was half painted red, and notched for the years of his life.
His quiver was of panther skin and filled with arrows, flint pointed
and steel pointed, and some bloody.
His bow was of strips of elk-horn polished white, cemented with glue of
buffalo hoof, and backed with deer sinews to give it spring. Three
months had been required to make it. There was none better.
His lance had a deadly two-edge steel blade, stained with the dried
blood of Sioux and Arikaree and Cheyenne and Assiniboin. The six-foot
ashen shaft was strung with eagle feathers.
His shield was the hide from a buffalo's neck, hardened with hoof glue.
Its center was a pole-cat skin; its edges were fringed with eagle
feathers and antelope hoofs that rattled.
His battle-axe was of hammered iron blade and skull-pecker, with ash
handle four feet long and deer-sinew grip. Eagle feathers and fur
tufts decorated it.
His war-club was a round stone wrapped in raw-hide at the end of a
cow-tail, like a policeman's billy.
After his portrait was painted, Mahtotohpa spread out his wonderful
robe, and told the stories of the twelve battles and the fourteen
scalps pictured on it by his own hand; and these stories included that
of his Arikaree lance, and Cheyenne knife.
The lance story came about in this way. In the shaft of the lance,
near the blade, there had been set an antelope prong; and when
Mahtotohpa posed for his portrait, with the butt of the lance proudly
planted on the ground, he carefully balanced an eagle feather across
this prong.
"Do not omit to paint that feather exactly as it is," he said, "and the
spot of blood upon it. It is great medicine, and belongs to the Great
Spirit, not to me. I pulled it from the wound of an enemy."
"Why do you not tie it to the lance, then?"
"Hush!" rebuked Mahtotohpa. "If the Great Spirit had wished it to be
tied on, it would never have come off."
Whereupon, presently, he told the story of the mighty lance. This had
been the lance of a famous Arikaree warrior, Won-ga-tap. Some years
back, maybe seven or eight, the Mandans and the Arikarees had met on
horses near the Mandan towns, and had fought. The Mandans chased the
Arikarees, but after the chase the brother of Mahtotohpa did not come
in.
Several days passed; and when Mahtotohpa himself found his brother, it
was only the body, scalped and cut and pierced with an arrow, and
fastened through the heart to the prairie by the lance of Won-ga-tap.
Many in the village recognized that as the lance of Won-ga-tap.
Mahtotohpa did not clean it of its blood, but held it aloft before all
the village and swore that he would clean it only with the blood of
Wongatap the Arikaree.
He sent a challenge to the Arikarees; and for four years he waited,
keeping the lance and hoping to use it as he had promised. Finally his
heart had grown so sore that he was bursting; and again holding the
lance up before the village, he made a speech.
"Mahtotohpa is going. Let nobody speak his name, or ask where he is,
or try to seek him. He will return with fresh blood on this lance, or
he will not return at all."
He set out alone, on foot, like Piskaret, the Adirondack, had set out
in his great adventure against the Iroquois. By night journeys he
traveled two hundred miles, living on the parched corn in his pouch,
until he was seven days hungry when at last he came to the Arikaree
town where the lodge of Wongatap was located.
He knew the village well, for there had been brief periods when the
Mandans and the Arikarees were at peace; besides, it was a warrior's
business to know an enemy's lodges.
The Arikaree towns were much the same as the Mandan towns. Now
Mahtotohpa lay outside and watched, until at dusk he might slip through
between the pickets, and seek the lodge of Wongatap. He was enveloped
in a buffalo robe, covering his head, so that he would be taken for an
Arikaree.
He peeped through a crack in the Wongatap lodge and saw that his enemy
was getting ready for bed. There he was, Wongatap himself, sitting
with his wife in the fire-light, and smoking his last pipe. Pretty
soon, as the fire flickered out, he rapped the ashes from his pipe, his
wife raked the coals of the fire together, until morning; and now they
two crawled into their bunk.
Hotly grasping his lance, and surrounded by the enemy, Mahtotohpa
delayed a little space; then he arose and boldly stalked into the lodge
and sat by the fire.
Over the coals was hanging a pot of cooked meat; beside the fire were
the pipe and the pouch of red-willow smoking tobacco, just as left by
Wongatap.
Amidst the dusk Mahtotohpa ate well of the cooked meat; and filling the
pipe, smoked calmly, half lying down, on one elbow.
"Who is that man, who enters our lodge and eats of our food and smokes
of our tobacco?" he heard Wongatap's wife ask.
"It is no matter," Wongatap replied. "If he is hungry, let him eat."
That was right. By Indian law a person in need may enter any lodge,
and eat, and no questions shall be asked until he has finished.
Mahtotohpa's heart almost failed him. Had that not been the killer of
his brother, he would only have left a challenge, and gone away. But
he thought of his brother, and his vows, and his heart closed again.
When his pipe was smoked out, he laid it aside, and gently stirred the
fire with the toe of his moccasin, for more light. He dared to wait no
longer. On a sudden he grasped his lance with both hands, sprang up
and drove it through the body of Wongatap, in the bunk.
With his knife he instantly snatched off the scalp. Then he uttered
the Mandan scalp-halloo, and dived for the door. There he paused, for
just a second, to look back, that the squaw might see his face--and in
the glimmer of fire-light he noted a feather from the lance sticking in
the hole in Wongatap's side.
So back he darted, plucked the feather, and carrying it in his left
hand, that the Great Spirit might help him, he ran hard. Wongatap's
wife was shrieking; all the village heard and answered, and the
warriors streamed out of the lodges.
The whole night Mahtotohpa ran, while the Arikarees vainly searched for
his trail. This day he hid, in the brush along the Missouri River.
The next night he ran again; and on the sixth morning he panted into
the Mandan town, with the dried blood of Wongatap on his lance's blade
and the stiffened scalp of Wongatap hanging to its handle.
So that was why he cherished the lance, and that was why he considered
the loose eagle's feather to be a strong medicine from the Great Spirit.
But this was only Number Six, in the twelve recorded deeds of Four
Bears.
His next-biggest deed was as follows, and it is bigger, according to
white man's way of thinking. By that deed he won his knife.
Early one morning one hundred and fifty Cheyenne warriors attacked the
Mandan town. They took a scalp and many horses before they rode away.
The Mandans had been surprised; but Mahtotohpa rallied fifty warriors
and pursued.
The fifty warriors led by Mahtotohpa pursued for a day and half a day.
At noon they sighted the Cheyennes driving the stolen horses; but the
Cheyennes were so numerous that the Mandan warriors lost their hearts
and wished to turn back.
Not so, Mahtotohpa! He galloped forward alone; he planted his lance in
the earth, to the full length of the blade; and making a circle around
it with his horse he tore from his clothing a strip of red cloth and
hung that to the lance shaft, for a banner.
"If you are cowards, you may go back to the women," he called to his
men. "I stay here, where my lance is firm in the ground."
His men were ashamed, and hesitated. Now the Cheyennes had turned and
were coming for battle. Their chief saw the planted lance of
Mahtotohpa, and Mahtotohpa waiting beside it, and he galloped forward,
alone, on his white horse.
"Who is it that has stuck down his lance, and defies the Cheyennes?" he
shouted.
"I am Mahtotohpa."
"That is good. Mahtotohpa is a chief. Does he dare to fight?"
"Is this a chief who speaks to Mahtotohpa?"
"I wear scalps at my horse's bit, and the eagle's feathers."
"You have said enough," replied Mahtotohpa. "Come. Let us meet."
Forward hammered the Cheyenne chief, riding splendidly in circles,
until he dashed in and planted his lance, also, at the side of
Mahtotohpa's lance. That was his answer.
They each drew off a little way, while the Mandan warriors and the
Cheyenne warriors gazed expectant. Then they charged like knights in a
tournament, and shot at the same moment with their guns. After they
had passed each other, and had wheeled, Mahtotohpa held up his
powder-horn. The Cheyenne's bullet had smashed it, so that the powder
had flowed out.
Having shown, Mahtotohpa flung away his horn, threw his gun to the
ground, and setting his buffalo-hide shield upon his left arm,
deliberately strung his bow and placed an arrow upon the string.
The Cheyenne chief was a mighty warrior. He likewise cast aside his
powder-horn and gun, adjusted his painted shield, prepared bow and
arrow. Again they charged. They circled swiftly about each other,
performing many clever feats of horsemanship, while their stout bows
twanged so fast that the arrows crisscrossed like darting bees.
Some thudded into the thick shields, and the shields bristled with the
feathered ends. Some found legs and arms--but that mattered little.
Now Mahtotohpa's horse reeled and fell, an arrow in his heart.
Mahtotohpa sprang nimbly off. And off from his own horse sprang the
Cheyenne chief, that he might not have the advantage.
They plied their bows, on foot. Soon the brave Cheyenne stripped his
quiver from his left shoulder and flourished it. It was empty. He
tossed it away, and tossed away bow and shield. Then he drew his knife.
"Ai!" responded Mahtotohpa, gladly; and ridding himself of shield and
quiver he rushed forward, feeling for his knife, too.
But his knife was not in his belt. He had lost it, or left it at home!
Hah! He could not stop--they had come together--the Cheyenne was upon
him. So he fought with his bow. He struck aside the Cheyenne's
thrust, and hit him over the head and knocked him down. They grappled.
It was a terrible fight.
Mahtotohpa clutched for the knife, and the sharp blade was wrenched
through his hand, cutting to the bone. The Cheyenne stabbed him many
times, and many times Mahtotohpa clutched the knife blade again, before
he could tear the haft from the Cheyenne's fingers.
But suddenly he succeeded, and the Cheyenne died. The warriors of both
parties had formed a circle close about, watching. Mahtotohpa
staggered up, with the Cheyenne's scalp and knife, and gave the kill
whoop--and thus victory rested with the Mandans.
That was Mahtotohpa's most famous battle. In another battle he got his
name, Four Bears. The Assiniboins had put all his warriors to flight;
but he stood his ground, and shot his gun and killed an Assiniboin, and
charged with lance and shield, and made them run off. He took sixty
horses, besides the scalp. After this he was called Four Bears,
because the Assiniboins said that he charged "like four bears in one."
His worst wound he received from the Sioux. They shot an arrow clear
through his body, so that the arrow continued on, dropping blood. But
he lashed his horse forward, against them, and won another victory.
Such honorable scars he kept covered with red paint, that all who saw
might read.
These stories, and others, as pictured by the robe, Mahtotohpa told to
Artist Catlin, while Indian trader James Kipp translated the words, and
Four Bears acted out the scenes; and they three sat upon the robe
itself.
The Cheyenne chief's knife he gave to Artist Catlin. He also made a
copy of the pictures, on another robe, and the knife and the second
robe were sent to the Catlin Indian gallery, at Washington, where they
doubtless may be seen at this day.
Mahtotohpa's end came to him as follows:
In the summer of 1837, a great death attacked the Mandan towns. It was
the small pox. The Sioux hedged the towns so closely that there was no
escape into the prairie. The Mandan men, women and children, thus
herded together, died by hundreds.
Mahtotohpa was among the last left. He witnessed all his family and
friends stretched cold and lifeless, and he decided to try a sacrifice
to the anger of the Great Spirit.
So he dragged his wives and children together and covered them decently
with buffalo robes. Then he went out to a little hill, and laid
himself down, with a vow not to eat or drink, if the Great Spirit would
stay the plague.
On the sixth day he was very weak; but he crept back to his lodge, and
again laid himself down, in a robe, beside his family. And on the
ninth day, he, too, died.
However, the plague was not stayed for many days. Of the sixteen
hundred Mandans in the two towns, only thirty-one remained alive; of
all the Mandan nation there were scarce above one hundred; and today
they number about one hundred and fifty.