treatment for all ailments being a cold-water immersion, it is not surprising that they are eminently unsuccessful in their treatment of the small-pox.[1] Horse-stealing, practised by one band upon the other, leads to exterminating feuds and frequent engagements, wherein great numbers are mutually slain.
The following interesting episode I had from the lips of the interpreter:
Some thirty-two years ago, during Monroe's administration, a powerful Indian named Two Axe, chief counsellor of the Pawnee Loup band, went to pay his "Great Father," the President, a visit. He was over six feet high and well proportioned, athletic build, and as straight as an arrow. He was delegated to Washington by his tribe to make a treaty with his Great Father.
Being introduced, his "father" made known to him, through the interpreter, the substance of his proposal. The keen-witted Indian, perceiving that the proposed treaty "talked all turkey" to the white man and "all crow" to his tribe, sat patiently during the reading of the paper.[2] The reading finished, he arose with all his native dignity, and in that vein of true Indian eloquence in which he was unsurpassed, declared that the treaty had been conceived in injustice and brought forth in duplicity; that many treaties had been signed by Indians of their "Great Father's" concoction wherein they bartered away the graves of their fathers for a few worthless trinkets, and afterward their hearts cried at their folly; that such Indians were fools and women. He expressed his free opinion of the "Great Father," and all his white children, and concluded by declaring that he would sign no paper which
- ↑ It is a curious coincidence that in New Zealand and other Pacific Islands, the natives died by thousands from plunging into cold water when attacked by the small-pox—C.G. Leland.
- ↑ This expression "to talk turkey," i.e., to one's own profit; also to the purpose, is said to have originated as follows:—A white man and an Indian went hunting together, having agreed to share the game. At the end of the day there were two crows and a wild turkey in the bag. The white man as the lion made the division. "Here," he said to the Indian, "is a crow for you, then a turkey for me, then a crow for you." To which the Indian replied, "Me no like that. You talk all turkey for you, and all crow for me,"—C.G. Leland.
