satisfaction, and one chief who had lost a great pile of presents, and
who got nothing at all by the second division, stalked solemnly out of
the tent, through not until Three Bulls had tossed the plugs of tobacco
to all the men around the circle, precisely as he might have thrown
bones to dogs, but always observing a certain order in making each round
with the plugs. All were thus served according to their rank. Then Three
Bulls rummaged with one hand behind him in the grass, and fetched
forward a great pipe with a stone bowl and wooden handle--a sort of
chopping-block of wood--and a large long-bladed knife. Taking a plug of
tobacco in one hand and the knife in the other, he pared off enough
tobacco to fill the pipe. Then he filled it, and passed it, stem
foremost, to a young man on the left-hand side of the tepee. The
superior chiefs all sat on the right-hand side. The young man knew that
he had been chosen to perform the menial act of lighting the pipe, and
he lighted it, pulling two or three whiffs of smoke to insure a good
coal of fire in it before passing it back--though why it was not
considered a more menial task to cut the tobacco and fill the pipe than
to light it I don't know.
Three Bulls puffed the pipe for a moment, and then turning the stem from
him, pointed it at the chief next in importance, and to that personage
the symbol of peace was passed from hand to hand. When that chief had
drawn a few whiffs, he sent the pipe back to Three Bulls, who then
indicated to whom it should go next. Thus it went dodging about the
circle like a marble on a bagatelle board. When it came to me, I
hesitated a moment whether or not to smoke it, but the desire to be
polite outweighed any other prompting, and I sucked the pipe until some
of the Indians cried out that I was "a good fellow."
While all smoked and many talked, I noticed that Three Bulls sat upon a
soft seat formed of his blanket, at one end of which was one of those
wickerwork contrivances, like a chair back, upon which Indians lean when
seated upon the ground. I noticed also that one harsh criticism passed
upon Three Bulls was just; that was that when he spoke, others might
interrupt him. It was said that even women "talked back" to him at times
when he was haranguing his people. Since no one spoke when Crowfoot
talked, the comparison between him and his predecessor was injurious to
him; but it was Crowfoot who named Three Bulls for the chieftainship.
Besides, Three Bulls had the largest following (under that of the too
aged Old Sun), and was the most generous chief and ablest politician of
all. Then, again, the Government supported him with whatever its
influence amounted to. This was because Three Bulls favored agricultural
employment for the tribe, and was himself cultivating a patch of
potatoes. He was in many other ways the man to lead in the new era, as
Crowfoot had been for the era that was past.
When we retired from the presence of the chief, I asked Mr. L'Hereux how
he had dared to take back the presents made to the Indians and then
distribute them differently. The queer Frenchman said, in his
indescribably confident, jaunty way:
"Why, dat is how you mus' do wid dose Engine. Nevaire ask one of dose
Engine anyt'ing, but do dose t'ing which are right, and at de same time
make explanashion what you are doing. Den dose Engine can say no t'ing
'tall. But if you first make explanashion and den try to do somet'ng,
you will find one grand trouble. Can you explain dis and dat to one hive
of de bees? Well, de hive of de bee is like dose Engine if you shall
talk widout de promp' action."
He said, later on, "Dose Engine are children, and mus' not haf
consideration like mans and women."
The news of our generosity ran from tent to tent, and the Black Soldier
band sent out a herald to cry the news that a war-dance was to be held
immediately. As immediately means to the Indian mind an indefinite and
very enduring period, I amused myself by poking about the village, in
tents and among groups of men or women, wherever chance led me. The
herald rode from side to side of the enclosure, yelling like a New York
fruit peddler. He was mounted on a bay pony, and was fantastically
costumed with feathers and war-paint. Of course every man, woman, and
child who had been in-doors, so to speak, now came out of the tepees,
and a mighty bustle enlivened the scene. The worst thing about the camp
was the abundance of snarling cur-dogs. It was not safe to walk about
the camp without a cane or whip, on account of these dogs.
[Illustration: INDIAN MOTHER AND BOY]
The Blackfeet are poor enough, in all conscience, from nearly every
stand-point from which we judge civilized Communities, but their tribal
possessions include several horses to each head of a family; and though
the majority of their ponies would fetch no more than $20 apiece out
there, even this gives them more wealth per capita than many civilized
peoples can boast. They have managed, also, to keep much of the savage
paraphernalia of other days in the form of buckskin clothes, elaborate
bead-work, eagle headdresses, good guns, and the outlandish adornments
of their chiefs and medicine-men. Hundreds of miles from any except such
small and distant towns as Calgary and Medicine Hat, and kept on the
reserve as much as possible, there has come to them less damage by
whiskey and white men's vices than perhaps most other tribes have
suffered. Therefore it was still possible for me to see in some tents
the squaws at work painting the clan signs on stretched skins, and
making bead-work for moccasins, pouches, "chaps," and the rest. And in
one tepee I found a young and rather pretty girl wearing a suit of
buckskin, such as Cooper and all the past historians of the Indian knew
as the conventional every-day attire of the red-skin. I say I saw the
girl in a tent, but, as a matter of fact, she passed me out-of-doors,
and with true feminine art managed to allow her blanket to fall open for
just the instant it took to disclose the precious dress beneath it. I
asked to be taken into the tent to which she went, and there, at the
interpreter's request, she threw off her blanket, and stood, with a
little display of honest coyness, dressed like the traditional and the
theatrical belle of the wilderness. The soft yellowish leather, the
heavy fringe upon the arms, seams, and edges of the garment, her
beautiful beaded leggings and moccasins, formed so many parts of a very
charming picture. For herself, her face was comely, but her figure
was--an Indian's. The figure of the typical Indian woman shows few
graceful curves.
The reader will inquire whether there was any real beauty, as we judge
it, among these Indians. Yes, there was; at least there were good looks
if there was not beauty. I saw perhaps a dozen fine-looking men, half a
dozen attractive girls, and something like a hundred children of varying
degrees of comeliness--pleasing, pretty, or beautiful. I had some jolly
romps with the children, and so came to know that their faces and arms
met my touch with the smoothness and softness of the flesh of our own
little ones at home. I was surprised at this; indeed, the skin of the
boys was of the texture of velvet. The madcap urchins, what riotous fun
they were having! They flung arrows and darts, ran races and wrestled,
and in some of their play they fairly swarmed all over one another,
until at times one lad would be buried in the thick of a writhing mass
of legs and arms several feet in depth. Some of the boys wore only
"G-strings" (as, for some reason, the breech-clout is commonly called on
the prairie), but others were wrapped in old blankets, and the larger
ones were already wearing the Blackfoot plume-lock, or tuft of hair tied
and trained to stand erect above the forehead. The babies within the
tepees were clad only in their complexions.
The result of an hour of waiting on our part and of yelling on the part
of the herald resulted in a war-dance not very different in itself from
the dances we have most of us seen at Wild West shows. An immense tomtom
as big as the largest-sized bass-drum was set up between four poles,
around which colored cloths were wrapped, and from the tops of which the
same gay stuff floated on the wind in bunches of party-colored ribbons.
Around this squatted four young braves, who pounded the drum-head and
chanted a tune, which rose and fell between the shrillest and the
deepest notes, but which consisted of simple monosyllabic sounds
repeated thousands of times. The interpreter said that originally the
Indians had words to their songs, but these were forgotten no man knows
when, and only the so-called tunes (and the tradition that there once
were words for them) are perpetuated. At all events, the four braves
beat the drum and chanted, until presently a young warrior, hideous with
war-paint, and carrying a shield and a tomahawk, came out of a tepee and
began the dancing. It was the stiff-legged hopping, first on one foot
and then on the other, which all savages appear to deem the highest form
the terpsichorean art can take. In the course of a few circles around
the tomtom he began shouting of valorous deeds he never had performed,
for he was too young to have ridden after buffalo or into battle.
Presently he pretended to see upon the ground something at once
fascinating and awesome. It was the trail of the enemy. Then he danced
furiously and more limberly, tossing his head back, shaking his hatchet
and many-tailed shield high aloft, and yelling that he was following the
foe, and would not rest while a skull and a scalp-lock remained in
conjunction among them. He was joined by three others, and all danced
and yelled like madmen. At the last the leader came to a sort of
standard made of a stick and some cloth, tore it out from where it had
been thrust in the ground, and holding it far above his head, pranced
once around the circle, and thus ended the dance.
[Illustration: OPENING OF THE SOLDIER CLAN DANCE]
The novelty and interest in the celebration rested in the
surroundings--the great circle of tepees; the braves in their blankets
stalking hither and thither; the dogs, the horses, the intrepid riders,
dashing across the view. More strange still was the solemn line of the
medicine-men, who, for some reason not explained to me, sat in a row
with their backs to the dancers a city block away, and crooned a low
guttural accompaniment to the tomtom. But still more interesting were
the boys, of all grades of childhood, who looked on, while not a woman
remained in sight. The larger boys stood about in groups, watching the
spectacle with eyes afire with admiration, but the little fellows had
flung themselves on their stomachs in a row, and were supporting their
chubby faces upon their little brown hands, while their elbows rested on
the grass, forming a sort of orchestra row of Lilliputian spectators.
We arranged for a great spectacle to be gotten up on the next afternoon,
and were promised that it should be as notable for the numbers
participating in it and for the trappings to be displayed as any the
Blackfeet had ever given upon their reserve. The Indians spent the
entire night in carousing over the gift of tea, and we knew that if they
were true to most precedents they would brew and drink every drop of it.
Possibly some took it with an admixture of tobacco and wild currant to
make them drunk, or, in reality, very sick--which is much the same thing
to a reservation Indian. The compounds which the average Indian will
swallow in the hope of imitating the effects of whiskey are such as to
tax the credulity of those who hear of them. A certain patent
"painkiller" ranks almost as high as whiskey in their estimation; but
Worcestershire sauce and gunpowder, or tea, tobacco, and wild currant,
are not at all to be despised when alcohol, or the money to get it with,
is wanting. I heard a characteristic story about these red men while I
was visiting them. All who are familiar with them know that if medicine
is given them to take in small portions at certain intervals they are
morally sure to swallow it all at once, and that the sicker it makes
them, the more they will value it. On the Blackfoot Reserve, only a
short time ago, our gentle and insinuating Sedlitz-powders were classed
as children's stuff, but now they have leaped to the front rank as
powerful medicines. This is because some white man showed the Indian how
to take the soda and magnesia first, and then swallow the tartaric acid.
They do this, and when the explosion follows, and the gases burst from
their mouths and noses, they pull themselves together and remark, "Ugh!
him heap good."
[Illustration: SKETCH IN THE SOLDIER CLAN DANCE]
On the morning of the day of the great spectacle I rode with Mr. Begg
over to the ration-house to see the meat distributed. The dust rose in
clouds above all the trails as the cavalcade of men, women, children,
travoises and dogs, approached the station. Men were few in the
disjointed lines; most of them sent their women or children. All rode
astraddle, some on saddles and some bareback. As all urged their horses
in the Indian fashion, which is to whip them unceasingly, and prod them
constantly with spurless heels, the bobbing movement of the riders'
heads and the gymnastics of their legs produced a queer scene. Here and
there a travois was trailed along by a horse or a dog, but the majority
of the pensioners were content to carry their meat in bags or otherwise
upon their horses. While the slaughtering went on, and after that, when
the beef was being chopped up into junks, I sat in the meat-contractor's
office, and saw the bucks, squaws, and children come, one after another,
to beg. I could not help noticing that all were treated with marked and
uniform kindness, and I learned that no one ever struck one of the
Indians, or suffered himself to lose his temper with them. A few of the
men asked for blankets, but the squaws and the children wanted soap. It
was said that when they first made their acquaintance with this symbol
of civilization they mistook it for an article of diet, but that now
they use it properly and prize it. When it was announced that the meat
was ready, the butchers threw open an aperture in the wall of the
ration-house, and the Indians huddled before it as if they had flung
themselves against the house in a mass. I have seen boys do the same
thing at the opening of a ticket window for the sale of gallery seats in
a theatre. There was no fighting or quarrelling, but every Indian pushed
steadily and silently with all his or her might. When one got his share
he tore himself away from the crowd as briers are pulled out of hairy
cloth. They are a hungry and an economical people. They bring pails for
the beef blood, and they carry home the hoofs for jelly. After a steer
has been butchered and distributed, only his horns and his paunch
remain.
The sun blazed down on the great camp that afternoon and glorified the
place so that it looked like a miniature Switzerland of snowy peaks. But
it was hot, and blankets were stretched from the tent tops, and the
women sat under them to catch the air and escape the heat. The salaried
native policeman of the reserve, wearing a white stove-pipe hat with
feathers, and a ridiculous blue coat, and Heaven alone knows what other
absurdities, rode around, boasting of deeds he never performed, while a
white cur made him all the more ridiculous by chasing him and yelping at
his horse's tail.
And then came the grand spectacle. The vast plain was forgotten, and the
great campus within the circle of tents was transformed into a theatre.
The scene was a setting of white and red tents that threw their
clear-cut outlines against a matchless blue sky. The audience was
composed of four white men and the Indian boys, who were flung about by
the startled horses they were holding for us. The players were the
gorgeous cavalrymen of nature, circling before their women and old men
and children, themselves plumed like unheard-of tropical birds, the
others displaying the minor splendor of the kaleidoscope. The play was
"The Pony War-dance, or the Departure for Battle." The acting was
fierce; not like the conduct of a mimic battle on our stage, but
performed with the desperate zest of men who hope for distinction in
war, and may not trifle about it. It had the earnestness of a challenged
man who tries the foils with a tutor. It was impressive, inspiring, at
times wildly exciting.
[Illustration: A FANTASY FROM THE PONY WAR-DANCE]
There were threescore young men in the brilliant cavalcade. They rode
horses that were as wild as themselves. Their evolutions were rude, but
magnificent. Now they dashed past us in single file, and next they came
helter-skelter, like cattle stampeding. For a while they rode around and
around, as on a race-course, but at times they deserted the enclosure,
parted into small bands, and were hidden behind the curtains of their
own dust, presently to reappear with a mad rush, yelling like maniacs,
firing their pieces, and brandishing their arms and their finery wildly
on high. The orchestra was composed of seven tomtoms that had been dried
taut before a camp fire. The old men and the chiefs sat in a semicircle
behind the drummers on the ground.
All the tribal heirlooms were in the display, the cherished gewgaws,
trinkets, arms, apparel, and finery they had saved from the fate of
which they will not admit they are themselves the victims. I never saw
an old-time picture of a type of savage red man or of an extravagance of
their costuming that was not revived in this spectacle. It was as if the
plates in my old school-books and novels and tales of adventure were all
animated and passing before me. The traditional Indian with the eagle
plumes from crown to heels was there; so was he with the buffalo horns
growing out of his skull; so were the idyllic braves in yellow
buckskin fringed at every point. The shining bodies of men, bare naked,
and frescoed like a Bowery bar-room, were not lacking; neither were
those who wore masses of splendid embroidery with colored beads. But
there were as many peculiar costumes which I never had seen pictured.
And not any two men or any two horses were alike. As barber poles are
covered with paint, so were many of these choice steeds of the nation.
Some were spotted all over with daubs of white, and some with every
color obtainable. Some were branded fifty times with the white hand, the
symbol of peace, but others bore the red hand and the white hand in
alternate prints. There were horses painted with the figures of horses
and of serpents and of foxes. To some saddles were affixed colored
blankets or cloths that fell upon the ground or lashed the air,
according as the horse cantered or raced. One horse was hung all round
with great soft woolly tails of some white material. Sleigh-bells were
upon several.
Only half a dozen men wore hats--mainly cowboy hats decked with
feathers. Many carried rifles, which they used with one hand. Others
brought out bows and arrows, lances decked with feathers or ribbons,
poles hung with colored cloths, great shields brilliantly painted and
fringed. Every visible inch of each warrior was painted, the naked ones
being ringed, streaked, and striped from head to foot. I would have to
catalogue the possessions of the whole nation to tell all that they wore
between the brass rings in their hair and the cartridge-belts at their
waists, and thus down to their beautiful moccasins.
Two strange features further distinguished their pageant. One was the
appearance of two negro minstrels upon one horse. Both had blackened
their faces and hands; both wore old stove-pipe hats and queer
long-tailed white men's coats. One wore a huge false white mustache, and
the other carried a coal-scuttle. The women and children roared with
laughter at the sight. The two comedians got down from their horse, and
began to make grimaces, and to pose this way and that, very comically.
Such a performance had never been seen on the reserve before. No one
there could explain where the men had seen negro minstrels. The other
unexpected feature required time for development. At first we noticed
that two little Indian boys kept getting in the way of the riders. As we
were not able to find any fixed place of safety from the excited
horsemen, we marvelled that these children were permitted to risk their
necks.
Suddenly a hideously-painted naked man on horseback chased the little
boys, leaving the cavalcade, and circling around the children. He rode
back into the ranks, and still they loitered in the way. Then around
swept the horsemen once more, and this time the naked rider flung
himself from his horse, and seizing one boy and then the other, bore
each to the ground, and made as if he would brain them with his hatchet
and lift their scalps with his knife. The sight was one to paralyze an
on-looker. But it was only a theatrical performance arranged for the
occasion. The man was acting over again the proudest of his
achievements. The boys played the parts of two white men whose scalps
now grace his tepee and gladden his memory.
[Illustration: THROWING THE SNOW SNAKE]
For ninety minutes we watched the glorious riding, the splendid horses,
the brilliant trappings, and the paroxysmal fervor of the excited
Indians. The earth trembled beneath the dashing of the riders; the air
palpitated with the noise of their war-cries and bells. We could have
stood the day out, but we knew the players were tired, and yet would
not cease till we withdrew. Therefore we came away.
We had enjoyed a never-to-be-forgotten privilege. It was if we had seen
the ghosts of a dead people ride back to parody scenes in an era that
had vanished. It was like the rising of the curtain, in response to an
"encore," upon a drama that has been played. It was as if the sudden
up-flashing of a smouldering fire lighted, once again and for an
instant, the scene it had ceased to illumine.
III
A FAMOUS MISSIONARY
The former chief of the Blackfeet--Crowfoot--and Father Lacombe, the
Roman Catholic missionary to the tribe, were the most interesting and
among the most influential public characters in the newer part of
Canada. They had much to do with controlling the peace of a territory
the size of a great empire.
The chief was more than eighty years old; the priest is a dozen years
younger; and yet they represented in their experiences the two great
epochs of life on this continent--the barbaric and the progressive. In
the chief's boyhood the red man held undisputed sway from the Lakes to
the Rockies. In the priest's youth he led, like a scout, beyond the
advancing hosts from Europe. But Father Lacombe came bearing the olive
branch of religion, and he and the barbarian became fast friends,
intimates in a companionship as picturesque and out of the common as any
the world could produce.
There is something very strange about the relations of the French and
the French half-breeds with the wild men of the plains. It is not
altogether necessary that the Frenchman should be a priest, for I have
heard of French half-breeds in our Territories who showed again and
again that they could make their way through bands of hostiles in
perfect safety, though knowing nothing of the language of the tribes
there in war-paint. It is most likely that their swarthy skins and black
hair, and their knowledge of savage ways aided them. But when not even a
French half-breed has dared to risk his life among angry Indians, the
French missionaries went about their duty fearlessly and unscathed.
There was one, just after the dreadful massacre of the Little Big Horn,
who built a cross of rough wood, painted it white, fastened it to his
buck-board, and drove through a country in which a white man with a pale
face and blond hair would not have lived two hours.
It must be remembered that in a vast region of country the French priest
and _voyageur_ and _coureur des bois_ were the first white men the
Indians saw, and while the explorers and traders seldom quarrelled with
the red men or offered violence to them, the priests never did. They
went about like women or children, or, rather, like nothing else than
priests. They quickly learned the tongues of the savages, treated them
fairly, showed the sublimest courage, and acted as counsellors,
physicians, and friends. There is at least one brave Indian fighter in
our army who will state it as his belief that if all the white men had
done thus we would have had but little trouble with our Indians.