CHAPTER XVI.
Return of Spring.- Appearance of Snakes.- Great Flights of Wild Pigeons.- Renewal of
the Voyage.- Night Encampments.- Platte River. - Ceremonials on Passing It.- Signs of
Indian War Parties.- Magnificent Prospect at Papillion Creek.- Desertion of Two
Hunters.An Irruption Into the Camp of Indian Desperadoes.- Village of the Omahas.-A
necdotes of the Tribe.- Feudal Wars of the Indians.-Story of Blackbird, the Famous
Omaha Chief.
THE weather continued rainy and ungenial for some days after Mr. Hunt's return to
Nodowa; yet spring was rapidly advancing and vegetation was putting forth with all its
early freshness and beauty. The snakes began to recover from their torpor and crawl
forth into day; and the neighborhood of the wintering house seems to have been much
infested with them. Mr. Bradbury, in the course of his botanical researches, found a
surprising number in a half torpid state, under flat stones upon the banks which
overhung the cantonment, and narrowly escaped being struck by a rattlesnake, which
darted at him from a cleft in the rock, but fortunately gave him warning by his rattle.
The pigeons, too, were filling the woods in vast migratory flocks. It is almost incredible
to describe the prodigious flights of these birds in the western wildernesses. They
appear absolutely in clouds, and move with astonishing velocity, their wings making a
whistling sound as they fly. The rapid evolutions of these flocks wheeling and shifting
suddenly as if with one mind and one impulse; the flashing changes of color they
present, as their backs' their breasts, or the under part of their wings are turned to the
spectator, are singularly pleasing. When they alight, if on the ground, they cover whole
acres at a time; if upon trees, the branches often break beneath their weight. If
suddenly startled while feeding in the midst of a forest, the noise they make in getting
on the wing is like the roar of a cataract or the sound of distant thunder.
A flight of this kind, like an Egyptian flight of locusts, devours everything that serves for
its food as it passes along. So great were the numbers in the vicinity of the camp that
Mr. Bradbury, in the course of a morning's excursion, shot nearly three hundred with a
fowling-piece. He gives a curious, though apparently a faithful, account of the kind of
discipline observed in these immense flocks, so that each may have a chance of
picking up food. As the front ranks must meet with the greatest abundance, and the
rear ranks must have scanty pickings, the instant a rank finds itself the hindmost, it
rises in the air, flies over the whole flock and takes its place in the advance. The next
rank follows in its course, and thus the last is continually becoming first and all by turns
have a front place at the banquet.
The rains having at length subsided, Mr. Hunt broke up the encampment and resumed
his course up the Missouri.
The party now consisted of nearly sixty persons, of whom five were partners, one, John
Reed, was a clerk; forty were Canadian "voyageurs," or "engages," and there were
several hunters. They embarked in four boats, one of which was of a large size,
mounting a swivel, and two howitzers. All were furnished with masts and sails, to be
used when the wind was sufficiently favorable and strong to overpower the current of
the river. Such was the case for the first four or five days, when they were wafted
steadily up the stream by a strong southeaster.
Their encampments at night were often pleasant and picturesque: on some beautiful
bank, beneath spreading trees, which afforded them shelter and fuel. The tents were
pitched, the fires made, and the meals prepared by the voyageurs, and many a story
was told, and joke passed, and song sung round the evening fire. All, however, were
asleep at an early hour. Some under the tents, others wrapped in blankets before the
fire, or beneath the trees; and some few in the boats and canoes.
On the 28th, they breakfasted on one of the islands which lie at the mouth of the
Nebraska or Platte River - the largest tributary of the Missouri, and about six hundred
miles above its confluence with the Mississippi. This broad but shallow stream flows for
an immense distance through a wide and verdant valley scooped out of boundless
prairies. It draws its main supplies, by several forks or branches, from the Rocky
Mountains. The mouth of this river is established as the dividing point between the
upper and lower Missouri; and the earlier voyagers, in their toilsome ascent, before the
introduction of steamboats, considered one-half of their labors accomplished when they
reached this place. The passing of the mouth of the Nebraska, therefore, was
equivalent among boatmen to the crossing of the line among sailors, and was
celebrated with like ceremonials of a rough and waggish nature, practiced upon the
uninitiated; among which was the old nautical joke of shaving. The river deities,
however, like those of the sea, were to be propitiated by a bribe, and the infliction of
these rude honors to be parried by a treat to the adepts.
At the mouth of the Nebraska new signs were met with of war parties which had
recently been in the vicinity. There was the frame of a skin canoe, in which the warriors
had traversed the river. At night, also, the lurid reflection of immense fires hung in the
sky, showing the conflagration of great tracts of the prairies. Such fires not being made
by hunters so late in the season, it was supposed they were caused by some
wandering war parties. These often take the precaution to set the prairies on fire
behind them to conceal their traces from their enemies. This is chiefly done when the
party has been unsuccessful, and is on the retreat and apprehensive of pursuit. At such
time it is not safe even for friends to fall in with them, as they are apt to be in savage
humor, and disposed to vent their spleen in capricious outrage. These signs, therefore,
of a band of marauders on the prowl, called for some degree of vigilance on the part of
the travellers.
After passing the Nebraska, the party halted for part of two days on the bank of the
river, a little above Papillion Creek, to supply themselves with a stock of oars and poles
from the tough wood of the ash, which is not met with higher up the Missouri. While the
voyagers were thus occupied, the naturalists rambled over the adjacent country to
collect plants. From the summit of a range of bluffs on the opposite side of the river,
about two hundred and fifty feet high, they had one of those vast and magnificent
prospects which sometimes unfold themselves in those boundless regions. Below them
was the Valley of the Missouri, about seven miles in breadth, clad in the fresh verdure
of spring; enameled with flowers and interspersed with clumps and groves of noble
trees, between which the mighty river poured its turbulent and turbid stream. The
interior of the country presented a singular scene; the immense waste being broken up
by innumerable green hills, not above eight feet in height, but extremely steep, and
actually pointed at their summits. A long line of bluffs extended for upwards of thirty
miles parallel to the Missouri, with a shallow lake stretching along their base, which had
evidently once formed a bed of the river. The surface of this lake was covered with
aquatic plants, on the broad leaves of which numbers of water-snakes, drawn forth by
the genial warmth of spring, were basking in the sunshine.
On the 2d day of May, at the usual hour of embarking, the camp was thrown into some
confusion by two of the hunters, named Harrington, expressing their intention to
abandon the expedition and return home. One of these had joined the party in the
preceding autumn, having been hunting for two years on the Missouri; the other had
engaged at St. Louis, in the following March, and had come up from thence with Mr.
Hunt. He now declared that he had enlisted merely for the purpose of following his
brother, and persuading him to return; having been enjoined to do so by his mother,
whose anxiety had been awakened by the idea of his going on such a wild and distant
expedition.
The loss of two stark hunters and prime riflemen was a serious affair to the party, for
they were approaching the region where they might expect hostilities from the Sioux;
indeed, throughout the whole of their perilous journey, the services of such men would
be all important, for little reliance was to be placed upon the valor of the Canadians in
case of attack. Mr. Hunt endeavored by arguments, expostulations, and entreaties, to
shake the determination of the two brothers. He represented to them that they were
between six and seven hundred miles above the mouth of the Missouri; that they would
have four hundred miles to go before they could reach the habitation of a white man,
throughout which they would be exposed to all kinds of risks; since, he declared, if they
persisted in abandoning him and breaking their faith, he would not furnish them with a
single round of ammunition. All was in vain; they obstinately persisted in their
resolution; whereupon, Mr. Hunt, partly incited by indignation, partly by the policy of
deterring others from desertion, put his threat into execution, and left them to find their
way back to the settlements without, as he supposed, a single bullet or charge of
powder.
The boats now continued their slow and toilsome course for several days, against the
current of the river. The late signs of roaming war parties caused a vigilant watch to be
kept up at night when the crews encamped on shore; nor was this vigilance
superfluous; for on the night of the seventh instant, there was a wild and fearful yell,
and eleven Sioux warriors, stark naked, with tomahawks in their hands, rushed into the
camp. They were instantly surrounded and seized, whereupon their leader called out to
his followers to desist from any violence, and pretended to be perfectly pacific in his
intentions. It proved, however, that they were a part of the war party, the skeleton of
whose canoe had been seen at the mouth of the river Platte, and the reflection of
whose fires had been descried in the air. They had been disappointed or defeated in
the foray, and in their rage and mortification these eleven warriors had "devoted their
clothes to the medicine." This is a desperate act of Indian braves when foiled in war,
and in dread of scoffs and sneers. In such case they sometimes threw off their clothes
and ornaments, devote themselves to the Great Spirit, and attempt some reckless
exploit with which to cover their disgrace. Woe to any defenseless party of white men
that may then fall in their way!
Such was the explanation given by Pierre Dorion, the half-breed interpreter, of this wild
intrusion into the camp; and the party were so exasperated when appraised of the
sanguinary intentions of the prisoners, that they were for shooting them on the spot. Mr.
Hunt, however, exerted his usual moderation and humanity, and ordered that they
should be conveyed across the river in one of the boats, threatening them however,
with certain death if again caught in any hostile act.
On the 10th of May the party arrived at the Omaha (pronounced Omawhaw) village,
about eight hundred and thirty miles above the mouth of the Missouri, and encamped in
its neighborhood. The village was situated under a hill on the bank of the river, and
consisted of about eighty lodges. These were of a circular and conical form, and about
sixteen feet in diameter; being mere tents of dressed buffalo skins, sewed together and
stretched on long poles, inclined towards each other so as to cross at about half their
height. Thus the naked tops of the poles diverge in such a manner that, if they were
covered with skins like the lower ends, the tent would be shaped like an hour-glass,
and present the appearance of one cone inverted on the apex of another.
The forms of Indian lodges are worthy of attention, each tribe having a different mode
of shaping and arranging them, so that it is easy to tell, on seeing a lodge or an
encampment at a distance, to what tribe the inhabitants belong. The exterior of the
Omaha lodges have often a gay and fanciful appearance, being painted with undulating
bands of red or yellow, or decorated with rude figures of horses, deer, and buffaloes,
and with human faces, painted like full moons, four and five feet broad.
The Omahas were once one of the numerous and powerful tribes of the prairies, vying
in warlike might and prowess with the Sioux, the Pawnees, the Sauks, the Konsas, and
the Iatans. Their wars with the Sioux, however, had thinned their ranks, and the small-pox in 1802 had swept off two thirds of their number. At the time of Mr. Hunt's visit they
still boasted about two hundred warriors and hunters, but they are now fast melting
away, and before long, will be numbered among those extinguished nations of the west
that exist but in tradition.
In his correspondence with Mr. Astor, from this point of his journey, Mr. Hunt gives a
sad account of the Indian tribes bordering on the river. They were in continual war with
each other, and their wars were of the most harassing kind; consisting, not merely of
main conflicts and expeditions of moment, involving the sackings, burnings, and
massacres of towns and villages, but of individual acts of treachery, murder, and cold-blooded cruelty; or of vaunting and foolhardy exploits of single warriors, either to
avenge some personal wrong, or gain the vainglorious trophy of a scalp. The lonely
hunter, the wandering wayfarer, the poor squaw cutting wood or gathering corn, was
liable to be surprised and slaughtered. In this way tribes were either swept away at
once, or gradually thinned out, and savage life was surrounded with constant horrors
and alarms. That the race of red men should diminish from year to year, and so few
should survive of the numerous nations which evidently once peopled the vast regions
of the west, is nothing surprising; it is rather matter of surprise that so many should
survive; for the existence of a savage in these parts seems little better than a prolonged
and all-besetting death. It is, in fact, a caricature of the boasted romance of feudal
times; chivalry in its native and uncultured state, and knight-errantry run wild.
In their most prosperous days, the Omahas looked upon themselves as the most
powerful and perfect of human beings, and considered all created things as made for
their peculiar use and benefit. It is this tribe of whose chief, the famous Wash-ing-guhsah-ba, or Blackbird, such savage and romantic stories are told. He had died about
ten years previous to the arrival of Mr. Hunt's party, but his name was still mentioned
with awe by his people. He was one of the first among the Indian chiefs on the Missouri
to deal with the white traders, and showed great sagacity in levying his royal dues.
When a trader arrived in his village, he caused all his goods to be brought into his
lodge and opened. From these he selected whatever suited his sovereign pleasure;
blankets, tobacco, whiskey, powder, ball, beads, and red paint; and laid the articles on
one side, without deigning to give any compensation. Then calling to him his herald or
crier, he would order him to mount on top of the lodge and summon all the tribe to bring
in their peltries, and trade with the white man. The lodge would soon be crowded with
Indians bringing bear, beaver, otter, and other skins. No one was allowed to dispute the
prices fixed by the white trader upon his articles; who took care to indemnify himself
five times over for the goods set apart by the chief. In this way the Blackbird enriched
himself, and enriched the white men, and became exceedingly popular among the
traders of the Missouri. His people, however, were not equally satisfied by a regulation
of trade which worked so manifestly against them, and began to show signs of
discontent. Upon this a crafty and unprincipled trader revealed a secret to the
Blackbird, by which he might acquire unbounded sway over his ignorant and
superstitious subjects. He instructed him in the poisonous qualities of arsenic, and
furnished him with an ample supply of that baneful drug. From this time the Blackbird
seemed endowed with supernatural powers, to possess the gift of prophecy, and to
hold the disposal of life and death within his hands. Woe to any one who questioned
his authority or dared to dispute his commands! The Blackbird prophesied his death
within a certain time, and he had the secret means of verifying his prophecy. Within the
fated period the offender was smitten with strange and sudden disease, and perished
from the face of the earth. Every one stood aghast at these multiplied examples of his
superhuman might, and dreaded to displease so omnipotent and vindictive a being;
and the Blackbird enjoyed a wide and undisputed sway.
It was not, however, by terror alone that he ruled his people; he was a warrior of the
first order, and his exploits in arms were the theme of young and old. His career had
begun by hardships, having been taken prisoner by the Sioux, in early youth. Under his
command, the Omahas obtained great character for military prowess, nor did he permit
an insult or an injury to one of his tribe to pass unrevenged. The Pawnee republicans
had inflicted a gross indignity on a favorite and distinguished Omaha brave. The
Blackbird assembled his warriors, led them against the Pawnee town, attacked it with
irresistible fury, slaughtered a great number of its inhabitants, and burnt it to the
ground. He waged fierce and bloody war against the Ottoes for many years, until peace
was effected between them by the mediation of the whites. Fearless in battle, and fond
of signalizing himself, he dazzled his followers by daring acts. In attacking a Kanza
village, he rode singly round it, loading and discharging his rifle at the inhabitants as he
galloped past them. He kept up in war the same idea of mysterious and supernatural
power. At one time, when pursuing a war party by their tracks across the prairies, he
repeatedly discharged his rifle into the prints made by their feet and by the hoofs of
their horses, assuring his followers that he would thereby cripple the fugitives, so that
they would easily be overtaken. He in fact did overtake them, and destroyed them
almost to a man; and his victory was considered miraculous, both by friends and foe.
By these and similar exploits, he made himself the pride and boast of his people, and
became popular among them, notwithstanding his death-denouncing fiat.
With all his savage and terrific qualities, he was sensible of the power of female
beauty, and capable of love. A war party of the Poncas had made a foray into the lands
of the Omahas, and carried off a number of women and horses. The Blackbird was
roused to fury, and took the field with all his braves, swearing to "eat up the Ponca
nation"- the Indian threat of exterminating war. The Poncas, sorely pressed, took refuge
behind a rude bulwark of earth; but the Blackbird kept up so galling a fire, that he
seemed likely to execute his menace. In their extremity they sent forth a herald, bearing
the calumet or pipe of peace, but he was shot down by order of the Blackbird. Another
herald was sent forth in similar guise, but he shared a like fate. The Ponca chief then,
as a last hope, arrayed his beautiful daughter in her finest ornaments, and sent her
forth with a calumet, to sue for peace. The charms of the Indian maid touched the stern
heart of the Blackbird; he accepted the pipe at her hand, smoked it, and from that time
a peace took place between the Poncas and the Omahas.
This beautiful damsel, in all probability, was the favorite wife whose fate makes so
tragic an incident in the story of the Blackbird. Her youth and beauty had gained an
absolute sway over his rugged heart, so that he distinguished her above all of his other
wives. The habitual gratification of his vindictive impulses, however, had taken away
from him all mastery over his passions, and rendered him liable to the most furious
transports of rage. In one of these his beautiful wife had the misfortune to offend him,
when suddenly drawing his knife, he laid her dead at his feet with a single blow.
In an instant his frenzy was at an end. He gazed for a time in mute bewilderment upon
his victim; then drawing his buffalo robe over his head, he sat down beside the corpse,
and remained brooding over his crime and his loss. Three days elapsed, yet the chief
continued silent and motionless; tasting no food, and apparently sleepless. It was
apprehended that he intended to starve himself to death; his people approached him in
trembling awe, and entreated him once more to uncover his face and be comforted; but
he remained unmoved. At length one of his warriors brought in a small child, and laying
it on the ground, placed the foot of the Blackbird upon its neck. The heart of the gloomy
savage was touched by this appeal; he threw aside his robe; made an harangue upon
what he had done; and from that time forward seemed to have thrown the load of grief
and remorse from his mind.
He still retained his fatal and mysterious secret, and with it his terrific power; but,
though able to deal death to his enemies, he could not avert it from himself or his
friends. In 1802 the small-pox, that dreadful pestilence, which swept over the land like a
fire over the prairie, made its appearance in the village of the Omahas. The poor
savages saw with dismay the ravages of a malady, loathsome and agonizing in its
details, and which set the skill and experience of their conjurors and medicine men at
defiance. In a little while, two thirds of the population were swept from the face of the
earth, and the doom of the rest seemed sealed. The stoicism of the warriors was at an
end; they became wild and desperate; some set fire to the village as a last means of
checking the pestilence; others, in a frenzy of despair, put their wives and children to
death, that they might be spared the agonies of an inevitable disease, and that they
might all go to some better country.
When the general horror and dismay was at its height, the Blackbird himself was struck
down with the malady. The poor savages, when they saw their chief in danger, forgot
their own miseries, and surrounded his dying bed. His dominant spirit, and his love for
the white men, were evinced in his latest breath, with which he designated his place of
sepulture. It was to be on a hill or promontory, upwards of four hundred feet in height,
overlooking a great extent of the Missouri, from whence he had been accustomed to
watch for the barks of the white men. The Missouri washes the base of the promontory,
and after winding and doubling in many links and mazes in the plain below, returns to
within nine hundred yards of its starting-place; so that for thirty miles navigating with
sail and oar the voyager finds himself continually near to this singular promontory as if
spell-bound.
It was the dying command of the Blackbird that his tomb should be on the summit of
this hill, in which he should be interred, seated on his favorite horse, that he might
overlook his ancient domain, and behold the barks of the white men as they came up
the river to trade with his people.
His dying orders were faithfully obeyed. His corpse was placed astride of his war-steed
and a mound raised over them on the summit of the hill. On top of the mound was
erected a staff, from which fluttered the banner of the chieftain, and the scalps that he
had taken in battle. When the expedition under Mr. Hunt visited that part of the country,
the staff still remained, with the fragments of the banner; and the superstitious rite of
placing food from time to time on the mound, for the use of the deceased, was still
observed by the Omahas. That rite has since fallen into disuse, for the tribe itself is
almost extinct. Yet the hill of the Blackbird continues an object of veneration to the
wandering savage, and a landmark to the voyager of the Missouri; and as the civilized
traveller comes within sight of its spell-bound crest, the mound is pointed out to him
from afar, which still incloses the grim skeletons of the Indian warrior and his horse.