Mary and I: Forty Years with the Sioux. Stephen Return Riggs
his power of communicating with the spirit world as a war prophet was destroyed by his knowledge of letters and the religion of the Bible. Shall we accept that as true? And, if so, what shall we say of modern spiritism? Is it in accord with living a true Christian life?
Thus events succeeded each other rapidly. But Mary and I and the baby boy, “Good Bird,” lived still in the “upper chamber,” and were not ashamed to invite the French savant, Jean Nicollet, to come and take tea with us.
During these first years of missionary work at Lac-qui-parle, the school was well attended. It was only once in a while that the voice of opposition was raised against the children. Occasionally some one would come up from below and tell about the fight that was going on there against the Treaty appropriation for Education.
The missionaries down there were charged with wanting to get hold of the Indians’ money; and so the provision for education made by the treaty of 1837 effectually blocked all efforts at teaching among those lower Sioux. What should have been a help became a great hindrance. Indians and traders joined to oppose the use of that fund for the purpose for which it was intended, and finally the government yielded and turned over the accumulated money to be distributed among themselves. The Wahpatons of Lac-qui-parle had no interest in that treaty; and had yet made no treaty with the government and had not a red cent of money anywhere that missionaries could, by any hook or crook, lay hold of. Nevertheless it was easy to get up a fear and belief; for was it possible that white men and women would come here and teach year after year, and not expect, in some way and at some time, to get money out of them? If they ever made a treaty, and sold land to the government, would not the missionaries bring in large bills against them? It was easy to work up this matter in their own minds, and make it all seem true, and the result was the soldiers were ordered to stop the children from coming to school. There were some such moods as this, and our school had a vacation. But the absurdity appeared pretty soon, and the children were easily induced to come back.
Mr. and Mrs. Pond were now gone. For the next winter, Mary and Miss Fanny Huggins took care of the girls and younger boys, and Mr. Huggins, with such assistance as I could give, took care of the boys and young men. The women also undertook, under the instruction of Mrs. Huggins and Miss Fanny, to spin and knit and weave. Mr. Renville had already among his flock some sheep. The wool was here and the flax was soon grown. Spinning-wheels and knitting-needles were brought on, and Mr. Huggins manufactured a loom. They knit socks and stockings, and wove skirts and blankets, while the little girls learned to sew patchwork and make quilts. All this was of advantage as education.
My own special effort in the class-room during the first years was in teaching a knowledge of figures. The language of counting in Dakota was limited. The “wancha, nonpa, yamne”—one, two, three, up to ten—every child learned, as he bent down his fingers and thumbs until all were gathered into two bunches, and then let them loose as geese flying away. Eleven was ten more one, and so on. Twenty was ten twos or twice ten, and thirty ten threes. With each ten the fingers were all bent down, and one was kept down to remember the ten. Thus, when ten tens were reached, the whole of the two hands was bent down, each finger meaning ten. This was the perfected “bending down.” It was “opawinge”—one hundred. Then, when the hands were both bent down for hundreds, the climax was supposed to be reached, which could only be expressed by “again also bending down.” When something larger than this was reached, it was a great count—something which they nor we can comprehend—a million.
On the other side of one the Dakota language is still more defective. Only one word of any definiteness exists—hankay, half. We can say hankay-hankay—the half of a half. But it does not seem to have been much used. Beyond this there was nothing. A piece is a word of uncertain quantity, and is not quite suited to introduce among the certainties of mathematics. Thus, the poverty of the language has been a great obstacle in teaching arithmetic. And that poorness of language shows their poverty of thought in the same line. The Dakotas are not, as a general thing, at all clever in arithmetic.
Before the snows had disappeared or the ducks come back to this northern land, in the spring of 1840, a baby girl had been added to the little family in the upper chamber. By the first of June, Mary was feeling well, and exceedingly anxious to make a trip across the prairie. She had been cooped up here now nearly three years. There was nowhere to go. Lac-qui-parle is the “Lake that speaks,” but who could be found around it? And no one had any knowledge of any great Indian talk held there that might have justified the name. But the romance was all taken out of the French name by the criticism of Eagle Help, that the Dakota name, “Mdaeyaydan,” did not mean “Lake that talks,” but “Lake that connects.” And so Lac-qui-parle had no historic interest. It was not a good place to go on a picnic. She had been to the Indian village frequently, but that was not a place to visit for pleasure. And on the broad prairie there was no objective point. Where could she go for a pleasure trip, but to Fort Snelling?
And so we made arrangements for the journey. The little boy “Good Bird” was left behind, and the baby Isabella had to go along, of course. We were with Mr. Renville’s annual caravan going to the fur-trader’s Mecca.
The prairie journey was pleasant and enjoyable, though somewhat fatiguing. We had our own team and could easily keep in company with the long line of wooden carts, carrying buffalo robes and other furs. It was, indeed, rather romantic. But when we reached the Traverse des Sioux, we were at our wit’s end how to proceed further. That was the terminus of the wagon-road. It was then regarded as absolutely impossible to take any wheeled vehicle through by land to Fort Snelling. Several years after this we began to do it, but it was very difficult. Then it was not to be tried. Mr. Sibley’s fur boat, it was expected, would have been at the Traverse, but it was not. And a large canoe which was kept there had gotten loose and floated away. Only a little crazy canoe, carrying two persons, was found to cross the stream with. Nothing remained but to abandon the journey or to try it on horseback. And for that not a saddle of any kind could be obtained. But Mary was a plucky little woman. She did not mean to use the word “fail” if she could help it. And so we tied our buffalo robe and blanket on one of the horses, and she mounted upon it, with a rope for a stirrup. Many a young woman would have been at home there, but Mary had not grown up on horseback. And so at the end of a dozen miles, when we came to the river where Le Sueur now is, she was very glad to learn that the large canoe had been found. In that she and baby Isabella took passage with Mr. Renville’s girls and an Indian woman or two to steer and paddle. The rest of the company went on by land, managing to meet the boat at night and camp together. This we did for the next four nights. It was a hard journey for Mary. The current was not swift. The canoe was heavy and required hard paddling to make it move onward. The Dakota young women did not care to work, and their helm’s-woman was not in a condition to do it. On the fourth day out they ran ashore somewhat hurriedly and put up their tent, where the woman pilot gave birth to a baby girl. They named it “By-the-way.” One day they came in very hungry to an Indian village. The Dakota young women were called to a tent to eat sugar. Then Mary thought they might have called “the white woman” also, but they did not. She did not consider that they were relatives.
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