THE HUNTING GROUNDS OF THE GREAT WEST.* To anyone imbued
with romantic ideas on the subject of Indians, this book will be a disappointment. To the reader, however, who may desire to learn the real nature of these savage tribes, their history and surroundings, the treatment they have met with from the white man, and the retaliation they are continually rendering to him, it will, though marred by a considerable degree of coarse- ness, be instructive and interesting. Colonel Dodge professes to
be guided in his narration entirely by his own experience. He consults no authorities, defers to no opinion, and judges every- thing from his own stand-point. The ideas he puts forth are there- fore purely his own, and derived from the ample opportunities he has had for pursuing the study of Indian life and character.
On the other hand, Mr. Blackmore, who writes an introduction to the work of his American friend, in which he gives a brief sketch of some of the Indian tribes, tells us that during the last thirty years he has collected and read everything which has appeared in relation to these aborigines, and has also had eight years of close personal acquaintance with them. The evidence of two writers so well qualified should certainly be worth having, and if it differs in some points from preconceived opinions, deserves at least to be received with respect, although it was hardly necessary to dvrell with so much detail upon some of the boner aspects of savage life. The pictures drawn both by Colonel Dodge and Mr. Blackmore of the treatment of the red-men by the whites are extremely painful, and it is scarcely a consolation to be reminded that under the immutable law of progress the savage is giving place to a higher and more civilised race, and that in a few years his wigwams, tepees, and mud lodges will be replaced by magnificent cities equalling those of St. Louis and Chicago, while the countless herds of buffaloes will be succeeded by treble their number of improved American cattle. Nothing can be more pathetic than the remonstrances of the various Chiefs upon the continued breaches of treaty obligations. Mr. Black- more quotes at length that of Spotted Tail, the head of the Brule Sioux, in which he urges at a recent council that his tribe have five times relied upon the white man's word, and five times have met only with deception. The conclusion of his speech shows a thorough comprehension of what is meant by justice ; he says :—
" When a man has a possession that he values, and another party comes to buy it, he brings with him such good things as he wishes to purchase it with. You have come here to buy this country of us, and it would be well if you would come with the goods you have promised to give us, and to put them out of your hands, so we can see the good price you propose to pay for it. Then our hearts would be glad. My friends, when you go back to the Great Father, I want you Se tell him to send us goods ; send us yokes and oxen, and give us waggons, so we can earn money by hauling goods from the railroad. Thisseems to me a very hard day ; half of our country is at war, and we have come upon very difficult times. This war did not spring up here in our land ; it was brought on us by the children of the Great Father, who came to take our land from us without price, and who do a great many evil things. The Great Father and his children are to blame for this great trouble. It has been our wish to live here peace- ably, but the Great Father has filled it with soldiers, who think only of our death."
Mr. Blackmore goes on to say :— " The treaty was subsequently concluded, but in signing, 'Two Strike,' one of the leading chiefs, representing one of the sub-bands of
the tribe, said The reason we are afraid to touch the pen and are silent before you is because we have been deceived so many times before. If we knew the words you tell us were true, we should be willing to sign every day."
And he does not hesitate to state that the principal causes of wars with the Indian tribes are non-fulfilment of treaties by the United States Government, frauds by the Indian agents, and en- croachments by the whites. The expense of such wars he places, quoting Bishop Whipple, at not less than 000,000,000, and con- trasts with this state of things the conduct of our Canadian Government, which has not spent a dollar on Indian wars, and has had no Indian massacres, the circumstances on both sides being similar; on the one hand, the same greedy, dominant Anglo- Saxon race ; on the other, the same wild and savage heathen. In Canada, however, the Indian has ample reservations, receives aid in civilisation, has personal rights in property, is protected
* The ilunting.Gromeds of the Great West : a Description of the Plains, Gams, and Indians of the Great North American Desert. By Richard Irving Dodge, Lieutenant, Colonel in the United States Army. London : Chatto and Windus.
by the law, and has good schools and good teachers ; while in the United States scarcely a single treaty condition has been fulfilled, and where thirty schools have been promised, perhaps only one, and that of a most inferior character, has been established. After this, can it be considered astonishing that the Indian, of whom we are told that "to him there is no right and no wrong," should commit upon his persecutors the most fearful atrocities ; espe- cially as the white man—Christian though he is supposed to be—considers no after-revenge too terrible, and actually engages in a career of Indian-hunting with as little reluctance as if he were about to exterminate noxious and dangerous beasts. The following resolutions were passed, we are told, by the Idaho Legislature not many years since, and scarcely show much superiority in their framers over their Indian antagonists :—
‘, Resolved—That three men be appointed to select twenty-five men to go Indian-hunting, and all those who can fit themselves out shall re- ceive a nominal sum for all scalps that they may bring in, and all who cannot fit themselves out shall be fitted out by the Committee, and when they bring in scalps it shall be deducted out. That for every buck-scalp be paid $100, and for every squaw $50, and $25 for every- thing in the shape of an Indian under ten years of age. That each scalp shall have the curl of the head, and each man shall make oath that the said scalp was taken by the company."
According to Colonel Dodge, the character of the Indian is a mixture of duplicity, ferocity, and cruelty, the conception of which is, he says, almost impossible to the man of cultivated, re- fined life. The portrait he gives us is certainly revolting :— " Licentious without generosity, treacherous in all his acts and dealings, most cold-blooded, and full of invention in the refine- ments of cruelty, he is a most dangerous and terrible animal, and would be tenfold more so did he possess courage, as the white man understands the term." The author does allow that the Indian possesses bravery of a certain kind, and that he will fight to the death when at bay, but he says that what are to him the grandest of exploits and the noblest of virtues can only be characterised as theft, pillage, rapine, and murder, while tender- ness and pity are to him unknown. Colonel Dodge devotes the third part of his book, twenty-five chapters, to a description of Indians and Indian life, and this section contains much that is curious, mingled, as we said before, with a good deal of un- necessarily coarse description of social habits. The first and second parts of the narrative, which treat of the Plains, and of the different kinds of game to be found there, are of considerable interest, the writer appearing to be himself an accomplished plainsman and thorough sportsman, and one who can thoroughly appreciate a life of adventure, such as from many causes lies con- tinually before the traveller in those regions. Besides encounters with Indians, against whom he has to be continually on the watch, he has to contend against quicksands, swollen rivers, which, suddenly rising and setting all boundaries at defiance, carry all before them, "drowning out" the unfortunate party whose want of experience may have led them to pitch their tents in some unsafe position ; he may be met by a prairie fire, by a sand-storm, a whirlwind, a waterspout, or by what proves some- times still more dangerous, a herd of buffalo on the stampede, or he may suffer from that curious but well-known hallucination, which sometimes drives the wanderer to the verge of insanity, which is technically described as being "turned round." This odd sensation, which may befall the traveller in any place, is more frequent and more hazardous on the Plains than it is elsewhere, owing to the difficulty of finding corrective influence, for the man who is subject to the delusion is extremely likely to distrust even his compass, and the only thing to be done while suffering from it is to go into camp and wait until he becomes right again. The man who is "turned round" believes himself to be in a contrary direction from that which he is really taking, fancies himself, for instance, to be going up instead of down a river, or returning towards his starting-point, if in a railway train. "No power of mind or will," says the author, "can change this feeling," which is an affection of the mind without external cause, and which may attack men of the greatest intelligence well accustomed to plains' life, and instances have more than once occurred of its inducing temporary madness. Colonel Dodge gives some amusing anecdotes of what has happened to persons in this condition. "The effect," he says, "on some minds of being really and thoroughly lost or 'turned round' on the plains is most appalling. Everything appears changed and unnatural, the most ordinary events appear to possess unusual significance, the nerves become unstrung, and the man soon loses control of himself entirely." In some cases, men have been known to be so overcome by terror as to escape from their friends and wander off to die of starvation. A person may also without any hallucination be really lost ; especially is this pro- bable if he has separated from his party in going down stream, when he passes the mouths of so many ravines just like the one on which his camp is situated, that he may be pardoned for not knowing which of them he ought to follow. In such a case as this, if there are no Indians about, the lost man makes a fire, and keeps it up if possible until he sees an answering blaze ; but if his signals fail of effect, his best plan is to make for the largest stream, and follow it until he comes to settlements. There are two other dangers which beset the plainsman, and these pro- ceed from the attacks of rattlesnakes and skunks. The former are extremely susceptible to cold, and will nestle in the warmest place to be found, in the bed and bedding, the boots, and even on the person of the traveller. Colonel Dodge tells a droll story of a friend who had indulged for the nonce in sleeping after civilised fashion, and who was awakened by the cold, clammy touch of a large "rattler," which had ensconced itself comfortably in his night-shirt, and was slowly fitting itself against his spine.
The skunk comes into camp in search of food, and attacks the sleeper, because he is hungry, sitting down beside him, and de- liberately eating his hands and face. It is curious that, while in some parts of America its bite is harmless, in the country between the Republican River and the Indian Territory it invariably pro- duces hydrophobia. In concluding his account of plains life, Colonel Dodge indulges in a little regret that this life of fascina- tion is to a great extent a thing of the past. Railroads have, he says, laid bare its silent mysteries to the inspection of every shop- boy, and civilisation, like a huge cuttle-fish, has stretched its arms around, "killing the game, driving out the Indian, crushing the romance, the poetry, the very life and soul out of the 'plains,' and leaving only the bare and monotonous carcase." In his last chapter, he offers some sensible advice as to the better manage- ment of the Indians, but whether the compulsory civilisation with which he would invest them would be for their happiness or benefit is a doubtful question ; it would probably but hasten the time when the red-man shall have passed away for ever, and his history and traditions have become completely, as they soon will be, things of the past.
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