We Also Gave A Small Medal
To A Third Chief, And A Kind Of Certificate Or Letter Of Acknowledgment
To
Five of the warriors expressive of our favor and their good intentions.
One of them, dissatisfied, returned us the certificate;
But the chief,
fearful of our being offended, begged that it might be restored to him;
this we declined, and rebuked them severely for having in view mere traffic
instead of peace with their neighbors. This displeased them at first;
but they at length all petitioned that it should be given to the warrior,
who then came forward and made an apology to us; we then delivered it
to the chief to be given to the most worthy, and he bestowed it on
the same warrior, whose name was Great Blue Eyes. After a more substantial
present of small articles and tobacco, the council was ended with a dram
to the Indians. In the evening we exhibited different objects of curiosity,
and particularly the air-gun, which gave them great surprise. Those people
are almost naked, having no covering except a sort of breech-cloth round
the middle, with a loose blanket or buffalo robe, painted, thrown over them.
The names of these warriors, besides those already mentioned, were Karkapaha,
or Crow's Head, and Nenasawa, or Black Cat, Missouris; and Sananona,
or Iron Eyes, Neswaunja, or Big Ox, Stageaunja, or Big Blue Eyes,
and Wasashaco, or Brave Man, all Ottoes."
Chapter IV
Novel Experiences among the Indians
About this time (the nineteenth and twentieth of August), the explorers lost
by death the only member of their party who did not survive the journey.
Floyd River, which flows into the Upper Missouri, in the northwest corner
of Iowa, still marks the last resting-place of Sergeant Charles Floyd,
who died there of bilious colic and was buried by his comrades near
the mouth of the stream. Near here was a quarry of red pipestone,
dear to the Indian fancy as a mine of material for their pipes;
traces of this deposit still remain. So fond of this red rock were
the Indians that when they went there to get the stuff, even lifelong
and vindictive enemies declared a truce while they gathered the material,
and savage hostile tribes suspended their wars for a time.
On the north side of the Missouri, at a point in what is now known
as Clay County, South Dakota, Captains Lewis and Clark, with ten men,
turned aside to see a great natural curiosity, known to the Indians
as the Hill of Little Devils. The hill is a singular mound in the midst
of a flat prairie, three hundred yards long, sixty or seventy yards wide,
and about seventy feet high. The top is a smooth level plain.
The journal says: -
"The Indians have made it a great article of their superstition:
it is called the Mountain of Little People, or Little Spirits;
and they believe that it is the abode of little devils, in the human form,
of about eighteen inches high, and with remarkably large heads;
they are armed with sharp arrows, with which they are very skilful,
and are always on the watch to kill those who should have the hardihood
to approach their residence.
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