Plains Indians

“ The Indians living between the outer white settlements and the nomadic tribes of the Plains form intermediate social links in the chain of civilization. The first of these occupy permanent habitations, but the others, although they cultivate the soil, are only resident while their crops are growing, going out into the prairies after harvest to spend the winter in hunting. ”

“ Another noteworthy feature of these later people’s cultural change was their adoption of ideas and tools which had long been common with the Plains Indians. As trade with the Southeastern chiefdoms decreased, that with the Plains people increased. ”

“ The Indians of the Great Plains lived a very different life from that of the natives of either the mountains or the Pacific coast. In the far north, to be sure, the rigorous climate caused all the Indians to live practically alike, whether in the Rockies, the plains, or the Laurentian highland. South of them, in that great central expanse stretching from the latitude of Lake Winnipeg to the Rio Grande River, the Indians of the plains possessed a relatively uniform type of life peculiar to themselves. ”

“ With but rare exceptions our most expensive expeditions against the Indians on the Plains have been supplied by contracts made with parties far inside the limits of civilization, who probably never saw a hostile Indian, and who never even visited the Indian country. ”

“ Now they are prevented by law from fishing or hunting outside the boundaries of their various reservations, to which they were sent by the government for different reasons. For many years meat and flour were given to some tribes as rations at certain periods of the year, when they also received money and blankets. A number of tribes have become much like the white man, and live in houses and have large numbers of horses and cattle upon the plains or on their farms in the east; other tribes, proud of their ancient customs, still try to live as nearly as possible in the way of their ancestors. ”

“ If an Indian is benighted on the plains, he can make himself quite comfortable, where a white man would perish in the winter with cold. He will gather some buffalo chips, and strike a fire with a flint, sitting close to it, and throwing his blanket around him in shape of a tent, and let the smoke go out of a hole at the top. He thus looks at night like a stump on fire.
MERCIFUL INDIANS.
A poor old German was traveling in Colorado with his wagon, when he was set upon by a lot of Indians. ”

“ We still notice, too, the difference which the early explorers observed, between these Indians and those of the plains. The latter, living on horseback, are finely developed, and look like warriors; the former, engaged only in their canoes or stooping over the banks, are low in stature and seem to have been dwarfed out of all manhood. In everything noble they are many degrees below the wild tribes on the plains. ”

“ Corn was sacred, and they had ceremonials connected with it, and called it “mother.” In cultivating their fields they used hoes made of bone: these were made by firmly fastening the shoulder-blade of a buffalo to the end of a stick.
Two practices in which the Pani differed from most Plains Indians remind us of some Mexican tribes: they kept a sort of servants and sacrificed [pg 137] human beings. Young men or boys who were growing up often attached themselves to men of importance. ”

“ The numerous Indian tribes subjected to the environment of the Great Plains have developed in great detail some special religious observances, ceremonial institutions, secret societies, ritual observances, &c. The mental life of these Indians was profoundly influenced by the buffalo and later not a little by the horse. Various aspects of Plains culture have recently been discussed by Goddard, Kroeber, Wissler, Dorsey, Fletcher, Boas, &c., from whose investigations it would appear that much intertribal borrowing has taken place. ”

“ The valley was interesting because of its being occupied by an altogether different type of Indians. We had left the plains Indian at Trinidad and from there to Santa Fe had seen only Mexicans with a fair proportion of Americans whose business interests were in the country. The Plains Indian, Cheyennes, Commanches, and Kiowas and Arapahoes, were nomadic and warlike. Here was an agricultural people who lived in little villages called pueblos, a name also attached to the Indians themselves. ”

“ Thus, the modes of hunting buffalo and conducting war, practiced by one Plains tribe, were much the same among Plains tribes generally. Some of the things in these lessons will seem foolish; others are terrible. But remember that foreigners who study us find that we have many customs which they think strange and even terrible. The life of the Indians was not, on the whole, either foolish or bad ”

“ They were assured that Indians never scalp negroes; which is really true, I found, in my interviews with different tribes on the plains. The reason I can only guess at: the curly hair of a negro would not ornament the saddle-bow of an Indian, in the shape of a scalp token of victory. ”

“ I say hazardous, because there were none of us who imagined for one moment that if the Indians discovered us in our attempt to surround them and their village, we would escape without a fight—a fight, too, in which the Indians, sheltered behind the trunks of the stately forest trees under which their lodges were pitched, would possess all the advantage. ”

“ The dangers attending the building of the road were sometimes very great, as the Indians saw very plainly that it was the white man's encroachment on his hunting-grounds. And when even the telegraph-poles were being put up, long before, the Indians imagined that the government was thus putting them up to fence off their hunting-grounds, so they could not get any more buffalo! ”

“ It appeared that a large number of Indians had wintered there. After looking the valley over we returned to camp, but by a different route from the one we came. We saw no Indians or fresh sign of them until the second day of the return trip, but about two o'clock we came in sight of four Indians traveling eastward. We tried to attack them, but our horses being much jaded, the Indians outrode us, so we had to give up the chase. We were of the opinion that the four Indians were scouts for a big band making its way to winter quarters. ”

“ The interest which boys are taking in all that relates to our Indian tribes, and the greediness they manifest in devouring the sensational stories published so cheaply, filling their imaginations with stories of wild Indian life on the plains and borders, without regard to their truthfulness, cannot but be harmful; and therefore the writer, after three years' experience on the plains, feels desirous of giving youthful minds a right direction, in a true history of the red men of our forests. Thus can they teach their children, in time to come, what kind of races have peopled this continent ”

“ There is another class of the population in the North-West whose position I desire to bring under the notice of the Privy Council. I refer to the wandering Half-breeds of the plains, who are chiefly of French descent and live the life of the Indians. There are a few who are identified with the Indians, but there is a large class of Metis who live by the hunt of the buffalo, and have no settled homes. ”

“ As the people moved farther west, settling on the prairies, they began to think what use could be made of the plains beyond. They decided that cattle could be raised there. But first the tribes of Indians who were roaming freely about must be forced to stay in certain parts of the country which the government of the United States reserved for them. ”

“ In discussing the establishment of reservations, and the locating of the Indians upon them, Colonel Parker says: “It may be imagined that a serious obstacle would be presented to the removal of the Indians from their homes on account of the love they bear for the graves of their ancestors. This, indeed, would be the least and last objection that would be raised by any tribe. Much is said in the books about the reverence paid by Indians to the dead, and their antipathy to deserting their ancestral graves. ”

“ In doing this apparently many times you will seem to take your lives in your own hands, for the Indians will be worse on the plains this year than they ever have been. At the present time there is no protection for the emigrant from the time they get twenty-five miles west of Fort Kerney, until they cross the Sierra Nevada mountains, and there are to be so many renegades from justice from Illinois and Missouri that it is going to be fearful this season, for the renegade is really worse in some respects than the Indian. He invariably has two objects in view. ”

“ These tribes differed in their methods of living according to the conditions with which they were surrounded. Indians who lived along the Atlantic Coast and made their living from fishing, as well as from hunting, were very different from the Indians of the plains and Rocky Mountain regions, who live almost solely upon buffalo and other varieties of game that they were able to secure. ”

“ We dismounted, unpacked and turned our pack animals loose with the emigrants' stock, but picketed our saddle animals near camp. Those people told us of their fight that morning with the Indians. Just as they were hitched up and were in the act of pulling out, the Indians attacked them, about forty strong. They only had twenty- four men and the Indians killed four of their number, and theirs were the graves we had seen that morning. ”

“ Encouraged by our progress, we continued the pursuit as rapidly as a due regard for our horses would permit. Thus far, neither myself nor any of the soldiers had caught sight of any Indians; but our Delaware scouts, who were constantly in the advance and on our flanks, taking advantage of the bluffs to reconnoitre, frequently reported that they saw small parties of Indians observing our movements from a distance. From positive evidences, familiar to those accustomed to the Plains, we were convinced that we were rapidly gaining upon the Indians. ”

“ When we first came in sight of the Indians, some were lying stretched out in the sun, some were sitting down, while a few were out looking after their horses, everything indicating that they had just had their breakfast and were lounging around, not having the slightest idea of an enemy in twenty miles of them, and we took them wholly unawares. ”

“ Except during seasons of the most perfect peace, and when it is the firm intention of the chiefs to remain on friendly terms with the whites at least during the winter and early spring months, the localities selected for their winter resorts are remote from the military posts and frontier settlements, and the knowledge which might lead to them carefully withheld from every white man. Even during a moderate winter season, it is barely possible for the Indians to obtain sufficient food for their ponies to keep the latter in anything above a starving condition. ”

“ As the Indian of the Plains is himself only when on horseback, provision must be made for mounting him properly in the Indian heaven. To accomplish this, the favorite war53 pony is led beneath the platform on which the body of the warrior is placed at rest, and there strangled to death.
No signs indicating the recent presence of Indians were discovered by our scouts until we neared the Republican river, where the trail of a small war party was discovered running down one of the tributaries of the Republican. ”

“ The Indians could not undertake any widespread cultivation of the plains not only because they lacked iron tools but also because they had no draft animals. ”

“ To anyone who threads the vast silent forests of the interior, or journeys upon the trafficless waterways, or, gun in hand, explores the mountains for game, the infrequency with which Indians are met becomes impressive. The province seems almost unpeopled. The reason is that the majority of the Indians were ever on the coast, where the water yielded food at all times and in plenty. The natives of the interior were not well fed or prosperous when the first white men found them, and since then small-pox, measles, vice, and starvation have thinned them terribly. ”

“ There is scarcely a finer country on earth than that now owned by the Creeks; and in North America, certainly no Indian tribe more advanced in the arts and agriculture than they are. It is no uncommon thing to see a Creek with twenty or thirty slaves at work on his plantation, having brought them from a slave-holding country, from which, in their long journey, and exposure to white man’s ingenuity, I venture to say, that most of them got rid of one-half of them, whilst on their long and disastrous crusade. ”

“ There is every prospect of these north-western tribes remaining in their present primitive state, indeed of their gradual improvement, for nothing can induce them to touch spirits. They know that the eastern Indians have been debased and conquered by the use of them, and consider an offer of a dram from an American trader as an indirect attempt upon their life and honour. ”

“ There are on the prairie some forty or fifty families, mostly French, and some half-breeds, whose lives have been chiefly spent in the arduous and hazardous occupations of trappers, and traders, and voyageurs; which has well qualified them for the modes of dealing with Indians, where they have settled down and stand ready to compete with one another for their shares of annuities, &c. which are dealt out to the different tribes who concentrate at that place, and are easily drawn from the poor Indians’ hands by whiskey and useless gewgaws. ”