A sight to behold
by Doug Crowe
Francis Parkman was a Boston-born, Harvard graduate. Fascinated by stories of the Plains Indians, he came west in 1846 at the tender age of 23.
He traveled up the Platte to Fort Laramie, where he made contact with a band of Sioux. In their company, Parkman crossed the Laramie Range to Laramie Basin and the foothills of the Medicine Bow Mountains.
For several months, he traveled and hunted and feasted with this band. He kept a diary of this adventure, which he published in 1849 under the title “The Oregon Trail.”
No other author of my acquaintance has, from firsthand knowledge, so vividly captured the appearance, behavior, habit, dress and ceremony of the Sioux as they existed prior to the tide of immigrants into the West and the consequent shattering of Native American Plains cultures.
For example, just listen to what Parkman has to say about such a routine thing as moving camp:
"At daybreak I saw that a movement was contemplated. Some of the lodges were reduced to nothing but bare skeletons of poles; the leather covering of others was flapping in the wind as the squaws pulled it off.
“One by one the lodges were sinking down in rapid succession, and where the great circle of the village had been only a few moments before, nothing now remained but a ring of horses and Indians, crowded in confusion together.
“The ruins of the lodges were spread over the ground, together with kettles, stone mallets, great ladles of horn, buffalo-robes and cases of painted hide, filled with dried meat.
“The shaggy horses were patiently standing while the lodge poles were lashed to their sides, and the baggage piled upon their backs. The dogs, with tongues lolling out, lay lazily panting, and waiting for the time of departure.
“Each warrior sat on the ground by the decaying embers of his fire, unmoved among the confusion, holding in his hand the long trail-rope of his horse.
“As their preparations were completed, each family moved off the ground. I mounted and set off with them. Gaining the top of a hill, we found a deep declivity before us.
“There was not a minute's pause. The whole descended in a mass, amid dust and confusion. The horses braced their feet as they slid down, women and children screamed, dogs yelped as they were trodden upon, while stones and earth went rolling to the bottom.
“As I waited on the hill, the whole village came into view below, straggling away for a mile or more over the barren plains. Everywhere glittered the iron points of lances. The sun never shone upon a more strange array.
“Here were the heavy-laden pack-horses, some wretched old woman leading them, and two or three children clinging to their backs. Here were mules or ponies covered from head to tail with gaudy trappings, and mounted by some gay young squaw, grinning bashfulness and pleasure as the young men looked at her.
“Boys with miniature bows and arrows wandered over the plains, little naked children ran along on foot, and numberless dogs scampered among the feet of the horses.
“Here and there you might see a rank of sturdy pedestrians stalking along in their white buffalo-robes. These were the dignitaries of the village, the old men and warriors, to whose age and experience that wandering democracy yielded a silent deference.
“With the rough prairie and the broken hills for its background, the restless scene was striking and picturesque beyond description.
“Days and weeks made me familiar with it, but never impaired its effect upon my fancy."
I daresay witnessing such an event would have the same effect upon my fancy. Unfortunately, no such opportunity has or ever will be available to you and me. Who do we see about that?