They Esteemed Them A Wise People, Inferior Only To
Themselves, Living In Leather Lodges, Like Their Own, And Subsisting
On Buffalo.
But when the swarm of MENEASKA, with their oxen and
wagons, began to invade them, their astonishment was unbounded.
They
could scarcely believe that the earth contained such a multitude of
white men. Their wonder is now giving way to indignation; and the
result, unless vigilantly guarded against, may be lamentable in the
extreme.
But to glance at the interior of a lodge. Shaw and I used often to
visit them. Indeed, we spent most of our evenings in the Indian
village; Shaw's assumption of the medical character giving us a fair
pretext. As a sample of the rest I will describe one of these
visits. The sun had just set, and the horses were driven into the
corral. The Prairie Cock, a noted beau, came in at the gate with a
bevy of young girls, with whom he began to dance in the area, leading
them round and round in a circle, while he jerked up from his chest a
succession of monotonous sounds, to which they kept time in a rueful
chant. Outside the gate boys and young men were idly frolicking; and
close by, looking grimly upon them, stood a warrior in his robe, with
his face painted jet-black, in token that he had lately taken a
Pawnee scalp. Passing these, the tall dark lodges rose between us
and the red western sky. We repaired at once to the lodge of Old
Smoke himself. It was by no means better than the others; indeed, it
was rather shabby; for in this democratic community, the chief never
assumes superior state. Smoke sat cross-legged on a buffalo robe,
and his grunt of salutation as we entered was unusually cordial, out
of respect no doubt to Shaw's medical character. Seated around the
lodge were several squaws, and an abundance of children. The
complaint of Shaw's patients was, for the most part, a severe
inflammation of the eyes, occasioned by exposure to the sun, a
species of disorder which he treated with some success. He had
brought with him a homeopathic medicine chest, and was, I presume,
the first who introduced that harmless system of treatment among the
Ogallalla. No sooner had a robe been spread at the head of the lodge
for our accommodation, and we had seated ourselves upon it, than a
patient made her appearance; the chief's daughter herself, who, to do
her justice, was the best-looking girl in the village. Being on
excellent terms with the physician, she placed herself readily under
his hands, and submitted with a good grace to his applications,
laughing in his face during the whole process, for a squaw hardly
knows how to smile. This case dispatched, another of a different
kind succeeded. A hideous, emaciated old woman sat in the darkest
corner of the lodge rocking to and fro with pain and hiding her eyes
from the light by pressing the palms of both hands against her face.
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