Pawnee Hero Stories and Folk-Tales Part 19

"There was, in my young days, a certain brave man in the tribe. His name was Elk Left Behind. He was so brave that, when the Sioux surrounded him, he would kill so many that he would scare the rest away. In one of the doctors' dances he had the skin of a fawn in his hands. He called out to the people, 'Now, you people, watch me; look close and see what I shall do, and you will find out what my bravery is, and that it all comes from this that you see.' In our presence he shook this fawn skin, and the fawn slipped out of his hands and then stood before him, a living fawn looking at him. 'That is what I mean,'

said he. 'If the enemies surround me, that is the way I come out of it. The fawn can run so fast that it can never be caught, nor can it ever be shot.'

"This man was wonderful. He used to imitate the deer and the elk. He could never be driven into timber or brush, or where there were thickets. He said, 'If I am ever wounded, it will be when I go into timber or brush.' He always wanted to be in the open plain where he could be surrounded. He never ran to the timber for shelter.

"If they suspected that the Sioux were coming to attack the village, he would load a gun and shoot it off. If the ball came back to him, there were no Sioux coming. If it did not, then they would be coming.

When I was present it always came back to him. There were no Sioux coming.

"At one time in the doctors' dance I saw him driving ten young men, who pretended that they were deer. He had a gun and loaded it, and shot the ten men, one after another, through the side. They fell down wounded, and then got up and limped off half dying. He drove them around the ring so that the people might see their wounds. After they had looked at them, he went up to the first and slapped him on the back, and the ball dropped out of him on to the ground, and the man straightened up, healed. So he did to all, up to the tenth man, and they were all healed. This was wonderful.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SUN CHIEF--KIT-KE-HAHK'-I.]

"At one time he wanted to show the people that he could stand anything. He and two others were attacked by Sioux. He said, 'I want to be wounded; let us go to the thickets.' They did so, and a Sioux shot him through the back, and the other two were wounded, but he healed them all after they had got away from the Sioux.

"Another man in the doctors' dance had four young men pretend that they were horses. All had manes and tails, and were painted to imitate horses. He had a gun, to which was tied a scalp. He loaded the gun, and while he was doing this the horses ran off, and stood looking back at the man. He c.o.c.ked the gun and laid it on the ground pointing toward the horses, and placed the scalp near the trigger, and walked some steps away. Then he motioned to the scalp and the gun went off, and one of the horses went down wounded. It seems that the ghost of the scalp obeyed his motion, and shot off the gun. He loaded the gun again, and placed it on the ground as before. The second time he went way off, and as soon as he waved his hand and said, '_wooh_,' the gun went off and another horse went down. This was repeated until all the horses were down. The people examined them and saw that they were really wounded in the breast. The man went up to them and they seemed to be dying and vomited blood, and the young man slapped them, and the b.a.l.l.s came out of their mouths, and as soon as the b.a.l.l.s came away from them they were healed.

"There were two people, a brother and sister, children of a man who had been helped by a bear. One time when we were having a doctors'

dance, the sister and brother came forward, each carrying five cedar branches about three feet long. They rolled a big rock into the middle of the lodge, so that all might see what they were going to do. Then they called ten private men who were not doctors, and told them to thrust the ends of the branches into the stone as if they had grown there, and they sang:

"'See the trees growing in the rock; The cedar tree grows in the rock.'

"These cedar branches were cut square off at the b.u.t.t, and were set on the stone. They were not big enough to be even and balance, but still they stood upright, as if grown from the rock. The doctors tried to blow them down with their fans made of eagle feathers, but they could not do it. You could not blow them off nor pull them off. At length the men who put them there were told to take them off. They had hard work to do it, but at last they succeeded.

"The sister (I saw her do it) put her hands up to the sun, and then putting them on the ground and scratching and throwing up dust, she would take up her hands, and have hands like a bear, with hair and long claws.

"She used to understand how to make plums and other fruits grow on trees. She supplied the doctors with choke cherries and plums. The doctors had trees brought in that had no fruit on them. She would make the plums grow, and shaking the tree, they would fall down, and everybody would have a taste of them. This was at a doctors' dance."

[Ill.u.s.tration: A PARFLECHE.]

LATER HISTORY.

I. REMOVAL TO THE INDIAN TERRITORY.

The project of removing the p.a.w.nees from their reservation on the Loup River in Nebraska appears to have been first heard of in the year 1872. The p.a.w.nee reservation was close to civilization, and the settlers moving west into Nebraska coveted the Indians' lands. It was the old story, the same one that has been heard ever since the rapacious whites first set foot on the sh.o.r.es of this continent.

The p.a.w.nees were strongly attached to their home in Nebraska. They had always lived there, and were used to it. Their forefathers were buried there. Up to the winter of 1873-74 they had no idea of moving. But they were constantly being subjected to annoyances.

Settlers crowded in close to the p.a.w.nee agency, and even located on it on the south and east, and in the most matter of fact way drove their teams into the p.a.w.nee timber, and cut and carried off the p.a.w.nee wood, on which the tribe depended for fuel and for building materials.

This open robbery gave rise to constant disputes and bickerings between the Indians and the whites, in which the former were invariably worsted. On the south and east side of the reservation the crowding and the depredations were continuous. On the north and west the reservation was exposed to frequent incursions from the different bands of Sioux. War parties came down from their reservations, stole the p.a.w.nees' horses, killed their women while at work in the fields, and sometimes even attacked the village. These attacks, though always successfully repelled by the p.a.w.nees, were a continual source of annoyance and irritation to them, while their consistent desire to obey the rules laid down for their guidance by the Government prevented them from retaliating in kind upon their enemies.

The first proposition to remove the p.a.w.nees to the Indian Territory originated with the whites, but there is some reason to think that an independent movement with the same object in view was made by members of the p.a.w.nee tribe. As nearly as I can learn from conversation with Indians who took a leading part in the movement, this project for a removal of a part of the tribe to the south originated with Lone Chief, the Kit-ke-hahk'-i; and was taken up and supported by Left Hand, known also as Spotted Horse, a turbulent spirit, who was killed a few years ago by an United States marshal; and by Frank White, an intelligent soldier of the Chau-i band.

In the summer of 1870, Lone Chief led a visiting party, which is said to have numbered three hundred men, south to the Wichitas. When this party turned back to go north in the fall, many of them were sick with chills and fever--a disease unknown to them until that time--and some died on the way. At this time the notion of the removal had not been suggested, but it is probable that even then Lone Chief was considering the advisability of moving south with his own immediate family, and taking up his residence with the Wichitas. He had not yet spoken of this project, however, but in the winter of 1871-72 he announced his intention of doing this, and even started on his journey, but for some reason turned back.

The next winter--1872-73--while the tribe was absent on the buffalo hunt, the northern Sioux came down and stole from the p.a.w.nees a number of horses. This made the p.a.w.nees uneasy, and some war parties started out. It was at this time that Lone Chief conceived the idea of increasing the company which should proceed south with him. After some consideration and consultation, Lone Chief, Spotted Horse and Frank White planned that a small party should go south, and visit the different tribes in the Indian Territory, for the purpose of learning how these tribes would regard a general movement of the p.a.w.nees down into their country. The plan was not fully developed until this small party, of which Spotted Horse and Frank White were the leaders, was on its way.

The party visited first the Otoes and Kaws, and then going south came to the Wichitas, Comanches, Kiowas and Apaches, and were everywhere hospitably entertained, and given presents of horses. They asked the chiefs and headmen of the various tribes which they visited to come together at a certain specified time at the Wichita camp, telling them that they had something that they wished to say to them there. The p.a.w.nees then returned to the Wichita village, and awaited the appointed time.

Soon the representatives of the different tribes began to arrive. Day after day they kept coming in, until all were present. When they had a.s.sembled in council, Spotted Horse rose to speak. He said, "My brothers, I want you to know one thing--We, the p.a.w.nees, want to be brothers, and to be at peace. I have made up my mind to come down here with my party of p.a.w.nees to live with you."

The chiefs representing the different tribes all expressed their satisfaction at this announcement, and urged him to come as he had intended. They said, "We have good land here, and lots of buffalo. We shall be glad if you decide to come." After all had spoken, Spotted Horse again stood up and said, "Brothers, there is here with me one leading man among the p.a.w.nees. He, also, will tell you what he thinks about this." Frank White then spoke and said that he intended to accompany Spotted Horse when he should move south. The chiefs of the different tribes again expressed the hope that they would carry out their intentions, and arrangements were made with the tribes that they should come down and live with them.

It is stated that just before this visiting party started north toward their home, news came from the p.a.w.nee agency that the tribe had been attacked and ma.s.sacred on the Republican River by Sioux, and as they journeyed north they learned the details of the occurrence. On reaching the village, Spotted Horse and Frank White reported to Lone Chief and to their families what they had done, and their action was confirmed. The chiefs of the tribe and the agent were then notified.

Soon afterward a general council was held, at which public announcement of their intention was made by these three men. To most of those present the project was wholly new, and there was a good deal of confusion in the council, the people exclaiming at the news and discussing it.

Efforts were made by the chiefs of the bands to dissuade those who proposed to move. The Head Chief, _Pi'ta Le-shar_, tried to persuade Frank White not to leave the tribe, but he said that he had promised, and he should go.

In the autumn of 1873, Lone Chief, Spotted Horse and Frank White, accompanied by their personal following, started south. With them went about two-thirds of the tribe. The three leaders had a pa.s.s from the Superintendent of Indian Affairs at the p.a.w.nee agency. The chiefs of the tribe were still bitterly opposed to the notion of the removal, and _Pi'ta Le-shar_, the Head Chief, exerted all his influence to prevent the movement. After the migrating party had gone about fifty miles, messengers from the chiefs overtook them, directing them to return to the village. The march was stopped, and the three leaders, as delegates, returned to the agency to learn the cause of the order.

They reached there in the evening, and spent the whole night conferring with the agent (Burgess), to whom they gave presents to persuade him to accede to their request to continue their journey.

Lone Chief was the most determined, and insisted that they should be permitted to go on without interference.

At length the authorities yielded, and a new pa.s.s having been given them, they returned to the camp. The responsibility of taking away so large a part of the tribe was weighing heavily on these three men, however, and they determined to send back all except their own families. On reaching the camp, therefore, they told the Indians that they all were to go back, but hid their own horses, pretending that they had strayed off, so that the main body would start back without them. After the others had moved out of camp on their return march to the agency, the lost horses were at once found, and the three men with their families went on south.

The following year all the tribe followed, except the Skidi, Lone Chief, and a few personal friends, who still refused to leave the old reservation. This small company remained in their old home one year longer, and then they, too, went south to their present reservation.

Shortly before the removal of the tribe to the Indian Territory in 1874, _Pi'ta Le-shar_, the Head Chief, was shot, and died from his wound. It has been stated, and generally believed, that his death resulted from the accidental discharge of his own pistol, but there are well-informed persons who believe that he was murdered. There is reason to believe that the shot did not come from his own weapon, but that he was shot by a white man in order to get rid of his influence, which was consistently exerted to keep the p.a.w.nees in their northern home. The Chief's wound was not a serious one, and he was doing well under the charge of a white surgeon, when he was induced to put himself in the care of a p.a.w.nee doctor, under whose treatment he died.

_Ti-ra'-wa Le-shar_, another bitter opponent of removal, had been killed in 1873; and the death of _Pi'ta Le-shar_ left Lone Chief, Skidi, the only man of strong character to oppose the movement.

The full history of the plot to eject the p.a.w.nees from their northern home may never be recorded, for there are few men alive who know the facts. If it should be written there would be disclosed a carefully planned and successfully carried out conspiracy to rob this people of their lands. This outrage has cost hundreds of lives, and an inconceivable amount of suffering, and is another d.a.m.ning and ineffaceable blot on the record of the American people, and one which ought surely to have had a place in Mrs. Jackson's "Century of Dishonor."

II. PRESENT CONDITION AND PROGRESS.

During the first four years of their sojourn in the Indian Territory the condition of the p.a.w.nees was most miserable.

They had left the high, dry, sandy country of the Loup, and come south into the more fertile, but also more humid country of the Indian Territory, where they found a region entirely different from that to which they had been accustomed. Soon after their settlement on their new reservation, they were attacked by fever and ague, a disease which had been unknown to them in their northern home, and many of them died, while all were so weakened by disease and so discouraged by homesickness that their nature seemed wholly changed. They lost their old spirit and their energy, and were possessed only by a desire to return to their northern home. This was, of course, impossible, since their old reservation had been thrown open to settlement, and in part occupied by the whites. During the first ten years of their sojourn in the Territory more than one of the agents appointed to look after the p.a.w.nees were either incompetent or dishonest, so that the people suffered from lack of food, and some of them even starved to death.

They were miserably poor, for they did not know how to work, and no one tried to encourage or help them to do so. The few horses which they had were stolen from them by white horse thieves, and they were now in a country and under conditions where they could not practice their old war methods. The tribes against which their expeditions had once been made were now their neighbors and their friends.

When Major North and his brother Luther visited the agency in 1876, to enlist scouts for General Crook's northern campaign, they found the p.a.w.nees in a pitiable condition. They were without food, without clothing, without arms and without horses. Their sole covering consisted of cotton sheets, which afforded no protection against cold and wet. It is not strange that under such circ.u.mstances the people died off fast. At this time Major North had orders to enlist only one hundred scouts, but he was greatly perplexed in selecting his men, for four hundred wanted to go with him. Every able-bodied man in the tribe, and many who were not able-bodied, tried to get their names on the muster roll. Each man, at any cost, sought to get away from the suffering of his present life; from the fever that made him quake, the chill that caused him to s.h.i.+ver, and above all from the deadly monotony of the reservation life. After Major North had enlisted his quota of men and started with them on his way north, more than a hundred others followed him on foot to Arkansas City, in the hope that he could be persuaded to increase his force, or else that some of those enlisted would drop out through sickness, and there might be room for others.

The wretched condition of the p.a.w.nees continued up to about 1884 or 1885. Before this time the people had become in a measure acclimated in their new home, and had come to realize that it was absolutely necessary for them to go to work if the tribe was to continue to exist. They began to work; at first only a few, but gradually many, of the Skidi, and then the Chau-i and the Kit-ke-hahk'-i. Presently a point was reached where it was no longer necessary to issue them Government rations. They raised enough on their farms to support themselves. Each year of late they have done better and better. A drought one season, and a cyclone another, destroyed their crops, but, undiscouraged and undaunted, they push ahead, striving earnestly to become like white men. The Pita-hau-erats are the least progressive of the four bands, and many of them still live in dirt lodges, and cultivate patches of corn scarcely larger than those tilled in their old villages; but as the other bands advance, and as the results of manual labor are seen and understood by those who are more idle, they, too, will catch the spirit of progress, and will lay hold of the plow.

Last March, as I drove along toward the agency, and as we came in sight of Black Bear Creek, I was surprised to see what looked like good farm houses dotting the distant bottom. A nearer view and a closer investigation showed me that the most well-to-do of the p.a.w.nees live in houses as good as those of many a New England land owner, and very much better than those inhabited by new settlers in the farther West. Many of them have considerable farms under fence, a barn, a garden in which vegetables are raised, and a peach orchard. They realize that as yet they are only beginning, but to me, who knew them in their old barbaric condition, their progress seems a marvel.

Nowadays by far the greater number of the p.a.w.nees wear civilized clothing, ride in wagons, and send their children to the agency school. They are making rapid strides toward civilization, just such progress as might be expected from the intelligent and courageous people that they are and always have been.

The p.a.w.nees receive from the Government a perpetual annuity of thirty thousand dollars, of which one-half is paid in money, and one-half in goods. Besides this they have a credit with the Government of about two hundred and eighty thousand dollars (the proceeds of the sale of their old reservation in Nebraska), on which they receive interest; and for some years past they have leased to cattlemen about one hundred and twenty-five thousand acres of their reservation, for which they receive about three thousand eight hundred dollars per annum. It will thus be seen that in addition to the crops which they raise, the tribe is fairly well provided with money. While a considerable part of this is, of course, wasted, being spent for trifles and for luxuries, it is nevertheless the fact that a certain proportion of it is invested by the Indians in tools, farming implements, and in furniture. Three years ago the Indians merely dropped their corn into the furrow, while some planted with a hoe.

There was then only one corn-planter on the reservation. Now there are thirteen of these implements of improved pattern, bought by the Indians, and paid for with their own money. Reapers and mowers belong to the Indian Department, and are loaned, not issued, and these pa.s.s round from one family to another. Within the last four years one hundred breaking and stirring plows have been issued, and one hundred and five double shovel cultivators. Eighty wagons and one hundred and fifty sets of harness have been issued in the same length of time.

Besides these, eight two-horse cultivators are loaned them by the Government.

The p.a.w.nees seem to be saving up their money to put into farming implements, and they are looking ahead. Two-thirds of the houses built in the last three years have been built by the Chau-i, who are pus.h.i.+ng the Skidi hard in their advance toward civilization.

The following table, taken from the official papers of the Indian Bureau, gives some statistics as to the progress made by the p.a.w.nees during the last three years:

1885. 1886. 1887. 1888.