Illustrations of the manners, customs, & condition of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 2): With letters and notes, written during eight years of travel and adventure among the wildest and most remarkable tribes now existingCatlin, George
History
Illustrations of the manners, customs, & condition of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 2): With letters and notes, written during eight years of travel and adventure among the wildest and most remarkable tribes now existing
Catlin, George
Indians of North America
“On the day that he was buried, I started for the mouth of Yellow
Stone, and while I was gone, the spirit of vengeance had pervaded
nearly all the Sioux country in search of the Dog, who had evaded
pursuit. His brother, however (+plate+ 274), a noble and honourable
fellow, esteemed by all who knew him, fell in their way in an unlucky
hour, when their thirst for vengeance was irresistible, and they
slew him. Repentance deep, and grief were the result of so rash an
act, when they beheld a brave and worthy man fall for so worthless a
character; and as they became exasperated, the spirit of revenge grew
more desperate than ever, and they swore they never would lay down
their arms or embrace their wives and children until vengeance, full
and complete, should light upon the head that deserved it. This brings
us again to the first part of my story, and in this state were things
in that part of the country, when I was descending the river, four
months afterwards, and landed my canoe as I before stated, at Laidlaw’s
trading-house.
“The excitement had been kept up all summer amongst these people, and
their superstitions bloated to the full brim, from circumstances so
well calculated to feed and increase them. Many of them looked to me at
once as the author of all these disasters, considering I knew that one
half of the man’s face was _good for nothing_, or that I would not have
left it out of the picture, and that I must therefore have foreknown
the evils that were to flow from the omission; they consequently
resolved that I was a dangerous man, and should suffer for my temerity
in case the Dog could not be found. Councils had been held, and in all
the solemnity of Indian _medicine_ and _mystery_, I had been doomed to
die! At one of these, a young warrior of the _Onc-pa-pa_ band, arose
and said, ‘The blood of two chiefs has just sunk into the ground, and
an hundred bows are bent which are ready to shed more! on whom shall
we bend them? I am a friend to the white men, but here is one whose
medicine is too great—he is a great _medicine-man_! his _medicine_ is
too great! he was the death of Mah-to-tchee-ga! he made only one side
of his face! he would not make the other—the side that he made was
alive; the other was dead, and Shon-ka shot it off! How is this? Who is
to die.’
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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