The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1881-03-31

Amodern chief, in white mans wide-awake
And Christian breeches.
Reckless of title-deeds and forms of law.
Whatever slope or wood.side suits his squaw
And 1.-the papooses.
Why not? The owners of the land were red.
vnoraver ra0Gd HOLDING & don0}ph n 0} heast or spread
The eagles pinion'
And privileged until they welcomed here
Their iair-taced brother,
To hunt at will, sometimes the bear and deer,
Sometimes each other
How often to this lake. down yonder dark
The painted warriors sailed in fleets of bark.
With bow i.-d quiverl
This lank-hared cheftain is their child, and heir
. To great nation,
And well might fix, you fancy, anywhere
Has he too come to hunt the bear and deer.
To trap the otter?
Alasl there's no such creature stirring here,
On land or water.
To have little traffic with the town,
Once more he chooses
The ancient camping place. and brings his brown
Squaw and papooses.
No tent was here in yeser-evening's hush;
But the day, dawning, .
Transfgures with faint, roseate flush,
His dingy awning
The camp smoke curling in the misty light,
And canvas slantlng
To the green earth, all this is something quite
Fresh and enchanting;
Viewed not too closely, lest the glancing wings,
Soft colofs Of romance, give place to things
Not quite SO pleasant
The gossamers Fstening on the dewy turf;
The LISP PlI9 9nd tin tinkle drn tb r.c,d
Breaks on the Single;
The shimmering birches BY the rippling cove;
r, irsh l ,iG breeze eel bringing 1Id -, or
The thrushes singing.
Make the day sweet. But other sight and sound
You find, as YOU approach their camping ground
And reeking skillet.
The il-feq cugs rush out with wolhsh bark;
slim young girl LEAFS uP, smooth limbed and dark
AS a bronze statue.
A bare papoose about the campfire poles
And on the ,roUnd hcra, by the blazing Goals,
Sits the Old grandam.
wrinkled and lean her skirt matted rag,
OF beadsand hedgehog quills. the smoke-dried hac
Squats in her squalor, a
Dressing marmot which the boys have shot;
., Which done, she seizes
With tawnr claws, and drOs into the rot
The raw red pieces.
The chief m 3anwhile has in some mischief found
Who know. too wclf alas! that he is bound
To have birching.
The stole of the woods, storm and unmoved
~ La : the Eight lash
Tickling the liycl ankles i'll app loved
Fahcrly iasbIon.
The boy sinks off, a wiser oy, inJieed---
And is this Tsei MS i Sn9 FoF1ft Si 1i IL m e road
The.,nqial warrior:
Where han Ds " 2@G"Ef saE " 6afc. TIL 'p' of tall
Why, bless on. p, his iand is not at all
That kind nj fPatt
In ceasing to be savagcs, they chose
- . 10 iUt away things
That suit &c savage; even those hickory bows
Are merely play things.
For common use he rather likes, think.
The white mans rifle,
Hatchet an blanket and OF white mans drink,
fear Il trife.
With neighhors' scalp-locks, and such bagatelles,
He never NEEDLESS
BOWS baskets tI and hardly know what else,
He makes and peddles.
Quite civilized, you see. Is he aware
Does he, for all the white mans love and care,
reel proper gratitude?
Feathers and warpaint he no more enjoys;
-, But he is lrOuder
OF long-tailed coat, and boots, and corduroys.
And white mans powder.
And he can trade his mink and musquash skins
. Baskets OF wicker,
For white mans trinkets; bows and moccasns
FOR white mans liquor.
His Maniton III, is passing, with each strange.
uo hoe d., Wild superstition;
he mas the indian agent for change,
And Indian mission.
He owns his cabin and potato patch,
,, And farms little.
lndustriousl Quite when there arc fish to catch,
or shafts to whittle
Though all about him, like rising deep,
1roho Flows the white nation,
His Reservation. '
Placed with his tribe in such a paradise,
lis past believing
That they should still be given to petty vice
Ireachery and theving
Incentives to renounce their Indian tricks
,,,,,, Are surely ample,
WIN "hiG F1E iaas HER eiy S,1io and politics
But are they happier now than when, some night,
OF tufted warriors sailed forth to fight
The fierce Dakotas?
Still under that sedate impassive port,
That dun demeanor,
spirit waits, demon sleeps---in short,
The same red sinner
Within those inky pools, his eyes, see
Revenge and pillage
The midnight massacre that yet may be.
Inc blazing village.
When will b BE- e mend his wicked ways, indeed.
XIII more humanely---
Depart and leave to US the lands we need7
To put it plainly
Yet in our dealings with his race in crimes
,, -, Of war and ravage,
Who is the Christian one might ask sometrnes
And who the savage?
His traits are ours seen in dusky glass,
And but remind us
OF heathenlsm we hardly yet, alas!
Have left behind us.
Is right for white race wrong for black and red,
What hue soeYer, after ali that's said,
Is simply human
Viewed from the smoke and misery Of his dim
Civilization,
How seems, ID like to ask---how seems to him
The proud Caucasian?
! shape the question as he sannters nigh.
- But shame to ask it.
we turn to price his wares instead, and buy,
Perhaps, basket
But this is strangel man without pretense
- VI Wit or reading
Where did he get that calm intelligence,
That plain good-breeding?
With him long patience fortitude unspent,
s,,,.r,., -, n.,ntaught sagacity;,.
culture with us, the curse of discomfort,
Prlde and rapacity.
Something We gain of him and bear away
Beside our purchase
"eslook awhile upon the quiYering bay
Ana shimmer1ng birches--
some SesSy esSTRs up from the canoes
Along the beach picturesque papoose
Splashing and wading;
The withered crone, the camp smokes slow ascent
-,.-, Ihe puhs that blind her;
The Rlrl, her sllhouette on the sun-lit tent
Shadowed behind her;
The stalwaEt brave. watching his burdened wife.
Erect and stolid; '
We look, and think with pity of q life