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We open our story in the
early morning days of the last century. Of the white race only the intrepid
adventurer having landed upon the shores of Hudson's Bay, and ascending the
great water system tributary to it, was found in that immense extent of
country, drained on the one slope by the Wa-pe-sew (or, in the English, Swan
River) and on the other by the Amisk-O-Seepe, known in the latter days of
the century as the Assiniboine. These big areas were at that time sparsely
peopled by a portion of the Cree nation, These Na-he-ya-wuk, The Fit People,
roamed from the Missouri River to the Arctic, and from the Columbia to the
Labrador. Throughout all this immense land they spread themselves in feats
of war and hunting. Absolutely nomads, calling no place home, calling every
place home, even as a living paradox, these men did live and move and have
being. In the time of our story a branch of this big aboriginal nation
claimed as their special possession the upland ranges of the two water
systems, the Swan and the Beaver. The chief of the tribe, Wa-Pe-Moostooch,
or White Buffalo, was a semi-wood, semi-plain Indian. In this duality, as
the hunter of the forest, the moose and elk and cariboo, and all woodland
game were his natural prey, and when the white man appeared, he by virtue of
his environment became the great trapper, the successful hunter. On the
other side of his life he was the plainsman, and at fitting periods he
gathered his people and led them out to the great plain, and feasted them
upon the choice portions of the wild cattle, which then, in countless
numbers, cropped the western pastures. In all this life White Buffalo and
his tribe developed strong qualities, which made them the most desired ally,
and fur, and hunting, constituency of the trader who had come amongst them.
The reader will note that we have given White Buffalo a dual capacity. The
real woodsman would be strange upon the plain, and the real plainsman would
be equally strange in the woods, and thus between these people, though
belonging to the same nation, and speaking dialects of the same language,
the line of distinction was strongly marked. But our chief, White Buffalo,
and his people, inasmuch as they roamed the land wherein the forest and
plain were forever at war. and each was penetrating into the domain of the
other, took on themselves the double character, and became adepts in the
life of these two wonderfully distinct conditions.
At one season of the year
White Buffalo moved his people northward, and dispersed them in the timber
land, and over the great ranges of densely wooded hills; where the
fur-bearing animals did breed; where the mink made the little pools of many
creeks to fairly churn with their gambolings and with their number; where
the otter looked and dove and landed the choicest fish; where the beaver
dammed the stream and re-dammed the stream lower down or above as his
colonizing instinct sent him forth, and almost from mouth to source of many
creeks one standing beside the bubbling water of this dam could in the
stillness of the day distinguish the falling and splashing of the water of
the other dams; for the beaver were all throughout this country in endless
multitudes. Then where the spruce and jack pine forests grew, and out where
the larch and birch and aspen flourished, the marten played among the trees,
and sprang from branch to branch, and romped with their young, even as the
domestic cat does with her kittens.
Amidst these woods the Ojake
(the Fisher) made his way. He also was in rich number, and wandering over
the hills and through the valleys the black, the brown and cinnamon bear did
turn the logs and feasted upon the grubs, and scratched open the ant-hills,
and extending their mouths and stretching out their tongues, and blinking
their eyes, did glory in the thought that presently myriad ants would cover
these tongues, and the wily bear would lick in and repeat the act and smack
his lips so long as there were ants to gather on his tongue. Then when the
strawberries began to ripen, he sought the crimson beds and feasted to his
fill. Then in turn came the rich, luscious raspberry, and while the morning
dew was heavy on the bushes, the bear would leisurely wend his way, picking
as he travelled, thus these bears did feast and fatten in these natural
gardens. Later the Me-sas-quit
or blueberry tree would groan with its load of purple, juicy fruit, and now
the bear was feasting sumptuously, and waxing strong and making ready for
its winter lair, and thousands of its kind were doing likewise on the
hillside slope, and in the rich valleys, and depths of the dark forest, and
out upon the edges of the great plain.
Once in a while, and at long intervals, the
great Mis-ta-ya, the grizzly, becoming dissatisfied with his fellows, and
taking a pique towards all the grizzly kind, and even to the altitudes and
foothill districts, and mountain canyons, wherein his ancestors had lived
and flourished throughout the centuries, this individual grizzly would start
down the slopes of the continent, and crossing the great plains, and
sometimes following the windings of the big rivers which flow from the
mountains easterly, he would suddenly appear even as an apparition in the
lowland districts of which we are writing,,. Then these far-away kin, the
black, and the brown, and the cinnamon, would give him respectful obeisence
from the distance, and ambling away, would say:
"And now behold, we have seen our king!" The
moose with his great ears would listen to the grizzly's heavy stepping and
running to leeward would scent this new life, and lifting his head would say
to himself: "Strange,
passing strange, my dam never told me of this one!" And the elk would see
him, and gathering his following, would say:
"Behold, my children, and keep at a distance
from this monster who has suddenly come amongst us!"
Only such a man as White Buffalo, and those of
his kind, would dare with bow and quiver, and later with old flintlock, to
waylay and try to kill the huge brute. Around camp fires, and in the lodges
of these people strange tales were told of his great ferocity, and of his
kingliness among all the beasts of this great western land, and yet, being
men, they risked, and even like our hero, they conquered, for, hanging in
his lodge were the claws and tusks of the mighty grizzly White Buffalo had
slain. Another of the
fur-bearing animals was the lynx. These also periodically abounded, coming
in great numbers, and again almost disappearing. When the rabbits were in
the ascendency and continuing to multiply, then the lynx came also, and when
the rabbit was waning and mysteriously vanishing, and millions seemed to
pass away, in like proportion the lynx also disappeared. This animal served
two purposes—its fur was clothing or trade, its meat was food—for after all
what was the lynx, or the wildcat, as it was commonly called, but squirrel,
or chicken, or rabbit, or deer, served up in another form, for all these
were its common prey.
Sometimes a single lodge of Indian hunters snared and shot hundreds of these
crafty creatures in a single season. Then one must not forget the muskrat,
who also was periodical, even like the rabbit and lynx, coming and going in
the great multitude. For two or three years the country would swarm with
muskrats. Every pond, lake and marsh would be dotted with the habitations of
these industrious little animals. Then the period of declension would
arrive, and one might travel for days and hardly ever see a muskrat. Thus
these little fur-bearing animals, the lynx and rabbit and muskrat, were both
food and clothing and trade, and right here we will note that these, the
lynx, the muskrat, the rabbit, especially the latter two, were
interchangeable in their recurrence. When the rabbits were plentiful, the
rats were few; when the rats were all over the land in great multitudes,
rabbits were scarce. As the believing aboriginal would say:
"The Great Spirit has wisely arranged."
In addition to what we have enumerated there
came into this country in periodical migration numerous herds of buffalo. If
men now living, even as we write, can call up in memory the fact of their
having seen millions of buffalo, what must the numbers of these great herds
have been in the early parts of the last century? From the Gulf of Mexico to
the shores of Great Slave Lake, throughout all the north and south and the
central portion of this great continent, these tremendous herds wandered.
Every few months a huge portion of a big herd would wend its way into the
land of our story, pawing the ground, making countless dust pans, trampling
the earth, making trails which remain innumerable even in our day; making
the plains tremble with their roaring, and moving on into the north, they
would take their course crossing the Qu'Appelle; ascending the Assiniboine
on both banks, they would penetrate over the heights of land, and swarming
down the valley of the Swan would continue their course until they had left
Thunder Hill away in the south, and found themselves on the shores of the
Great Lakes. These migrations sometimes took place in the autumn, but more
frequently in the winter.
Strange it seemed to the ordinary mind that the
buffalo went north in the winter rather than south, and the colder the
winter, the farther north the buffalo would go. These huge animals fairly
took possession of the country when the spirit of migration moved them in
its direction. They pathed the forest; they cleaned the plains of their rich
grass, they drank up the surplus water, and were it not that the land in
which they roamed was so boundless, depletion, destruction and death would
have been the unavoidable consequence.
And yet, notwithstanding that
this country did abound in all that we have described, in its munificence of
food and fur-bearing life, and notwithstanding that alongside with these
great resources, the lakes and rivers were teeming with fish, yet
nevertheless the aboriginal man had his periods of starvation. Sore and dire
famine would cover the land in localities. The moose, where were they? The
elk seemed to disappear. Rabbits became scarce. With them the lynx were
rare, and the buffalo remained out oil plains, and were unreachable to men
situate as these Indians were in the beginning of the last century.
Contemporaneous with these conditions tribal war was constant. Spring and
fall men everywhere were active on the war-path. The Cree and Salteaux
gathered up their hosts and went south and west, seeking their hereditary
foes, the Sioux and Blackfeet and Bloods and Piegans and Sarcees, who in
their turn came northward and eastward hunting their enemies, the Crees and
Salteaux. Scalps and slaves and plunder and glory were the ambitions of the
people. To start from the Swan River and to travel south and west onto the
plains bordering on the Missouri, or up to the foot- hills of Montana, or
into what is now Southern Alberta, would be the experience of many all
belonging to the tribe of White Buffalo.
Just about this time, or a little previous,
horses became a strong factor and incentive on these war expeditions. From
the beginning of the Spanish conquest in America, the horse had thrived on
this western hemisphere, and gradually worked its way northward until of the
time we write quite a few of the horse kind were north of the forty-ninth
parallel, and wherever they were seen and their qualities known, men coveted
them, and sought after them eagerly. It became a passion with the red man to
desire to own horses. If taking the scalp of your enemy was meritorious, how
much greater the glory to take his horses! This wonderful animal that would
carry the hunter or warrior on his back, and from which vantage place even
the white bison might he killed; this long-legged Mistatim, or big dog, who
could carry as much as ten ordinary dogs, why it was great glory to bring
him from the plains of Missouri, even to the plains of the Assiniboine and
the Swan. As late as in the sixties and early seventies, it was common to
say: "Bringing them in"
and not "stealing" horses.
The gossip between the lodges never spoke of
''stealing" horses—he "brought them in," "they ran them in." "Did you see
that bunch of horses? He just now brought them home."
No imputation of theft was thought of. It was a
meritorial act. Such feats of cunning, and skill, and acts of daring as were
accomplished in running off another man's horses, were lauded and placed the
actor away above par among his fellows. To have brought many scalps home
made the warrior wonderfully conspicuous, and repeatedly to return from the
land of the enemy with bands of horses gave the hero prominence and respect
among his fellows. |
