Jacob Hamblin: A Narrative of His Personal Experience as a Frontiersman, Missionary to the Indians and Explorer, Disclosing Interpositions of Providence, Severe Privations, Perilous Situations and Remarkable Escapes: Fifth Book of the Faith-Promoting Series, Designed for the Instruction and Encouragement of Young Latter-day SaintsHamblin, Jacob
History
Jacob Hamblin: A Narrative of His Personal Experience as a Frontiersman, Missionary to the Indians and Explorer, Disclosing Interpositions of Providence, Severe Privations, Perilous Situations and Remarkable Escapes: Fifth Book of the Faith-Promoting Series, Designed for the Instruction and Encouragement of Young Latter-day Saints
Hamblin, Jacob
Frontier and pioneer life -- Utah; Hamblin, Jacob, 1819-1886; Indians of North America -- Utah; Latter Day Saint churches -- Utah
After counseling with their friends, he and his wife accepted my
invitation.
When we arrived on the cliffs before crossing the Colorado, the Piutes
living in the Navajo country, came to me and said as they had taken a
part with the Navajos in raiding on our people, they desired to have a
good peace talk. They were about thirty in number.
After an interesting council, we commenced to descend the difficult
cliff to the crossing of the river. While doing so, Brother Nathan
Terry said he had a dream the night before, and that it had been on his
mind all day, and he believed it meant something. In the dream he saw
the company riding along the trail, when he heard the report of a gun.
He looked around and saw one of the company fall to the ground, and he
thought he went and put the person on his horse, and they continued
their journey.
After descending the cliff, I was some distance in the rear of the
company, when suddenly, what appeared like a flash of lightning came
over me. It was with great difficulty that I could breathe. Not being
able to help myself, I partly fell to the ground.
I lay there some time, when one of the Kanab Indians who was with us
came along, saw my situation, and hurried on to camp.
Brother Terry came back to me after dark. He administered to me in the
name of the Lord, when the death-like grip that seemed to have fastened
on my lungs let go its hold, and I could again breathe naturally.
On coming to the bank of the river the following day, Tuba, the Oriba,
looked rather sorrowful, and told me that his people once lived on the
other side of this river, and their fathers had told them they never
would go west of the river again to live. Said he, "I am now going on
a visit to see my friends. I have worshiped the Father of us all in
the way you believe to be right; now I wish you would do as the Hopees
[their name for themselves] think is right before we cross."
I assented. He then took his medicine bag from under his shirt, and
offered me a little of its contents. I offered my left hand to take it;
he requested me to take it in my right. He then knelt with his face to
the east, and asked the Great Father of all to preserve us in crossing
the river. He said that he and his wife had left many friends at home,
and if they never lived to return, their friends would weep much. He
prayed for pity upon his friends, the "Mormons," that none of them
might drown in crossing; and that all the animals we had with us might
be spared, for we needed them all, and to preserve unto us all our food
and clothing, that we need not suffer hunger nor cold on our journey.
He then arose to his feet. We scattered the ingredients from the
medicine bag into the air, on to the land and into the water of the
river.
To me, the whole ceremony seemed humble and reverential. I felt
that the Father has regard to such petitions. The scattering of the
ingredients from the medicine bag I understood to be intended as a
propitiary sacrifice.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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