The Pioneer Boys of the Missouri; or, In the Country of the Sioux

by St. George Rathborne

  NOTES

  NOTE 1 (PAGE 3)

  MOST of the vast country west of the Mississippi River was owned in1803 by France, Spain having made a secret treaty with France bywhich she ceded the territory of Louisiana, embracing the presentStates of Montana, North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota, Iowa,Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Indian Territory, and part ofColorado. President Jefferson, learning of this treaty, sent to Francea commission empowered to purchase the island on which New Orleansstood; and also the right of a passage to the sea. Napoleon Bonaparteresponded with an offer to sell all of Louisiana to the United Statesfor twenty million dollars. After bargaining for awhile the vastterritory was purchased for fifteen million dollars. Bonaparte wasdelighted. "This accession of territory," said he, rubbing his hands,"strengthens forever the power of the United States. I have givenEngland a rival upon the sea, which will sooner or later humble herpride."

  NOTE 2 (PAGE 36)

  Very few people realized the value of the newly bought possessions,and many roundly abused President Jefferson for making the purchase.But the Western settlers were overjoyed. "At last," they said, "wehave room for expansion. Hurrah for Jefferson!" Highly delighted athis success, the President recommended to Congress, in a confidentialmessage, that a party should be dispatched to trace the Missouri Riverto its source, cross the Rocky Mountains, and go to the Pacific Coast.The plan was approved, Captain Meriwether Lewis, the President'sprivate secretary, being appointed to lead the expedition, which wasoriginally intended to consist of nine young Kentuckians, fourteenUnited States soldiers, two French voyageurs to serve as hunters andinterpreters, and a black servant for Captain William Clark, whowas a joint commander. On the 24th of May, 1804, the little band ofadventurous souls, augmented by additional frontiersmen, left the mouthof the Missouri, and struck out toward the unknown West, with threeboats, one a covered one, to carry their possessions.

  NOTE 3 (PAGE 131)

  During its long course from the far away Rockies to its junction withthe mighty Mississippi, the Missouri River penetrates every varietyof country one can think of. In many places it passes through vaststretches of prairie land, where, as far as the eye can reach, thecountry is like a billowy sea, being covered with grass. Then again itcuts a channel between rocks that form rapids quite as dangerous asthose of the Upper Nile, and known as the Cataracts. There are banksthat are heavily timbered; and even low places, swampy, and almostimpossible of navigation for canoes. Much difficulty is encountered inavoiding the islands that crop up, some covered only with rank watergrass, others bearing a luxuriant growth of trees, such as sycamore,cottonwood, walnut, and others. Sand-bars form and disappear daily,so that a pilot never knows what he has before him in trying to take aboat along this erratic stream. And it was up this swift current thatthe daring explorers, led by Lewis and Clark, ventured to push theirthree boats, day after day, as the summer months glided on, facingperils of every description, and bent on carrying out the plans whichthe President himself had personally approved, if indeed the entirescheme was not of his own conception.

  NOTE 4 (PAGE 160)

  Well might Roger say this, for at that day, and much later also, it wasno uncommon thing for a ranger on the prairie to see, from some butte,a drove of bison rolling by that seemed to stretch from horizon tohorizon, and take hours in passing. The Indians said they were as manyas the grains of sand on some of the bars that could be found along theerratic course of the great Missouri River. They hunted them in and outof season, and killed tens of thousands, no doubt, every year, oftendriving an entire herd over some precipice for the sake of securingthe tongues alone, which were esteemed a great delicacy. But up to theintroduction of the repeating firearm, at about the time the CentralPacific Railroad was being put through, there seemed no perceptiblediminution to the vast number of the shaggy beasts. But civilizationcame and finished the business; and at the present time, save for a fewscattered specimens, in small droves, numbering some hundreds in all,the once famous bison, called wrongly the buffalo, has been entirelyexterminated.

  NOTE 5 (PAGE 274)

  The Mandan tribe of Indians has always been more or less of a mysteryto those historians who have tried to figure where the peopleinhabiting the country at the time of the discovery of America, andits later development, originally came from. They were of a muchlighter hue than any of the other Indians, and, while some studentshave declared their positive belief that they must have sprung fromthe lost tribe of Israel, others claim to see certain similarities incustoms and even language between the Mandans and the Welsh. Theselatter claim that at some time in the remote past a vessel with a Welshcrew must have been blown across the Atlantic ocean, and into the Gulfof Mexico, by a severe storm; and that the survivors made their way upthe Mississippi, finally marrying into a tribe of Indians; and thattheir descendants still clung to some of the old-country ways. It isvery curious how many very plausible reasons can be found for believingsuch a thing as this. It may be true; but the point has never beenwholly proved; and so the origin of the "White Indians" still remainsshrouded in mystery to this day. The Mandans suffered fearfully fromthe smallpox epidemic after they began to have intimate relations withthe whites; and, in fact, the once great and powerful tribe has beenalmost exterminated.

  NOTE 6 (PAGE 288)

  Salt-licks, or saline springs, used to be very common in the early daysof the pioneers, and many of the histories of those times make mentionof them. Even in the African wilderness certain animals will come manymiles just to get a chance to lick up the salt at a certain place. Thesame is true of numerous places in our Wild West of to-day. Deer, inparticular, are fond of coming to a "lick." The craving for a taste ofsalt seems to induce them to cover vast distances. Hunters, knowingthis love for salt on the part of game, often hide in ambush nearsuch a magnet, and shoot down wild animals with the greatest of ease.Indeed, in some States the practice of lying in wait at such a placeis looked upon as unsportsmanlike, and frowned down upon, even to theextent of making laws for the protection of salt-hungry game.

  NOTE 7 (PAGE 290)

  As the two boys, Dick and Roger, discovered for themselves, whenfortune allowed them to spend some time in a Mandan village, theseIndians had many ways in common with other tribes, even while incertain traits they differed greatly from the Blackfeet, the Sioux, theShoshones, and the Pawnees. One of these consisted of the customarymedicine-man, who was supposed to be in direct communication withManitou, or the Great Spirit. When a storm came along, and the thunderroared, this old humbug would pretend to be talking with the GreatFather above; and, of course, would interpret as he pleased what theSpirit was supposed to say in reply to his questions. He always dressedin a hideous costume, and looked as much like the Evil One as anyperson could imagine, with his paint, his buffalo tails, his fancifuladornments, and often the horns which he assumed for occasions. Hisprincipal office as the "doctor," or medicine-man, is to frighten awaythe devils that are supposed to be afflicting sick people. He would gothrough with a tremendous amount of nonsense, and, if the sick persongot well, he had the credit of working a miracle; whereas, if he orshe died, it was the will of the Great Spirit! Nor is the medicine-manconfined to the Indian tribes of North America; for the same species ofcharlatan has been discovered in the heart of blackest Africa, amongthe negro nations inhabiting that region.

  NOTE 8 (PAGE 293)

  The Mandans had many strange habits, some of which must have come downto them from remote ancestors; while others were doubtless the resultof their living in the country where wolves and coyotes abounded, andhad to be guarded against, even in the disposal of the bodies of theirdead. When a warrior died his body was wrapped in several buffaloskins, and the last one was tightly secured with thongs. Then thefuneral cortege took up its line of march for the Indian cemetery,where, with fitting ceremonies, the body was secured to a platformerected on four posts, and usually some five or six feet from theground. Here the widow would repair day after day, communing with thespirit
of the departed one, and leaving a bowl of hot succotash, amixture of corn and beans. This was intended as food to sustain thebrave on his long journey to the Land of Shades. The steam arising anddisappearing was believed to be inhaled by the unseen spirit; and,of course, when the bowl was found empty in the morning, having beencleaned out by wandering animals, the Indians chose to think that thedead warrior had in some way devoured its contents during the stillhours of the night.

  NOTE 9 (PAGE 324)

  It was not for many years after the exploring expedition of Lewis andClark passed through the country of the fierce and warlike Sioux tribe,that these Indians learned how to handle firearms. At that day theydepended almost solely upon their bows and arrows, spears, tomahawksand knives, to bring down game, and fight their battles with othertribes with whom they might chance to be at war. They gave the earlysettlers great trouble, and many an uprising was followed by massacres.As late as the seventies they were a power to be reckoned with by theUnited States Government; and the memory of the massacre of GeneralCuster's gallant command will always be one of the saddest recordsof border warfare. At that time it is said that there were severalthousand Sioux warriors under Sitting Bull, which fact is sufficientto explain why the Sioux have always been held in such fear along thefrontier of the Great Northwest.

  NOTE 10 (PAGE 332)

  This ceremony of smoking the pipe at their councils has always beena leading characteristic of Indian nature. When a stranger visits atribe, and is to be treated as a friend, he is invited to smoke thepeace pipe; and this really consists in puffing smoke in the directionof the north, east, south, and west. There is some sort of meaning toit, of course, and it is understood to stand for the promise on thepart of the participants that they will remain friends for all time,whether the wind blows from one quarter of the compass or the other.It signifies complete concord between them. Besides, this is a verysacred institution; and like the breaking of bread among other peoples,or the passing of salt with the Bedouins, or Arabs of the desert, goesto signify that the bonds between those assembled must not be severedlightly. In the case of the council convened to settle the fate of thewhite prisoners, possibly some other meaning might have been attachedto this puffing of the smoke toward the four quarters.