Indian Stories Retold From St. Nicholas

SOME INDIAN DOLLS

AMONG the wild Indians of our country is surely the last place one would look for toys, and travelers have said they had none; but a closer look brings some to light. On the desk before me sit two dear creatures, just arrived from Dakota Territory. They were made by some loving mother of the Gros Ventre tribe of Indians. But the unfortunate little redskin girl for whom they were intended never received them after all, for they were bought by a white man, and sent to New York to sit for their picture for you.

They are a queer-looking pair, dressed in the most elegant Gros Ventre style. They are eighteen inches tall, made of cloth, with their noses sewed on, and their faces well colored; not only made red, like the skin, but with painted features. The Indian doll has a gentle expression, with mild eyes, but the squaw has a wild look, as though she were very much scared to find herself in a white man's tepee. Both have long hair in a braid over each ear, but the brave has also a quantity hanging down his back, and a crest standing up on top – perhaps as "scalp-lock."

The dress of the lady resembles, in style and material, a bathing-suit. It is of blue flannel, trimmed with red braid, a long blouse and leggings of the same. She has also moccasins, and a string of blue beads around her neck, besides little dots of beads all over her waist. The suit of the warrior is similar in style, but the blouse is of unbleached muslin, daubed with streaks of red paint, and trimmed with braid, also red. Across his breast he wears an elaborate ornament of white beads, gorgeous to behold.

Beside these Gros Ventre dolls stand another pair, from a Canada tribe; the squaw dragging a six-inch-long toboggan loaded with tent and poles, while the warrior carries his snow-shoes. She is dressed in red and black flannel, with calico blouse and cloth hood; tin bracelets are on her arms, and her breast bears an ornament like a dinner-plate, also of tin. Her lord and master wears a dandyish suit of white canton-flannel, fuzzy side out, a calico shirt, red necktie, and likewise a hood and tin dinner-plate. They are made of wood, with joints at hip and shoulder, and the faces are carved and painted. Wild dolls are curious and interesting. Let me tell you of a few others I have seen.

The little Moquis girls have wooden dolls of different sizes and degrees. The best have arms and legs, are dressed in one garment of coarse cotton, and instead of hair have feathers sticking out of their heads, like the ends of a feather duster.

A lower grade of Moquis doll has no limbs, but is gaily painted in stripes, and wears beads as big as its fist would be, if it had one. This looks as you would with a string of oranges around your neck. The poorest of all, which has evidently been loved by some poor little Indian girl, has in place of a head a sprig of evergreen. How did the white man get hold of a treasure like this? Is the little owner grown up? Is she laid to sleep under the daisies? Or was this doll left behind in a hurried flight of the Moquis village before an enemy?

It isn't an Edison doll; it can't talk, – so we shall never know.

THE WALKING PURCHASE

IN the early twilight of a September morning, more than one hundred and sixty years ago, a remarkable company might have been seen gathering about a large chestnut-tree at the cross-roads near the Friends' meeting-house in Wrightstown, Pennsylvania. It is doubtful whether any one of us could have guessed what the meeting meant. Most of the party were Quakers in wide-brimmed hats and plain dress, and if it had been First-day instead of Third-day, we might have thought they were gathering under the well-known tree for a neighborly chat before "meeting." Nor was it a warlike rendezvous; for the war-cry of the Lenni-Lenape had never yet been raised against the "Children of Mignon" (Elder Brother), as the followers of William Penn were called; and in a little group somewhat apart were a few athletic Indians in peaceful garb and friendly attitude. But it evidently was an important meeting, for here were several prominent officials, including even so notable a person as Proprietor Thomas Penn.

In 1686, fifty-one years before this, William Penn bought from the Lenni-Lenape, or Delaware Indians, a section bounded on the east by the Delaware, on the west by the Neshaminy, and extending to the north from his previous purchases "as far as a man can go in a day and a half." No effort was made to fix the northern boundary until the Indians, becoming uneasy at the encroachments of the settlers, asked to have the line definitely marked. On August 25, 1737, after several conferences between the Delawares and William Penn's sons, John and Thomas, who, after their father's death, became proprietors of Pennsylvania, the treaty of 1686 was confirmed, and a day was appointed for beginning the walk. This explains why the crowd was gathering about the old chestnut-tree in the early dawn of that day, September 19, 1737.

"Ready!" called out Sheriff Smith.

At the word, James Yeates, a native of New England, "tall, slim, of much ability and speed of foot," Solomon Jennings, "a remarkably stout and strong man," and Edward Marshall, a well-known hunter, over six feet tall, and noted as a walker, stepped from the crowd and placed their right hands upon the tree.

Thomas Penn had promised five pounds in money and five hundred acres of land to the walker who covered the greatest distance; and these three men were to contest for the prize. Just as the edge of the sun showed above the horizon, Sheriff Smith gave the word, and the race began.

Yeates quickly took up the lead, stepping lightly. Then came Jennings, accompanied by two Indians, who were there to see that the walking was fairly done. Closely following them were men on horseback, including the sheriff and the surveyor-general. Thomas Penn himself followed the party for some distance. Far in the rear came Marshall, walking in a careless manner, swinging a hatchet in one hand, "to balance himself," and at intervals munching a dry biscuit, of which he carried a small supply. He seemed to have forgotten a resolution he had made to "win the prize of five hundred acres of land, or lose his life in the attempt."

Thomas Penn had secretly sent out a preliminary party to blaze the trees along the line of the walk for as great a distance as it was thought possible for a man to walk in eighteen hours. So, when the wilderness was reached, the walkers still had the best and most direct course clearly marked out for them. The Indians soon protested against the speed, saying over and over: "That's not fair. You run. You were to walk." But the treaty said, "As far as a man can go," and the walkers were following it in letter, if not in spirit, as they hurried along. Their protests being disregarded, the Indians endeavored to delay the progress by stopping to rest; but the white men dismounted, and allowed the Indians to ride, and thus pushed on as rapidly as ever. At last the Indians refused to go any farther, and left the party.

Before Lehigh River was reached Jennings was exhausted, gave up the race, and lagged behind in the company of followers. His health was shattered, and he lived only a few years.

That night the party slept on the north side of the Lehigh Mountains, half a mile from the Indian village of Hokendauqua. Next morning, while some of the party searched for the horses which had strayed away during the night, others went to the village to request Lappawinzoe, the chief, to send other Indians to accompany the walkers. He angrily replied: "You have all the good land now, and you may as well take the bad, too." One old Indian, indignant at the stories of how the white men rushed along in their greed to get as much land as possible, remarked in a tone of deep disgust: "No sit down to smoke; no shoot squirrel; but lun, lun, lun, all day long."

Scarcely had the last half-day's walk begun before Yeates, who was a drinking man, was overcome by the tremendous exertions and intemperance of the previous day. He stumbled at the edge of Big Creek, and rolled, helpless, down the bank into the water. When rescued he was entirely blind, and his death followed within three days.

Marshall still pressed on. Passing the last of the blazed trees which had hitherto guided him, he seized a compass offered by Surveyor-General Eastburn, and by its aid still continued his onward course. At last, Sheriff Smith, who for some time had frequently looked at his watch, called, "Halt!" Marshall instantly threw himself at full length, and grasped a sapling. Here was the starting-point for the northern boundary of the purchase of 1686, sixty-eight miles from the old chestnut-tree at Wrightstown, and very close to where Mauch Chunk stands to-day. The walk was twice as long as the Indians expected it to be.

Unfortunately for the Delawares, they knew too little of legal technicalities to notice that the deed did not state in what direction the northern boundary was to be drawn. They naturally expected it to be drawn to the nearest point on the Delaware. But the surveyor-general, to please Penn, decided that the line should run at right angles to the direction of the walk, which was almost exactly northwest. Draw a line from Mauch Chunk to the Delaware so that if extended it would pass through New York city, and another to the point where New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania meet. The first is the Indian's idea of the just way to lay out the northern boundary; the second is the line which Surveyor-General Eastburn actually finished marking out in four days after Marshall's walk ended.

And so the three hundred thousand acres which the Indians would have given to the Penns as the result of Marshall's walk were increased to half a million by taking selfish advantage of a flaw in the deed.

The Lenni-Lenape had loved and trusted William Penn because he always dealt openly and fairly with them. "We will live in love with William Penn and his children," said they, "as long as the sun and moon shall shine." But the wrongs inflicted on them in the "walking purchase" aroused the deepest indignation. "Next May," said Lappawinzoe, "we will go to Philadelphia, each one with a buckskin to repay the presents and take back our land again." It was too late, however, for this to be done.

At last, in 1741, the Indians determined to resort to arms to secure justice. But the Iroquois, to whom the Delawares had long been subject, came to the aid of the Penns, and the last hope of righting the wrong was gone forever.

There seems a sort of poetic justice in the later experiences of the principal men in the affair. Marshall never got his five hundred acres of land, and his wife was killed in an attack by the Indians. Eastburn was repudiated by Thomas Penn, and his heirs were notified that they "need not expect the least favor." Penn himself was brought before the king and forced to disown many of his acts and agents in a most humiliating manner.

But all this did not repair the injury to the Delawares, and they never again owned, as a tribe, a single inch along the river from which they took their name.

A small monument, erected by the Bucks County Historical Society, marks the spot where the old chestnut-tree formerly stood. In order that this might not seem to condone an unworthy deed, the monument was dedicated, not to those who made or conducted the walk, but to the Lenni-Lenape Indians – "not to the wrong, but to the persons wronged."

The inscription on the stone reads:

THE FIRST AMERICANS

IN the middle of the sixteenth century, when the Spaniards who had followed Columbus and Cortes to the New World worked their way northward into the region that is now New Mexico and Arizona, they found to their surprise a people dwelling there in well-constructed, flat-roofed houses of stone. They gave to these people the name of Pueblos, or villagers, to distinguish them from the wild tribes; and by this name they have been known in general ever since, though each village and cluster of villages has its distinctive title.

The Pueblos, instead of roaming about, subsisting on chance game, cultivated Indian corn so largely that they ordinarily were able to store a supply to provide against the possibility of future famine; and such is still their custom. Not only had they made this progress in agriculture and architecture, but they had also done something in the way of manufacturing, especially in the making of pottery and weaving of blankets. Their pottery was varied in shape and ornamentation and skilfully modeled without the aid of a wheel. Of the potter's wheel they are ignorant to this day, still following the practice of their forefathers in this matter as in many others. Their blankets of cotton were unique in their designs; and these designs are perpetuated to-day in woolen material, as well as in cotton, though the latter is now used principally in the sacred ceremonies.

Those towns nearest to Santa Fé (which itself was originally a Pueblo village and is, probably, the oldest town inhabited by white people in the United States) came most directly under the influence of the Spaniards. They made Santa Fé their seat of government, and gradually many Spanish customs prevailed among the natives in this part of the country. The Spanish priests, following the army of invasion, soon made converts, and eventually the barbarous rites of the people in the towns near Santa Fé were abolished in favor of Christianity. Churches of adobe, or sun-dried brick, were erected, and the Christian religion was in time accepted by numerous communities.

The towns at a distance were not so easy of access, and hence longer maintained their independence, supporting and favoring the smoldering discontent of those in other localities whose prejudices or patriotism resented the Spanish dominion. These native patriots believed the salvation of their country demanded the expulsion of these domineering foreigners from their land. We cannot blame them for thus regarding the Spaniards, for we should certainly resent any interference by foreign powers with our affairs, and the Pueblos were, in many respects, a civilized people and had governed themselves for centuries before the Spaniards appeared in their territories. Secretly, these patriots worked to arouse their fellow-countrymen against the intruders, hoping to succeed in a revolution which should annihilate the Spanish power and restore the ancient rites and customs. Several of these conspiracies were discovered by the Spanish Governor-General, and the conspirators paid for their patriotism with their lives; but, in a few years, others took their places, and while peace seemed to smile on all the land, a volcano was seething under the very feet of the invaders.

There had been so much internal dissension among the Pueblos over religion and over water-privileges (often a matter of the utmost importance in those arid lands) before the arrival of the Spaniards, that concerted action must have been difficult to bring about; but at last, near the end of the seventeenth century, there was a mighty uprising, the foreigners were driven out of the country, and retreated into Mexico, and those villages which had been under the Spanish yoke revived their native ceremonies, which had been in disuse for a full century.

Meanwhile the Spaniards were not content to let slip so easily this accession to their king's domain. Collecting a stronger army, General Vargas returned, and conquered village after village, until the rebellion was extinguished for all time. Never since that day have the Pueblos shown a warlike spirit, having accepted their subjugation as inevitable. They were made citizens by Spain, but since their territory became a portion of the United States they have ranked politically with the other Indians. The last locality to be brought under subjection was the Province of Tusayan, the home of the Mokis.