The Old Santa Fe Trail: The Story of a Great HighwayInman, Henry
History
The Old Santa Fe Trail: The Story of a Great Highway
Inman, Henry
Frontier and pioneer life -- West (U.S.); New Mexico -- History; Santa Fe National Historic Trail
The other instance was ten years later. During the Indian campaign in
the winter of 1868-69 I was riding with a party of officers and enlisted
men, south of the Arkansas, about fourty miles from Fort Dodge. We were
watching some cavalrymen unearth three or four dead warriors who had
been killed by two scouts in a fierce unequal fight a few weeks before,
and as we rode into a small ravine among the sand hills, we suddenly
came upon a rudely constructed Cheyenne lodge. Entering, we discovered
on a rough platform, fashioned of green poles, a dead warrior in full
war-dress; his shield of buffalo-hide, pipe ornamented with eagles'
feathers, and medicine bag, were lying on the ground beside him. At his
head, on her knees, with hands clasped in the attitude of prayer, was a
squaw frozen to death. Which had first succumbed, the wounded chief, or
the devoted wife in the awful cold of that winter prairie, will never be
known, but it proved her love for the man who had perhaps beaten her a
hundred times. Such tender and sympathetic affection is characteristic
of the sex everywhere, no less with the poor savage than in the dominant
white race.
To return to our description of the average Indian village: Each lodge
at the grand encampment of Big Timbers in the era of traffic with the
nomads of the great plains, owned its separate herd of ponies and mules.
In the exodus to some other favoured spot, two dozen or more of these
individual herds travelled close to each other but never mixed, each
drove devotedly following its bell-mare, as in a pack-train. This useful
animal is generally the most worthless and wicked beast in the entire
outfit.
The animals with the lodge-pole carriages go as they please, no special
care being taken to guide them, but they too instinctively keep
within sound of the leader. I will again quote Garrard for an accurate
description of the moving camp when he was with the Cheyennes in 1847:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account