Ever since James Fenimore Cooper made use of frontier life in his novels, the Indian has been romanticized in fiction as the noble savage. But Cooper’s Indians did not bear much resemblance to the real Indians who were, after all, savages living in a primitive environment. A good observer of Indians as they actually were was the eminent historian Francis Parkman, who spent the summer of 1846 traveling as far as Wyoming on the Oregon Trail. Here is his account of one of the tribes living on the plains: Henry Ellsworth Accompanies Washington Irving Across the Plains When we came in sight of our little white tent under the big tree, we saw that it no longer stood alone. A huge old lodge was erected by its side, discolored by rain and storms, rotten with age, with the uncouth figures of horses and men and outstretched hands that were painted upon it, well nigh obliterated. The long poles which supported this squalid habitation thrust themselves rakishly out from its pointed top, and over its entrance were suspended a “medicine-pipe” and various other implements of the magic art. While we were yet at a distance, we observed a greatly increased population of various colors and dimensions, swarming about our quiet encampment. Morin, the trapper, having been absent for a day or two, had returned, it seemed, bringing all his family with him. He had taken to himself a wife, for whom he had paid the established price of one horse. This looks cheap at first sight, but in truth the purchase of a squaw is a transaction which no man should enter into without mature deliberation, since it involves not only the payment of the price, but the burden of feeding and supporting a rapacious horde of the bride’s relatives, who hold themselves entitled to feed upon the indiscreet white man. They gather about him like leeches, and drain him of all he has.... The moving spirit of the establishment was an old hag of eighty. Human imagination never conceived hob-goblin or witch more ugly than she. You could count all her ribs through the wrinkles of her leathery skin. Her withered face more resembled an old skull than the countenance of a living being, even to the hollow, darkened sockets, at the bottom of which glittered her little black eyes. Her arms had dwindled into nothing but whip-cord and wire. Her hair, half black, half gray, hung in total neglect nearly to the ground, and her sole garment consisted of the remnant of a discarded buffalo-robe tied around her waist with a string of hide.