(cfr. Précis historiques, October 1 1854, Letter X, Chasses indiennes)
Letter XI.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE PRÉCIS HISTORIQUES, BRUSSELS.
Indian Hunts;
CINCINNATI, COLLEGE OF ST. XAVIER August 3, 1854,
REV. AND VERY DEAR FATHER:
According to promise, I proceed to offer you the description of a hunt. If I succeed in making my narration intelligible, I shall be satisfied, and shall not regret devoting my time to the writing of it.
To be a good hunter and a good warrior are the two qualities par excellence that constitute a great man among all the nomadic tribes of North America. In this communication I shall limit myself to the manner of conducting a hunt.
The chase absorbs the whole attention of the savage. The knowledge that he has acquired, by long experience, of the nature and instinct of animals, is truly marvellous. He is occupied with it from his tender infancy. As soon as a child is capable of managing a little bow, it is the first instrument his father puts into his hands, to teach him how to hunt little birds and small animals. The young Indians are initiated in all their stratagems. They are taught with as much care bow to approach and kill the animals, as in civilized society a youth is instructed in reading, writing, and arithmetic.
An expert Indian hunter is acquainted minutely with the habits and instincts of all the quadrupeds which form the object of the chase. He knows their favorite haunts. It is essential for him to distinguish what kind of food an animal first seeks, and the most favorable moment of quitting his lair for procuring nourishment. The hunter must be familiar with all the precautions that are necessary to elude the attentive ear and watchful instincts of his intended victims; he must appreciate the footstep that has passed him, the time that has elapsed since it passed, and the direction it has pursued. The atmosphere, the winds, rain, snow, ice, s forests, and the water, are the books which the Indian reads, consults, and examines, on leaving his cabin in pursuit of game.
The tribes of the desert find their subsistence in the chase; the flesh of animals affords them food, and the skins clothing. Before the arrival of the whites, the method of killing the different species of animals was very simple, consisting ordinarily of stratagems and snares. They still have recourse to the primitive method in the hunt for large animals, when they have no horses capable of pursuing them, and powder and ball for killing them are wanting.
The trap prepared for the bison is an inclosure or pen, and is one of the more early ways, and perhaps the most remarkable in its execution ; it demands skill, and gives a high idea of the sagacity, activity, and boldness of the Indian. As on all other occasions of moment, the jugglers are consulted, and the hunt is preceded by a great variety of superstitious practices. I witnessed one of these hunts at the base of the Rocky Mountains, and of this I will endeavor to give you a faithful detail.
The bisons roam the prairies in herds of several hundreds, and often of several thousands. On many of my travels I have seen with my own eyes, as far as I could discern on ~these immense plains, thousands and thousands of these noble animals moving slowly, like an interminable troop, iu one direction, and browsing the grass as they progress.
They have a fearful appearance; their hairy heads inspire with terror those who are ignorant of the pacific habits of this noble quadruped. Indeed, such is their timidity that one man can put to flight the most numerous herd. When alarmed, the tramp of their hoofs, their bellowings, and the columns of dust which they- raise, resemble the deep murmurs of a tempest mingled with peals of thunder, lessening as they grow more remote. The flesh of the bison is much esteemed and very nourishing; it is deemed the daily bread of all the Indian tribes on the great plains.
A tribe that has few guns, few horses to run down the animals, which needs provisions, and skins for clothing (and such was the condition of our Assiniboins), must employ the old or primitive method of hunting, which has existed from. time immemorial.
The Indians whom I saw engaged in it were encamped on a suitable place for the construction of a park or inclosure. The camp of which I speak contained about three hundred lodges, which represents 2000 or 3000 souls. They had selected the base of a chain of hills, whose gentle dope presented a narrow valley and a prairie, in which all the lodges were ranged. Opposite the hills there was a fine large prairie. After the construction of the lodges, a great council is held, at which all the chiefs and all the hunters assist. They first choose a band of warriors to hinder the hunters from leaving `the camp, either alone or in detached companies, lest the bisons be disturbed, and thus be driven away from the encampment. The law against this is extremely severe ; net only all the Indians of the camp must conform to it, but. it reaches to all travellers, even when they are ignorant of the encampment or do not know that there is a hunt in contemplation. Should they frighten the animals, they are a1l punishable; however, those of the camp are more rigorously chastised in case they transgress the regulation. Their guns, their bows and arrows, are broken, their lodges cut in pieces, their dots killed, all their provisions and their hides are taken from them. If they are bold enough to resist the penalty, they are beaten with bows, sticks, and clubs, and this torment frequently terminates in the death of the unhappy aggressor. Any one who should set fire to the prairie by accident or imprudence, or in any way frighten off the herd, would be sure to be well beaten
.
As soon as the law is promulgated, the construction of the pen is commenced.* Everybody labors at it with cheerful ardor, for it is an affair of common interest, on which the subsistence of the entire tribe during several months will depend. The pen has an area of about an acre. To inclose it in a circular form, stakes are firmly fixed in the ground, and the distance between them filled with logs, dry boughs, masses of stone-in short, with whatever they can find that will answer the purpose. The circular palisade has but one opening; before this opening is a slope embracing fifteen or twenty- feet between the hills: this inclined plane grows
(* Plan of the Pen.-A B C, Pen; A C, Opening; D, Slope; A E and C F, Hills and Fences; G, Medicine-mast.)
wider as it diverges from the circle; at its two sides they continue the fence to a long distance on the plain.
As soon as these preparations are completed, the Indians elect a grand-master of ceremonies and of the pen. He is generally an old man, a distinguished personage, belonging to Wah-kon, or medicine-band, and famous in the art of jugglery, which the Indians, as I have remarked, deem a supernatural science. His office it is to decide the moment for driving the bisons into the inclosure, and give the signal for the commencement of the bunt. He plants the medicinemast in the centre of the park, and attaches to it the three charms which are to allure the animals in that direction, via., a streamer of scarlet cloth two or three yards long, a piece of tobacco, and a bison's born. Every morning at .the early dawn he beats his drum, intones his hymns of conjuration, consults his own Wah-kon, and the manitous or guiding-spirits of the bisons, in order to discover the favorable moment for the chase.
The grand-master has four runners at his disposal, who go out daily and report to him the true result of their observations; they tell at what distance from the camp the animals are, their probable number, and in what direction the herd is marching. These runners frequently go forty or fifty miles in different directions. In all their courses they take with them a Wah-kon ball, which is intrusted to them by the grand master: it is made of hair and covered with skin. When the runners think that the suitable moment has arrived, they immediately dispatch a man of their number to the grand-master, with the ball and the good news. So long as the mysterious ball is absent the master of ceremonies cannot take food; he prolongs this rigorous fast by abstaining from every meat or dish that does not come from some animal killed on the area of the park, until the hunt is over; and as they often remain a month or more awaiting the most favorable moment of beginning, the grand-master must find himself reduced to very small rations, unless he makes some arrangement with his conscience. It is probable that he eats stealthily at night, for he has no more appearance of fasting than his brethren of the camp.
Let us now suppose all to be in readiness, and the circumstances all favorable to the hunt. The grand-master of the park beats his drum, to announce that the bisons are in numerous herds at about fifteen or twenty miles distance. The wind is favorable, and comes directly from the point in which the animals are. Immediately all the horsemen mount their coursers; the foot-soldiers, armed with bows, guns, and lances, take their positions, forming two long oblique diverging rows, from the extremity of the two barriers which spring from the entrance of the pen and extend into the plain, and thus prolong the lines of the inclosure. When the footmen are placed at distances of ten or fifteen feet, the horsemen continue the same lines, which separate in proportion as they extend, so that the last hunter on horseback is found at about two or three miles distance from the pen, and at very nearly the same distance from the last hunter of the other line, in an opposite direction. When men are wanting, women and even children occupy stations.
After the formation of these two immense lines, one single Indian, unarmed, is sent upon the best courser in the camp in the direction of the buffaloes, to meet them. He approaches, against the wind, and with the greatest precaution. At the distance of about one hundred paces he envelops himself in a buffalo-bide, the fur turned outside, and also envelops his horse as much as possible in the same manner, and then makes a plaintive cry in imitation of that of a bison calf. As if by enchantment, this cry attracts the attention of the whole herd ; after some seconds, several thousands of these quadrupeds, hearing this pitiful plaint, turn towards the pretended calf. At first they move slowly, then advance into a trot, and at last they push forward in full gallop. The horseman continually repeats the cry of the calf, and takes his course towards the pen, ever attentive to keep at the same distance from the animals that are following him. By this stratagem he leads the vast herd of bisons through the whole distance that separates him from his companions, who are on the qui vive, full of ardor and impatience to share with him in his sport.
When the buffaloes arrive in the space between the extremities of the two lines, the scene changes; all assumes an appearance of eagerness. The hunters on horseback, giving rein to their steeds, rejoin each other behind the animals. At once the scent of the hunters is communicated among the frightened and routed animals, which attempt to escape in every direction. Then those on foot appear. The bisons, finding themselves surrounded and inclosed on all sides, except the single opening into the circular pen before them, low and bellow in the' most frightful manner, and plunge into it with the speed of fear and desperation. The lines of hunters close in gradually; and space becomes less necessary as the mass of bisons and the groups of hunters become more and more compact. Then the Indians commence firing their guns, drawing their arrows, and flinging their lances. Many animals fall under the blows before gaining the pen the greater number, however, enter. They discover, only too late, the snare that has been laid for them. Those in front try to return, but the terrified crowd that follow forces them to go forward, and they cast themselves in confusion into the inclosure, amid the hurrahs and joyful shouts of the whole tribe, intermingled with the firing of guns.
As soon as all are penned, the buffaloes are killed with arrows, lances, and knives. Men, women, and children, in an excitement of joy, take part in the general butchery, and the flaying and cutting up of the animals. To look at them without disgust in this operation, one must have been a little habituated to their customs and manners. While men cut and slash the flesh, the women, and children in particular, devour the meat still warm with life-the livers, kidneys, brains, &c., seem irresistible attractions: they smear their faces, hair, arias, and legs with the blood of the bisons ; confused cries, clamorous shouts, and here and there quarrels, fill up the scene. It is.a picturesque and savage scene, a very pandemonium-a sight very difficult to depict by words or to recount in minute details. In the hunt which -I have just described, and at which I was present, six hundred bison were taken.
After the butchery, the skins and the flesh are separated into piles, and these piles are divided among the families, in proportion to the number of which they are composed. The meat is afterwards cut in slices and dried; the bones are bruised and their grease extracted. The clogs also receive their portion of the feast, and devour the remains on the arena of the pen. Two days after the hunt not a vestige of the carnage remained. Before separating, the Indians pass several days in dancing and mirth. One of your Keysers or Ver Broeckhovens should assist at one of these spirited, picturesque scenes of the Great Desert; he would find a new subject for a painting.
The old proverb says, " One half of the world knows not how the other half lives." The American Indians, who live on the spontaneous products of the soil may say as much: the countless herds of bison that roam over the vast plains, serve as daily bread to the numerous tribes of the Great Desert.
The Soshocos are the most degraded of the races of this vast continent. The Americans call them "Poor Devils," and the French and Canadian voyageurs denominated them "les dines de pitié." They roam over the desert and barren districts of Utah and California, and that portion of the Rocky Mountains which branches into Oregon. In my missions and journeys I have sometimes met with families of these wretched Soshocos, who are really worthy of pity. I was so happy as to baptize several of their sick children just before they died.
While the Indians of the plains, who live on the flesh of animals, become tall, robust, active, and generally well-clad with skins, the Soshoco, who subsists chiefly on grasshoppers and ants, is miserable, lean, weak, and badly clothed ; he inspires sentiments of compassion in the minds of those who traverse the unproductive region which he occupies.
After having described to you the inclosure hunt, as practiced by the Assiniboins, I will show you the reverse of the picture, by describing the great grasshopper hunt practiced among the Soshocos. This hunt deserves mention, I think, especially as a contrast to the other.
The principal portion of the Soshoco territory is covered with wormwood, and other species of artemisia, in which the grasshoppers swarm by myriads ; these parts are consequently most frequented by this tribe. When they are sufficiently numerous, they hunt together. They begin by digging a hole, ten or twelve feet in diameter. by four or five deep; then, armed with long branches of artemisia, they surround a field of four or five acres, more or less, according to the number of persons who are engaged in it. They stand about twenty feet apart, and their whole work is to beat the ground, so as to frighten up the grasshoppers and make them bound forward. They chase them towards the centre by degrees-that is, into the hole prepared for their reception. Their number is so considerable that frequently three or four acres furnish grasshoppers sufficient to fill the reservoir or hole.
The Soshocos stay in that place as long as this sort of provision lasts. They, as well as other mortals, have their ,tastes. Some eat the grasshoppers in soup, or boiled; others crush them, and make a hind of paste from them, which they dry in the sun or before the fire: others eat them -en appalas-that is, they take pointed rods and string the largest ones on thetas ; afterwards these rods are fixed in the ground before the fire, and, as they become roasted, the poor Soshocos regale themselves until the whole are devoured.
As they rove from place to place, they sometimes meet with a few rabbits, and take some grouse, but seldom kill deer or other large animals.
The contrast between the Indian of the plain and the destitute Soshoco, is very striking; but poor as he is, like the Hottentot, he loves devotedly his native soil.
I shall soon leave Cincinnati for Louisville, in Kentucky, and then for St, Louis ; from' thence, in order to comply with your request, I shall continue my Indian memoirs. Among other things, I will give you the description of the peace expedition sent by the Crows to the Black-Feet. I collected the facts on the spot, in my mission of 1851 ; for in the superstitious and religious ideas and practices of the savages, in their expeditions of war and hunting, their character and manners are best described. I will give you these curious details with as much fidelity as I can.
Rev. and dear Father,
Your devoted servant and brother in Christ,
P. J. DE SMET, S. J.