While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
Introduction to the Dahcotah, Dahcotas,
Dahkota, Dah-ko-tah
By Mrs. Mary Eastman
The materials for the following pages were gathered
during a residence of seven years in the immediate neighborhood nay in the very
midst of the once powerful but now nearly extinct tribe of
Sioux or
Dahcotah
Indians.
Fort Snelling is situated seven miles below the Falls
of St. Anthony, at the confluence of the Mississippi and St. Peter's rivers
built in 1819, and named after the gallant Colonel Snelling, of the army, by
whom the work was erected. It is constructed of stone; is one of the strongest
Indian forts in the United States; and being placed on a commanding bluff, has
somewhat the appearance of an old German castle, or one of the strongholds on
the Rhine.
The then recent removal of the
Winnebago was rendered
troublesome by the interference of Wabashaw, the Sioux chief, whose village is
on the Mississippi, 1800 miles from its mouth. The father of Wabashaw was a
noted Indian; and during the past summer, the son has given some indications
that he inherits the father's talents and courage. When the Winnebago arrived at Wabashaw's prairie, the chief induced them not to continue their journey of
removal; offered them land to settle upon near him, and told them it was not
really the wish of their Great Father, that they should remove. His bribes and
eloquence induced the Winnebago to refuse to proceed; although there was a
company of volunteer dragoons and infantry with them. This delay occasioning
much expense and trouble, the government agents applied for assistance to the
command at Fort Snelling. There was but one company there; and the commanding
officer, with twenty men and some friendly Sioux, went down to assist the agent.
There was an Indian council held on the occasion. The Sioux who went from Fort
Snelling promised to speak in favor of the removal. During the council, however,
not one of them said a word for which they afterwards gave a satisfactory
reason. Wabashaw; though a young man, had such influence over his band, that his
orders invariably received implicit obedience. When the council commenced,
Wabashaw had placed a young warrior behind each of the friendly Sioux who he
knew would speak in favor of the removal, with orders to shoot down the first
one who rose for that purpose. This stratagem may be considered a characteristic
specimen of the temper and habits of the Sioux chiefs, whose tribe we bring
before the reader in their most conspicuous ceremonies and habits. The Winnebago
were finally removed, but not until Wabashaw was taken prisoner and carried to
Fort Snelling. Wabashaw's pike-bearer was a fine looking warrior, named "Many
Lightnings."
The village of "Little Crow," another able and
influential Sioux chief, is situated twenty miles below the Falls of St.
Anthony. He has four wives, all sisters, and the youngest of them almost a
child. There are other villages of the tribe, below and above Fort Snelling.
The scenery about Fort Snelling is rich in beauty. The
falls of St. Anthony are familiar to travelers, and to readers of Indian
sketches. Between the fort and these falls are the "Little Falls," forty feet in
height, on a stream that empties into the Mississippi. The Indians call them
Mine-hah-hah, or "laughing waters." In sight of Fort Snelling is a beautiful
hill called Morgan's Bluff; the Indians call it "God's House." They have a
tradition that it is the residence of their god of the waters, whom they call
Unk-ta-he. Nothing can be more lovely than the situation and appearance of this
hill; it commands on every side a magnificent view, and during the summer it is
carpeted with long grass and prairie flowers. But, to those who have lived the
last few years at Fort Snelling, this hill presents another source of interest.
On its top are buried three young children, who were models of health and beauty
until the scarlet fever found its way into regions hitherto shielded from its
approach. They lived but long enough on earth to secure them an entrance into
heaven. Life, which ought to be a blessing to all, was to them one of untold
value; for it was a short journey to a better land-a translation from the yet
unfelt cares of earth to the bright and endless joys of heaven.
Opposite the Fort is Pilot Knob, a high peak, used as a
burial-place by the Indians; just below it is the village of Mendota, or the
"Meeting of the Waters."
But to me, the greatest objects of interest and
curiosity were the original owners of the country, whose teepees could be seen
in every direction. One could soon know all that was to be known about Pilot
Knob or St. Anthony's falls; but one is puzzled completely to comprehend the
character of an Indian man, woman, or child. At one moment, you see an Indian
chief raise himself to his full height, and say that the ground on which he
stands is his own; at the next, beg bread and pork from an enemy. An Indian
woman will scornfully refuse to wash an article that might be needed by a white
family and the next moment, declare that she had not washed her face in fifteen
years! An Indian child of three years old, will cling to its mother under the
walls of the Fort, and then plunge into the Mississippi, and swim half way
across, in hopes of finding an apple that has been thrown in. We may well feel
much curiosity to look into the habits, manners, and motives of a race
exhibiting such contradictions.
There is a great deal said of Indian warriors and justly too of the Sioux. They
are, as a race, tall fine-looking men; and many of those who have not been
degraded by association with the frontier class of white people, nor had their
intellects destroyed by the white man's
fire-water, have minds of high order, and reason with correctness that would put
to the blush the powers of many an educated logician. Yet are these men called
savages, and morally associated with the tomahawk and scalping knife. Few regard
them as reasonable creatures, or as beings endowed by their creator with souls,
that are here to be fitted for the responsibilities of the Indians hereafter.
Good men are sending the Bible to all parts of the
world. Sermons are preached in behalf of fellow-creatures who are perishing in
regions
known only to us in name. And here, within reach of comparatively the slightest
exertion; here, not many miles from churches and schools, and
all the moral influences abounding in Christian society; here, in a country
endowed with every advantage that God can bestow, are perishing, body and soul,
our own countrymen: perishing too from disease, starvation and intemperance, and
all the evils incident to their unhappy condition. White men, Christian men, are
driving them back; rooting out their very names from the face of the earth. Ah!
these men can seek the country of the Sioux when money is to be gained: but how
few care for the sufferings of the Dahcotahs! how few would give a piece of
money, a prayer, or even a thought, towards their present and eternal good.
Yet are they not altogether neglected. Doctor
Williamson, one of the missionaries among the Sioux, lives near Fort Snelling.
He is exerting himself to the utmost to promote the moral welfare of the unhappy
people among whom he expects to pass his life. He has a school for the Indian
children, and many of them read well. On the Sabbath, divine service is
regularly held, and he has labored to promote the cause of temperance among the
Sioux. Christian exertion is unhappily too much influenced by the apprehension
that little can be done for the savage. How is it with the man on his fire-water
mission to the Indian? Does he doubt? Does he fail?
As a great motive to improve the moral character of the
Indians, I present the condition of the women in their tribes. A degraded state
of woman is universally characteristic of savage life, as her elevated influence
in civilized society is the conspicuous standard of moral and social virtue. The
peculiar sorrows of the Sioux woman commence at her birth. Even as a child she
is despised, in comparison with the brother beside her, who is one day to be a
great warrior. As a maiden, she is valued while the young man, who wants her for
a wife, may have a doubt of his success. But when she is a wife, there is little
sympathy for her condition. How soon do the oppressive storms and contentions of
life root out all that is kind or gentle in her heart. She must bear the burdens
of the family. Should her husband wish it, she must travel all day with a heavy
weight on her back; and at night when they stop, her hands must prepare the food
for her family before she retires to rest.
Her work is never done. She makes the summer and the
winter house. For the former she peels the bark from the trees in the spring;
for the latter she sews the deer-skin together. She tans the skins of which
coats, moccasins, and leggings are to be made for the family; she has to scrape
it and prepare it while other cares are pressing upon her. When her child is
born, she has no opportunities for rest or quiet. She must paddle the canoe for
her husband pain and feebleness must be forgotten. She is always hospitable.
Visit her in her teepee, and she willingly gives you what you need, if in her
power; and with alacrity does what she can to promote your comfort. In her looks
there is little that is attractive. Time has not caused the wrinkles in her
forehead, nor the furrows in her cheek. They are the traces of want, passion,
sorrows and tears. Her bent form was once light and graceful. Labor and
privations are not preservative of beauty.
Let it not be deemed impertinent if I venture to urge
upon those who care for the wretched wherever their lot may be cast, the immense
good that might be accomplished among these tribes by schools, which should open
the minds of the young to the light of reason and Christianity. Even if the
elder members are given up as hopeless, with the young there is always
encouragement. Many a bright little creature among the Dahcotahs is as capable
of receiving instruction as are the children of civilization. Why should they be
neglected when the waters of benevolence are moving all around them?
It is not pretended that all the incidents related in
these stories occurred exactly as they are stated. Most of them are entirely
true; while in others the narrative is varied in order to show some prevalent
custom, or to illustrate some sentiment to which these Indians are devoted. The
Sioux are as firm believers in their religion as we are in ours; and they are
far more particular in the discharge of what they conceive to be the obligations
required by the objects of their faith and worship. There are many allusions to
the belief and customs of the Dahcotahs that require explanation. For this
purpose I have obtained from the Sioux themselves the information required. On
matters of faith there is difference of opinion among them but they do not make
more points of difference on religion, or on any other subject, than white
people do.
The day of the Dahcotah is far spent; to quote the
language of a Chippeway chief, "The Indian's glory is passing away." They seem
to be almost a God-forgotten race. Some few have given the missionary reason to
hope that they have been made subjects of Christian faith and the light, that
has as yet broken in faint rays upon their darkness, may increase. He who takes
account of the falling of a sparrow, will not altogether cast away so large a
portion of his creatures. All Christian minds will wish success to the Indian
missionary; and assuredly God will be true to his mercy, where man is found true
to his duty.
The first impression created by the Sioux was the
common one fear. In their looks they were so different from the Indians I had
occasionally seen. There was nothing in their aspect to indicate the success of
efforts made to civilize them. Their tall, unbending forms, their savage
hauteur, the piercing black eye, the quiet indifference of manner, the slow,
stealthy step how different were they from the eastern Indians, whose
associations with the white people seem to have deprived them of all native
dignity of bearing and of character. The yells heard outside the high wall of
the fort at first filled me with alarm; but I soon became accustomed to them,
and to all other occasional Indian excitements, that served to vary the monotony
of garrison life. Before I felt much interest in the Sioux, they seemed to have
great regard for me. My husband, before his marriage, had been stationed at Fort
Snelling and at Prairie du Chien. He was fond of hunting and roaming about the
prairies; and left many friends among the Indians when he obeyed the order to
return to an eastern station. On going back to the Indian country, he met with a
warm welcome from his old acquaintances, who were eager to shake hands with
"Eastman's squaw."
The old men laid their bony hands upon the heads of my
little boys, admired their light hair, said their skins were very white; and,
although I could not then understand their language, they told me many things,
accompanied with earnest gesticulation. They brought their wives and young
children to see me. I had been told that Indian women gossiped and stole; that
they were filthy and troublesome. Yet I could not despise them: they were wives
and mothers God had implanted the same feelings in their hearts as in mine.
Some Indians visited us every day, and we frequently
saw them at their villages. Captain E. spoke their language well; and without
taking any pains to acquire it, I soon understood it so as to talk with them.
The sufferings of the women and children, especially during the winter season,
appealed to my heart. Their humility in asking for assistance contrasted
strongly with the pompous begging of the men. Late in a winter's afternoon,
Wenona, wife of a chief named the "Star," came to my room. Undoing a bundle that
she took from under her blanket, she approached and showed it to me. It was an
infant three days old, closely strapped to an Indian cradle. The wretched babe
was shriveled and already looking old from hunger. She warmed it by the fire,
attempting to still its feeble cries.
"Do you nurse your baby well, Wenona?" I asked; "it
looks so thin and small."
"How can I," was the reply, "when I have not eaten
since it was born?"
Frequently we have heard of whole families perishing
during severely cold weather. The father absent on a winter's hunt, the mother
could not leave her children to apply to the fort for assistance, even had she
strength left to reach there. The frozen bodies would be found in the lodges.
The improvident character of the Indian is well known. Their annuities are soon
spent; supplies received from government are used in feasting; and no provision
is made for winters that are always long and severe. Though they receive
frequent assistance from the public at the fort, the wants of all cannot be
supplied. The captain of the post was generous towards them, as was always my
friend Mrs. F., whom they highly esteemed. Yet some hearts are closed against
appeals daily made to their humanity. An Indian woman may suffer from hunger or
sickness, because her looks are repulsive and her garments unwashed: some will
say they can bear the want of warm clothing, because they have been used to
privation.
The women of the Sioux exhibit many striking peculiarities of character the love
of the marvelous, and a profound veneration for any and every thing connected
with their religious faith; a willingness to labor and to learn; patience in
submitting to insults from servants who consider them intruders in families; the
evident recognition of the fact that they are a doomed race, and must submit to
indignities that they dare not resent. They seem, too, so unused to sympathy,
often comparing their lives of suffering and hardship with the ease and comfort
enjoyed by the white women, it must be a hard heart, that could withhold
sympathy from such poor creatures. Their home was mine and such a home! The very
sunsets, more bright and glorious than I had ever seen, seemed to love to linger
over the scenes amongst which we lived; the high bluffs of the "father of many
waters" and the quiet shores of the "Minesota;" the fairy rings on the prairie,
and the "spirit lakes" that reposed beside them; the bold peak, Pilot Knob, on
whose top the Indians bury their dead, with the small hills rising gradually
around it-all were dear to the Sioux and to me. They believed that the rocks,
and hills, and waters were peopled with fairies and spirits, whose power and
anger they had ever been taught to fear. I knew that God, whose presence fills
all nature, was there. In fancy they beheld their deities in the blackened cloud
and fearful storm; I saw mine in the brightness of nature, the type of the
unchanging light of Heaven.
They evinced the warmest gratitude to any who had ever
displayed kind feelings towards them. When our little children were ill with
scarlet fever, how grieved they were to witness their sufferings; especially as
we watched Virginia, waiting, as we expected, to receive her parting breath. How
strongly they were contrasted! that fair child, unconscious even of the presence
of the many kind friends who had watched and wept beside her and the aged Sioux
women, who had crept noiselessly into the chamber. I remember them well, as they
leaned over the foot of the bed; their expressive and subdued countenances full
of sorrow. That small white hand, that lay so powerless, had ever been
outstretched to welcome them when they came weary and hungry.
They told me afterwards, that "much water fell from
their eyes day and night, while they thought she would die;" that the servants
made them leave the sick room, and then turned them out of the house but that
they would not go home, waiting outside to hear of her.
During her convalescence, I found that they could "rejoice with those that
rejoice" as well as "weep with those that wept." The fearful disease was abating
in our family, and "Old Harper," as she is called in the Fort, offered to sit up
and attend to the fire. We allowed her to do so, for the many who had so kindly
assisted us were exhausted with fatigue. Joy had taken from me all inclination
to sleep, and I lay down near my little girl, watching the old Sioux woman. She
seemed to be reviewing the history of her life, so intently did she gaze at the
bright coals on the hearth. Many strange thoughts apparently engaged her. She
was, of her own accord, an inmate of the white man's house, waiting to do good
to his sick child. She had wept bitterly for days, lest the child should be lost
to her and now she was full of happiness, at the prospect of her recovery.
How shall we reconcile this with the fact that Harper, or Harpstinah, was one of
the Sioux women, who wore, as long as she could endure it, a necklace made of
the hands and feet of Chippeway children? Here, in the silence of night, she
turned often towards the bed, when the restless sleep of the child broke in on
her meditation. She fancied I slept, but my mind was busy too. I was far away
from the home of my childhood, and a Sioux woman, with her knife in her belt,
was assisting me in the care of my only daughter. She thought Dr. T. was a
"wonderful medicine man" to cure her; in which opinion we all cordially
coincided.
I always listened with pleasure to the women, when
allusion was made to their religion; but when they spoke of their tradition, I
felt as a miser would, had he discovered a mine of gold. I had read the legends
of the Maiden's Rock, and of St. Anthony's Falls. I asked Checkered Cloud to
tell them to me. She did so and how differently they were told! With my
knowledge of the language, and the aid of my kind and excellent friend Mr.
Prescott, all the dark passages in her narration were made clear. I thought the
Indian tone of feeling was not rightly appreciated their customs not clearly
stated, perhaps not fairly estimated. The red man, considered generally as a
creature to be carried about and exhibited for money, was, in very truth, a
being immortally endowed, though under a dispensation obscure to the more
highly-favored white race. As they affirmed a belief in the traditions of their
tribe, with what strength and beauty of diction they clothed their thoughts how
energetic in gesture! Alas! for the people who had no higher creed, no surer
trust, for this and for another world.
