LETTER XXVII.
At about three miles from St. Paul's we saw a large Indian village, consisting of about twenty hide-covered wigwams, with their ascending columns of smoke. In the midst of these stood a neat log-house. This was the home which a Christian missionary had built for himself among the savages, and here he had established a school for the children. Upon a hill behind the village, a number of stages were placed in a half circle, upon which rested coffins of bark. Small white flags distinguished those among the departed who had been most recently brought there. The village, which is called Kaposia, and is one of the established Indian villages, looked animated from its women, children, and dogs. We sped rapidly past it, for the Mississippi was here as clear and deep as our own river Götha, and the next moment taking an abrupt turn to the left, St. Paul's was before us standing upon a high bluff on the eastern bank of the Mississippi; behind it the blue arch of heaven, and far below it the great river, and before it, extending right and left, beautiful valleys with their verdant hill-sides scattered with wood—a really grand and commanding situation—affording the most beautiful views.
We lay-to at the lower part of the town, whence the upper is reached by successive flights of steps, exactly as with us on the South Hill by Mose-backe in Stockholm. Indians were sitting or walking along the street which runs by the shore. Wrapped in their long blankets they marched on with a proud step, and were some of them stately figures. Just opposite the steamer, and at the foot of the steps, sate some young Indians, splendidly adorned with feathers and ribbons, and smoking from a long pipe which they handed from one to the other, so that they merely smoked a few whiffs each.
Scarcely had we touched the shore when the governor of Minnesota, Mr. Alexander Ramsay, and his pretty young wife, came on board and invited me to take up my quarters at their house. And there I am now; happy with these kind people, and with them I make excursions into the neighbourhood. The town is one of the youngest infants of the great West, scarcely eighteen months old, and yet it has, in this short time, increased to a population of two thousand persons, and in a very few years it will certainly be possessed of twenty-two thousand, for its situation is as remarkable for beauty and healthiness as it is advantageous for trade. Here the Indians come with their furs from that immense country lying between the Mississippi and the Missouri, the western boundary of Minnesota, and the forests still undespoiled of their primeval wealth, and the rivers and lakes abounding in fish, offer their inexhaustible resources, whilst the great Mississippi affords the means of their conveyance to the commercial markets of the world, flowing, as it does, through the whole of Central America down to New Orleans. Hence it is that several traders here have already acquired considerable wealth, whilst others are coming hither more and more, and they are building houses as fast as they can.
As yet, however, the town is but in its infancy, and people manage with such dwellings as they can get. The drawing-room at Governor Ramsay's house is also his office, and Indians and workpeople, and ladies and gentlemen, are all alike admitted. In the meantime, Mr. Ramsay is building himself a handsome, spacious house, upon a hill, a little out of the city, with beautiful trees around it, and commanding a grand view over the river. If I were to live on the Mississippi I would live here. It is a hilly region, and on all hands extend beautiful and varying landscapes; and all abounds with such youthful and fresh life.
The city is thronged with Indians. The men for the most part go about grandly ornamented, and with naked hatchets, the shafts of which serve them as pipes. They paint themselves so utterly without any taste that it is incredible. Sometimes one half of the countenance will be painted of a cinnamon-red, striped and in blotches, and the other half with yellow ditto, as well as all other sorts of fancies, in green, and blue, and black, without the slightest regard to beauty that I can discover. Here comes an Indian who has painted a great red spot in the middle of his nose; here another who has painted the whole of his forehead in small lines of yellow and black; there a third with coal-black rings round his eyes. All have eagles' or cocks' feathers in their hair, for the most part coloured, or with scarlet tassels of worsted at the ends. The hair is cut short on the forehead, and for the rest hangs in elflocks or in plaits on the shoulders, both of men and women. The women are less painted, and with better taste than the men, generally with merely one deep red little spot in the middle of the cheeks, and the parting of the hair on the forehead is died purple. I like their appearance better than that of the men. They have a kind smile, and often a very kind expression; as well as a something in the glance which is much more human: but they are evidently merely their husbands' beasts of burden. There goes an Indian with his proud step, bearing aloft his plumed head. He carries only his pipe and when he is on a journey, perhaps a long staff in his hand. After him, with bowed head, and stooping shoulders, follows his wife, bending under the burden which she bears on her back, and which a band, passing over the forehead, enables her to support. Above the burden peeps forth a little round-faced child, with beautiful, dark eyes, it is her “papoose,” as these children are called. Its little body is fastened by swaddling clothes upon its back on a board, which is to keep its body straight; and it lives, and is fed, and sleeps, and grows, always fastened to the board. When the child can walk it is still carried for a long time on the mother's back in the folds of her blanket. Nearly all the Indians which I have seen are of the Sioux tribe.
Governor Ramsay drove me yesterday to the Falls of St. Anthony. They are some miles from St. Paul's. These falls close the Mississippi to steam-boats and other vessels. From these falls to New Orleans the distance is two thousand two hundred miles. A little above the falls the river is again navigable for two hundred miles, but merely for small vessels, and that not without danger.
The Falls of St. Anthony have no considerable height, and strike me merely as the cascade of a great mill-dam. They fall abruptly over a stratum of a tufa rock, which they sometimes break and wash down in great masses. The country around is neither grand, nor particularly picturesque; yet the river here is very broad, and probably from that cause the fall and the hills appear more inconsiderable. The shore is bordered by a rich luxuriance of trees and shrubs, springing up wildly from among pieces of rock and the craggy tufa-walls with their ruin-like forms, which however have nothing grand about them. River, falls, country, views, everything here has more breadth than grandeur.
It was Father Hennepin, the French Jesuit, who first came to these falls, brought hither captive by the Indians. The Indians called the falls, “Irrara,” or the laughing water; he christened them St. Anthony's. I prefer the first name, as being characteristic of the fall, which has rather a cheerful than a dangerous appearance, and the roar of which has nothing terrific in it. The Mississippi is a river of a joyful temperament. I have a painting of its springs, a present from Mr. Schoolcraft, the little lake, Itaska, in the northern part of Minnesota. The little lake looks like a serene heavenly mirror set in a frame of primeval forest. Northern firs and pines, maples and elms, and other beautiful American trees surround the waters of this lake like a leafy tabernacle above the cradle of the infant river. Afar up in the distant background lies that elevated range of country, called by the French, “Hauteur des terres,” resembling a lofty plateau, covered with dense forest, scattered over with blocks of granite, and interspersed with a hundred springs: five of these throw themselves from different heights into the little lake.
When the infant Mississippi springs forth from the bosom of Itaska it is a rapid and clear little stream, sixteen feet broad, and four inches deep. Leaping forward over stocks and stones, it expands itself ninety miles below its spring into Lake Pemideji; a lake, the waters of which are clear as crystal, and which is free from islands. Here it is met by the river La Place, from Assawa Lake. Forty-five miles lower down it pours itself down into Lake Cass, the terminal point of Governor Cass's expedition in 1820. When the Mississippi emerges from this lake it is one hundred and seventy-two feet broad and eight feet deep. Thus continues it increasing in width and depth, receiving richer and richer tribute from springs and rivers, now reposing in clear lakes, abounding in innumerable species of fish, then speeding onward between banks covered with wild roses, elders, hawthorns, wild rice, wild plums and all kind of wood fruit, strawberries, raspberries, cranberries, through forests of white cedar, pine, birch and sugar-maple, abounding in game of many kinds, such as bears, elks, foxes, racoons, martens, beavers and such like; through the prairie country, the higher and lower full of bubbling fountains, the so-called Undine region, through tracts of country, the fertile soil of which would produce luxuriant harvests of corn, of wheat, potatoes, etc., through an extent of three or four hundred miles, during which it is navigable for a considerable distance, till it reaches St. Anthony. Just above this point, however, it has greatly extended itself, has embraced many greater and smaller islands, overgrown with trees and wild vines. Immediately above the falls it runs so shallow over a vast level surface of rock that people may cross it in carriages, as we did to my astonishment. At no great distance below the falls the river becomes again navigable, and steamers go up as far as Mendota, a village at the outlet of the St. Peter's river into the Mississippi, somewhat above St. Paul's. From St. Paul's there is a free course down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico. The Falls of St. Anthony are the last youthful adventure of the Mississippi. For nine hundred miles the river flows along the territory of Minnesota, a great part of which is wild and almost unknown country.
But to return to the falls and to the day I spent there.
Immediately below the largest of the falls, and enveloped in its spray, as if by shapes of mist, lies a little island of picturesque ruin-like masses of stone, crowned with rich wood—the most beautiful, and the most striking feature of the whole scene. It is called the Cataract Island of the laughing water-fall. It is also called “Spirit Island,” from an incident which occurred here some years since, and which I must relate to you because it is characteristic of the life of the Indian woman.
“Some years ago a young hunter of the Sioux tribe set up his wigwam on the bank of the Mississippi, a little above St. Anthony's Fall. He had only one wife, which is an unusual thing with these gentlemen, who sometimes are possessed of as many as twenty; and she was called Ampato Sapa. They lived happily together for many years, and had two children, who played around their fire, and whom they were glad to call their children.
“The husband was a successful hunter, and many families by degrees assembled around him, and erected their wigwams near his. Wishing to become still more closely connected with him, they represented to him that he ought to have several wives, as by that means he would become of more importance, and might before long be elected chief of the tribe.
“He was well pleased with this council, and privately took a new wife; but in order to bring her into his wigwam without displeasing his first wife, the mother of his children, he said to her,—
“ ‘Thou knowest that I never can love any other woman so tenderly as I love thee; but I have seen that the labour of taking care of me and the children is too great for thee, and I have therefore determined to take another wife who shall be thy servant: but thou shalt be the principal one in the dwelling.’
“The wife was very much distressed when she heard these words. She prayed him to reflect on their former affection,—their happiness during many years,—their children. She besought of him not to bring this second wife into their dwelling.
“In vain. The next evening the husband brought the new wife into his wigwam.
“In the early dawn of the following morning a death-song was heard on the Mississippi. A young Indian woman sate in a little canoe with her two small children, and rowed it out into the river in the direction of the falls. It was Ampato Sapa. She sang in lamenting tones the sorrow of her heart, of her husband's infidelity, and her determination to die. Her friends heard the song, and saw her intention, but too late to prevent it.
“Her voice was soon silenced in the roar of the fall. The boat paused for a moment on the brink of the precipice, and the next was carried over it and vanished in the foaming deep. The mother and her children were seen no more.”
The Indians still believe, that in the early dawn may be heard the lamenting song, deploring the infidelity of the husband; and they fancy that at times may be seen the mother with her children clasped to her breast, in the misty shapes which arise from the fall around the Spirit Island.
This incident is only one among many of the same kind which occur every year among the Indians. Suicide is by no means rare among their women.
A gentleman who wished to contest this point with me, said, that during the two years which he had lived in this region he had only heard of eleven or twelve such occurrences. And quite enough too, I think! The occasion of suicide is, with the Indian woman generally, either that her father will marry her against her wishes and inclination; or, when she is married, that the husband takes a new wife. Suicide, a fact so opposed to the impulses of a living creature, seems to me to bear strong evidence in favour of the pure feminine nature of these poor women, and shows that they are deserving of a better lot. As young girls, their choice is seldom consulted with regard to marriage. The wooer spreads out before the girl's father his buffalo and beaver skins, he carries to the mother some showy pieces of cloth and trinkets, and the girl issold. If she makes any opposition, the father threatens to cut off her ears and her nose; and she, equally obstinate with him, cuts the matter short byhanging herself; for this is the mode of death which is generally selected. It is true that the desire for revenge may be the mainspring of suicide, and it is well known that the Indian women emulate the men in cruelty to their enemies and war-captives; still their hard lives, as women, are not the less to be deplored; and their strength to die rather than degrade themselves, proves that these children of nature are more high minded than many a woman in the higher ranks of civilisation. The beauties of the forest are prouder and nobler than are frequently they of the saloon. But true it is that their world is a weary one, and affords them nothing but the husband whom they must serve, and the circumscribed dwelling of which he is the master.
We drank tea on a considerable island in the Mississippi, above the falls, at a beautiful home, where I saw comforts and cultivation, where I heard music, saw books and pictures,—such life, in short, as might be met with on the banks of the Hudson; and how charming it was to me! Here, too, I found friends in its inhabitants, even as I had there. The dwelling had not been long on the island; and the island in its autumnal attire looked like a little paradise, although still in its half-wild state.
As to describing how we travelled about, how we walked over the river on broken trunks of trees which were jammed together by the stream in chaotic masses, how we climbed and clambered up and down, among, over and upon stocks and stones and precipices and sheer descents; all this I shall not attempt to describe, because it is indescribable. I considered many a passage wholly and altogether impracticable, until my conductors, both gentlemen and ladies, convinced me that it was to them a simple and everyday path. Uh!
The day was cold and chilly, and for that reason the excursion was more fatiguing to me than pleasant.
I have had several rambles in the immediate neighbourhood, sometimes alone and sometimes in company, with the agreeable Governor Ramsay, or with a kind clergyman of this place. In this way I have visited several small farmers, most of them French, who have come hither from Canada. They all praise the excellence of the soil, and its fertility; they were capital people to talk with, seemed to be in a prosperous condition, had many children, but that neatness and general comfort which distinguish the homes of the Anglo-Americans, I did not find in their dwellings, but rather the contrary. On all sides the grass waved over hills and fields, tall and of an autumnal yellow. There are not hands enough here to mow it. The soil is a rich, black mould, which is superb for the growth of potatoes and grain, but not so agreeable for pedestrians in white stockings and petticoats. A fine black dust soils everything. The most lovely little lakes lie among the hills, like clear mirrors, in romantic peace and beauty. It is a perfectly Arcadian landscape; but there yet lack the shepherds and shepherdesses. The eastern shore of the Mississippi, within Minnesota only, belongs to the whites, and their number here does not as yet amount to more than seven thousand souls. The whole western portion of Minnesota is still Indian territory, inhabited principally by the two great nations, Sioux or Dacotahs, and Chippewas, who live in a continual state of hostility, as well as by some of the lesser Indian tribes. It is said that the Government is intending shortly to purchase the whole of this country; and that the Indian tribes are willing to treat, and to withdraw themselves to the other side of the Missouri river, to the steppland of Nebraska and the Rocky Mountains. These Indian tribes have already become so degraded by their intercourse with the whites, that they value money and brandy higher than their native soil, and are ready, like Esau, to sell their birthright for a mess of pottage. But that cruel race which scalps children and old people, and which degrades women to beasts of burthen, may as well move off into the wilderness, and leave room for a nobler race. There is in reality only a higher justice in it.
October 26th.—I went yesterday with my kind entertainers into the Indian territory, by Fort Snelling, a fortress built by the Americans here, and where military are stationed, both infantry and cavalry, to keep the Indians in check. The Indians are terribly afraid of the Americans, whom they call “the Long Knives,” and now the white settlers are no longer in danger. The Indian tribes, spite of the American intervention, continue their bloody and cruel hostilities among themselves. Not long since a number of Sioux warriors surprised a Chippewa village while the men were away on their hunting, and killed and scalped sixteen persons, principally women and children. Governor Ramsay ordered the ringleaders of this attack to be seized and taken to prison. They went with a proud step and the demeanour of martyrs for some noble cause.
I was extremely curious to see the inside of one of those tepees or wigwams, the smoke and fires of which I had so often seen already; and as we chanced to see, soon after entering the Indian territory, four very respectable Indian huts, I hastened to visit them. Governor Ramsay, and an interpreter whose house was just by, accompanied me. I directed my steps to the largest wigwam; to the opening of which two lean dogs were fastened with cords. The Indians eat their dogs when other food fails. We opened the curtain of hide which represents a door, but instead of the dirt and poverty which I expected to find, I was greatly surprised to see a kind of rude Oriental luxury and splendour.
The fire burned in the middle of the hut, which was large and well covered with buffalo skins. Two men, whose faces were painted with red stripes and devices, sate by the fire carving pipes from a blood-red kind of stone. Round the walls of the hut sate the women and children, upon cushions very showily embroidered, and laid upon white blankets. Some of them were painted with a brilliant red spot in the middle of their cheeks, the parting of their hair being painted red also. They looked really handsome and full of animation, with their bright, black eyes, and dishevelled hair, thus seen in the light of the flickering fire. Besides this, they were friendly, and seemed amused by my visit. They made room for me to sit down beside them. The old women laughed and chattered, and seemed very much at their ease. The younger ones were more grave and bashful. The men did not look up after their first glance at our entrance, but continued silently to work away at their pipes. A great kettle, suspended by a rope from the poles at the top of the hut, hung over the fire. It was dinner time. A young woman who sate on my right fed her little papoose, which seemed to be about three years old, and which had also a grand red spot on each of its fat round cheeks.
“Hoxidan?” said I, pointing to the child, that word signifying boy.
“Winnona,” replied she in a low, melodious voice, that word signifying girl.
And with that my stock of Indian words was exhausted. I requested by signs to taste the soup of which she and the child were eating, and she cheerfully handed to me her bowl and spoon. It was a kind of thin soup, in which beans were boiled, without salt and without the slightest flavour which I could perceive. She then offered me a cake which was just baked, of a golden brown, and which looked quite delicious. It was, I believe, made of wheaten flour, and without salt also, but very excellent nevertheless.
The interpreter was gone out. Governor Ramsay had also seated himself. The Indians filed on at their pipes; the flames flickered merrily; the kettle boiled; the women ate or looked at me, half reclining or sitting carelessly by the fire-light. And I—looked at them. With inward wonder I regarded these beings, women like myself, with the spirit and the feelings of women, yet so unlike myself in their purpose of life, in daily life, in the whole of their world!
I thought of hard, gray, domestic life, in the civilised world, a home without love, hedged in by conventional opinion, with social duties, the duty of seeking for the daughters of the family suitable husbands, otherwise they would never leave the family; and with every prospect of independence, liberty, activity, joy closed, more rigidly closed, by invisible barriers than these wigwams by their buffalo-hides; a northern domestic life—such a one as exists in a vast number of northern homes—and I thought that that Indian hut, and that Indian woman's life, was better, happier as earthly life.
Thus had I thought in the gas-lighted drawing-rooms of New York and Boston, in the heat and the labour of being polite or agreeable; of conversation and congratulation; of endeavouring to look well, to please and to be pleased, and—I thought that the wigwam of an Indian was a better and a happier world than that of the drawing-room. There they sate at their ease, without stays, or the anxiety to charm, without constraint or effort, those daughters of the forest! They knew not the fret and the disquiet, the ennui and the fatigue, which is the consequence of a brief hour's social worry; they knew not the disgust and the bitterness which is produced by little things, little vexations, which one is ashamed to feel, but which one must feel nevertheless. Their world might be monotonous, but in comparison it was calm and fresh within the narrow wigwam, while without there was free space, and the rustling forest open to them with all its fresh winds and odours. Ah!
But again I bethought myself of the Indian women; bethought me of their life and condition; with no other purpose and no other prospect in life than to serve a husband whom they have seldom chosen themselves, who merely regards them as servants, or as a cock regards the hens around him. I saw the wife and the mother humiliated by the entrance of the new wife into the husband's dwelling, and his affection being turned to the stranger in her sight, and in the same home, and in the firelight of that same hearth which had been kindled on her marriage day,—saw her despised or neglected by the man who constituted her whole world. Ah! The wigwam, the free space of the forest, had no longer peace or breathing room for the anguish of such a condition; alleviation of its agony or its misery is found merely in degradation or death. Winnona's death-song on the rock by Lake Pepin; Ampato Sapa's death-song on the waters of the Mississippi when she and her children sought for the peace of forgetfulness in their foaming depths; and many other of their sisters who yet to this day prefer death to life, all testify how deeply tragical is the fate of the Indian woman.
And again I bethought myself of love-warmed homes in the cultivated world, in the North as well as in the South; homes such as are frequent, and which become still more and more so among a free and Christian people, where the noble woman is the noble man's equal in everything, in pleasure and in need; where good parents prepare even the daughters of the house for a life of independent activity and happiness, for the possession of a world, an object which is beyond the circumscribed boundary of the dwelling-house, no longer a buffalo-hide-enveloped wigwam. I bethought me of her right, and the possibility of her acquiring a sphere of action in the intellectual world, which would make the torments of civilised life, whether small or great, seem like cloudlets in a heaven otherwise bright; bethought me of my own Swedish home, of my good mother, my quiet room, my peace and freedom there, as on the maternal bosom, with space and view limitless as infinity. And I thanked God for my lot!
But these poor women here! Three families resided in this wigwam; there were only three husbands, but there were certainly twelve or thirteen women. How many bitter, jealous feelings must burn in many a bosom assembled here, day and night, around the same fire, partaking of the same meal, and with the same object in life!
I visited the other wigwams also. Each one presented the same scene with but little variation. Two or three men by the fire, several women sitting or lying upon blankets or embroidered cushions round the walls of the hut, and occupied with nothing for the moment. The men carved red-stone pipes which they sell to the whites at very high prices; the work however in this hard stone is not easy; this red stone is obtained from quarries situated far up the Missouri. I cannot but admire the hands of these men; they are remarkably beautiful and well-formed, and are evidently, even as regards the nails, kept with great care; they are delicate and slender, resembling rather the hands of women than men.
I saw in one wigwam a young woman, who, as she sate with her rich unbound hair falling over her shoulders, seemed to me so unusually handsome that I wished to make a sketch of her. I also wished to take the portraits of a couple of Indians, and requested Governor Ramsay to prefer my request. He therefore, by means of the interpreter, Mr. Prescott, stated to an old chief named Mozah-hotah (Grey Iron), that I wished to take the likenesses of all great men in this country, to show to the people on the other side of the great water; and therefore that I requested him to sit to me a short time for that purpose.
The old chief, who is said to be a good and respectable man, looked very grave, listened to the proposal attentively, and gave a sort of grunting assent. He then accompanied us to the house of the interpreter, from the doors and windows of which peeped forth many little faces with their Indian features and complexion, for Mr. Prescott has an Indian wife, and many children by her.
I was soon seated in the house with the old chief before me, who expressed some annoyance because he was not in grand attire, having merely a couple of eagle's feathers in his hair, and not being so splendidly painted as he ought to have been. He wore under his white woollen blanket a blue European surtout which he appeared anxious to have also included in the portrait. He evidently considered this as something out of the common way. He seemed a little uneasy to sit, and not at all comfortable when the interpreter was out of the room. The Indians universally believe that a likeness on paper takes away from the life of the person represented, and on that account many Indians will not allow their portraits to be taken.
The young Indian woman followed the old chief; she came attired in her wedding dress of embroidered scarlet woollen stuff, and with actual cascades of silver rings, linked one within another, and hanging in clusters from her ears, round which the whole cluster was fastened; down to her shoulders, her neck and breast were covered with masses of coral, pearls, and other ornaments. The head was bare and devoid of ornament. She was so brilliant and of such unusual beauty that she literally seemed to light up the whole room as she entered. Her shoulders were broad and round, and her carriage drooping, as is usual with Indian women, who are early accustomed to carry burdens on their backs; but the beauty of the countenance was so extraordinary that I cannot but think that if such a face were to be seen in one of the drawing-rooms of the fashionable world, it would there be regarded as the type of a beauty hitherto unknown. It was the wild beauty of the forest, at the same time melancholy and splendid. The bashful gloom in those large, magnificent eyes, shaded by unusually long, dark eye-lashes, cannot be described, nor yet the glance, nor the splendid light of the smile which at times lit up the countenance like a flash, showing the loveliest white teeth. She was remarkably light-complexioned for an Indian; the round of the chin was somewhat prominent, which gave rather too much breadth to her face, but her profile was perfect. She was quite young, and had been married two years to a brave young warrior who, I was told, was so fond of her that he would not take another wife, and that he would not allow her to carry heavy burdens, but always got a horse for her when she went to the town. She is called Mochpedaga-Wen, or Feather-cloud-woman. A young Indian girl who came with her was more painted but not so handsome, and had those heavy features and that heavy expression which characterise the Indian women, at least those of this tribe.
I made a sketch of Mochpedaga-Wen in her bridal attire. She was bashful, with downcast eyes. It was with a pleasure mingled with emotion that I penetrated into the mysteries of this countenance. A whole nocturnal world lay in those eyes, the dark fringes of which cast a shadow upon the cheek. Those eyes glanced downwards into a depth, dreamy, calm, without gloom, but at the same time without joy and without a future. The sunlight of the smile was like a sunbeam on a cloudy day. The Feather-cloud had no light within itself. It was lit up from without and was splendidly tinted only for a moment.
After this gentle and beautiful but melancholy image, I must introduce to you the brave young warrior, and the great Sprude-bosse, or Dandy,—“Skonka Shaw,” or “White Dog,” the husband of the “Feather-cloud,” who entered duly painted and in great pomp of attire, with a huge tuft of feathers helmet-wise falling backwards from the head, and with three dark eagles' feathers with tufts of scarlet wool stuck aloft in his hair, and with the marks of five green fingers on his cheeks, to indicate that he was a brave warrior and had killed many enemies. He was tall and flexible of form, and he entered with a gay, animated aspect, amid a torrent of words, equally fluent with what I had heard in the House of Representatives at Washington, and of which I understoodabout as much. His countenance had the same characteristics that I had already observed among the Indians, the hawk nose, broad at the base, clear, acute but cold eyes, which opened square, with a wild-beast like glance; the mouth unpleasing, and for the rest, the features regular and keen. I made a sketch also of him; his countenance was much painted with red and yellow and green; there was nothing shy about it, and it looked very warlike. But that which won for him favour in my eyes was that he was a good husband and loved his beautiful Feather-cloud.
Mrs. Ramsay, in the meantime, had gone out with her, and put on her costume. And as she was very pretty—of the pure, Quaker style of beauty—she appeared really splendidly handsome in that showy costume, and the Feather-cloud seemed to have great pleasure in seeing her in it. But the handsome, young white lady had not, after all, the wonderful, mystic beauty of Feather-cloud. There was between them the difference of the primeval forest and the drawing-room.
I observed in the conversations of these Indians many of those sounds and intonations which struck me as peculiar among the American people; in particular there were those nasal tones and that piping, singing or lamenting sound which has often annoyed me in the ladies. Probably these sounds may have been acquired by the earliest colonists during their intercourse with the Indians, and thus have been continued.
Whilst I am with the Indians I must tell you of a custom among them which appears to me singular; it refers to their peculiar names and their mode of acquiring them. When the Indians, either man or woman, arrive at maturity they go out into some solitary place and remain there fasting for several days. They believe that the Spirit which has especial guardianship over them will then reveal itself; and that which during these days strongly attracts their sight or affects their imagination is regarded as the image or token by means of which their guardian-angel reveals itself to them, and they adopt a name derived from that object or token. When they have obtained the wished-for revelation, they return to their family, but under a kind of higher guidance, and with a greater right of self-government.
From a list of Indian names I select the following:—
Horn-point; Round-wind; Stand-and-look-out; The Cloud-that-goes-aside; Iron-toe; Seek-the-sun; Iron-flash; Red-bottle; White-spindle; Black-dog; Two-feathers-of-honour; Grey-grass; Bushy-tail; Thunder-face; Go-on-the-burning-sod; Spirits-of-the-dead.
And among the female names, these:—
Keep-the-fire; Spiritual-woman; Second-daughter-of-the-house; Blue-bird, and so on.
Feather-cloud must have looked especially towards heaven to find her guardian-angel. May it conduct her lightly along her earthly pilgrimage, and preserve her from the fate of Winnona and Ampota Sapa! Butthose deep eyes, full of the spirit of night, seem to me prophetic of the death-song.
The death-song consists of unmusical tones, almost devoid of melody, by which the Indians, male or female, relate the cause of their death, accuse their enemies or praise themselves.
They believe that the spirit after death still lingers for a time near those earthly precincts which they have just left, and that they continue to be still, in a certain manner akin to earth. Therefore are maize and other provisions placed at the foot of the corpse during the time that it lies on its elevated scaffold, exposed to the influence of light and air. The deceased has not, as yet, entered into the realm of spirits; but when the flesh is withered from the bones, these are buried with songs and dances. Then has the departed spirit arrived in the land of spirits.
“We believe,” said a celebrated Indian chief to one of my friends, “that when the soul leaves the body, it lingers for some time before it can be separated from its former circumstances, during which it wanders over vast plains in the clear, cold moonlight. Finally it arrives at a great chasm in the earth, on the other side of which lies the land of the blessed, where there is eternal spring, and rich hunting-grounds abundantly supplied with game. There is, however, no other means of crossing this gulf excepting by a barked pine-tree which is smooth and slippery. Over this the spirits must pass, if they would reach the land of bliss. Such spirits as have lived purely and well in this world are able to pass this narrow bridge safely, and safely to reach those regions of the blessed. Such, however, as have not done so, cannot pass over this smooth tree-stem, but lose their footing and fall into the abyss.”
This, for savages, is not so very bad an idea of retribution after death. The Indians' estimate, however, of good and evil is, in other respects, very imperfect and circumscribed; and their idea of reward and punishment after death is merely the reflex of their earthly joys and misfortunes.
They believe, as we do, in a Spirit of spirits, a supreme God, who rules over everything and all things, and the Indians of the north-west call him the “Great Manitou.” He appears to be a power without the peculiar moral attributes. They also believe in a number of lesser Manitous, or divinities, and it seems to me that, as regards their theology, they are rather Pantheists than Monotheists. They behold a transformed divinity in the forest, in stones, in animals, in everything which lives or which evinces an indwelling power. Manitou is in the bear and the beaver, in the stone which emits the spark of fire, but above all, in the forest which whispers and affords protection to man.
It seems to me worthy of observation that these Indians believe that every animal has a great original prototype or type from which it is descended; hence all beavers are descended from the great beaver, which lives somewhere for ever under the water; all blue-birds from the great blue-bird, which flies invisibly above the clouds in the immeasurable heights of space. The great beaver is the great brother of all beavers, the great blue-bird is the brother and protector of all blue birds.
They seek to propitiate Manitou by gifts and sacrifices, which are often bloody and cruel. The mediators between themselves and Manitou are their so-called medicine-men; men who by means of the knowledge of the mysteries of nature and the power of magic, are considered able to invoke spirits, to avert misfortune, to heal sickness, and obtain the fulfilment of human wishes. These men are highly esteemed among the Indians, and are both their priests and physicians.
You behold at the fall of night fires flaming upon the prairie-hills on the banks of the Mississippi, and a crowd of Indians, men and women, assembled around them, making the most extraordinary gestures. Let us approach nearer. Copper-coloured men and women to the number of about one hundred, are dancing around, or rather hopping, with their feet close together and their arms hanging straight down, to the unmelodious music of a couple of small drums, and some dried gourds which, being filled with small stones, make a rattling noise when they are shaken. The musicians are seated upon the green sward. The dancing men are painted in their grandest but yet most hideous manner, tawdry and horrible; and several women, also, are plentifully covered with silver rings, and with little silver bells hanging to their ears and to their mocassins, and which they shake with all their might as they hop along.
Every one has a little medicine-bag made of skin. These are all medicine-men and women; and around them is a ring of spectators, men, women, and children.
After a couple of old men have seated themselves in the ring and talked for a little while, a march commences, in which the whole circle is included, during which first one and then another individual steps out of the procession, and takes his stand a little apart from the circle. A medicine-man then having blown into his medicine-bag springs forward with a shrill resounding cry, and holds it before the mouth of one of the patients standing in the outer circle, who on that falls down insensible, and lies on the ground for a time with quivering limbs. Thus falls one after another of the assembly. An old Indian stands smiling with a cunning expression, as if he would say, “They'll not so soon catch me!” At the first application of the medicine-hag, therefore, he merely staggers forward a few paces; after the second, bursts into an hysterical laugh, and it is not until the third mystical draught that he falls down with convulsed limbs. In a little while the fallen again rise and reunite themselves to the procession, which is continued until all its members have gone through the medicine-process, the unmelodious music sounding without intermission. The old men seem more amused by this scene than the young.
The medicine-dance is one of the chief festivities of the Indians of Minnesota, and lasts for several days. They have also other dances, among which the war-dance is most known. Men alone take part in this. They paint their faces and bodies in the most horrible manner, and their dance consists of the wild gestures and threatening demonstrations which they make against each other. I have seen a painting of the scalp-dance of the women, which is danced when the men return from war with the scalps of their enemies. These scalps being placed on tall poles are held by women, who with their female compeers dance, or rather hop round, very much in the manner of geese with their feet tied, and with about as much grace. The beating of drums, songs, and wild cries accompany the dance. The men stand round with eagle's feathers in their hair contemplating this dance, which is a greater delight both to their eyes and their ears than probably any which the genius of Bournonville could create, or the skill of Taglioni or Ellssler perform.
But I must yet add a few facts regarding the past and present state of this savage people, which I obtained from trustworthy sources, partly from books, partly from oral communications, as well as from my own observations.
When the Europeans first penetrated that portion of America lying east of the Mississippi, a great deal was said about vast stretches of desolate country; and since a more accurate knowledge has been obtained of the Indian tribes from Canada in the north, to Florida and Louisiana in the south, and their population has been estimated, it appears that the whole Indian race, east of the Great River, amounts to about 180,000 souls. The tribes or families into which they are divided all greatly resemble each other in physiognomy and manners, although some of them are more warlike and cruel, and others more peacefully disposed. The principal tribes have lived, for the most part, in a state of bloody hostility with each other from time immemorial.
Research into the languages of the various Indian tribes has proved that, however numerous the tribes may be, there exist but eight radically distinct languages; and of these five only are now spoken by tribes of eminence, the other three having died out, and the languages of the remainder of the tribes appear to be dialects of some one or other of the principal languages. These languages have a definite form and construction, they are affluent in definitions, and the definitions of individual beings, but are deficient in terms for the general idea. They indicate a popular mind which has not advanced beyond the realm of experience into that of reflection. Thus, for example, they have names for the various kinds of oak, but not for the genus oak; they speak of a holy man, but they have no word for holiness; they could say our father, mine or thy father, but they have no word for father. There is nothing in their language which indicates a higher degree of cultivation among them as a people than they are at present in possession of. They love to speak in a symbolical manner, all their symbols being derived from the realm of nature; and their writings and their art speak also by means of such. I have seen a buffalo-hide covered with figures, in the style of children's drawings, which represented battles, treaties of peace, and other such events; the sun and the moon, trees and mountains, and rivers, fish and birds, and all kinds of animals, having their part in the delineations; men and horses, however, in the most distorted proportions, being the principal actors. I have also seen Indian songs inscribed upon trees and bark in similar hieroglyphics.
The religious culture of the Indian has adopted the same symbolic characters derived from natural objects. They constitute a living hieroglyphic writing. They have no sense of the worship of God in spirit and in truth, or in the influence of love. But they have many religious festivals; the Indians of Minnesota more than ten, at which they offer sacrifices to the sun and the moon, trees, rivers, stones, serpents; nay, indeed, to all things and all animals, to propitiate their spirits or their divinities. The festival of the sun is celebrated by day, that of the moon by night. One festival is for their weapons of war, which they regard as sacred, or as being possessed of an innate divine power. At all these festivals they have dancing and the beating of drums, as well as singing and many ceremonies. The principal transaction on these occasions, however, seems to be feasting; and as the Indians appear to consider it a duty to eat everything which is set before them, frequently more than they are able, they are sometimes obliged to take medicine, that it may be possible for them to pursue their eating. At the Feast of the Spirits, if the guest fails to eat all that is placed before him, he must redeem himself by the forfeit of a buffalo or beaver-skin. Great quantities of provisions, especially of venison, are collected for these festivities. In the meantime they are often famished with hunger.
Their medical knowledge, even if classed with supertitious usages, is not to be despised, and they have large acquaintance with healing herbs and the powers of nature. A lady of Philadelphia, who resided many years among the Indians, in order to gain a knowledge of their various remedies, drew up on her return an Indian materia-medica, which became much celebrated, and many new curative means have thus enriched the American pharmacopœia. Women are also, among the Indians, esteemed as physicians and interpreters of dreams; and the Winnebago Indians who dwell by Lake Superior, in the north-eastern part of Minnesota, have now, singularly enough, two queens whom they obey; the one for her wisdom, the other for her courage and bravery. Otherwise women among the Indians are, as is well known, servants who do all the hard work as well without as within the house. They dig the fields (pieces of land without form or regularity), sow and reap, gather wild rice, berries, roots, and make sugar from the juice of the sugar-maple. When the man kills a deer, he throws it down for the woman, who must prepare it for household use.
“What estimate may be given of the morals and character of the Indian women in this neighbourhood?” inquired I from a lady of St. Paul, who had resided a considerable time at this place.
“Many are immoral, and cannot be much commended; but others, again, there are, who are as virtuous and blameless as any of us.”
I have also heard incidents cited which prove that the Indian woman will sometimes assume in the wigwam the privilege of the husband, bring him under the rule of the mocassin, and chastise him soundly if he offend her. He never strikes again, but patiently lets himself be beaten black and blue. He knows, however, that his turn will come, and he knows well enough that he can then have his revenge.
When an Indian dies, the women assemble round the corpse, make a howling lament, tear their hair, and cut themselves with sharp stones. A missionary in Minnesota saw a young Indian woman slash and cut her flesh over her brother's corpse in the most terrific manner, whilst other women around her sung songs of vengeance against the murderer of the dead. The god of revenge is the ideal of the savage.
The virtues of the Indian man are universally known. His fidelity in keeping a promise, his hospitality, and his strength of mind under sorrow and suffering, have often been praised. It strikes me, however, that these his virtues have their principal root in an immense pride. The virtue of the Indian is selfish. That dignity of which we have heard so much, seems to me more like the conceit of a cock than the natural dignity of a noble, manly being. Now they raise themselves up, and stand or walk proudly. Now they squat all in a heap, sitting on their hams like dogs or baboons. Now they talk with proud words and gestures; now prate and jabber like a flock of magpies. There is a deal of parade in their pride and silence. Occasionally beautiful exceptions have been met with, and still exist, where the dignity is genuine, and the nobility genuine also. These exceptions are met with among the old chiefs in particular. But the principal features among the Indians are, after all, idolatry, pride, cruelty, thirst of vengeance, and the degradation of woman.
They have no other government nor governors but through their chiefs and medicine-men. The former have but little power and respect, excepting in their own individual character, and they seem greatly to fear the loss of their popularity in their tribe.
Such, with little variation, are the manners, the faith, and the condition of the North American Indians.
A great deal has been said, and conjectured, and written, and much inquiry has been made on the question of whence came these people? And it now seems to be an established idea that they are of the Mongolian race from the northern part of Asia, a resemblance having been discovered between them and this people, both in their appearance and mode of life, and also because Asia and America approach each other so nearly at this point, that the passage from one hemisphere to the other does not appear an improbable undertaking for bold coasting voyagers.
The Peruvians of South America, and those noble Aztecs, who possessed a splendid, though short-lived power, and whose noblest ruler spake words as wise and poetry as rich as that of King Solomon; these Indians, and those whose devastated cities have lately been discovered in Central America, were evidently of a higher race than the people of North America, and their remains, as well as all that is known of their manners and customs, prove them to be kindred to the noblest Asiatic races.
The zealous upholders of the doctrine that all mankind have descended from one single human pair, and who placed them in Asia, are reduced to great straits to explain the emigration of these various people from the mother country. I cannot understand why each hemisphere should not be considered as the mother country of its own people. The same power of nature, and the same creative power are able to produce a human pair in more than one place. And when God is the father, and nature the mother, then must indeed, in any case, the whole human race be brethren. And the Adamite pair may very well consider themselves as the elected human pair, sent to instruct and emancipate those young kindred-pairs which were still more in bondage than themselves to the life of earth. God forgive us for the manner in which we have most frequently fulfilled our mission.
But North America is not altogether to blame with regard to her Indians. If the Indian had been more susceptible of a higher culture, violence and arms would not have been used against him, as is now the case. And although the earlier missionaries, strong in faith, and filled with zealous ardour, succeeded in gathering around them small faithful companies of Indian proselytes, yet it was evidently rather through the effect of their individual character, than from any inherent power in the doctrines which they preached. When they died their flocks dispersed.
Sometimes white men of peculiar character have taken to themselves Indian wives, and have endeavoured to make cultivated women of them; but in vain. The squaw continued to be the squaw; uncleanly, with unkemped hair, loving the dimness of the kitchen more than the light of the drawing-room, the ample envelopment of the woollen blanket rather than tight-lacing and silken garments. The faithful wife and tender mother she may become, stedfast to home and the care of her family as long as her husband lives and the children are small; but when the children are grown up, and if the husband be dead, then will she vanish from her home. When the birds warble of spring and the forest and the streams murmur of renovated life, she will return to the wigwams of her people in the forest or by the river, to seek by their fires for freedom and peace. This wild life must assuredly have a great fascination.
Of all the tribes of North American Indians now existing, the Cherokees and Choctas are the only ones which have received Christianity and civilisation. When the Europeans first visited these tribes they were living in small villages in the highland district of Tenesee, Georgia, and Alabama; they were peaceful and pursued agriculture. They were drawn from their homes by fair means and foul, and obtained land west of the Mississippi, in the western part of the state of Missouri, and there it is said they have become a large and flourishing community, greatly augmenting in number and assimilating to the manners and customs of Europeans. They are employed in agriculture and the breeding of cattle, they build regular houses, and have of late years reduced their language to writing, and have established a printing press. I have, among my American curiosities, a Cherokee newspaper, printed in the Cherokee language.
The wild Indians, who for the most part sustain themselves by fishing and hunting, are becoming more and more eradicated, in part by mutual wars, and in part by the small-pox, as well as by brandy, which, adulterated by pernicious inflammatory ingredients, is sold to them by the white traders. The American Government has strictly interdicted the sale of spirituous liquors to the Indians, but they are so covetous of intoxicating drinks, and mean souls are everywhere so covetous of gain, that the prohibition is of very little avail. Spirituous liquors are smuggled in with other merchandise among the Indians of this district. The American Government buys land from the Indians, and with the money, which is annually distributed among them as payment, they purchase “fire-water,” as well as the means of life, for which they pay an exorbitant price. Thus they are impoverished by degrees, and fall into utter penury. Thus they become more and more degraded both morally and physically, nor have their medicine-men either remedy or magic-art against the poisoned contact of the whites.
Noble men among the Indians have spoken strong and bitter words against these whites, and against their own people falling under their influence.
“If the Great Spirit,” said a Sioux chief to a Christian missionary, “had intended your religion for the red man, he would have given it to him. We do not understand what you tell us; and the light which you wish to give us darkens that clear, straight path upon which our fathers walked!”
As he lay dying he said to his people;—
“Dig my grave yourselves, and do not let the white man follow me there!”
Ah! over his grave the white man is advancing in the name of light and civilisation, and the “people of the twilight” give way before him, dying away by degrees in the wilderness, and in the shadows of the Rocky Mountains. It cannot be otherwise.
And whatever interest I may feel in high-minded characters among the Indians, still I cannot possibly wish for a prolonged existence to that people, who reckon cruelty among their virtues, and who reduce the weak to beasts of burden.
The people who subject them, and who deprive them of their native land, are—whatever faults they may have—a nobler and more humane people. They have a higher consciousness of good and evil. They seek after perfection; they wish to cast aside the weapons of barbarism, and not to establish on the new earth any other abiding fortress than that of the Church of Christ, and not to bear any other banner than that of the Prince of Peace. And in latter times especially have they proved, even in their transactions with the Indians, that they are earnest in this desire.
The Indians, like the Greenlanders, look down upon the white race with a proud contempt, at the same time that they fear them; and their legend of what happened at the creation of the various races, proves naïvely how they view the relationship between them.
“The first man which Manitou baked,” say they, “was not thoroughly done, and he came white out of the oven; the second was overdone, was burned in the baking, and he was black. Manitou now tried a third time, and with much better success; this third man was thoroughly baked, and came out of the oven of a fine red-brown,—this was the Indian.”
The learned of Europe divide the three principal races of the earth into People of the Day—the Whites; People of the Night—the Negroes; and People of the Twilight—the Indians of the Eastern and Western hemispheres.
What the negroes say about themselves and the other races I know not; but this appears to me certain, that they stand in closer proximity to the people of the day than to the people of the twilight in their capacity for spiritual development; that they have a grander future before them than the latter, and less self-love than either.
Fort Snelling lies on the western bank of the Mississippi, where the St. Peter flows into that river; and at this point the view is glorious over the broad St. Peter river, called by the Indians the Minnesota, and of the beautiful and extensive valley through which it runs. Farther up it flows through a highland district, and amid magnificent scenery inland five hundred miles westward. “There is no doubt,” writes a young American in his travels through Minnesota, “but that these banks of the St. Peter will some time become the residence of the aristocracy of the country.”
This must be a far-sighted glance one would imagine; but things advance rapidly in this country.
We visited, on our way to Fort Snelling, a waterfall, called the Little Falls. It is small, but so infinitely beautiful that it deserves its own picture, song, and saga. The whitest of foam, the blackest of crags, the most graceful, and at the same time wild and gentle fall! Small things may become great through their perfection.
Later.—I have to-day visited, in company with a kind young clergyman, the so-called Fountain Cave, at a short distance from the city. It is a subterranean cavern with many passages and halls, similar probably to the celebrated Mammoth Cave of Kentucky. Many such subterranean palaces are said to be found in Minnesota, although they have not yet been explored; neither has this grotto been thoroughly penetrated. I enjoyed myself sitting under its magnificent arched portico, drinking of its crystalline fountain, and listening to the song of its falling water in the far interior of the grotto. The grotto is reached by an abrupt and deep descent, resembling a gigantic pit; within this one finds oneself surrounded by lofty walls of sandstone, one of which expands itself into a gigantic portal, and all beyond is dark. The whole circle of the inclosing walls is perforated with innumerable small round holes, in which small birds have their nests.
To reach the grotto we passed through extensive meadows lying along the Mississippi. The grass stood tall and yellow. The air was as warm as a summer's day. It was the Indian summer. The meadows looked most pleasant, most fertile and inviting. We met a milkmaid also coming with her milkpails; she was handsome, but had artificial curls, and did not look like a regular milkmaid, not as a true milkmaid in a pastoral ought to look.
But this Minnesota is a glorious country, and just the country for Northern emigrants; just the country for a new Scandinavia. It is four times as large as England; its soil is of the richest description, with extensive wooded tracts; great numbers of rivers and lakes abounding in fish, and a healthy, invigorating climate. The winters are cold and clear; the summers not so hot as in those states lying lower on the Mississippi. The frosts seldom commence before the middle of September.
Lake Itaski, the cradle of the Mississippi, lies one thousand five hundred and seventy-five feet above the Mexican gulf; and the highland district which surrounds Itaska in a half-circle on the north, that gigantic terrace, Hauteur des terres, where the springs of those mighty rivers, the Mississippi, St. Louis, St. Lawrence, the Red River, and many others have their source, lies still two hundred feet higher. The whole of Minnesota is hilly. Minnesota is bounded on the east by Lake Superior (the Mediterranean sea of America), and is brought by this into connection with the Eastern States, with St. Lawrence, and the Hudson, and the Atlantic Ocean. It has Canada on the north, on the west the wild Missouri, navigable through almost the whole of its extent, and flowing at the feet of the Rocky Mountains, rich in metals and precious stones, and with prairies where graze wild herds of buffaloes, elks, and antelopes. On the other side of Missouri lies that mystical Indian Nebraska, where, beyond the Rocky Mountains and for the most part still unknown, lies Oregon, an immense territory with immense resources in natural productions, vast stretches of valley and vast rivers, the Columbus and the Oregon, which empty themselves into the Pacific ocean, and in whose cascades salmon leap in shoals, as in the rapid rivers of Norway and Sweden. On the south of Minnesota lies the fertile Iowa, a young state, with beautiful rivers, the Iowa, Ceder, and des Moines; extensive stretches of valley and rich pasture-lands; and through the very heart of Minnesota flows that great artery, the Mississippi, the birth of which it witnesses, and upon whose waters it can convey all the produce of the North to the South, and obtain all the produce of the South both for the North and for itself.
What a glorious new Scandinavia might not Minnesota become! Here would the Swede find again his clear, romantic lakes, the plains of Scania rich in corn, and the vallies of Norrland; here would the Norwegian find his rapid rivers, his lofty mountains, for I include the Rocky Mountains and Oregon in the new kingdom; and both nations, their hunting-fields and their fisheries. The Danes might here pasture their flocks and herds, and lay out their farms on richer and less misty coasts than those of Denmark. The Rocky Mountains are a new Seveberg with mythological monsters, giants and witches enough to feed the legendary mind and the warlike temperament. The gods must yet combat here with the Hrimthursar and the giants; Balder must have a fresh warfare with Loke, in which Balder will be victorious, and the serpent of Midgård be laid at rest in the Pacific ocean—at least till the great Ragnarok.
Neither would the joys of Valhalla be wanting in the New Vineland of the vine-crowned islands of the Mississippi, and the great divine hog Schrimmer has nowhere such multitudes of descendants as in the New World. But the Scandinavians must not rest satisfied with the heathenish life of festivity. They must seek after nobler enjoyments.
But seriously; Scandinavians who are well off in the old country ought not to leave it. But such as are too much contracted at home, and who desire to emigrate, should come to Minnesota. The climate, the situation, the character of the scenery agrees with our people better than that of any other of the American States, and none of them appear to me to have a greater or a more beautiful future before them than Minnesota.
Add to this that the rich soil of Minnesota is not yet bought up by speculators, but may everywhere be purchased at government prices, one dollar and a quarter per acre. I have been told that the Norwegian pastor in Luther's-dale, Mr. Clausen, is intending to remove hither with a number of Norwegians, in order to establish a settlement. Good. There are here, already, a considerable number both of Norwegians and Danes. I have become acquainted with a Danish merchant, resident here, who has made a considerable fortune in a few years in the fur trade with the Indians, and who has built himself a large and handsome country-house at some little distance from the city. His wife, who is the daughter of an Indian woman by a white man, has the dark Indian eye, and features not unlike those of the Feather-cloud woman, and in other respects, is as much like a gentlewoman as any agreeable white lady. I promised this kind Dane, who retains the perfect Danish characteristics in the midst of Americans, that I would, on my return, in passing through Copenhagen, pay a visit to his old mother and convey to her his greeting.
And here I may as well remark, en passant, that the children of Indian women by white men commonly attach themselves to the white race. They are most frequently fine specimens of humanity, although not of a remarkably elevated kind. They are praised for their acuteness of eye, and the keenness of their perceptive faculties generally. I have heard that the greater number of the steersmen of the Mississippi boats belong to this half-blood race.
A young Norwegian woman lives as cook with Governor Ramsay; she is not above twenty, and is not remarkably clever as a cook, and yet she receives eleven dollars per month wage. This is an excellent country for young servants.
I shall, to-morrow, commence my voyage down the Mississippi as far as Galena; thence to St. Louis, at which place I shall proceed up the Ohio to Cincinnati, and thence to New Orleans, and advancing onward shall proceed from some one of the southern sea-port towns to Cuba, where I intend to winter.
I am not quite satisfied about leaving this part of the country. I wish to see more of the Indians and their way of life, and feel something like a hungry person who is obliged to leave a meal which he has just commenced. I wish to see more of the country and the aborigines, but do not exactly see how and in what manner. Neither roads nor means of conveyance are to be met with here, as in the more cultivated States. Besides which I must not any longer remain in this family, which has so hospitably provided me a chamber, by sending the only child of the family, a beautiful little infant, and its nurse into a cold room. The child must return into its warm chamber, for the nights are getting cold. I long for the South, and dread these cold nights on the Mississippi; and it is too far, and the roads are too difficult for me to go to another family, residing at some distance, who have kindly invited me to their house, andthe inward light does not afford me any illumination, and the inward voice is silent. I shall therefore commence my journey, but someway I have a presentiment that I shall have to repent it.
I shall part from my cheerful and kind hostess with regret. I shall take with me a pair of Indian moccasins for your little feet, and another pair for Charlotte's, and a bell-purse of Indian work for mamma. The work of the Indian women is ornamental and neat, although deficient in taste and knowledge of design. Scarlet and fine colours predominate in their embroidery as well as in the festal attire of their people. Scarlet seems to be a favourite colour with all children of nature.
I have gained some information from the young Presbyterian missionary here, regarding the effect of missionary labours among the Indians, which seems to promise a brighter future for them than I had hitherto imagined. Since the Gospels have been translated into the language of the principal tribes and have been studied by them, Christianity has made considerable advances among the savage people, and with each succeeding year have the results of missionary labours been more and more striking.
When, in 1828, “a revival” in the religious life occasioned a re-animation and a new organisation of missionary labour, there were only thirty-one missionaries among the Indians, with a revenue of only 3400 dollars for carrying out the work of instruction.
At this time, 1850, there are 570 missionaries—more than half of whom are women, among the Indians, with a revenue of 79,000 dollars yearly; to these missionaries must be added 2000 preachers and helpers, among the natives themselves. A thousand churches of various Christian denominations have heen erected, and the number of professing Christians of the Indian tribes amounts at this time to 40,537. A great number of schools have been established, and are increasing daily, where the Indian children may receive instruction in reading, writing, and arithmetic, as well as in handicraft trades. The women easily acquire these latter. The boys learn to read and write with greater facility than the girls; but it is very difficult to accustom them to order and punctuality. It is not until after religious conversion that it is possible to impart moral and physical cultivation to them, before which they will have nothing to do with it. The number of schools has already increased to between four and five hundred, and the number of scholars, both boys and girls, is more than 30,000. Seminaries for boys and girls have also been established. Printing presses have been introduced, and printed works in thirty different languages have been produced. Mr. Williamson, the missionary of Kaposia, considers the ignorance of the Indians to be the greatest impediment to their cultivation. The women are the most accessible to religious impressions; the men, in particular those of the warlike tribes, as the Sioux, for instance, are more difficult to influence, and they will not listen to a doctrine which is diametrically opposed to that which constitutes their heathenish virtue and happiness. The missionaries, therefore, have as yet made but little way among the Sioux, nor indeed have they yet advanced among the savage tribes lying between Minnesota and the Eocky Mountains. It will not be long however, before they do so.
From the annual report of the American Board of Missions, for the year 1850, from which I have taken many of the above facts, I extract the following words:—
“How long will it be before we establish a synod on the shores of the Pacific Ocean? Already are our missionaries scattered over the whole of the United States east of the Mississippi, with the exception of one little valley in the north-east. They have crossed that river, and are now beginning zealously to occupy that immense country which extends westward of it, from the Mexican Gulf to the British colonies of the North. Nay, more still; they have wandered over the whole continent, and in that new world of the West have begun to found a kingdom of God. What will our progress he ultimatel? The spires of our churches along the shores of the Atlantic are illumined by the light of the morning sun. Advancing over the country it shines upon them through the whole day; and when it sets, its last rays still rest upon these as they rise upwards along the shores of the Pacific Ocean. Yes, we have done something, with God's aid; but we have yet infinitely more to do before we have fulfilled the measure of our duty.”
That is a good little specimen of the labour and the eloquence of the West.
Thus a little flock even of the Red men have on earth entered the Kingdom of Christ. And if, out of those 40,000 who publicly acknowledge themselves of the Church of Christ, 10,000 only, nay, if only 1000 be really Christians, there is still enough for an infinite future. In those “happy lands” where the red children of God will one day be at home, beyond the dark abyss, will they labour for the liberation of their brethren, “the children of the twilight,” who remain in the realm of shadows.
The kingdom of the Saviour and the work of salvation are not circumscribed to this little space and to this short time. Their space and their time are eternal as the heart of God. I know that the missionaries here promulgate another doctrine; and it is incomprehensible how they by that means are able to make any progress, incomprehensible how they can have any satisfaction in so doing. But a light, stronger, mightier, than that of these circumscribed doctrines, must proceed from the Word of Christ, to the heart of the heathen, and attract it to His cross and His crown, from the hunting-grounds and the wild dances of earth to His heaven. I cannot believe otherwise.
It is evening, and the bright glow of fires lights up the western heaven, as it has done every evening since I came here. It is the glow of the Indian prairie fires which they kindle to compel the deer to assemble at certain points, as it is now their hunting season. In this manner they take a vast number of deer, but at the same time destroy the chase, and by that means occasion still greater want, or are compelled to go still farther westward into the wilderness.
But the West is brilliant, and all the saints—St. Peter, St. Paul, St. Charles, a settlement still higher up, St. Anthony, who is beginning to build a city—who have taken up their abode on the northern Mississippi, and who now are lit up by the fires of the Indians, will give a new dawn to the wilderness and a new light to life.
The West is brilliant from the burning prairies, from the wild chase. I love that glow, because it has a poetical splendour; it shines over the moon-dances, and the councils, and the feasts of the spirits. But it is, after all, rather brightness than light.
When homes such as those of Andrew Downing and Marcus S., and of my good friend Mrs. W. H., which is almost a Swedish home, stand upon the heights of the Mississippi and St. Peter; when church spires shine out and scalp-dances are no longer danced there; when voices such as those of Channing, and Emerson, and Beecher, and Bellows, lift themselves in the councils, and when Lucretia Motts speak there also for freedom, peace and the rights of woman; when the Christian Indian States, Nebraska, &c., stand peacefully side by side of Minnesota, then—it may be in a hundred years—then will I return to Minnesota and celebrate a new feast of the spirits; and I will return thither in—the spirit!