Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet

by Frederick Marryat

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

  As circumstances, which I have yet to relate, have prevented my returnto the Shoshones, and I shall have no more to say of their movements inthese pages, I would fain pay them a just tribute before I continue mynarrative. I wish the reader to perceive how much higher the WesternIndians are in the scale of humanity than the tribes of the East, sowell described by Cooper and other American writers. There is achivalrous spirit in these rangers of the western prairies not to beexceeded in history or modern times.

  The four tribes of Shoshones, Arrapahoes, Comanches, and Apaches neverattempt, like the Dahcotah and Algonquin, and other tribes of the East,to surprise an enemy; they take his scalp, it is true, but they take itin the broad day; neither will they ever murder the squaws, children,and old men, who may be left unprotected when the war-parties are out.In fact, they are honourable and noble foes, sincere and trustworthyfriends. In many points they have the uses of ancient chivalry amongthem, so much so as to induce me to surmise that they may have broughtthem over with them when they first took possession of the territory.

  Every warrior has his nephew, who is selected as his page; he performsthe duty of a squire, in ancient knight errantry, takes charge of hishorse, arms, and accoutrements; and he remains in this office until heis old enough to gain his own spurs. Hawking is also a favouriteamusement, and the chiefs ride out with the falcon, or small eagle, ontheir wrist or shoulder.

  Even in their warfare, you often may imagine that you were among theknights of ancient days. An Arrapahoe and a Shoshone warrior armed witha buckler and their long lances, will single out and challenge eachother; they run a tilt, and as each has warded off the blow, and passedunhurt, they will courteously turn back and salute each other, as anacknowledgment of their enemy's bravery and skill. When thesechallenges take place, or indeed in any single combat without challenge,none of these Indians will take advantage of possessing a superiorweapon. If one has a rifle and knows that his opponent has not, he willthrow his rifle down, and only use the same weapon as his adversary.

  I will now relate some few traits of character, which will prove thenobility of these Indians. [See note 1.]

  Every year during the season dedicated to the performing of thereligious ceremonies, premiums are given by the holy men and elders ofthe tribe to those among the young men who have the most distinguishedthemselves. The best warrior receives feather of the black eagle; themost successful hunter obtains robe of buffalo-skin, painted inside, andrepresenting some of his most daring exploits; the most virtuous has forhis share coronet made either of gold or silver; and these premiums ansuspended in their wigwams, as marks of honour, and handed down to theirposterity. In fact, they become a kind of ecusson which ennobles afamily.

  Once during the distribution of these much-coveted prizes, a young manof twenty-two was called by the chiefs to receive the premium of virtue.The Indian advanced towards his chiefs when an elder of the triberising, addressed the whole audience. He pointed the young man out, asone whose example should be followed, and recorded, among many otherpraiseworthy actions that three squaws, with many children, having beenreduced to misery by the death of their husbands in the last war againsthe Crows; this young man, although the deceased were the greatest foesof his family, undertook to provide for their widow and children tillthe boys, grown up, would be able to provide for themselves and theirmothers. Since that time, he had given them the produce of his chase,reserving to himself nothing but what was strictly necessary to sustainthe wants of nature. This was a noble and virtuous act, one thatpleased the Manitou. It was an example which all the Shoshones shouldfollow.

  The young man bowed, and as the venerable chief was stooping to put thecoronet upon his head, he started back and, to the astonishment of all,refused the premium.

  "Chiefs, warriors, elders of the Shoshones, pardon me! You know thegood which I have done, but you know not in what I have erred. My firstfeeling was to receive the coronet, and conceal what wrong I had done;but a voice in my heart forbids my taking what others have perchancebetter deserved.

  "Hear me, Shoshones! the truth must be told; hear my shame! One day, Iwas hungry; it was in the great prairies. I had killed no game, and Iwas afraid to return among our young men with empty hands. I remainedfour days hunting, and still I saw neither buffaloes nor bears. Atlast, I perceived the tent of an Arrapahoe. I went in; there was no onethere, and it was full of well-cured meat. I had not eaten for fivedays; I was hungry, and I became a thief. I took away a large piece,and ran away like a cowardly wolf. I have said: the prize cannot bemine."

  A murmur ran through the assembly, and the chiefs, holy men, and eldersconsulted together. At last, the ancient chief advanced once moretowards the young man, and took his two hands between his own. "Myson," he said, "good, noble, and brave; thy acknowledgment of thy faultand self-denial in such a moment make thee as pure as a good spirit inthe eyes of the great Manitou. Evil, when confessed and repented of, isforgotten; bend thy head, my son, and let me crown thee. The premium istwice deserved and twice due."

  A Shoshone warrior possessed a beautiful mare; no horse in the prairiecould outspeed her, and in the buffalo or bear hunt she would enjoy thesport as much as her master, and run alongside the huge beast with greatcourage and spirit. Many propositions were made to the warrior to sellor exchange the animal; but he would not hear of it. The dumb brute washis friend, his sole companion; they had both shared the dangers ofbattle and the privations of prairie travelling; why should he part withher? The fame of that mare extended so far, that in a trip he made toSan Francisco, several Mexicans offered him large sums of money;nothing, however, could shake him in his resolution. In thosecountries, though horses will often be purchased at the low price of onedollar, it often happens that a steed, well-known as a good hunter or arapid pacer, will bring sums equal to those paid in England for a finerace-horse.

  One of the Mexicans, a wild young man, resolved to obtain the mare,whether or no. One evening, when the Indian was returning from someneighbouring plantation, the Mexican laid down in some bushes at a shortdistance from the road, and moaned as if in the greatest pain. The goodand kind-hearted Indian having reached the spot, heard his cries ofdistress, dismounted from his mare, and offered any assistance: it wasnearly dark, and although he knew the sufferer to be a Pale-face, yet hecould not distinguish his features. The Mexican begged for a drop ofwater, and the Indian dashed into a neighbouring thicket to procure itfor him. As soon as the Indian was sufficiently distant, the Mexicanvaulted upon the mare, and apostrophised the Indian:--

  "You fool of a Red-skin, not cunning enough for a Mexican: you refusedmy gold; now I have the mare for nothing, and I will make the trapperslaugh when I tell them how easily I have outwitted a Shoshone."

  The Indian looked at the Mexican for a few moments in silence, for hisheart was big, and the shameful treachery wounded him to the very core.At last, he spoke:--

  "Pale-face," said he, "for the sake of others, I may not kill thee.Keep the mare, since thou art dishonest enough to steal the onlyproperty of a poor man; keep her, but never say a word how thou camestby her, lest hereafter a Shoshone, having learned distrust, should nothearken to the voice of grief and woe. Away, away with her! let menever see her again, or in an evil hour the desire of vengeance may makea bad man of me."

  The Mexican was wild, inconsiderate, and not over-scrupulous, but notwithout feeling: he dismounted from his horse, and putting the bridle inthe hand of the Shoshone, "Brother," said he, "I have done wrong, pardonme! from an Indian I learn virtue, and for the future, when I wouldcommit any deed of injustice, I will think of thee."

  Two Apaches loved the same girl; one was a great chief, the other ayoung warrior, who had entered the war-path but a short time. Ofcourse, the parents of the young girl rejected the warrior's suit, assoon as the chief proposed himself. Time passed, and the young man,broken-hearted, left all the martial exercises, in which he hadexcelled. He sought solitud
e, starting early in the morning from thewigwam, and returning but late in the night, when the fires were out.The very day on which he was to lead the young girl to his lodge, thechief went bear-hunting among the hills of the neighbourhood. Meetingwith a grizzly bear, he fired at him; but at the moment he pulled thetrigger his foot slipped, and he fell down, only wounding the fierceanimal, which now, smarting and infuriated with pain, rushed upon him.

  The chief had been hurt in his fall, he was incapable of defence, andknew that he was lost; he shut his eyes, and waited for his death-blow,when the report of a rifle, and the springing of the bear in the agoniesof death, made him once more open his eyes; he started upon his feet,there lay the huge monster, and near him stood the young warrior who hadthus timely rescued him.

  The chief recognised his rival, and his gratitude overpowering all otherfeelings, he took the warrior by the hand and grasped it firmly.

  "Brother," he said, "thou hast saved my life at a time when it wassweet, more so than usual; let us be brothers."

  The young man's breast heaved with contending passions, but he, too, wasa noble fellow.

  "Chief," answered line, "when I saw the bear rushing upon thee, Ithought it was the Manitou who had taken compassion on my sufferings, myheart for an instant felt light and happy; but as death was near thee,very near, the Good Spirit whispered his wishes, and I have saved theefor happiness. It is I who must die! I am nothing, have no friends, noone to care for me, to love me, to make pleasant in the lodge the dullhours of night. Chief; farewell!"

  He was going, but the chief grasped him firmly by the arm:--

  "Where dost thou wish to go? Dost thou know the love of a brother?Didst thou ever dream of one? I have said we must be brothers to eachother; come to the wigwam."

  They returned to the village in silence, and when they arrived beforethe door of the council lodge, the chief summoned everybody to hear whathe had to communicate, and ordered the parents to bring the young girl.

  "Flower of the magnolia," said he, taking her by the hand, "wilt thoulove me less as a brother than as a husband? speak! Whisper thy thoughtto me! Didst thou ever dream of another voice than mine, a younger one,breathing of love and despair?"

  Then leading the girl to where the young warrior stood--

  "Brother," said he, "take thy wife and my sister."

  Turning towards the elders, the chief extended his right arm so as toinvite general attention.

  "I have called you," said he, "that an act of justice may be performed;hear my words:--

  "A young antelope loved a lily, standing under the shade of a sycamore,by the side of a cool stream. Daily he came to watch it as it grewwhiter and more beautiful; he loved it very much, till one day a largebull came and picked up the lily. Was it good? No! The poor antelopefled towards the mountains, never wishing to return any more under thecool shade of the sycamore. One day he met the bull down, and about tobe killed by a big bear. He saved him; he heard only the whisper of hisheart; he saved the bull, although the bull had taken away the prettylily from where it: stood, by the cool stream. It was good, it waswell! The bull said to the antelope, `We shall be brothers, in joy andin sorrow!' and the antelope said, there could be no joy for him sincethe lily was gone. The bull considered; he thought that a brother oughtto make great sacrifices for a brother, and he said to the antelope:`Behold, there is the lily, take it before it droops away, wear it inthy bosom and be happy.' Chiefs, sages, and warriors! I am the bull;behold! my brother the antelope. I have given unto him the flower ofthe magnolia; she is the lily, that grew by the side of the stream, andunder the sycamore. I have done well, I have done much, yet not enoughfor a great chief, not enough for a brother, not enough for justice!Sages, warriors, hear me all; the flower of the magnolia can lie butupon the bosom of a chief. My brother must become a chief, he is achief, for I divide with him the power I possess: my wealth, my lodge,are his own; my horses, my mules, my furs, and all! A chief has but onelife, and it is a great gift than cannot be paid too highly. You haveheard my words: I have said!"

  This sounds very much like a romance, but it is an Apache story, relatedof one of their great chiefs, during one of their evening encampments.

  An Apache having, in a moment of passion accidentally killed one of thetribe, hastened to the chiefs to deliver himself up to justice. On hisway he was met by the brother of his victim, upon whom, according toIndian laws, fell the duty of revenge and retaliation; they were friendsand shook hands together.

  "Yet I must kill thee, friend," said the brother.

  "Thou wilt!" answered the murderer; "it is thy duty, but wilt thou notremember the dangers we have passed together, and provide and consolethose I leave behind in my lodge?"

  "I will," answered the brother; "thy wife shall be my sister during herwidowhood, thy children will never want game, until they can themselvesstrike the bounding deer."

  The two Indians continued their way in silence, till at once the brotherof the murdered one stopped.

  "We shall soon reach the chiefs," said he, "I to revenge a brother'sdeath, thou to quit for ever thy tribe and thy children. Hast thou awish? think, whisper!"

  The murderer stood irresolute, his glance furtively took the directionof his lodge. The brother continued:--

  "Go to thy lodge. I shall wait for thee till the setting of the sun,before the council door. Go! thy tongue is silent; but I know the wishof thy heart. Go!"

  Such traits are common in Indian life. Distrust exists not among thechildren of the wilderness, until generated by the conduct of white men.These stories and thousand others, all exemplifying the triumph ofvirtue and honour over baseness and vice, are every day narrated by theelders, in presence of the young men and children. The eveningencampment is a great school of morals, where the Red-skin philosopherembodies in his tales the sacred precepts of virtue. A traveller, couldhe understand what was said, as he viewed the scene, might fancy some ofthe sages of ancient Greece inculcating to their disciples thoseprecepts of wisdom which have transmitted their name down to us brightand glorious, through more than twenty centuries.

  I have stated that the holy men among the Indians, that is to say, thekeepers of the sacred lodges, keep the records of the great deedsperformed in the tribe; but a tribe will generally boast more of thegreat virtues of one of its men than of the daring of its bravestwarriors. "A virtuous man," they say, "has the ear of the Manitou, hecan tell him the sufferings of Indian nature, and ask him to soothethem."

  Even the Mexicans, who, of all men, have had most to suffer and sufferdaily from the Apaches, [What I here say of the Apaches applies to thewhole Shoshone race.] cannot but do them the justice they so welldeserve. The road betwixt Chihuahua and Santa Fe is almost entirelydeserted, so much are the Apaches dreaded; yet they are not hated by theMexicans half as much as the Texians or the Americans. The Apaches areconstantly at war with the Mexicans, it is true, but never have theycommitted any of those cowardly atrocities which have disgraced everypage of Texian history. With the Apaches there are no murders in coldblood, no abuse of the prisoners; a captive knows that he will eithersuffer death or be adopted in the tribe; but he has never to fear theslow fire and the excruciating torture so generally employed by theIndians in the United States' territories.

  Their generosity is unbounded, and by the treatment I received at theirhands the reader may form an idea of that brave people. They will neverhurt a stranger coming to them: a green bough in his hand is a token ofpeace; for him they will spread the best blankets the wigwam can afford,they will studiously attend to his wants, smoke with him the calumet ofpeace, and when he goes away, whatever he may desire from among thedisposable wealth of the tribe, if he asks for it, it is given.

  Gabriel was once attacked near Santa Fe, and robbed of his baggage bysome honest Yankee traders. He fell in with a party of Apaches, to whomhe related the circumstance. They gave him some blankets and left himwith their young men at the hunting-lodges they had erected. The
nextday they returned with several Yankee captives, all well tied, toprevent any possibility of escape. These were the thieves, and whatthey had taken of Gabriel was of course restored to him. One of theIndians saying, that the Yankees, having blackened and soiled thecountry by theft, should receive the punishment of dogs, and as it wasbeneath an Apache to strike them, cords were given to them, with ordersthat they should chastise each other for their rascality. Theblackguards were obliged to submit, and the dread of being scalped wastoo strong upon them to allow them to refuse. At first, they did notseem to hurt each other much; but one or two of them, smarting under thelash, returned the blows in good earnest, and then they all got angryand beat each other so unmercifully that, in a few minutes, they werescarcely able to move. Nothing could exceed the ludicrous picture whichGabriel would draw out of this little event.

  There is one circumstance which will form a particular datum in thehistory of the western wild tribes: I mean the terrible visitation ofthe small-pox. The Apaches, Comanches, the Shoshones, and Arrapahoesare so clean and so very nice in the arrangement of their domesticcomforts, that they suffered very little, or not at all; at least, I donot remember a single case which brought death in these tribes; indeed,as I have before mentioned, the Shoshones vaccinate.

  But such was not the case with the Club Indians of the Colorado of theWest, with the Crows, the Flat-heads, the Umbiquas, and the Black-feet.These last suffered a great deal more than any people in the world eversuffered from any plague or pestilence. To be sure, the Mandans hadbeen entirely swept from the surface of the earth; but they were few,while the Black-feet were undoubtedly the most numerous and powerfultribe in the neighbourhood of the mountains. Their war-parties rangedthe country from the northern English posts on the Slave Lake down southto the very borders of the Shoshones, and many among them had takenscalps of the Osages, near the Mississippi, and even of the greatPawnees. Between the Red River and the Platte they had once one hundredvillages, thousands and thousands of horses. They numbered more thansix thousand warriors. Their name had become a by-word of terror on thenorthern continent, from shore to shore, and little children in theeastern states, who knew not the name of the tribes two miles from theirdwellings, had learned to dread even the name a Black-foot. Now thetribe has been reduced to comparative insignificancy by this dreadfulscourge. They died by thousands; whole towns and villages weredestroyed; and even now the trapper, coming from the mountains, willoften come across numberless lodges in ruins, and the blanched skeletonsof uncounted and unburied Indians. They lost ten thousand individualsin less than three weeks.

  Many tribes but little known suffered pretty much in the same ratio.The Club Indians, I have mentioned, numbering four thousand before thepestilence, are now reduced to thirty or forty individuals; and someApaches related to me that, happening at that time to travel along theshores of the Colorado, they met the poor fellows dying by hundreds onthe very edge of the water, where they had dragged themselves to quenchtheir burning thirst, there not being among them one healthy or strongenough to help and succour the others. The Navahoes, living in theneighbourhood of the Club Indians, have entirely disappeared; and,though late travellers have mentioned them in their works, there is notone of them living now.

  Mr Farnham mentions them in his "Tour on the Mountains;" but he musthave been mistaken, confounding one tribe with another, or perhapsdeceived by the ignorance of the trappers; for that tribe occupied arange of country entirely out of his track, and never travelled byAmerican traders or trappers. Mr Farnham could not have been in theirneighbourhood by at least six hundred miles.

  The villages formerly occupied by the Navahoes are deserted, though manyof their lodges still stand; but they serve only to shelter numeroustribes of dogs, which, having increased wonderfully since there has beenno one to kill and eat them, have become the lords of vast districts,where they hunt in packs. So numerous and so fierce have they grown;that the neighbouring tribes feel great unwillingness to extend theirrange to where they may fall in with these canine hunters.

  This disease, which has spread north as far as the Ohakallagans, on theborders of the Pacific Ocean, north of Fort Vancouver, has also extendedits ravages to the western declivity of the Arrahuac, down to 30 degreesnorth latitude, where fifty nations that had a name are now forgotten,the traveller, perchance, only reminded that they existed when he fallsin with heaps of unburied bones.

  How the Black-feet caught the infection it is difficult to say as theirimmediate neighbours in the east escaped; but the sites of theirvillages were well calculated to render the disease more general andterrible: their settlements being generally built in some recess, deepin the heart of the mountains, or in valleys surrounded by lofty hills,which prevent all circulation of the air; and it is easy to understandthat the atmosphere, once becoming impregnated with the effluvia, andhaving, no issue, must have been deadly.

  On the contrary, the Shoshones, the Apaches, and the Arrapahoes, havethe generality of their villages built along the shores of deep andbroad rivers. Inhabiting a warm clime, cleanness, first a necessity,has become a second nature. The hides and skins are never dried in theimmediate vicinity of their lodges, but at a great distance where theeffluvia can hurt no one. The interior of their lodges is dry, andalways covered with a coat of hard white clay, a good precaution againstinsects and reptiles, the contrast of colour immediately betraying theirpresence. Besides which, having always a plentiful supply of food, theyare temperate in their habits, and are never guilty of excess; while theCrows, Black-feet, and Clubs, having often to suffer hunger for days,nay, weeks together, will, when they have an opportunity, eat torepletion, and their stomachs being always in a disordered state (theprincipal and physical cause of their fierceness and ferocity), it is nowonder that they fell victims, with such predispositions to disease.

  It will require many generations to recover the number of Indians whichperished in that year; and, as I have said, as long as they live, itwill form an epoch or era to which they will for centuries refer.

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  Note 1. There is every prospect of these north-western tribes remainingin their present primitive state, indeed of their gradual improvement,for nothing can induce them to touch spirits. They know that theeastern Indians had been debased and conquered by the use of them, andconsider an offer of a dram from an American trader as an indirectattempt upon their life and honour.