|PEOPLE of my tribe! the sorrowing widow of the dead Ouray speaks to
you. She comes to you, not as the squaw of the dead chieftain, to rouse
you to war and victory, but to weep with you over the loss of her people
and the greed of the pale face.
The fair Colorado, over whose Rocky mountains we have roamed and hunted
in the olden time, is now overrun by the silver-plated Senator and the
soft-eyed dude.
We are driven to a small corner of the earth to die, while the oppressor
digs gopher holes in the green grass and sells them to the speculator of
the great cities toward the rising sun.
Through the long, cold winter my people have passed, in want and cold,
while the conqueror of the peaceful Ute has worn $250 night-shirts and
filled his pale skin with pie.
Chipeta addresses you as the weeping squaw of a great man whose bones
will one day nourish the cucumber vine. Ouray now sleeps beneath the
brown grass of the canyon, where the soft spring winds may stir the dead
leaves, and the young coyote may come and monkey o'er his grave. Ouray
was ignorant in the ways of the pale face. He could not go to Congress,
for he was not a citizen of the United States. He had not taken out
his second papers. He was a simple child of the forest, but he stuck
to Chipeta. He loved Chipeta like a hired man. That is why the widowed
squaw weeps over him.
A few more years and I shall join Ouray--my chief, Ouray the big Injun
from away up the gulch. His heart is still open to me. Chipeta could
trust him, even among tire smiling maidens of her tribe. Ouray was true.
There was no funny business in his nature. He loved not the garb of the
pale face, but won my heart while he wore a saddle-blanket and a look of
woe.
Chipeta looks to the north and the south, and all about are the graves
of her people. The refinement of the oppressor has come, with its
divorce and schools and gin cocktails and flour bread and fall
elections, and we linger here like a boil on the neck of a fat man.
Even while I talk to you, the damp winds of April are sighing through my
vertebras, and I've got more pains in my back than a conservatory.
Weep with the widowed Chipeta. Bow your heads and howl, for our harps
are hung on the willows and our wild goose is cooked.
Who will be left to mourn at Chipeta's grave? None but the starving
pappooses of my nation. We stand in the gray mist of spring like dead
burdocks in the field of the honest farmer, and the chilly winds of
departing winter make us hump and gather like a burnt boot.
All we can do is to wail. We are the red-skinned wailers from Wailtown.
Colorado is no more the home of the Ute. It is the dwelling place of
the bonanza Senator, who doesn't know the difference between the plan of
salvation and the previous question.
Chipeta cannot vote. Chipeta cannot pay taxes to a great nation, but you
will be apt to hear her gentle voice, and her mellow racket will fill
the air till her tongue is cold, and they tuck the buffalo robe about
her and plant her by the side of her dead chieftain, where the south
wind and the sage hen are singing.
[Illustration: 0046]