The Project Gutenberg EBook of Dahcotah, by Mary Eastman

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Title: Dahcotah Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling

Author: Mary Eastman

Release Date: January 22, 2004 [EBook #10794]

Language: English

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Produced by Lee Dawei, Charlie Kirschner and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team from images generously made available by the Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions.

DAHCOTAH;

OR,

LIFE AND LEGENDS OF THE SIOUX

AROUND FORT SNELLING.

BY MRS. MARY EASTMAN,

WITH

PREFACE BY MRS. C. M. KIRKLAND.

ILLUSTRATED FROM DRAWINGS BY CAPTAIN EASTMAN.

TO HENRY SIBLEY, ESQ.,

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

It was my purpose to dedicate, exclusively, these pages to my beloved parents. What correctness of sentiment appears in this book is mainly ascribable to a principle they endeavored to instil into the minds of their children, that purity of heart and intellectual attainment are never more appropriately exercised than in promoting the good of our fellow-creatures.

Yet the sincere sentiments of respect and regard that I entertain for you, the remembrance of the many acts of friendship received from you during my residence at Fort Snelling, and the assurance that you are ever prompt to assist and protect the Indian, induce me to unite your name with those most dear to me in this dedication.

An additional inducement is, that no one knows better than yourself the opportunities that presented themselves to collect materials for these legends, and with what interest these occasions were improved. With whatever favor this little work may be received it is a most pleasing reflection to me, that the object in publishing it being to excite attention to the moral wants of the Dahcotahs, will be kindly appreciated by the friends of humanity, and by none more readily than yourself.

Very truly yours,

MARY H. EASTMAN.

New London, March lst, 1849.

PREFACE.

My only title to the office of editor in the present case is some practice in such matters, with a very warm interest in all, whether relating to past or present, that concerns our western country. Mrs. Eastman,—wife of Captain Eastman, and daughter of Dr. Henderson, both of the U. S. army,—is thoroughly acquainted with the customs, superstitions, and leading ideas of the Dahcotahs, whose vicinity to Fort Snelling, and frequent intercourse with its inmates, have brought them much under the notice of the officers and ladies of the garrison. She has no occasion to present the Indian in a theatrical garb—a mere thing of paint and feathers, less like the original than his own rude delineation on birch-bark or deer-skin. The reader will find in the following pages living men and women, whose feelings are in many respects like his own, and whose motives of action are very similar to those of the rest of the world, though far less artfully covered up and disguised under pleasant names. "Envy, hatred and malice, and all uncharitableness," stand out, unblushing, in Indian life. The first is not called emulation, nor the second just indignation or merited contempt, nor the third zeal for truth, nor the fourth keen discernment of character. Anger and revenge are carried out honestly to their natural fruit—injury to others. Among the Indians this takes the form of murder, while with us it is obliged to content itself with slander, or cunning depreciation. In short, the study of Indian character is the study of the unregenerate human heart; and the writer of these sketches of the Dahcotahs presents it as such, with express and solemn reference to the duty of those who have "the words of eternal life" to apply them to the wretched condition of the red man, who is, perhaps, with all his ignorance, quite as well prepared to receive them as many of those who are already wise in their own eyes. The very degradation and misery in which he lives, and of which he is not unable to perceive some of the causes, prepare him to welcome the instruction which promises better things. Evils which are covered up under the smoothness of civilization, stand out in all their horrible deformity in the abandon of savage life; the Indian cannot get even one gleam of light, without instantly perceiving the darkness around him. Here, then, is encouragement to paint him as he is, that the hearts of the good may be moved at his destitute and unhappy state; to set forth his wants and his claims, that ignorance may no longer be pleaded as an excuse for withholding, from the original proprietor of the soil, the compensation or atonement which is demanded at once by justice, honor, and humanity.

Authentic pictures of Indian life have another and a different value, in a literary point of view. In the history and character of the aborigines is enveloped all the distinct and characteristic poetic material to which we, as Americans, have an unquestioned right. Here is a peculiar race, of most unfathomable origin, possessed of the qualities which have always prompted poetry, and living lives which are to us as shadowy as those of the Ossianic heroes; our own, and passing away—while we take no pains to arrest their fleeting traits or to record their picturesque traditions. Yet we love poetry; are ambitious of a literature of our own, and sink back dejected when we are convicted of imitation. Why is it that we lack interest in things at home? Sismondi has a passage to this effect:—

"The literature of other countries has been frequently adopted by a young nation with a sort of fanatical admiration. The genius of those countries having been so often placed before it as the perfect model of all greatness and all beauty, every spontaneous movement has been repressed, in order to make room for the most servile imitation; and every national attempt to develop an original character has been sacrificed to the reproduction of something conformable to the model which has been always before its eyes."

This is certainly true of us, since we not only adopt the English view of everything, but confine ourselves to the very subjects and imagery which have become consecrated to us by love and habit. Not to enter into the general subject of our disposition to parrotism, our neglect of Indian material in particular may be in part accounted for, by our having become acquainted with the aborigines after the most unpoetical fashion, in trying to cheat them out of their lands, or shooting them when they declined being cheated; they, in their turn, driven to the resource of the weak and the ignorant, counterplotting us, and taking, by means of blood and fire, what we would not give them in fair compensation. This has made our business relations very unpleasant; and everybody knows that when this becomes the case, it is hard for parties to do justice to each other's good or available qualities. If we had only