USA > Missouri > A history of Missouri from the earliest explorations and settlements until the admission of the state into the union, Volume I > Part 22
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A story related by Brackenridge79 well illustrates the attractions of the savage state for white men who have lived a long time among the Indians. He says: "We had on board a Frenchman, named Charboneau,80 with his wife, an Indian woman of the Snake nation, both of whom had accompanied Lewis and Clark to the Pacific, and were of great service. The woman was a good creature, of mild and gentle disposition, greatly attached to the whites, whose
79 Brackenridge's Journal, p. 10.
80 May be the same Charboneau mentioned by Major Long, in 1819, as at Fort Osage. Long's Expedition, vol. i., pp. 119, 134. Also Lewis and Clark's Expedition, vol. i., pp. 189, 224 (Cous' Ed.). Name spelled "Chaboneau"; "Chaubonie " in Clark and Lewis' Journal.
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manners and dress she tried to imitate; but she had become sickly and longed to revisit her native country; her husband also, who had spent years among the Indians, had become weary of civilized life. So true it is, that the attachment to the savage state, or state of Nature (with which appellation it has commonly been dignified), is much stronger than that of civilization, with all its comforts, its refinements and its security." Speaking of Daniel Boone and his love for a life in the wilderness, Long 81 says: "The charms of that mode of life, wherein the artificial wants and the uneasy restraints inseparable from a crowded population are not known, wherein we feel ourselves dependent immediately and solely on the bounty of Nature and the strength of our own arm, will not be appreciated by those to whom they are known only from description, though they never fail to make an impression upon such as have acquired a knowledge of them from experience."
On his visit to Fort Osage in 1811, Brackenridge was not very favorably impressed with the Osages he met there. He says: "On approaching the fort we were met by a number of Osage Indians of both sexes and of all ages. They kept pace with us, strung along the bank, apparently attracted by curiosity. They were objects rather disgusting; generally of a filthy, greasy appearance, the greater part with old dirty buffalo robes thrown over their shoulders ; some with brawny limbs exposed and no covering but a piece of cloth girded about their loins. The women appeared, if possible, still more filthy than the men. A few were daubed with red and adorned with brooches and beads. The men carried their bows, guns or war clubs in their hands. In point of size they are larger than the whites. The curiosity which these people manifested in running after us in a crowd, gaping and staring, struck me as a characteristic very different from the Indians east of the Mississippi, who observe studied indifference as to everything strange which transpires around them." A few years afterwards, however, Major Long observed the effect on the Pawnee chief, Long-Hair, of placing a band of musicians on the road where he was to pass, and having them suddenly strike up a loud martial air, as he went by, found that the chief did not even deign to look up at instruments he had never seen or heard before, nor did he manifest by any emotion whatever that he was sensible to their presence.
81 Long's Expedition, vol. i., p. 105.
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PASSION FOR POWER
While at Fort Osage, Mr. Brackenridge, accompanied by Mr. Lisa and Mr. Sibley, the factor of the fort, went to deliver to the Little Osage chief, Sans Oreille, or Te-to-basi, a pipe sent him by General Clark. He was received by the chief sitting on a mat, "surrounded by a number of young men, who seemed to treat him with great respect and receive everything he said with approbation." Sans Oreille ordered his cook, or herald (for every great man among these Indians had a domestic of this description), a bushy-headed, ill-looking fellow, to bring them a dish of hominy. After having eaten of this, the pipe was sent around. Brackenridge then pre- sented him with the pipe, which was handsomely decorated with ribbands and beads of various colors, and told him that it was given at the request of General Clark, and that it was intended as proof of the esteem and consideration in which he was held not only by the General himself, but by all Americans. He replied that he was "pleased with the proof of General Clark's good will towards him, that he was the friend of the Americans. He declared that he had done much to preserve the proper respect toward us, but that there were many foolish people amongst the Osages, who thwarted his measures, but that every man of sense approved his conduct." Though not a chief, it was evident to his visitors that he was intriguing to be at the head of his tribe, and " that at that time he possessed much influence with them. The hereditary chief, young White-Hairs, had but little in his own character to entitle him to respect, being extremely young and of a gentle disposition, supported, however, by the reputation of his father, who was a great warrior and a good man. Sans Oreille, as usual with the ambitious amongst these peo- ple, was the poorest man in the nation, for to set the heart upon goods and chattels was thought to indicate a mean and narrow soul. He, therefore, gave away everything he could get, even should he rob and beg to procure it; and this to purchase popularity. Such is ambition! Little know they of this state of society, who believe that it is free from jealousies, from envy, detraction or guilty ambi- tion. No demagogue, no Catiline, ever used more art and finesse, or displayed more policy than this cunning savage. The arts of flattery and bribery, by which the unthinking multitude is seduced, are nearly the same everywhere, and passion for power and dis- tinction seems inherent in human nature." 82
82 Brackenridge's Journal, p. 50. Dorsey says that he is generally "the
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HISTORY OF MISSOURI
In 1811, sixty lodges of the Little Osages were situated within gunshot of Fort Osage, and at another time in the same year over fifteen hundred Osage warriors were encamped around the fort. While here Mr. Crooks, observing one Osage beating and kicking another who suffered it patiently, asked why he did not defend him- self. Showing the handle of his tomahawk, upon which every war- like exploit is shown by a notch, an Indian being estimated rich or poor according to the number of such notches, he answered: "Oh, I am too poor; he is richer than I am." 83
The dress 84 of the Osages was usually composed of moccasins for the feet, leggings to cover the leg and thigh ; a breech-cloth; an over- all or hunting shirt, seamed up and slipped over the head, all made of leather, softly dressed by means of fat and oily substances and often rendered more durable by the smoke with which they were purposely imbued. Perhaps this caused Brackenridge to describe them as having a filthy and dirty appearance. Long 85 says that the ordinary dress of the men was a breech-cloth of blue or red cloth, secured in its place by a girdle; a pair of leggings made of dressed deerskin, concealing the leg excepting a small portion of the upper part of the thigh; a pair of moccasins made of dressed deer, elk or bison skin, not ornamented, and a blanket to cover the upper part of the body. The dress of the women was composed of a pair of moc- casins, leggings of blue or red cloth, with a broad projecting border on the outside and covering the leg to the knee or a little above; around the waist, secured by a belt, they wrapped a piece of blue cloth the sides of which met, or came nearly in contact, on the outside of the right thigh, and the whole extending downwards as far as the knee or to the midleg; and around the shoulder a similar piece of cloth was attached by two of the corners at the axilla of the right arm and extended down to the waist. This garment was often laid aside in warm weather. The women allowed their hair to grow long, hanging over the shoulders, and parted longitudinally on the top of the head. The children were generally allowed to go naked in warm weather. Many of them tatooed different parts of their bodies.
poorest man in the band"-but that he takes care "to give his property to his kindred or to the rich from whom he may draw in time of need." 15 Bureau of Ethnology, p. 224.
83 Bradbury's Travels, p. 51.
84 Nuttall's Arkansas, p. 89.
85 Long's Expedition, vol. i., p. 126.
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HOSPITALITY
They were kind to each other, and if at any time some were more prosperous in hunting than others, their doors were open to the destitute, who were invited to partake of their abundance. They were accustomed frequently to send provisions to the lodges of the wretched, the widow, and the fatherless. It is admitted that they were hospitable and kind to strangers not their enemies, and especially that they were hospitable to white people who came among them. As soon as a white man came into one of their villages he was invited from one cabin to another to partake of their simple fare. 86 It was expected that the visitor would present himself at the lodge of the chief, who would receive him as his guest, and here he would eat first, after the old patriarchal style. Afterwards the visitor would be invited to a feast by all the great men of the village, and it was considered a great insult not to comply, at least as far as to taste of
86 Louis Bringier, who appears to have been a trader among them, in the North American Journal of Science, vol. iii., p. 22, gives this interesting account of their hospitality and customs, written in 1818: "Among the Osages there are some insubordinate stragglers, who now and then commit depredations abroad, but in their villages, as in those of the other two tribes, a stranger is in more security than he would be in any civilized city. Their hospitality exceeds all bounds; they act as if nothing was their own, and the best way to please them is to refuse nothing from them. When a trader stops his boat on the Arkansas at the landing place, 45 miles from their village, they immediately send people to transport his goods to the village; they unload his boat themselves, station a guard to take care of the empty boat, sometimes for four months, disputing the privilege of lodging the people of the boat, whom they divide among them. The merchant is reserved for the principal Chief, who gives him a warrior to guard his person and his goods; besides many other attentions, which with delicate although unpolished courtesy he pays his guest, who receives every day a large wooden bowl full of provisions from every one of the principal cabins of the village. The bowls contain smoked pumpkins, cut in slices, platted together, sweet corn, which they boil when green and dry in the sun, buffaloes' dried meat, bear's meat or fresh venison and turkeys. All the other Indian tribes except the Osages eat beaver. The latter have a tradition by which they pretend to have sprung from a female beaver and a snake. They, like most of the other tribes, believe in metempsychosis. They revere a spirit-being whom they call Kay-Kay (Great Chief), to whom they always present the best piece in the dish, which they bury in the fire before they eat. They have great veneration for old people, for the use of whom the first choice of their provision is put aside. When the whole village united surrounds a herd of buffaloes by making a double fence of their own bodies, so as to encircle sometimes 40 or 50 of these animals, two or three men on horseback pursue the animals within the circle with their bows and arrows, for they never kill a buffalo with a gun, and when all are killed they first select the fattest for the old people, and the remainder is divided among all the other people. They have prophets whom they call thinkers. They prophesy many absurdities which they pretend are communi- cated to them by messengers of the Great Spirit with whom they can converse when they are in a profound sleep occasioned by some somnifericent beverage which they know how to prepare. The Osage prophets are likewise their phy- sicians."
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HISTORY OF MISSOURI
their victuals. Thus Lieutenant Pike was invited to fifteen different entertainments among the Osages in one afternoon. The cooks would act as heralds and cry out "Come and eat!" and that such an one "gives a feast; come and eat of his bounty!" On such occa- sions their dishes were generally sweet-corn boiled in buffalo grease, or boiled meat and pumpkins. When Pike was in the village of Te-to-basi, or Sans Oreille, he was treated to tea in a wooden dish with a new horn spoon, boiled meat and crullers; but Te-to-basi had been on a trip to the United States.87 They regarded white men as very deficient in hospitality, and when they were told by Indians who had visited the settlements that if they came to the house of a white man after dinner nothing would be offered them until night, and then but a stinted portion, they considered this despicable.88 But among the white hunters and hunting farmers, the Osages did not bear a good reputation,89 because they frequently insulted and chastised them when they found them hunting in their country.90 The Americans were called No-ya-tunga, Long-knife, by the Osages.91
The lodges in which these Indians lived, says Lieutenant Pike, were generally constructed with upright posts put firmly in the ground, about twenty feet in height, with a crotch at the top and placed about twelve feet distant from each other. In the crotch of these posts they put a ridge-pole, over which they bent small poles, the ends of which were brought down and fastened to a row of sticks about five feet in height; these sticks being fastened together with three horizontal bars, forming the flank walls of the lodges; the gable-ends were broad slabs, rounded off to the ridge-pole. The whole of the building and the sides were covered with matting made of rushes two or three feet in length, and four feet in width, joined together and entirely excluding the rain. The doors were on each side of the building. The fires were made in holes in the center of the lodge, the smoke ascending through apertures left in the roof for that purpose. At one end of the dwelling was a raised platform about three feet from the ground, which was covered with bear skins,
87 Pike's Expedition, vol. ii., p. 528.
88 Long's Expedition, vol. i., p. 321.
89 Nuttall's Arkansas, p. 57.
90 Ibid., p. 174.
91 Southern Literary Messenger, February, 1842, pp. 148, 149.
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MANUFACTURES
generally holding all the little furniture; on this reposed the honored guests. "In fact, with neatness and a pleasing companion," says Pike, "these dwellings would compose a very comfortable and attractive summer habitation." Generally in the winter these lodges were abandoned for the woods. The lodges varied in length from thirty-six to one hundred feet. "Around the walls of the interior a continued series of mats are suspended; these are of neat workman- ship, composed of soft reed, united by bark cord, in straight or undulated lines, between which, lines of black paint sometimes occurred. The bedsteads are about six feet wide, and are elevated to the height of a common seat from the ground, extending in an uninterrupted line around three-fourths of the circumference of the apartment, and are formed in the simplest manner, of numerous sticks or slender pieces of wood, resting at their ends on cross pieces, each supported by short notched or forked posts driven into the ground, with bison skins thus formed a comfortable bed. Several medicine or mystic bags are carefully attached to the mats on the wall. These are cylindrical and neatly bound up; several reeds are placed upon them, and a human scalp serves for their fringe and tassels." This is Long's description of the lodge of a Grand Chief, which served as a council house of the Konza nation.92
Hunter, who claims that he was a captive among the Osages, says that they manufactured blankets out of the hair of the buffalo and other animals; that in order to make these blankets they first twisted the hair by hand and then wound it into balls; they then laid the warp to answer the size of the intended blanket, crossed by three small smooth rods alternately beneath the threads and secured at each end to stronger rods supported on forks at a short distance above the ground. Thus prepared, the warp was filled in, thread by thread, and pressed closely together by means of long, flattened wooden needles. When the weaving was finished the ends of the warp and woof were tied into knots and the blanket was ready for use. In the same manner the Osages constructed mats from flags and rushes, on which in warm weather they sat and slept.93
Their culinary utensils usually were very simple in kind and limited in quantity, consisting of brass kettles or iron pots, or both, .
92 Long's Expedition, vol., i., p. 121.
93 Memoirs of a Captive among the Indians of North America, John D. Hunter, pp. 289, 290.
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HISTORY OF MISSOURI
and wooden bowls and spoons. Every person, both male and female, usually carried, in the girdle of the breech-cloth behind, a large knife, which was used at their meals, and sometimes for self-defense. No regularity existed among them as to the time of eating their meals; they would eat four or five times a day when they had food, and fast when they had exhausted this supply and were unsuccess- ful in the chase. A sort of soup composed of maize boiled in water, and enriched with a few slices of bison meat, grease and some beans, and generally seasoned with rocksalt procured from near the Arkan- sas river, was their favorite dish. "This mixture constituted an agreeable food," says Long,94 "and was served in large wooden bowls placed on bison robes or mats on the ground, around which sat as many as could conveniently eat out of one bowl, from which in common they partook of its contents by means of large spoons made of bison horns." Another acceptable dish was made out of lyed corn of the preceding season, first shelled from the cob, then boiled for a short time in lye of wood-ashes until the hard skin of the grains were separated, and the whole was poured into a basket which was then rapidly dipped into clean water until the lye and skins were removed, when the remainder was boiled in water until so soft as to be edible. This dish was adopted by the pioneers and is called hominy by us, from the Indian word "auhuminea." 95 While Pike96 was among them he was also regaled with boiled pump- kins, to which Radisson and Groselliers refer as "citronelles." When Bradbury 97 visited the lodge of Waubuschon, chief of the Lit- tle Osage village near Fort Osage, a wooden bowl was handed around, containing square pieces of cake, in taste resembling ginger- bread. This on inquiry he found was made out of the pulp of the persimmon mixed with pounded corn, and was called "staninca." They also raised beans, muskmelons and watermelons, but the latter were generally pulled from the vine before they were com- pletely ripe. While Long's description relates to the Kansas, it equally applies to the Osages, with whom they were intimately asso- ciated and with whom they intermarried But this pleasing account
94 Long's Expedition, vol. i., p. 122.
95 Century Dictionary, vol. ii., Hominy.
96 Pike's Expedition, vol. ii., p. 388.
97 Bradbury's Travels, p. 45.
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DOMESTIC INSTITUTIONS
of the local habitations and homes of the Osages, which Lieutenant Pike observed in 1807, and Long in 1819, is not so satisfactory to Mr. Requa,98 of the Missionary Society, in 1821. He says: "This unhappy people live in low huts, covered with long grass or flag, but so badly put together that they leak in a storm of rain. They have very little furniture, merely a few pots and kettles in which they boil their provisions. The art of cooking their meat in any other way than boiling is unknown among them, except roasting it on a stick before the fire. They have very little variety in their food. Wild game, corn, dried pumpkins and beans constitute about all on which they subsist. With this, however, they are contented. They have wooden bowls out of which they eat, drink, wash themselves and clean the dirt and filth about them. Neatness and cleanliness are qualities of which they are totally destitute. Their meat which they bring home from the chase is generally covered with blood and dirt; yet I never knew them to wash it before it was cooked. Their pots and kettles they rarely, if ever, clean. This is merely a speci- men of their defilement and uncleanliness. The half has not been told. I could give you an account of their lewd and immodest con- duct. Let it suffice to say, that chastity and modesty are not known, or very little regarded by them. They have little sense of shame. All the laborious operations are performed by the women. They build the houses, cut and carry the timber and fuel; they dress all the skins, make moccasins for themselves, their husbands and chil- dren. Indeed, all the drudgery is imposed upon the female sex."
The villages were closely built together, occupying very little ground, and that laid out without any degree of regularity whatever, each building being put up in such direction and of such dimensions as suited the builder. Frequently, the several buildings were so close together that a man could hardly squeeze between them.99 Added to their lodges, they had pens for their horses, into which they were always driven at night whenever they had reason to sus- pect that an enemy was lurking in the neighborhood.
The domestic institutions of the Osages were different from those of any other Indian nation met by Lieutenant Pike on his extended expedition west of the Mississippi. Among the Osages the
98 Morse's Report, p. 233.
99 Pike's Expedition, vol. ii., p. 528; villages destitute of any regularity -- Long's Expedition, vol. i., p. 120.
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HISTORY OF MISSOURI
people were separated into classes. Some were warriors and hunters, these two terms with them being synonymous; and the remainder into two classes, that is to say, cooks and doctors. The latter also exercised the functions of priests and magicians, and had great influ- ence in the councils of the nation by reason of their pretended divinations and interpretations of dreams, and magical performances. The cooks were either of general use or attached particularly to the family of some great man. What was most singular, men who had been great warriors and brave men, having lost all their families by disease or war, themselves becoming old and infirm, frequently would take up the profession of cook, in which it was not necessary to carry arms, and thus gain a support from the public or from some par- ticular patron. They would also exercise the functions of town crier, calling the chiefs together to council and to feast; or if any particular person was wanted, they would go through the village crying out his name and informing him that he was wanted at a particular lodge.100 The Osage young men who on their first warpath exhibited cowardice it was also their practice to condemn for life to associate with squaws and to wear the same dress and to do the same drudgery.
The government of the Osages was oligarchical, but still partook of the nature of a republic; for, although the power was nominally vested in a small number of chiefs, they never undertook any matter of importance without first assembling the warriors and proposing the subject in council, there to be discussed and decided by a ma- jority. Their chiefs were hereditary in most instances, yet many men rose to influence among them by their activity and boldness in war. Although they had no regular code of laws, there was a tacit acknowledgment of the right which some had to command on certain occasions, while others were bound to submit even to corporal punishment. On the whole, says Pike, their government was an oligarchical republic, where the chiefs proposed and the people decided on all public acts.101
Ca-ha-go-tonga, or "White Hairs" (Cheveux Blanc), was the principal chief of the Osages when Louisiana was purchased, and July 12, 1804, he and a delegation of Osages, in charge of Pierre Chouteau, at that time agent among the Osages, visited Washington
100 Pike's Expedition, vol. ii., p. 528.
101 Pike's Expedition, vol. ii., p. 526; Nuttall's Arkansas, p. 174.
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PRINCIPAL CHIEFS
on recommendation of Captain Meriwether Lewis. White Hairs remained chief of the Osages until his death in 1808.102 Wa-tcha- wa-ha, or Jean la Fon, a son-in-law of White Hairs, was the second chief. The next in rank was Ta-wan-ga-ha, or Fils de Canard and Iche-so-hun-gar, a son of White Hairs; Ha-pau-se, or "Pointed Horn;" Cha-po-ran-ga, or Bonnet du Boeuf; Gi-ha-gat-che; Shen- ga-was-sa, or Belle Oiseau; Wa-sa-ba-tun-ga, or "Without Nerve;" Oga-ha-wasa and Tour-man-sara, or "The Heart of the Town." Among the Little Osages, Tut-ta-suggy, or "The Wind;" Watch- ke-singar, or Soldat de Chien ; Nezuma, or "The Rain that Walks," a brother of Tut-ta-suggy; Te-to-basi, or Sans Oreille, and Tare- hem, or "Yellow-skin Deer," and finally Maugraine, or Big Rogue, were the principal chiefs. In 1820 Has-ha-ke-da-tungar, or Big Soldier, having been in Washington several times representing his tribe, was one of the principal chiefs among the Grand Osages.
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