The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-04-13
COURAGE OF INDIAN WOMEN.
How It is Unceasingly Displayed

While the popular belief that the In-
 dian wife is merely an unreckoned
 quantity in the affairs of her tribe and
 nation, a slave and drudge for her
 warrior husband, has some Foundation,
 the rule has many exceptions.
 That the squaw should perform the
 most of the daily. labor about the camp
 and wigwam, while the brave takes his
 ease, in order to be fresh and strong for
 the long hunting trip or the, hardships
 of the warpath, seen in accord with the
 natural fitness of things in Indian
 philosophy and the squaw performs her task willingly and without a murmur. But let her lord and master assume too arbitrary hand or heap too many indignities upon her, and there is im-
 mediately such a domestic war in the
 camp that he is not likely soon to for
 get it. Never will the writer forget an instance of this kind which he wit
 messed one night in the upper Columbia River country, about six years ago. He
 had pitched his tent near an Indian en-
 eampment, in plain view and with reasonable earshot of the redskin band,
 and along in the evening his attention was called to the fact that some un- usual commotien was going on among | his neighbors. The light of several l campdres made everything plainly wis., l ible, and, sitting upon a convenient log l in front of his tent, he observed high ly interesting and rather amusing ! spectacle.
 One of the warriors had incurred the displeasure of his patient squaw. and 1 was manfully trying to bluff the matter 1 out, with overawing sternness and dignity commensurate with his personal greatness as a noted brave l and the lord and master, of his house. hold.
 But the more he tried to overawe her 1 the fiercer and more defiant became the ! wrathful squaw, until, suddenly with a ! wicked looking knife, she leaped into l the open space in front of the circle of | wigwams, and, throwing her blanket from her shoulders, stamped it into the ground in spiteful impetuosity. Then l squaring herself like Roman gIadia- tor, she proceeded to hurl such a
 mighty and scathing. trade of abuse and defiance at the whole Indian camp that all withdrew to q respectful distance. not one venturing to make a
 movement while she had the floor. For two hours she stood there, pour | ing forth her long pert up emotions in | the light of the campfires, her sinewy form and wrathful countenance mak- ing a weird picture of ferocity; for two l hours, without F. g. moments inter- ] mission, and such tremendous and scorching harangue from human lips l the writer never expects to hear again. Finally she brought her pyrotechnio oratory to a lurid and wonderfully impressive climax; then, gathering up 1 her spurned and bedraggled blanket, ! she strode to her wigwarn with tread | comparable to that of an lntamed lion-
 ess. Not another word was heard from | MT. Brave, and a modest silence en- l veloped the whole Indian camp for the sainder of the night.
 In point of personal bravery the squaw is often far from being the in- 1 ferior of her lawful mate. The annals ] of the West are full of instances of her courage. Many times during the 1 fierce Sioux wars in the Black Hills 1 region detachments of warriors were
 saved from destruction by the bravery I and stratagen1 of some of their squaws. l One of these occasions was when a gentle eyed pleasant faced maiden 1 Louise, afterward the wife of Sitting Bull saved the great chief and a hun 1 dred of his braves from annihilation by
 running fearful gantlet of death and bringing help to the besieged warriors
 in the very teeth of a perfect hailstorm l of bullets and arrows.
 This dauntless spirit is seen in very marked degree in the Indian women of all the Northwestern tribes, and par