Sioux people

“ The warriors, charging in irresistible masses from side to side, met in the center, and when the smoke lifted from the last great struggle Dick saw only Sioux.
Of all the gallant little army that had charged into the valley not a soul was now living, save a Crow Indian scout, who, when all was lost, let down his hair after the fashion of a Sioux, and escaped in the turmoil as one of their own people. ”

“ That all this should be true of these wild, warlike Sioux, after so many years of hardships and forced wanderings and removals, is incontrovertible proof that there is in them a native strength of character, power of endurance, and indomitable courage, which will make of them ultimately a noble and superior race of people, if civilization will only give them time to become civilized, and Christians will leave them time and peace to learn Christianity. ”

“ The Sioux are generally represented as a brave, generous and spirited people, with proud notions of their origin as a tribe, and their superiority as hunters and warriors, and with a predominant passion for war. ”

“ It is the custom of my people, a custom that has the sanction of many centuries, and that is bred into our bone and blood. Therefore it is of use to us, and it is more fit than anything else to arouse us for the great crisis that we are to meet."
Neither Dick nor Albert made any reply. Both saw that the great deep of the Sioux chief's stoicism was for the moment broken up. He might never be so stirred again, but there was no doubt of it now, and they could see his side of it, too. It was his people and their customs against the white man, the stranger. ”

“ Like the prairie deer or buffalo, he would seek shelter from the storm or burning sun; but though he might once have reflected upon the occupations of a disembodied spirit, when it should be released from the shackles of earth, he had long since ceased to do so. His mind floated on the stormy waves of life, like the wreck at sea, far alike from light, hope, or help.
74
His life was an eventful one for an Indian's. Born when the Sioux were not dependent upon white people, he trod his native earth with the consciousness of owning it. ”

“ Americans, Scotch, Sioux, and French could all find within his breast, they said, a kindred spirit, and they bestowed upon him the name of Four Hearts because of the impartiality of his actions to all nationalities.178 In June, 1858, a number of Sioux chiefs were in Washington and came to see him. My old Father, said Little Crow, we have called upon you; we love you; we respect you.... Since you left us a dark cloud has hung over our nation. We have lost confidence in the promises of our Great Father, and his people; bad men have nearly destroyed us.... ”

“ Will it be said that I am regarding, with partial eye and sentimental romance, but one side of the Sioux character? Have they no faults, as a people and individually? They are savages—and that goes far to answer the question. Perhaps the best answer is, the women have faults enough, and the men twice as many as the women. But if to be a savage is to be cruel, vindictive, ferocious—dare we say that to be a civilized man necessarily implies freedom from these traits? ”

“ The Sioux, notwithstanding this good teaching of the very tradition which they still repeat to the stranger, have, by the right of the strongest, taken possession of the sacred neutral ground; and they, and all other tribes of the red race, are either being absorbed into the white population or exterminated by it. The development of the myth and the people of the myth has been therefrom alike arrested. ”

“ His host on this occasion was a French trader named Le Bean, who, after offering the hospitalities of the lodge, and learning who were his guests, offered to accompany the party a few miles on its way. This he did, saying by way of explanation of this act of courtesy, "The Sioux are a bad people; I thought it best to see you safe out of the village." Receiving the thanks of the travelers, he turned back at night-fall, and they continued on all night without stopping to camp, going some distance to the south of their course before turning east again, in order to avoid any possible pursuers. ”

“ The Sioux may come sometime or other, and even if they should get our three residences, Castle Howard, the Annex, and the Suburban Villa, and all that is in them, they are pretty sure to miss our caves and our furs."
"Of course some Indians must know of this valley," said Dick, "and most likely it's the Sioux. Perhaps none ever wander in here now, because they're at war with our people and are using all their forces on the plains." ”

“ The Sioux were beginning to learn that the old life must go, and that, if they were to survive at all, they must follow "the white man's road," long and hard as it looked to a free people. They were beginning to plow and sow and send their children to school. ”

“ And now a lively young lass, neatly attired, comes forward and with a fine, clear accent, recites a poem of hope, touching the bright future of their tribe, when the present generation of young men and maidens, nourished in Christian homes, educated in Christian schools and trained in the Young People's societies for efficient service, shall control their tribe, and move the great masses of their people upward and God-ward, and elevate the Sioux Nation to a lofty plane of Christian civilization and culture ”

“ Fortunately, two years before, a young Sioux had been taken prisoner by a party of Crees, a numerous, people, who inhabit the country round Lake Winnepeg, their lodges being found far in other directions. They, like the heathen Ojibways, are always at war with the Sioux, and no opportunity is lost of taking each others’ scalps. This young Sioux, to whom the name of Joseph had been given, was anxious to carry the glad tidings of salvation to his countrymen, and hearing of the old hunter’s wish, gladly volunteered to accompany him. ”

“ The twenty grand-children of the old Sioux—all of school age—are diligently prosecuting their studies in order to be prepared to meet the changed conditions which civilization has made possible for the Indians. One of his grand-sons is a physician now, in a fair practice among his own people. ”

“ Finally the White Antelope arose and stepped into the circle, and there made her voice heard by all in the lodge.
“The Sioux are a wise people; their chiefs are wise; their old men are wise, but sometimes even the wise are mistaken. They make mistakes. They welcome into their tribe one who stung and bit like the viper [305] warmed in the bosom. Such a viper has been warmed in the bosom of the Utah Sioux!”
The old men grunted and looked at each other. Some glanced covertly at the place where the medicine chief, Death Killer, should have sat. ”

“ He continued to grow in their favour, and was preparing to accompany some of their braves on a war-party, when, one morning, a party of Sioux approached the village. One of the men was much taller and larger than all the rest, his eagle feathers towering above their heads. The hospitable people pressed forward to welcome them: and when they were rested, and had eaten and smoked, the chief missed their stranger friend. He was not to be seen; when they found he did not return to them, they told his strange story to Fiery Man and his band. ”

“ It has frequently been used as currency among the different tribes; but in making treaties it is strung and made into a belt, and at the close of a speech is presented to the other party as a pledge of good faith.
8 Among the Sioux it is customary to inflict wounds, sometimes deep and severe ones, upon themselves on the occasion of the death of a friend. The arms of aged people are frequently seamed with scars. ”

“ To return to the fort, and secure the aid that he knew would be cheerfully given, would take a day or two, during which the crisis must come and pass with his people. Two days at the most would settle the question whether they were to escape or fall victims to the ferocity of the Sioux.
"I can't do it," he said, compressing his lips and shaking his head. "I have never played the coward, and I'm not going to begin when my folks are concerned. My first duty is to find out where father, mother, and Dot are, and then do all I can for their safety." ”

“ Many a dreary winter and scorching summer has gone by since I have turned, to the right hand or to the left, to add an hour to a life that has already stretched beyond fourscore years. I keep myself as ready to answer to my name as a soldier at evening roll-call. In my judgment, if your cases are left to Indian tempers, the policy of the Great Sioux will lead his people to sacrifice you all ”

“ The Assiniboins are of the great Sioux family. Today there are in the United States about one thousand of them. But when they were a free and powerful people they numbered as high as ten thousand, and ranged far—from the Missouri River in northern North Dakota and northern Montana clear into Canada, above.
This cold, high country of vast plains made them hardy and roaming. In their proud bearing and good size they resembled the Dakota Sioux, but with the Sioux they had little to do, except in war. They were at war with the Mandans also, and other nations to the south. ”

“ Was it to be wondered at, under these circumstances, that Sitting Bull and his men believed they were superior to the general government? Any body who knows anything about Indian nature knows that the legitimate result of that cowardly policy of peace at any price, was to defer only the evil day which has now come upon us. Since that time the Sioux have been constantly depredating on the frontiers of Nebraska, Wyoming and Montana, and more men have fallen there in the peaceful vocations of civil life, without a murmur being heard, than fell under the gallant Custer. ”

“ No wonder the Sioux were never still. The ozone of the Arctic was in their veins, the sweeping winds drove them, the balsamic prairie was their bed, the sky their canopy. They never shut themselves up in stuffy mud huts, as did the Mandans; they lived in tents. Unrestrained, unregenerate, there was in them the fire of the Six Nations, of King Philip and of Pontiac. Tall, handsome, finely formed, agile, revengeful, intelligent, capable,—they loved their country and they hated strangers. ”

“ He is capable of civilization. Amid all the obstacles, the wrongs, and evils of our Indian policy, there are no missions which show richer rewards. Thousands of this poor race, who were once as poor and degraded as the wild Sioux, are to-day civilized men, living by the cultivation of the soil, and sharing with us in those blessings which give to men home, country, and freedom. ”

“ The sun was near his setting, and as the Sioux party looked down upon a Crow village, which occupied the centre of a charming valley, the Sioux chief commanded the attention of his braves and addressed them in the following language:
"I am about to die, my brothers, and must speak my mind. To be fortunate in war is your chief ambition, and because I have been successful you are unhappy. Is this right? Have you acted like men? I despise you for your meanness, and I intend to prove to you this night that I am the bravest man in the nation. ”

“ Wilder than the Comanches they rode, more cunning in theft than the Crows, more bloodthirsty than the Blackfeet. On the red man's triple plea for war,—horses, scalps, and wives,—the Sioux were pirates of the streams and despots of the prairie.
Mettlesome with the bow, fiery in battle, strong, brave, wild, kings of the hills and monarchs of the trails, they ruled the earth in splendid savagery. The buffalo was theirs, the beaver and the deer, and woe betide the rival that poached on their preserves. Did the poor Shoshone venture beyond the Rockies, he was flayed and burned alive. ”

“ The Council Tent was in darkness! The lights were out in the teepees. The whole camp was wrapped in solid slumber. And as we sunk to rest in our bed of new-mown hay, we breathed a prayer for the slumbering Sioux around us; May the Cloud, by day, and the Pillar of Fire, by night, guide the Sioux Nation through the Red Sea of Savagery, superstition and sin to the Promised Land of Christian Civilization. ”

“ Our shot-pouches are not light. But we love peace. Tell us, what doth the Mandane offer for the blood of the young man? Is it to be peace or war? Shall we be friends or enemies? Do you raise the tomahawk, or pipe of peace? Say, great chief of the Mandanes, what is thy answer?"
This and more did the Sioux chief vauntingly declaim, brandishing his war club and addressing the four points of the compass, also the sun, as he shouted out his defiance. To which Black Cat, in louder voice, made reply.
"Say, great chief of the Sioux, our dead was brought into the camp. The body was yet warm. ”

“ The rumors of trouble among the Sioux were confirmed by his visit to Fort Meade. A spirit of unrest had prevailed for a long time, caused by the machinations of that marplot, Sitting Bull, the harangues of medicine men who proclaimed the coming Messiah, the ghost dances, the eagerness of the young bucks to take the warpath, and the universal belief that the last opportunity for the red men to turn back the advance of the Caucasian race was to be made soon or never. ”

“ Rightly or wrongly deprived of what they had once called their own, driven back, back on the crest of the ever-increasing wave of settlement, facing the alternative of annihilation or of submergence in that flood, the Sioux had halted like a wild thing at bay, with their backs to the last stronghold, the richest plot of earth on the face of the globe, the Black Hills country, and as a cornered animal ever fights, had battled ferociously for a lost supremacy. ”