Contents ▼▲
Front Matter The Fur Traders Why I Am Not a Fur Trader Plan For the Future An Inquisitive Stranger An Unexpected Proposition I Set Out as a Guide John Mitchell's Outfit Making the Bargain We Leave St. Louis Hardships Encountered The Camp at Independence A Frontier Town The Start from Independence Careless Travelers Overrun by Wild Horses Searching for Live Stock Abandoning Missing Animals Meeting with Other Emigrants A Tempest Facing the Indians Teaching the Pawnees The Pawnee Village A Bold Demand I Gain Credit as a Guide A Difficult Crossing Wash Day Indian Pictures A Plague of Wood Ticks Another Tempest Cattle Stampeded Again Difficult Traveling Colonel Kearny's Dragoons Disagreeable Visitors Driving Away the Indians Turkey Hunting Eager Hunters Antelope Country Shooting Antelopes A Pawnee Visitor The Pawnees Frighten Us Defending Ourselves Scarcity of Fuel Lame Oxen An Army of Emigrants The Buffalo Country Hunting Buffaloes My Mother's Advice Ash Hollow Post Office New Comrades Fort Laramie A Sioux Encampment Indians on the March The Fourth of July Multitudes of Buffaloes We Meet Colonel Kearny Across the Divide Fort Bridger Trading at Fort Hall Thievish Snakes The Hot Springs Falls of the Snake River Signs of the Indians Beset with Danger Hunger and Thirst Nearly Exhausted Arrival at Fort Boise On the Trail Once More Cayuse Indians The Columbla River An Indian Ferry The Dalles of the Columbia Our Live Stock My Work as Guide Ended I Become a Farmer

Antoine of Oregon - James Otis




Indians on the March

We remained at Fort Laramie one day and had the good fortune to see the Indians setting out on the march, the men to go against their enemies, and the women to return to the villages.

We saw the squaws taking down the lodges and fastening the poles on either side of the pack animals, with one end dragging on the ground. Across these poles, just behind the horse, were lashed short pieces of wood, forming a framework on which were tied the food, furs, and household belongings, while in many cases the children rode on top of the load during the journey.

[Illustration] from Antoine of Oregon by James Otis

Then the babies were shut up in small willow cages, and either fastened on the backs of the pack horses, or securely tied to the trailing poles.

The women performed all the work from taking down the lodges to leading the pack animals. The men did nothing save sit on their ponies, decked out in a fanciful array of feathers, with their war shields and spears from which fluttered gay-colored bits of cloth, as if their only purpose in life was to present a warlike appearance.

As I told the girls, those Sioux Indians making ready for battle were the first real savages we had met. They would not hesitate to carry away anything belonging to a white man, if they could get their hands upon it, but they acted more like men, than did any we had seen before.