The Life & Adventures of James P. Beckwourth
Mountaineer, Scout, Pioneer, & Chief of the Crow Nation of Indians.
Written from his own Dictation by T. D. Bonner. New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, Franklin Square. 1856.
CHAPTER 22
Meteoric Shower.—Its Effect upon the Indians.—Their Sacrifice to the Great Spirit.—Continued Hostilities with the Black Feet.—A Black Foot burned in the Crow Village.—Visit to the Fort.
IN case any captious "elders of the congregation" had been inclined to throw the blame of my recent disaster upon my shoulders, I was provided with a sufficient portent to screen me from consequences. After quitting the fort on our way to Little Box Elder (as before related), and while exhausting all my powers of persuasion to induce Mr. Hunter to return, we observed a remarkable meteoric shower, which filled us all (more particularly my followers) with wonder and admiration. This was at our first encampment after leaving the fort in the latter end of October, 1832. Although my warriors were ready to face death in any form, this singular phenomenon appalled them. It was the wrath of the Great Spirit showered visibly upon them, and they looked to me, in quality of medicine chief, to interpret the wonder. I was as much struck with the prodigious occurrence, and was equally at a loss with my untutored followers to account for the spectacle. Evidently I must augur some result therefrom, and my dejected spirits did not prompt me to deduce a very encouraging one. I thought of all the impostures that are practiced upon the credulous, and my imagination suggested some brilliant figures to my mind. I thought of declaring to them that the Great Spirit was pleased with our expedition, and was lighting us on our way with spirit lamps; or that these meteors were the spirits of our departed braves, coming to assist us in our forthcoming fight. But I was not sanguine enough to indulge in any attractive oratory. I merely informed them I had not time to consult my medicine, but that on our return to the village I would interpret the miracle to them in full.
On our arrival, I found the people's minds still agitated with the prodigy. All were speaking of it in wonder and amazement, and my opinion was demanded respecting the consequences it portended. Admonished by my defeat, I had no trouble in reading the stars. I informed them that our people had evidently offended the Great Spirit; that it was because of his wrath I had suffered defeat in my excursion, and returned with the loss of twenty-three warriors. I thence inferred that a sacrifice must be made to appease the wrath of the Great Spirit, and recommended that a solemn assembly be convened, and a national oblation offered up.
I was fully confident that by thus countenancing such pagan superstitions I was doing very wrong, but, like many a more prominent statesman in civilized governments, I had found that I must go with the current, and I recommended a measure, not because it was of a nature to benefit the country, but simply because it was popular with the mass.
The camp in which we then were was a mourning-camp, in which medicine would have no effect. Therefore we moved to Sulphur River, ten miles distant, in order to offer up our sacrifice. All the leading men and braves assembled, and I was consulted as to the kind of offering proper to make for the purpose of averting the wrath that was consuming us. I ordered them to bring the great medicine kettle, which was of brass, and capable of holding ten gallons, and was purchased at a cost of twenty fine robes, and to polish it as bright as the sun's face. This done, I ordered them to throw in all their most costly and most highly-prized trinkets, and whatsoever they cherished the most dearly. It was soon filled with their choicest treasures. Keepsakes, fancy work on which months of incessant and patient toil had been expended, trinkets, jewels, rings so highly prized by them that the costliest gems of emperors seemed poor by their side — all these were thrown into the kettle, along with a bountiful contribution of fingers, until it would hold no more. I then had weights attached to it, and had it carried to an air-hole in the ice where the river was very deep, and there it was sunk with becoming ceremony. Three young maidens, habited like May queens, carried the burden.
This great sacrifice completed, the minds of the people were relieved, and the result of the next war-party was anxiously looked forward to to see if our oblation was accepted. Their crying, however, continued unabated, so much to the derangement of my nervous system that I was fain to retire from the village and seek some less dolorous companionship. My bosom friend and myself therefore started off unnoticed, and traveled on without stopping until we came to a hill some seven or eight miles distant. He was pre-eminently a great brave, at all times self-possessed and unobtrusive. I always considered him as endowed with the most solid sense, and possessing the clearest views of any Indian in the nation. His spirits were generally somewhat dejected, but that I attributed to the loss of all his relatives. When I wished to enjoy a little converse or sober meditation, he always was my chosen companion, as there were qualities in his character which interested me and assimilated with my own. He never craved popularity, never envied the elevation of others, but seemed rather to rejoice at another person's success. He would listen to me for an entire day when I spoke of my residence with the whites, and told of their great battles, where thousands were slain on both sides; when I described their ships carrying immense guns capable of sweeping hundreds of men away at a discharge; and when I depicted to him their forts, to which our forts for size or strength were but as ant-hills. I then would tell him of the great Atlantic Ocean, and the millions of white men living beyond it; of countries where there was no summer, and others where there was no winter, and a thousand other marvels, of which I never spoke to other warriors, as their minds were too limited to comprehend me.
After listening to me with the deepest attention until I would grow tired of talking, he would seem to be perfectly amazed, and would be lost in a deep reverie for some time, as though endeavoring to raise his ideas to a level with the vast matters he had been listening to. Occasionally he would tell me of the traditions handed down from generation to generation in the Indian race, in which he was "elegantly learned." He told me of the mighty tribes of men who had once inhabited this vast continent, but were now exterminated by internecine wars; that their fathers had told them of a great flood, which had covered all the land, except the highest peaks of the mountains, where some of the inhabitants and the buffaloes resorted, and saved themselves from destruction.
We were on a hill, as before mentioned, some seven or eight miles from the village, engaged in one of these long cosmographical discussions, when my companion, chancing to turn his head, descried some object at a great distance. Pointing it out to me with his finger, "There is a people," he exclaimed. I looked in the direction indicated, and saw a small party of Black Feet approaching.
"Sit still," said I, "and let us see where they encamp; we will have every one of them to-night." We watched them until they halted at a couple of small Indian forts, with which the country abounds, and we saw they were soon joined by four or five others who came from another direction, and who were evidently scouts. From the direction which they came, I saw they had not discovered our village.
"Now," said I, "let us return; we will have that party. We will collect a few trusty warriors, and not mention our discovery to a living soul, not even telling our warriors the errand we are upon until we get within sight of the camp-fires of the enemy. Then we will return with their scalps, and put an end to this howling that deafens my ears."
We started on our way to the village. I desired him to select from his friends, and I would assemble my own.
"No," said he, "my friends are fools. I don't want them. But you collect your warriors, and I will be one of them."
Accordingly, I went to my father, and desired him to send for about seventy-five of my brothers and relatives, and tell them the Medicine Calf wished to see them; but I charged him not to tell them they were going away from the village. As they mustered one at a time, I acquainted them that I wanted them to leave the village singly and with the utmost secrecy, to meet me with their guns and battle-axes at a certain hour and in such a place, and in the mean time to answer no word to whatever question might be asked them.
At the appointed hour I repaired to the post, and found them all in readiness. I then marched them to the place of attack. When we arrived within sight of our foes we found them all very merry; they were singing the Wolf Song, or Song of the Spies, they having no suspicion that they were so near to the Crow village. We went cautiously up to the forts, which were but a few yards apart; and while they were yet singing we pointed our guns, and, at a signal given by me, all fired. The whole party were slain; their notes were cut short in death. Taking their scalps (nineteen in number) and guns, we reached our village by daylight, and entered it singing, dancing, and shouting.
The village was aroused, and men, women, and children came running from all directions to learn the cause of the disturbance. We displayed our nineteen scalps, and I took to myself full credit for the force of my medicine in divining where to find the foe, and cognizance was taken of the fact in the medicine lodge. We had five days' dancing to do full justice to this brilliant achievement, and I had become so tired of their continual mourning that their savage yells of delight seemed quite a luxury.
One night a party of Black Feet came to borrow some of our horses, and happened to be caught in the fact. The alarm was given, the marauders fired upon, and one of them had his leg broken by a ball. He was found the next morning, unable to get away; but he sat up and defended himself until he had shot his last arrow. He was then brought into the village, and it was decided to burn him. A large fire was built, which was surrounded by hundreds, and when the fire was well burnt up the poor fellow was thrown in. This was the first act of the kind I had ever known the Crows to commit; but there was no preventing it. It is an appalling sight to behold a human being, or even an inferior animal, perish in the flames; I trust my eyes may never witness such another scene. To see the writhing agony of the suffering wretch when cast into the darting flames, and hear his piercing shrieks as the blaze gradually envelops his whole body, until the life is scorched out of the victim, and he falls prostrate among the logs, soon to become a charred mass of cinders undistinguishable from the element that consumed it — it is indeed a sight only fit for savages to look at.
I learned this one truth while I was with the Indians, namely, that a white man can easily become an Indian, but that an Indian could never become a white man. Some of the very worst savages I ever saw in the Rocky Mountains were white men, and I could mention their names and expose some of their deeds, but they have most probably gone to their final account before this.
Our village now moved on toward the fort to purchase our spring supplies. Both villages could only raise forty packs of beaver and nineteen hundred packs of robes; but for their continual wars, they could as easily have had ten packs for one. But it is impossible to confine an Indian to a steady pursuit — not even fighting; after awhile he will even tire of that. It is impossible to control his wayward impulses; application to profitable industry is foreign to his nature. He is a vagrant, and he must wander; he has no associations to attach him to one spot; he has no engendered habits of thrift or productiveness to give him a constant aim or concentration of purpose.
Both villages at length assembled at the new fort, and our spring trading was briskly entered into. We rested for over a week, and I then proposed moving, as the time was approaching for our building a new medicine lodge. The night preceding our proposed departure, thieves were discovered among our horses; the alarm was given, and a party went in pursuit. They returned with six Sioux scalps, and two of our own men wounded. The remainder of the rascals succeeded in getting away with sixteen of our animals, we not considering them worth following after.
We then postponed our departure four days, and devoted ourselves to noise and festivity. The welkin rung with our shouts, and the fort shook with the thunder of our earthquake step.
