My Native Land: The United States: its Wonders, its Beauties, and its People; with Descriptive Notes, Character Sketches, Folk Lore, Traditions, Legends and History, for the Amusement of the Old and the Instruction of the YoungCox, James
History
My Native Land: The United States: its Wonders, its Beauties, and its People; with Descriptive Notes, Character Sketches, Folk Lore, Traditions, Legends and History, for the Amusement of the Old and the Instruction of the Young
Cox, James
Indians of North America; United States -- Description and travel; United States -- Social life and customs -- 1865-1918
Until this question is settled, the anomaly will continue of
civilization and the reverse existing side by side. Some of the Indians
have assumed the manners, dress, virtues and vices of their white
neighbors, in which case they have generally dropped their old names and
assumed something reasonable in their place. But many of the red men who
adhere to tradition, and who object to innovation, still stick to the
names given them in their boyhood. Thus, in traveling across the Indian
Territory, Indians with such names as "Hears-Something-Everywhere,"
"Knows-Where-He-Walks," "Bear-in-the-Cloud," "Goose-Over-the-Hill,"
"Shell-on-the-Neck," "Sorrel Horse," "White Fox,"
"Strikes-on-the-Top-of-the-Head," and other equally far-fetched and
ridiculous terms and cognomens.
Every one has heard of Chief "Rain-in-the-Face," a characteristic
Indian, whose virtues and vices have both been greatly exaggerated from
time to time. A picture is given of this representative of a rapidly
decaying race, and of the favorite pony upon which he has ridden
thousands of miles, and which in its early years possessed powers of
endurance far beyond what any one who has resided in countries removed
from Indian settlements can have any idea or conception of.
CHAPTER VII.
COWBOYS--REAL AND IDEAL.
A Much Maligned Class--The Cowboy as he Is, and as he is Supposed to
be--Prairie Fever and how it is Cured--Life on the Ranch Thirty Years
Ago and Now--Singular Fashions and Changes of Costume--Troubles
Encountered by would-be Bad Men.
Among the thoroughly American types of humanity, none is more striking
or unique than the cowboy. This master of horsemanship and subduer of
wild and even dangerous cattle, has been described in so many ways that
a great difference of opinion exists as to what he was, and what he is.
We give a picture of a cowboy of to-day, and will endeavor to show in
what important respects he differs from the cowboy of fiction, and even
of history.
Sensational writers have described the cowboy as a thoroughly bad man,
and, moreover, as one who delights in the word "bad," and regards it as
a sort of diploma or qualification. Travelers over the region in which
the cowboy used to be predominant give him a very different character,
and speak of him as a hard-working, honest citizen, generous to a fault,
courteous to women and aged or infirm men, but inclined to be humorous
at the expense of those who are strong and big enough to return a joke,
or resent it, if they so prefer.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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