Villages of the Algonquian, Siouan, and Caddoan Tribes West of the MississippiBushnell, David I. (David Ives)
History
Villages of the Algonquian, Siouan, and Caddoan Tribes West of the Mississippi
Bushnell, David I. (David Ives)
Algonquian Indians; Caddoan Indians; Indians of North America -- Dwellings; Siouan Indians
During this brief but interesting journey Stanley made many sketches of
the Indians with whom he came in contact, but not one of the drawings is
known to exist at the present time. His beautiful painting of a buffalo
hunt, shown in plate 2, is one of his five pictures now in the National
Museum at Washington.
The Blackfeet allies often moved in great numbers from place to place
when searching for the herds of buffalo or tracking some enemy tribe.
Such a war party was encountered on the banks of the River Saskatchewan,
two days' journey below Fort Pitt, about the present town of Battleford,
Saskatchewan, on June 1, 1848. Among the party then going from Fort Pitt
to Norway House, the Hudson's Bay Company's post on the northeast shore
of Lake Winnipeg, was the Canadian artist Kane, who entered in his
journal: "We saw a large party of mounted Indians, riding furiously
towards us. On their nearer approach they proved to be a large war
party, consisting of Blackfoot Indians, Blood Indians, Sur-cees, Gros
Ventres, and Paygans.... We instantly put ashore to meet them.... They
told us they were a party of 1,500 warriors, from 1,200 lodges, who were
then 'pitching on' towards Fort Edmonton; that is, they were making
short journeys, and pitching their tents on towards Edmonton, leaving
few behind capable of bearing arms. They were in pursuit of the Crees
and Assiniboines, whom they threatened totally to annihilate, boasting
that they themselves were as numerous as the grass on the plains. They
were the best mounted, the best looking, the most warlike in appearance,
and the best accoutred of any tribe I had ever seen on the continent
during my route.... After our smoke several of the young Braves engaged
in a horse race, to which sport they are very partial, and at which they
bet heavily; they generally ride on those occasions stark naked, without
a saddle, and with only a lasso fastened to the lower jaw of the horse
as represented in Sketch No. 16." (Kane, (1), pp. 417-420.) The "sketch
No. 16" is here reproduced in plate 16, _a_. It shows, in addition to
the horses, several conical skin-covered lodges, the one on the right
being highly decorated.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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