Wild Life in the Far West: Being the Personal Adventures of a Border Mountain Man. Captain James Hobbs
now been with the Indians about a year. Cold weather was again approaching, and we began preparations for winter. The squaws sally forth in the fall, gathering acorns and pine-nuts. The acorns, being pulverized in stone mortars to the fineness of meal, make a kind of mush when boiled, which goes very well with their meat. In summer they secure wild currants, gooseberries, plums, and cherries, which they dry for winter use. They have vessels for cooking and carrying water, made out of clay and baked in kilns by the squaws.
The fruits and nuts having been provided, and the
36 BUFFALO HUNTING.
season for buffalo hunting being at hand, some of the squaws accompany the warriors out to assist in buffalo packing, &c. These animals move southward in large droves in the fall, naturally dreading the deep snows of the plains. Our tribe of Comanches were often very successful in the hunt, sometimes killing a thousand in the fall. They went out, armed with bows and arrows, mounted on their best horses or mules. There was a precipice several hundred feet high on the bank of the Little Red river, and back of this precipice was a plain which was often covered with buffalo. By surrounding a drove, getting them into a panic, and heading them for the river, they would rush over this high precipice in crowds. Our squaws would assist in skinning them, cut up the meat into strips, salt it (with salt gathered from several natural salt- springs and deposits in the vicinity), dry it in twists, with a streak of lean and fat together, and put these twists into square bales for packing. They scraped the hides with the rib-bone of a deer or elk, and dressed them with the buffalo brains. There were always more or less deer, elk, and antelope crowded over the precipice with the buffaloes, and the meat was preserved and skins dressed in the same way. The buckskin is dressed for clothing by them in such a manner that wetting does not stiffen it.
Fish are also caught in the fall and salted or dried for winter use. For this purpose a hook is used, made of a small short bone about an inch long (for trout), baited with a grasshopper, and hung in the center. They also shoot them with arrows. I taught them how to catch fish with a seine, which greatly pleased them, and for this purpose we used buffalo hides stitched together, with innumerable holes cut in them.
TRAINING YOUNG WARRIORS. 37
This they thought splendid fun, hauling in enormous quantities of bass, trout, perch, &c.
About Christmas, a party of five hundred Comanches went down into Mexico and attacked the Apaches, who, being friendly with the Mexicans, retreated about sixty miles to the Mexican village of Passo del Norte. Some Mexicans were killed, and the party returned toward spring, after an absence of three months, with four or five Mexican women and children, one young Apache squaw, and eighty Apache scalps. They also brought over a thousand head of mules and horses. This was a grand triumph for our tribe, and they danced over it a week. I did not go with them on that trip, but, judging from what they told me, the distance was about three hundred miles.
We spent the remainder of the cold season in hunting buffalo and other animals in small parties. Among the winter sports are wrestling matches, running foot-races, jumping, and horse-racing. At their horse-races, they frequently stake their horses, and their stakes, whatever they are, are always paid without any grumbling.
The young Comanches (oftentimes the lads not over fifteen years of age) were educated and trained for the war-path in an amusing way. Two deer or wolf skins —sewed together, and cut somewhat in the shape and about the size of a man—are stretched on bushes, one such image on each side of the track to be raced over. Mounted on horses fleet as the wind, these boys go back three or four hundred yards. The horses are started, and come down the track at full speed, and, in passing the target, the young warrior must shoot an arrow through it, by throwing himself on the side of his horse, his weight held by his heel against the rear projection of his saddle. His left arm, with a
38 OCCUPATIONS OF SQUAWS.
shield on it, is thrown over the horse's neck, grasping the bow, with the arrow in his right hand; he must send the arrow through the target while passing. This is practiced in shooting with both the right and left hands. Bets are made on the young warriors, as to excellence of shooting. Right and left thrusts with lances are practiced in the same way.
The women of the Comanche tribe are busy in the winter months at various kinds of employment. They cook, and wash, and make up garments with great skill,—for needles using awls made of thorns or sharp bones; for thread they procure their material from a species of wild flax, which is pounded and rotted and twisted into thread, though they often used the sinews of wild animals. They were dexterous in the manufacture of clothing for themselves, their hus- bands, and children, making them up from skins they had dressed or tanned themselves, often ornamenting them with beads procured from the Mexicans or shells found in the river bottoms. They were generally a good-looking, hardy set of squaws, and made good, faithful wives.
Their good health and toughness of constitution may be inferred from their system of midwifery, which was very simple, and not at all like that of our delicate American ladies. When the eventful period arrives, the Comanche squaw proceeds alone to a clump of willows or bushes by the banks of a stream, and, entirely unattended, performs all the necessary offices or duties, goes into the water and bathes herself and infant, wraps the babe in a wolf or other skin, and carries the little stranger back to camp, suspended on her back by a strap which passes over her forehead or around her neck.
MOVING INCIDENTS. 39
There is a rise made of looking-glasses sometimes in battle that was rather ludicrous. A Comanche will give a horse for a piece of a mirror. This he fastens in a shield, and is often able to dazzle the eyes of an enemy taking aim at him, and thus cause his shot to go harmlessly wide of its mark. In pillaging the houses of people living out on the frontier, such relics were often obtained and brought home as very valuable trophies. If an unlucky trapper or emigrant, who happened to fall into their hands, had a hand-mirror for shaving and a silver watch, the mirror was prized as much the most valuable, for its wonderful reflecting properties ; while the watch would, perhaps, be broken up, and the pieces made into nose or ear ornaments for the squaws and papooses.
In June, our chief told us we were all to meet the Arapahoes and Cheyennes, at the annual feast usually held in common by these three tribes. Then com- menced the operation of moving; a long pole strapped to each side of a horse or mule, with a platform made on the parts dragging behind, sufficed to transport our tents and children. The squaws packed the horses and mules, and carried all that was not transported on the platforms. Many of the dogs belonging to the squaws are also made to do service, in "moving time," a small platform being arranged in the same manner as for the horses. Some of them will not submit to this treatment, and worry those that otherwise would, and many fights, often including the squaws who side with their respective dogs, are the result. The warriors, who ride on the Hanks of the procession, leaving the pack-train to the care of the squaws, always appear to enjoy these little differences very much. Then the whole tribe of twenty thousand men, women, and
40 MEETING WITH ARAPAHOES AND CHEYENNES.
children got ready to move. (The number of the tribe is, of course, much less now than at that time.) This required but little preparation, for Indians do not scatter out and leave themselves exposed to raids and attacks. They build their villages compactly, setting their tents thickly on the borders of some stream, keeping the old people in the center. These old men and women provide fuel, and busy themselves making bows and arrows for the use of the warriors.
We had about one hundred and twenty miles to go to reach the feasting ground, which was on the Big Arkansas, between the point where that river is crossed by the Santa Fe road and Bent's Fort. John Batiste went with us, of course; but this was the first time he had left camp since his capture. On the first day after we started, his horse threw him, which created a general laugh, for the Indians all despised him, and would have taken his scalp long before, if they had not been so attached to me. John was still unmarried,