The Sully County watchman. (Clifton, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1894, 1888-10-20
STORIES ABOUT INDIANS.
Grave Popular Errors in Regard to the
Red Man Corrected.

If an Indian is killed in quarrel
his relatives are usually appeased by n
payment, says writer in Forest and
Stream. | remember once an over
bearing young Assinaboine buck came
into the Mill River Agency and bent
his bow and arrow on the agents pet
dog. The agent warned him that if he
shot the dog he would kill the Indian.
The young mau shot his arrow; the
agent killed him. We expected to have
some trouble, but the grief stricken
father came forward on behalf of the
relatives, and claimed that, in consider
alton of the young man being such n
good buffalo-runner, the agent must
pay for the loss of such person red
blanket, n piece of calico and four
pounds of sugar. He complied with
their demands, but the vengeful rela-
tives thereafter adopted him rs their
banker. The mother and other rela-
tives of the slain young man scarcely
ever met the agent without embracing
him, and, with endearing epithets, beg
ging for something more in remem-
brancc of the good buffalo-runner.
No gifted funeral orator can equal
or convey the impression of the ten
derness, the exulting pride or the
gloomy despair expressed by the un-
taught savage in this mere act of for
mality. An Indian, man or woman,
will be laughing and dancing; in n
moment the merry circle will be left,
and the next moment the same person
will lift up his voice in heart-breaking
accents, the plaintive notes will weep
,F fn1 IN,
startling defiance and war will breathe
with fierce energy the deeds of the
silent dead; then rs the sorrowful recol-
lections, inspired by the fate of the
fallen relative, the high pean sinks to
such supplicating despair as suggests
lost spirit lamenting its dismal fate.
And all this Is mere formality, for the
next moment the weeper may be the
merriest of the laughing throng.
OF all misunderstood and misrepre-
sented people | consider the North
American Indian the most so. By
some he has been painted as an in
carnate fiend; by others he has been
represented rs sage and stole, his
mind stored with philosophy, in de-
mcanor grave, taciturn and delighting
in solitude; his body capable of great
endurance, and his spirit sustained
by unilinching courage. BY such
wrestling, twisting and misrepresenta-
ton rs would make poem out of the
multiplication table, or IN allegorv out
of n problem of Euclid. his childish
fetishism has blossomed into a sublime
theology. His myths, which are like
the dreamings of insanity, are re-
modelled to resemble legends of the
lives of the saints, with dash of the
Arabian Nights. With language of
but little more than hundred
woods he has become the author of
sublime poems. dealing with abstract
and complex. Even gentleman of the
Masonic fraternity have discovered
that he has anticipated the signs and
secrets of their order. He is described
as stoical, yet it is an everyday affair
To sec a ful-grown Indian buck sit
down, lift up his voice and weep over
the most tritling disappointment. He
is called tacitnrn and loving solitude,
and yet he will chatter like magpie;
gossip is his principal business in life,
and he will ride for miles to be the
first TO tell any news; while there are not
sufficient inducements on this whirling
! globe to induce him to live solitary for
IL single month. He is supposed to be
naturally brave and physically strong,
but he is not, nor does he pretend,
even TO himself TO be, either.