A TRAVELER TO WASHINGTON (1831-1835)
WIJUNJON, THE "BIG LIAR" OF THE ASSINIBOINS
The Assiniboins are of the great Sioux family. Today there are in the
United States about one thousand of them. But when they were a free
and powerful people they numbered as high as ten thousand, and ranged
far--from the Missouri River in northern North Dakota and northern
Montana clear into Canada, above.
This cold, high country of vast plains made them hardy and roaming. In
their proud bearing and good size they resembled the Dakota Sioux, but
with the Sioux they had little to do, except in war. They were at war
with the Mandans also, and other nations to the south. In the north
they mingled with the Ojibwas or Chippewa people who had journeyed
westward into Canada. The Ojibwas had given them their name,
As-si-i-bo-in, meaning "They-cook-with-stones."
The Assiniboins were horse Indians and buffalo hunters. They had two
peculiar customs. They did cook their meat with stones, just as the
Chippewas said. Instead of using kettles, they used holes. They dug a
hole about the size of a large kettle; then they pressed a square of
raw buffalo-hide into it, for a lining. This they filled with water;
they put their meat in, and heating stones, dropped them in, too, until
the water was boiling.
Their other peculiarity lay in their style of hair. The longer the
hair, the better. They divided it into strands, and plastered the
strands with a paste of red earth and hoof glue, in sections of an inch
or two.
When the hair did not grow long enough to suit, they spliced it by
gluing on other hair, sometimes horse-hair, until it reached the ground.
In the year 1831 Wi-jun-jon, or Pigeon's-egg Head, was a leading young
warrior among the long-haired Assiniboins. It was a custom of those
days to have chiefs and warriors from the various Indian tribes sent to
Washington, to talk with their White Father and see how the Americans
lived.
This was supposed to teach the Indians the value of white man's ways,
and to show them how useless was war with the white race.
The Assiniboins were still a wild people. They were located so far
from St. Louis that they knew nothing about white man ways, except such
as they noticed at the fur-trading posts--and here the ways were mixed
with Indian ways.
So in the fall of this year Major J. F. A. Sanborn, the Indian agent at
the American Fur Company's trading-post of Fort Union, where on the
border between North Dakota and Montana the Yellowstone River empties
into the Missouri River, decided to take a party of Indians to
Washington.
The Assiniboins, the Cheyennes, the Blackfeet, the Crows--they all came
to Fort Union, to trade their furs for powder, lead, sugar and blankets.
Major Sanborn asked the Assiniboins for a warrior. They appointed
Wijunjon and another.
Now, this was to be a long journey, among strangers. To be sure, from
the Mandans, down-river, old Sha-ha-ka, or White Head, had made the
trip, in 1806, when the Red Head Chief and the Long Knife Chief were
bound home from the salty water; and he had returned unharmed. Others
had gone since, from the upper Missouri, and others had died; Sha-ha-ka
himself had almost been killed by the Sioux.
Nobody had gone yet, from as far away as the Assiniboin country;
therefore young Wijunjon feared, but was brave. He bade his wife,
Chin-cha-pee, or Fire-bug-that-creeps, and his little children goodby,
and with the other Assiniboin and chiefs from the Blackfeet and Crows,
set out on a fur company flatboat under protection of Major Sanborn.
The Assiniboin women on the shore wept and wailed. His people scarcely
expected to see him again.
It was one thousand miles by river through the enemies of his nation,
thence on to the great village of St. Louis; but he passed in safety.
And when he began to see the first smaller villages of the Americans in
Missouri, Wijunjon started in to count the houses, so that he might
tell his people.
He had promised to report everything.
He commenced to count by making notches in his pipe stem--one notch for
every lodge. The cabins became thicker, along the river banks, and his
comrade needs must call off the lodges while he made the notches. Soon
there was no more space on the pipe stem, and Wijunjon changed to his
war club. Speedily he had filled this also.
Luckily, the barge tied up at the shore, while dinner was cooked. This
gave him chance to cut a long willow stick, which surely would be
enough.
In fact, so certain he was that the end of the white man's lodges must
be close before them, that he worked hard to recut the pipe stem
notches and the war club notches, in his willow stick, to have all
together. But this very day he had filled the willow stick, and the
lodges before them seemed more numerous than those behind!
Ere they arrived in sight of St. Louis itself, he and his comrade had
an arm-load of willow sticks--all filled with notches. And here was
St. Louis! How many people? Fifteen thousand! How many lodges?
Thousands of lodges!
Pigeon's-egg Head pitched the bundle of willow sticks over-board. His
knife was worn out, and his hand and brain were tired.
At St. Louis he stood for his portrait, painted by the same Artist
Catlin who the next year, in the Mandan towns, listened to the hero
tales of Mah-to-toh-pa. He was a great man at painting Indians, this
Artist Catlin.
Wijunjon was somewhat confused by so many sounds and sights, but he
made a fine figure of a chief--in his mountain-goat skin leggins and
shirt, decorated with porcupine quills, and with scalp locks from his
enemies; his long plaited hair, which reached to the ground; his war
bonnet of eagles' plumes; his buffalo-hide robe, painted with the
battles of his career; his beautiful moccasins; and his quiver and bow
and bull-neck shield.
Having had his portrait painted, he continued on the long trail, of two
thousand more miles by water and by stage, to Washington. And as every
mile of it was amidst still more lodges of the white man, he soon saw
that all the willow sticks of the Missouri River could not have counted
their numbers.
This winter Wijunjon and his companions had a wonderful time among the
white men. The Pigeon's-egg Head was the foremost. He was the first
to shake the hand of the Great White Father. He declined nothing. The
sights of Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York--he inspected
them all. He scarcely rested, night or day. He learned so much that
when, in the spring of 1832, he turned homeward, he was filled to
bursting.
At St. Louis the first "through" steamboat, the _Yellowstone_, was
waiting to ascend to Fort Union and the Assiniboin country. Artist
Catlin was aboard. This was to be his first trip, also.
The steamboat _Yellowstone_ made a huge sensation, as it ploughed the
thick muddy current of the Missouri, frightening the Indians and
buffalo along the shores.
It moved without sweeps--it nosed for the deepest channels--and the
Indians called it "Big-medicine-canoe-with-eyes." It spoke with its
guns, and belched much smoke--and they called it "Big Thunder-canoe."
But Wijunjon feared not at all. He was used to thunder-canoes, now;
and he had seen many great sights, back there in the villages of the
white men. In fact, he was a sight, himself, for on the way up he had
changed his clothes, that his people might know hint for a wide
traveler.
Gone were his fringed and quilled goat-skin leggins and shirt; gone his
war bonnet and painted robe and handsome moccasins, his bow and quiver
and shield.
Instead, he wore a badly fitting colonel's uniform, of the United
States Army, given to him by the Great White Father: wrinkled trousers
and coat of bright blue, with gilt epaulets upon the shoulders, and a
stiff collar that reached above his ears. Atop his long painted hair
there was settled, to the coat collar, a stove-pipe hat, with a
silver-braid band and a red wool plume two feet high. His feet were
squeezed into high-heeled military boots, of shiny leather. Around his
neck was a tight black stock, or collar. Around his waist was a red
sash. Upon his hands were loose white cotton gloves. Upon his chest,
and the ruffles of a white shirt, dangled a silver medal, on a blue
ribbon. Hung by a belt across one shoulder, at his log dangled a huge
broad-sword. In one hand he carried a blue umbrella, in the other a
fan, and in his arms a keg of rum.
Thus Wijunjon, the big brave, proudly strode the deck of the steamer
_Yellowstone_, and impatiently looked forward to the moment when he
might step off, among his people.
The moment came. Two thousand Indians had gathered on the prairie at
Fort Union, to greet the thunder-canoe and the returning travelers.
Wijunjon led the procession down the gang-plank.
It was not Indian etiquet to make an ado over the return. Wijunjon was
roundly eyed, but nobody spoke to him. His wife, the
Fire-bug-that-creeps, was here; so were his children, who scarcely knew
him; so were his old parents. He felt that he was admired and that his
family and friends were glad to see him; but they let him alone and he
only stalked about in his glory, whistling the American war-cry of
"Yankee Doodle."
After due time, of course they all loosened up. This night in his
lodge in the Assiniboin village he commenced to tell his stories. But
he could not tell one tenth--and yet, with the very first, several of
the old men and chiefs arose and went out.
They said that this Wijunjon was a liar, and that they would not listen
to him. The white people were known to be great liars, and he had
learned from them!
In vain, the next day, and the next day, the Pigeon's-egg Head tried to
make himself popular.
First, he let his wife cut off the tails of his frock coat, to fashion
herself a pair of nice blue leggins. His silver-lace hat-band she took
for garters. The rest of his coat he gave to his brother; and now he
wore his white shirt with the tails outside.
He gave away his boots--which hurt his feet. He gave away the tails of
his shirt, also his brass studs and sleeve-buttons. And with his keg
of rum, and his broad-sword dragging and tripping him, he paid visits
from lodge to lodge, and whistled "Yankee Doodle."
Pretty soon he had nothing left but his blue umbrella. That was the
only thing he kept. Even his hat was gone; his sword was used by his
wife, as a meat chopper. And still he was not popular.
Each night men and women gathered from near and far, to hear him talk,
in his lodge. They sat silent and critical, while he told them the
honest truth.
He worked very hard. He labored to describe the long journey, and the
marvelous number of white man's lodges, and villages, and the stage
coaches, and the railroads; the forts, and the ships-of-many-big-guns,
and the tremendous "council-house" at Washington; and the patent office
(great-medicine-place, filled with curious machines); and the war
parade of American soldiers, and the balloon--a huge ball which carried
a man to the Great Spirit in the sky; and the beautiful white squaws
with red cheeks.
The people listened; and when they went out they said among themselves:
"Those things are not true. The Pigeon's-egg Head is the greatest liar
in the world. The other nations will laugh at the Assiniboins."
Wijunjon did not despair. He was so full of words that he simply must
talk, or burst. He wished that he might bring forward the other
Assiniboin who had been with him and who knew that all these stories
were true; but the other Assiniboin had died on the way home. That was
too bad.
However, he stuck to his stories, for he knew that he was right. His
people had sent him to see, and he had seen, and he spoke only true
words.
After a while, the Assiniboins took a different view of Wijunjon. Any
person who had such stories in his brain was certainly great medicine.
No common liar could invent these stories about impossible wonders.
Yes, Wijunjon was doubtless taught by a spirit. He had dreamed.
Now the Assiniboin people looked upon Wijunjon with awe and fear. A
person equipped with such power might be very dangerous. They decided
that he ought to be killed.
Meanwhile Wijunjon went right on telling his stories. He still had
hopes--and besides, it was pleasant to be the center of a gaping
circle, and to walk around with folks gazing so at him.
There was a young man who agreed to rid the Assiniboins of this wizard.
Beyond question, Wijunjon was too great medicine to be killed by an
ordinary bullet; another way should be found.
This young man, also, was a dreamer. And in his dreams he was told, he
said, how to kill Wijunjon. The wizard must be shot with an iron pot
handle! Nothing else would do the work.
Accordingly, the young man appointed to kill Wijunjon for being bad
medicine, found an iron pot handle, and spent a whole day filing it
down to fit into the muzzle of his gun. Then from behind he shot the
terrible Pigeon's-egg Head and scattered his lying brains about, and
the wizard fell dead.