Narrative of My Captivity Among the Sioux IndiansKelly, Fanny
History
Narrative of My Captivity Among the Sioux Indians
Kelly, Fanny
Dakota Indians -- History; Dakota Indians -- Wars -- 1862-1865; Indian captivities -- West (U.S.); Kelly, Fanny, 1845-1904
When it becomes necessary to move a village, which fact is never known
to the people, a crier goes through the camp, shouting, “Egalakapo!
Egalakapo!” when all the squaws drop whatever work they may be engaged
in, and in an instant are busy as bees, taking down tipis, bringing
in the ponies and dogs, and loading them; and in less than fifteen
minutes the cavalcade is on the march.
The squaws accompany the men when they go to hunt buffalo, and as fast
as the animals are killed, they strip off their hides, and then cut off
the meat in strips about three feet long, three to four inches wide,
and two inches thick; and such is their skill that the bones will be
left intact and as free from meat as though they had been boiled. The
meat is then taken to camp and hung up to dry. It is most filthy, being
covered with grass and the excrement of the buffalo.
The medicine men treat all diseases nearly alike. The principal efforts
are directed to expelling the spirit, whatever it may be, which it is
expected the medicine man will soon discover, and having informed the
friends what it is, he usually requires them to be in readiness to
shoot it, as soon as he shall succeed in expelling it.
Incantations and ceremonies are used, intended to secure the aid of
the spirit, or spirits, the Indian worships. When he thinks he has
succeeded, the medicine man gives the command, and from two to six or
more guns are fired at the door of the tent to destroy the spirit as it
passes out.
Many of these medicine men depend wholly on conjuring, sitting by the
bedside of the patient, making gestures and frightful noises, shaking
rattles, and endeavoring, by all means in their power, to frighten
the evil spirit. They use fumigation, and are very fond of aromatic
substances, using and burning cedar and many different plants to
cleanse the tent in which the sick person lies.
The native plants, roots, herbs, and so forth, are used freely, and are
efficacious.
They are very careful to conceal from each other, except a few
initiated, as well as from white men, a knowledge of the plants used
as medicine, probably believing that their efficacy, in some measure,
depends on this concealment.
There is a tall, branching plant, growing abundantly in the open woods
and prairies near the Missouri River, which is used chiefly by the
Indians as a purgative, and is _euphorbia corrallata_, well known to
the botanist.
Medicines are generally kept in bags made of the skin of some animal.
All the drinks which are given the sick to quench thirst are
astringent, sometimes bitter and sometimes slightly mucilaginous.
The most common is called red-root (_ceanothus canadensis_), a plant
abounding in the western prairies, although they seem to have more
faith in some ceremony.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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