The party enters the mountain gorge—A wild fastness among hills—Mountain mutton—Peace and plenty—The amorous trapper—A piebald wedding—A free trapper's wife—Her gala equipments—Christmas in the wilderness.
ON the 19th of December Captain Bonneville and his confederate Indians
raised their camp, and entered the narrow gorge made by the north fork
of Salmon River. Up this lay the secure and plenteous hunting region so
temptingly described by the Indians.
Since leaving Green River the plains had invariably been of loose sand
or coarse gravel, and the rocky formation of the mountains of primitive
limestone. The rivers, in general, were skirted with willows and bitter
cottonwood trees, and the prairies covered with wormwood. In the hollow
breast of the mountains which they were now penetrating, the surrounding
heights were clothed with pine; while the declivities of the lower hills
afforded abundance of bunch grass for the horses.
As the Indians had represented, they were now in a natural fastness of
the mountains, the ingress and egress of which was by a deep gorge, so
narrow, rugged, and difficult as to prevent secret approach or rapid
retreat, and to admit of easy defence. The Blackfeet, therefore,
refrained from venturing in after the Nez Perces, awaiting a better
chance, when they should once more emerge into the open country.
Captain Bonneville soon found that the Indians had not exaggerated the
advantages of this region. Besides the numerous gangs of elk, large
flocks of the ahsahta or bighorn, the mountain sheep, were to be
seen bounding among the precipices. These simple animals were easily
circumvented and destroyed. A few hunters may surround a flock and kill
as many as they please. Numbers were daily brought into camp, and the
flesh of those which were young and fat was extolled as superior to the
finest mutton.
Here, then, there was a cessation from toil, from hunger, and alarm.
Past ills and dangers were forgotten. The hunt, the game, the song, the
story, the rough though good-humored joke, made time pass joyously away,
and plenty and security reigned throughout the camp.
Idleness and ease, it is said, lead to love, and love to matrimony,
in civilized life, and the same process takes place in the wilderness.
Filled with good cheer and mountain mutton, one of the free trappers
began to repine at the solitude of his lodge, and to experience the
force of that great law of nature, "it is not meet for man to live
alone."
After a night of grave cogitation he repaired to Kowsoter, the
Pierced-nose chief, and unfolded to him the secret workings of his
bosom.
"I want," said he, "a wife. Give me one from among your tribe. Not a
young, giddy-pated girl, that will think of nothing but flaunting and
finery, but a sober, discreet, hard-working squaw; one that will share
my lot without flinching, however hard it may be; that can take care of
my lodge, and be a companion and a helpmate to me in the wilderness."
Kowsoter promised to look round among the females of his tribe, and
procure such a one as he desired. Two days were requisite for the
search. At the expiration of these, Kowsoter, called at his lodge, and
informed him that he would bring his bride to him in the course of
the afternoon. He kept his word. At the appointed time he approached,
leading the bride, a comely copper-colored dame attired in her Indian
finery. Her father, mother, brothers by the half dozen and cousins by
the score, all followed on to grace the ceremony and greet the new and
important relative.
The trapper received his new and numerous family connection with proper
solemnity; he placed his bride beside him, and, filling the pipe, the
great symbol of peace, with his best tobacco, took two or three whiffs,
then handed it to the chief who transferred it to the father of the
bride, from whom it was passed on from hand to hand and mouth to mouth
of the whole circle of kinsmen round the fire, all maintaining the most
profound and becoming silence.
After several pipes had been filled and emptied in this solemn
ceremonial, the chief addressed the bride, detailing at considerable
length the duties of a wife which, among Indians, are little less
onerous than those of the pack-horse; this done, he turned to her
friends and congratulated them upon the great alliance she had made.
They showed a due sense of their good fortune, especially when the
nuptial presents came to be distributed among the chiefs and relatives,
amounting to about one hundred and eighty dollars. The company soon
retired, and now the worthy trapper found indeed that he had no green
girl to deal with; for the knowing dame at once assumed the style and
dignity of a trapper's wife: taking possession of the lodge as her
undisputed empire, arranging everything according to her own taste and
habitudes, and appearing as much at home and on as easy terms with the
trapper as if they had been man and wife for years.
We have already given a picture of a free trapper and his horse, as
furnished by Captain Bonneville: we shall here subjoin, as a companion
picture, his description of a free trapper's wife, that the reader
may have a correct idea of the kind of blessing the worthy hunter in
question had invoked to solace him in the wilderness.
"The free trapper, while a bachelor, has no greater pet than his horse;
but the moment he takes a wife (a sort of brevet rank in matrimony
occasionally bestowed upon some Indian fair one, like the heroes of
ancient chivalry in the open field), he discovers that he has a still
more fanciful and capricious animal on which to lavish his expenses.
"No sooner does an Indian belle experience this promotion, than all her
notions at once rise and expand to the dignity of her situation, and the
purse of her lover, and his credit into the bargain, are taxed to the
utmost to fit her out in becoming style. The wife of a free trapper to
be equipped and arrayed like any ordinary and undistinguished squaw?
Perish the grovelling thought! In the first place, she must have a horse
for her own riding; but no jaded, sorry, earth-spirited hack, such as
is sometimes assigned by an Indian husband for the transportation of his
squaw and her pappooses: the wife of a free trader must have the
most beautiful animal she can lay her eyes on. And then, as to his
decoration: headstall, breast-bands, saddle and crupper are lavishly
embroidered with beads, and hung with thimbles, hawks' bells, and
bunches of ribbons. From each side of the saddle hangs an esquimoot,
a sort of pocket, in which she bestows the residue of her trinkets and
nick-nacks, which cannot be crowded on the decoration of her horse or
herself. Over this she folds, with great care, a drapery of scarlet and
bright-colored calicoes, and now considers the caparison of her steed
complete.
"As to her own person, she is even still more extravagant. Her hair,
esteemed beautiful in proportion to its length, is carefully plaited,
and made to fall with seeming negligence over either breast. Her
riding hat is stuck full of parti-colored feathers; her robe, fashioned
somewhat after that of the whites, is of red, green, and sometimes
gray cloth, but always of the finest texture that can be procured.
Her leggings and moccasins are of the most beautiful and expensive
workman-ship, and fitted neatly to the foot and ankle, which with the
Indian woman are generally well formed and delicate. Then as to jewelry:
in the way of finger-rings, ear-rings, necklaces, and other female
glories, nothing within reach of the trapper's means is omitted that can
tend to impress the beholder with an idea of the lady's high estate. To
finish the whole, she selects from among her blankets of various dyes
one of some glowing color, and throwing it over her shoulders with a
native grace, vaults into the saddle of her gay, prancing steed, and
is ready to follow her mountaineer 'to the last gasp with love and
loyalty.'"
Such is the general picture of the free trapper's wife, given by Captain
Bonneville; how far it applied in its details to the one in question
does not altogether appear, though it would seem from the outset of her
connubial career, that she was ready to avail herself of all the pomp
and circumstance of her new condition. It is worthy of mention that
wherever there are several wives of free trappers in a camp, the keenest
rivalry exists between them, to the sore detriment of their husbands'
purses. Their whole time is expended and their ingenuity tasked by
endeavors to eclipse each other in dress and decoration. The jealousies
and heart-burnings thus occasioned among these so-styled children of
nature are equally intense with those of the rival leaders of style and
fashion in the luxurious abodes of civilized life.
The genial festival of Christmas, which throughout all Christendom
lights up the fireside of home with mirth and jollity, followed hard
upon the wedding just described. Though far from kindred and friends,
Captain Bonneville and his handful of free trappers were not disposed
to suffer the festival to pass unenjoyed; they were in a region of good
cheer, and were disposed to be joyous; so it was determined to "light
up the yule clog," and celebrate a merry Christmas in the heart of the
wilderness.
On Christmas eve, accordingly, they began their rude fetes and
rejoicings. In the course of the night the free trappers surrounded the
lodge of the Pierced-nose chief and in lieu of Christmas carols, saluted
him with a feude joie.
Kowsoter received it in a truly Christian spirit, and after a speech, in
which he expressed his high gratification at the honor done him, invited
the whole company to a feast on the following day. His invitation was
gladly accepted. A Christmas dinner in the wigwam of an Indian chief!
There was novelty in the idea. Not one failed to be present. The banquet
was served up in primitive style: skins of various kinds, nicely dressed
for the occasion, were spread upon the ground; upon these were heaped up
abundance of venison, elk meat, and mountain mutton, with various bitter
roots which the Indians use as condiments.
After a short prayer, the company all seated themselves cross-legged, in
Turkish fashion, to the banquet, which passed off with great hilarity.
After which various games of strength and agility by both white men and
Indians closed the Christmas festivities.
