Fanny Kelly

LOST IN THE INDIAN VILLAGE—BLACK BEAR’S WHITE WIFE—A SMALL TEA PARTY—THE WHITE BOY-CAPTIVE, CHARLES SYLVESTER—THE SUN DANCE—A CONCILIATING LETTER FROM GENERAL SIBLEY—A PUZZLE OF HUMAN BONES—THE INDIAN AS AN ARTIST—I DESTROY A PICTURE AND PUNISHED WITH FIRE-BRANDS—A SICK INDIAN.

About the 1st of October the Indians were on the move as usual, and by some means I became separated from the family I was with, and was lost. I looked around for them, but their familiar faces were not to be seen. Strangers gazed upon me, and, although I besought them to assist me in finding the people of my own tipi, they paid no attention to my trouble, and refused to do any thing for me.

Never shall I forget the sadness I felt as evening approached, and we encamped for the night in a lonely valley, after a wearisome day’s journey.

Along one side stood a strip of timber, with a small stream beside it. Hungry, weary, and lost to my people, with no place to lay my head, and after a fruitless search for the family, I was more desolate than ever. Even Keoku, or “Yellow Bird,” the Indian girl who had been given me, was not with me that day, making it still more lonely.

I sat down and held my pony. It was autumn, and the forest wore the last glory of its gorgeous coloring. Already the leaves lay along the paths, like a rich carpet of variegated colors. The winds caught a deeper tone, mournful as the tones of an Æolian harp, but the air was balmy and soft, and the sunlight lay warm and pleasant, as in midsummer, over the beautiful valley, now occupied with numberless camps of tentless Indians. It seemed as if the soft autumn weather was, to the last moment, unwilling to yield the last traces of beauty to the chill embraces of stern winter, and I thought of the luxuries and comforts of my home. I looked back on the past with tears of sorrow and regret; my heart was overburdened with grief, and I prayed to die. The future looked like a dark cloud approaching, for the dread of the desolation of winter to me was appalling.

While meditating on days of the past, and contemplating the future, Keoku came suddenly upon me, and was delighted to find the object of her search.

They had been looking for me, and did not know where I had gone, were quite worried about me, she said, and she was glad she had found me. I was as pleased as herself, and rejoiced to join them.

One has no idea of the extent of an Indian village, or of the number of its inhabitants.

It would seem strange to some that I should ever get lost when among them, but, like a large city, one may be separated from their companions, and in a few moments be lost.

The Indians all knew the “white woman,” but I knew but few comparatively, and consequently when among strangers I felt utterly friendless.

The experience of those days of gloom and sadness seem like a fearful dream, now that my life is once again with civilized people, and enjoying the blessings that I was there deprived of.

Some twenty-five years ago an emigrant train, en route for California, arrived in the neighborhood of the crossing of the North Platte, and the cholera broke out among the travelers, and every one died, with the exception of one little girl.

The Indian “Black Bear,” while hunting, came to the wagons, now a morgue, and, finding the father of the girl dying with cholera, took the child in his arms. The dying parent begged him to carry his little one to his home in the East, assuring him of abundant reward by the child’s friends, in addition to the gold he gave him. These facts I gleaned from a letter given to Black Bear by the dying father, and which had been carefully preserved by the daughter.

Instead of doing as was desired, he took the money, child, and every thing valuable in the train, to his own home among the hills, and there educated the little one with habits of savage life.

She forgot her own language, her name, and every thing about her past life, but she knew that she was white. Her infancy and girlhood were, therefore, passed in utter ignorance of the modes of life of her own people, and, contented and happy, she remained among them, verifying the old adage, that “habit is second nature.” When she was of marriageable age, Black Bear took her for his wife, and they had a child, a boy.

I became acquainted with this white woman shortly after I went into the village, and we were sincere friends, although no confidants, as I dared not trust her. It was very natural and pleasant also to know her, as she was white, and although she was an Indian in tastes and habits, she was my sister, and belonged to my people; there was a sympathetic chord between us, and it was a relief to be with her.

On the occasion of my first visit with her, Black Bear suggested the idea that white women always drank tea together, so she made us a cup of herb tea, which we drank in company.

I endeavored to enlighten her, and to do her all the good I could; told her of the white people, and of their kindness and Christianity, trying to impress her with the superiority of the white race, all of which she listened to with great interest.

I was the only white woman she had seen, for whenever they neared any fort she was always kept out of sight.

She seemed to enjoy painting herself, and dressing for the dances, as well as the squaws, and was happy and contented with Indian surroundings, for she knew no difference.

I know not what has become of her, for I have never heard; neither can I remember the name of her father, which was in the note handed the Indian by his dying hand.

A little boy, fourteen years old, whose name was Charles Sylvester, belonging in Quincy, Illinois, who was stolen when seven years of age, was in the village, and one day I saw him playing with the Indian boys, and, discovering immediately that he was a white boy, I flew to his side, and tried to clasp him in my arms, in my joy exclaiming, “Oh! I know you are a white boy! Speak to me, and tell me who you are and where you come from?” He also had forgotten his name and parentage, but knew that he was white.

When I spoke to him, the boys began to plague and tease him, and he refused to speak to me, running away every time I approached him.

One year after, one day, when this boy was out hunting, he killed a comrade by accident, and he dared not return to the village; so he escaped, on his pony, to the white people. On his way to the States, he called at a house where they knew what Indians he belonged to, and they questioned him, whether he had seen a white woman in the village; he replied in the affirmative, and a bundle of pictures being given him, he picked mine out from among them, saying, “That is the white woman whom I saw.”

After awhile, being discontented with his own people, he returned to his adopted friends on the North Platte, and became an interpreter and trader, and still remains there, doing business at various posts.

When the Indians went to obtain their annuities, they transferred me to the Unkpapas, leaving me in their charge, where there was a young couple, and an old Indian, who had four wives; he had been very brave, it was said, for he had endured the trial which proves the successful warrior. He was one of those who “looked at the sun” without failing in heart or strength.

This custom is as follows: The one who undergoes this operation is nearly naked, and is suspended from the upper end of a pole by a cord, which is tied to some splints which run through the flesh of both breasts. The weight of his body is hung from it, the feet still upon the ground helping support it a very little, and in his left hand he holds his favorite bow, and in his right, with a firm hold, his medicine bag.

A great crowd usually looks on, sympathizing with and encouraging him, but he still continues to hang and “look at the sun,” without paying the least attention to any one about him. The mystery men beat their drums, and shake their rattles, and sing as loud as they can yell, to strengthen his heart to look at the sun from its rising until its setting, at which time, if his heart and strength have not failed him, he is “cut down,” receives a liberal donation of presents, which are piled before him during the day, and also the name and style of a doctor, or medicine man, which lasts him, and insures him respect, through life. It is considered a test of bravery. Superstition seems to have full sway among the Indians—just as much as in heathen lands beyond the sea, where the Burmah mother casts her child to the crocodile to appease the Great Spirit.

Many of these Indians were from Minnesota, and were of the number that escaped justice two years before, after committing an indiscriminate slaughter of men, women, and children. One day, I was sent for by one of them, and when I was seated in his lodge, he gave me a letter to read, which purported to have been written by General Sibley, as follows:

“This Indian, after taking part in the present outbreak of the Indians against the white settlers and missionaries, being sick, and not able to keep up with his friends in their flight, we give you the offerings of friendship, food and clothing. You are in our power, but we won’t harm you. Go to your people and gladden their hearts. Lay down your weapons, and fight the white men no more. We will do you good, and not evil. Take this letter; in it we have spoken. Depart in peace, and ever more be a friend to the white people, and you will be more happy.”

H. H. SIBLEY,

Brig.-Gen., Commanding Expedition.

Instinctively I looked up into his face, and said: “Intend to keep your promise?” He laughed derisively at the idea of an Indian brave abandoning his profession. He told of many instances of outrageous cruelties of his band in their marauding and murderous attacks on traveling parties and frontier settlers; and, further, to assure me of his bravery, he showed me a puzzle or game he had made from the finger bones of some of the victims that had fallen beneath his own tomahawk. The bones had been freed from the flesh by boiling, and, being placed upon a string, were used for playing some kind of Indian game. This is but one of the heathenish acts of these Indians.

The Indians are fond of recounting their exploits, and, savage like, dwell with much satisfaction upon the number of scalps they have taken from their white foes. They would be greatly amused at the shuddering horror manifested, when, to annoy me, they would tauntingly portray the dying agonies of white men, women, and children, who had fallen into their hands; and especially would the effect of their description of the murder of little Mary afford them satisfaction. I feel, now, that I must have been convinced of her death, yet I could not then help hoping that she had escaped.

These exploits and incidents are generally related by the Indians, when in camp having nothing to do. The great lazy brutes would sit by the hour, making caricatures of white soldiers, representing them in various ways, and always as cowards and inferior beings; sometimes as in combat, but always at their mercy. This was frequently done, apparently to annoy me, and one day, losing patience, I snatched a rude drawing from the hands of an Indian, who was holding it up to my view, and tore it in two, clasping the part that represented the white soldier to my heart, and throwing the other in the fire. Then, looking up, I told them the white soldiers were dear to me; that they were my friends, and I loved them. I said they were friends to the Indians, and did not want to harm them. I expressed myself in the strongest manner by words and signs.

Never did I see a more enraged set of men. They assailed me with burning fire-brands, burning me severely. They heated the points of arrows, and burned and threatened me sorely.

I told them I meant no harm to them. That it was ridiculous, their getting angry at my burning a bit of paper. I promised I would make them some more; that they should have pictures of my drawing, when, at last, I pacified them. They were much like children in this respect—easily offended, but very difficult to please.

I was constantly annoyed, worried, and terrified by their strange conduct—their transition from laughing and fun to anger, and even rage. I knew not how to get along with them. One moment, they would seem friendly and kind; the next, if any act of mine displeased them, their faces were instantly changed, and they displayed their hatred or anger in unmeasured words or conduct—children one hour, the next, fiends. I always tried to please them, and was as cheerful as I could be under the circumstances, for my own sake.

One day, I was called to see a man who lay in his tipi in great suffering. His wasted face was darkened by fever, and his brilliantly restless eyes rolled anxiously, as if in search of relief from pain. He was reduced to a skeleton, and had endured tortures from the suppuration of an old wound in the knee.

He greeted me with the “How! how!” of Indian politeness, and, in answer to my inquiry why he came to suffer so, replied:

“I go to fight white man. He take away land, and chase game away; then he take away our squaws. He take away my best squaw.”

Here his voice choked, and he displayed much emotion.

Pitying his misery, I endeavored to aid him, and rendered him all the assistance in my power, but death was then upon him.

The medicine man was with him also, practicing his incantations.

We were so constantly traveling, it wearied me beyond expression. The day after the Indian’s burial we were again on the move.