Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1906-03-19

|young girls end boys. The warriors,
between thirty and forty in number,
were gorgeous in all their war paint
and feathers, and they formed an in.
ner circle, in the center Of which was
an old squaw holding aloft on long
pole the scalp. The warriors were
formed one behind the other and so
close together that no one could pass
between any two. They slowly
moved around the old squaw with the
scalp and kept up continual chant,
every few minutes giving vent to
piercing whoops, at the expiration of
which the squaw, in her turn,
violently shook the pole and gave a
few wild screeches. Occasionally one
of the warriors in the ring turned his
face toward us, gave a sardonic grin,
shook his fist at the scalp and yelled,
Sioux, damn -" Tin language not
to be printed), and which evidently
was the extent of his English vocab-
ulary.
The chanting of the braves had for
its accompaniment the incessant noise
of tin kettles and pans, beaten by the
squaws and children Fires were
! kept going, and it seemed to us as
we stood there, watching through the
smoke the moving figures with their
painted faces and listening to the I'M
ceasing noise of their kettles as it
came to our ears, that we had been
suddenly transported to a scene from
the Internal regions.
! One brave who had been shot in the
i fight when the scalp was taken, was
the hero of the occasion. He was
mounted on box near by and attend
ed by several squaws, and proudly ex-
hibited severe flesh wound.
I saw this ceremony 6or two even
ings, with no apparent change of the
program noticeable to us. On the
morning after the last dance the
scalp was, with great ceremony, es-
corted to a steamer going up the
! river, and taken to the HEADQUARTERS
of the tribe at Fort Berthold, where it
was placed with their ether trophies.
The Rees We're, before the dances,
in mourning for the loss of one of
their braves killed sometime before
in fight with the Sioux Indians, and
the period of their mourning was to
continue till Sioux scalp could be
taken in battle and certain ceremonies
took place.
Another interesting incident at
Lincoln was the case of a sick Indian
for whom the post surgeon prescribed.
He became worse, much to the
surgeons surprise, and it was limited
that the surgeons prescription was
disregarded, and the medicine man"
was treating the suffering warrior.
An investigation brought out the fact
| that the drugs prescribed by the
surgeon had never been taken, but
that the medicine man. had forced a
nail under the skin just behind the
ear. This had caused festered sore.
The nail was removed and the IN
! valid rapidly recovered.
Before the expedition left Fort Rice
medical survey was held and some
enlisted men and two officers were
found physically unfit to undertake
the hardships of the summers cam
paign. One of the officers was a
peculiar character. He was very
intelligent man, we'll educated. Be-
fore the Rebellion he had been Judge
of federal court in one of the terri
tories and a member of congress. He
was left at Fort Rice in command of
the camp of laundresses and such en-
listed men as were not permitted to
go with the expedition. He started a
small farm. His crops were growing
nicely and promised a big harvest,
when countless number of grass
hoppers appeared and everything in
sight was devoured by the pests. Fol,
lowing the hoppers came flocks OF
| blackbirds that became fat on a grass.
hopper diet. Then a happy idea
came to Colonel - ------- He pro
cured shotgun, gathered in as many
OF the birds as he wanted and made
a potpies of them. He afterwards said:
"The 49, hoppers came along, by
- -, and ate my garden, by -, then
j the birds ate the hoppers, by -
and we killed and ate the birds, by
-; so that we were even in the
/ long run, by. ----- -. The reader may
1 put in the. proper explosives.
d ] recall hail storm narrative, told
i by an officer of the Sixth Infantry
4 His company did not join the main
4 command at Fort Rice, but was te
meet It q few marches out. The com
pany was caught in hail storm. II
n was a typical western sforn, diffarinc