My Host Himself Was The Author Of
Another Most Formidable Annoyance.
All these Indians, and he among
the rest, think themselves bound to the constant performance of
certain acts as the condition on which their success in life depends,
whether in war, love, hunting, or any other employment.
These
"medicines," as they are called in that country, which are usually
communicated in dreams, are often absurd enough. Some Indians will
strike the butt of the pipe against the ground every time they smoke;
others will insist that everything they say shall be interpreted by
contraries; and Shaw once met an old man who conceived that all would
be lost unless he compelled every white man he met to drink a bowl of
cold water. My host was particularly unfortunate in his allotment.
The Great Spirit had told him in a dream that he must sing a certain
song in the middle of every night; and regularly at about twelve
o'clock his dismal monotonous chanting would awaken me, and I would
see him seated bolt upright on his couch, going through his dolorous
performances with a most business-like air. There were other voices
of the night still more inharmonious. Twice or thrice, between
sunset and dawn, all the dogs in the village, and there were hundreds
of them, would bay and yelp in chorus; a most horrible clamor,
resembling no sound that I have ever heard, except perhaps the
frightful howling of wolves that we used sometimes to hear long
afterward when descending the Arkansas on the trail of General
Kearny's army. The canine uproar is, if possible, more discordant
than that of the wolves. Heard at a distance, slowly rising on the
night, it has a strange unearthly effect, and would fearfully haunt
the dreams of a nervous man; but when you are sleeping in the midst
of it the din is outrageous. One long loud howl from the next lodge
perhaps begins it, and voice after voice takes up the sound till it
passes around the whole circumference of the village, and the air is
filled with confused and discordant cries, at once fierce and
mournful. It lasts but for a moment and then dies away into silence.
Morning came, and Kongra-Tonga, mounting his horse, rode out with the
hunters. It may not be amiss to glance at him for an instant in his
domestic character of husband and father. Both he and his squaw,
like most other Indians, were very fond of their children, whom they
indulged to excess, and never punished, except in extreme cases when
they would throw a bowl of cold water over them. Their offspring
became sufficiently undutiful and disobedient under this system of
education, which tends not a little to foster that wild idea of
liberty and utter intolerance of restraint which lie at the very
foundation of the Indian character. It would be hard to find a
fonder father than Kongra-Tonga. There was one urchin in particular,
rather less than two feet high, to whom he was exceedingly attached;
and sometimes spreading a buffalo robe in the lodge, he would seat
himself upon it, place his small favorite upright before him, and
chant in a low tone some of the words used as an accompaniment to the
war dance. The little fellow, who could just manage to balance
himself by stretching out both arms, would lift his feet and turn
slowly round and round in time to his father's music, while my host
would laugh with delight, and look smiling up into my face to see if
I were admiring this precocious performance of his offspring. In his
capacity of husband he was somewhat less exemplary. The squaw who
lived in the lodge with him had been his partner for many years. She
took good care of his children and his household concerns. He liked
her well enough, and as far as I could see they never quarreled; but
all his warmer affections were reserved for younger and more recent
favorites. Of these he had at present only one, who lived in a lodge
apart from his own. One day while in his camp he became displeased
with her, pushed her out, threw after her her ornaments, dresses, and
everything she had, and told her to go home to her father. Having
consummated this summary divorce, for which he could show good
reasons, he came back, seated himself in his usual place, and began
to smoke with an air of utmost tranquillity and self-satisfaction.
I was sitting in the lodge with him on that very afternoon, when I
felt some curiosity to learn the history of the numerous scars that
appeared on his naked body. Of some of them, however, I did not
venture to inquire, for I already understood their origin. Each of
his arms was marked as if deeply gashed with a knife at regular
intervals, and there were other scars also, of a different character,
on his back and on either breast. They were the traces of those
formidable tortures which these Indians, in common with a few other
tribes, inflict upon themselves at certain seasons; in part, it may
be, to gain the glory of courage and endurance, but chiefly as an act
of self-sacrifice to secure the favor of the Great Spirit. The scars
upon the breast and back were produced by running through the flesh
strong splints of wood, to which ponderous buffalo-skulls are
fastened by cords of hide, and the wretch runs forward with all his
strength, assisted by two companions, who take hold of each arm,
until the flesh tears apart and the heavy loads are left behind.
Others of Kongra-Tonga's scars were the result of accidents; but he
had many which he received in war. He was one of the most noted
warriors in the village. In the course of his life he had slain as
he boasted to me, fourteen men, and though, like other Indians, he
was a great braggart and utterly regardless of truth, yet in this
statement common report bore him out.
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