Indian sketches, taken during an expedition to the Pawnee and other tribes of American Indians (Vol. 1 of 2)Irving, John Treat
History
Indian sketches, taken during an expedition to the Pawnee and other tribes of American Indians (Vol. 1 of 2)
Irving, John Treat
Indians of North America -- Kansas; Indians of North America -- Nebraska; Pawnee Indians
To dress and ornament himself with trinkets and gewgaws, is the delight
of a savage. The glittering presents of the whites bear as strong an
attraction to the warrior as to the female or the child, though his
disciplined habits prevent those loud bursts of pleasure which escape
unrestrained from them. Scarcely a day elapsed but a little group would
collect before our tents for the purpose of ornamenting themselves.
They were apparently very fastidious in their taste; for when hours
had been spent by an Indian beau in laying on one streak of paint
after another, and in ogling himself by piecemeal in a small scrap of
looking glass, some defect would appear, and with an exclamation of
dissatisfaction the whole would be rubbed off. The work would then be
recommenced with unabated perseverance, until he succeeded in daubing
and ornamenting himself to his entire satisfaction.
When the toilette was completed, a surprising change came over the
young warriors. They would fling their blankets ostentatiously
around them, and with a lordly air lounge through the town; looking
first at one of the young squaws, then at another; and occasionally
condescending to speak to some dirty-looking brother, with that
patronising air which, in all countries, a well-dressed person is apt
to assume in conversing with a ragged acquaintance. When they had
finished their perambulations, they would mount upon the top of one
of the highest lodges, and stand for hours to be gazed at by the
different idlers; a term which, in truth, might be applied to the whole
of the male portion of the town.
In war and in hunting there is no being more untiring than the Indian.
He will spend days and weeks in search of an enemy. If in the course of
his travel he meets with a strange track crossing his path, his journey
is at an end, until he has satisfied himself whether it is that of a
friend or a foe. If it is ascertained to be that of an enemy, and if
there is any prospect of gaining a scalp, the main pursuit gives place
to this. He follows upon the trail, rapidly and surely, and nothing is
left undone to insure the successful accomplishment of his purpose.
He endures fatigues of all kinds; fasting and peril are unheeded by
him; he has but one aim: it is murder. There is but little chivalry
in the Indian warfare. The pursuer steals like a snake upon his foe.
He gives him no warning—no opportunity to resist his fate. Often the
death-scream of the victim is simultaneous with the crack of the rifle
that gives him the first notice of a foe.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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