Colorado—The Bright Romance of American HistoryGrable, F. C.
History
Colorado—The Bright Romance of American History
Grable, F. C.
Colorado -- History
And Friday? No one ever hunted as Friday hunted! The thirst of blood
was upon him. He had plunged into the midst of danger, and knew no
pity, no compunction, no fatigue. The instinct of his race that had
been sleeping for years surged to the surface at a bound, never again
to be dormant. That night he threw off the garb that stood for the
civilizing influences of the past, donned the yellow blanket of his
race and adopted the life of his people. That day of daring, and his
education, marked him as a leader, and he became a Chief of the
Arapahoe nation.
Chief Friday had a son. He was called Jacob after that Patriarch, who,
when asked his age by Pharaoh, replied so poetically "the days of the
years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years; few and evil
have the days of the years of my life been, but have not attained unto
the days of the years of the lives of my fathers in the days of their
pilgrimage." There is a superstition among the Indians that if they
have lost a battle, they must sacrifice some member of another tribe
as an offering to the Great Spirit. Jacob had been chosen for the
sacrifice. Hearing of it he fled. Returning two years later when he
supposed there was no further fear of his destruction, he was set upon
and left dead upon the ground. Friday loved Jacob with a very great
love, and so did he love the good of his people. He counseled peace,
and instead of plunging two nations in war, he buried his son with a
breaking heart, hidden by the stoicism of his race.
Chief Friday had a daughter. A winsome lass. Light of foot, with a
singing voice and dancing eyes. She was called "Little Niwot" by her
father, because she used her left hand, and Niwot in the Indian tongue
means "left hand." I asked a doctor once, those wisest of wise men,
why it was that out of fifteen hundred million of the earth's
inhabitants, so few used the left hand prominently, and this was his
reply: "Upebanti manusinistra ob herededitatum."
Niwot's education was not alone like that of the other Indian
children, whose eyes were trained to see the beauty in the sun, the
moon and the stars; whose ears were attuned to catch the voices in the
murmuring brooks, the music in the rustling trees, the melody in the
warbling birds; but she had learned of her father as well, who taught
her from the remembrances of those far-off days in the St. Louis
schools. Little Niwot loved an Indian youth, who was not the choice of
her mother. So she ran away with her dusky mate and became the wife of
the man of her choice. Friday was left alone. Jacob was dead and Niwot
was gone; he grieved for them, and could not be comforted. Niwot
became the name of a Creek near Longmont, and of a near-by station on
the Colorado and Southern Railway. So in station and stream, the
memory of a little Indian maiden is to always be kept green.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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