United States or Namibia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
This fall they had gone safely as far as the hewn-timber towns of the Mandan Indians, in central North Dakota; here they wintered, and met the little Bird-woman. Her Indian name was Sa-ca-ga-we-a, from two Minnetaree words meaning "bird" and "woman." But she was not a Minnetaree, who were a division of the Sioux nation, living in North Dakota near the Mandans.
These were Mandans, Annahaways, and Minnetarees, tribes living peacefully in the same region of country. The principal Mandan chief was Black Cat; White Buffalo Robe Unfolded represented the Annahaways, and the Minnetaree chief was Black Moccasin. This last-named chief could not come to the council, but was represented by Caltahcota, or Cherry on a Bush.
He then gave them some trinkets, and the other woman being recalled, he painted the faces of the three with vermilion, an act understood by all Indians as signifying pacific intentions. While he was thus engaged, sixty mounted Shoshone warriors galloped up, armed and voicing their war-cry, thinking to do battle with Minnetaree foes, for whom they had mistaken the whites.
Afterwards, at the present Minnetaree and Mandan village about sixty-five miles above on the east side of the Missouri, and also at the new Arickaree village on the west side, and quite near it, I had an opportunity to see houses precisely similar to those described in actual occupation by the Indians, with their interior arrangements and their mode of life.
One of the Minnetaree chiefs, however, wept bitterly at the sight of the whites, and it was explained by his friends that their coming reminded him of the death of his son, who had been lately killed by the Blackfoot Indians.
But Fate had managed the matter very well, no doubt, in depriving these people of effective strength in war; for at this time the head chief of the Minnetaree villages was a man who, given opportunity, would have made the river run red with the blood of his enemies.
The stream shallowed. At the next camp Sacagawea was more excited. "She say here in dis spot is where de Snake camp was surprise' by de Minnetaree, five years ago, an' chase' into de timber," announced Drouillard the hunter. "De Minnetaree keel four warrior an' capture four boy an' all de women. She was capture' here, herself." Hurrah! the trail was getting warm.
To hold speech with this tribe was awkward. "In the first place," wrote Captain Lewis, "we spoke in English to one of our men, who translated it into French to Chaboneau; he interpreted it to his wife in the Minnetaree language; she then put it into Shoshone, and a young Shoshone prisoner explained it to the Chopunnish in their own dialect."
Little Cherry, the old Minnetaree chief, answered that they had long stayed at home and listened to our advice, but at last went to war against the Sioux because their horses had been stolen and their companions killed; and that in an expedition against those people they met the Ricaras, who were on their way to strike them, and a battle ensued.
A treaty signed at the lower Mandan village on the 30th of July, 1825, by the same commissioners on the part of the United States and by certain chiefs and warriors of the Belantse Etea, or Minnetaree, tribe of Indians on the part of said tribe.
Word Of The Day