Three Years on the Plains | Page 2

which boys are taking in all that relates to our Indian tribes,
and the greediness they manifest in devouring the sensational stories
published so cheaply, filling their imaginations with stories of wild
Indian life on the plains and borders, without regard to their
truthfulness, cannot but be harmful; and therefore the writer, after three
years' experience on the plains, feels desirous of giving youthful minds
a right direction, in a true history of the red men of our forests. Thus
can they teach their children, in time to come, what kind of races have
peopled this continent; especially before civilization had marked them
for destruction, and their hunting-grounds for our possession.
The RIGHTS and WRONGS of the Indians should be told fairly, in
order that justice may be done to such as have befriended the white
men who have met the Indians in pioneer life, and been befriended
often by the savage, since the Mayflower landed her pilgrims on these
shores some two hundred and fifty years ago.
The writer proposes now only a history of Indians since he began to
know the "Six Nations" in Western New York, about forty years ago.
Since then, these have dwindled down to a handful, and do not now
exist in their separate tribal relations, but mixed in with others, far
away from the beautiful lakes they once inhabited.

WHERE DID THE INDIANS COME FROM?
The origin of the native American Indian has puzzled the wisest heads.
The most plausible theory seems to be that they are one of the lost
tribes of Israel; that they crossed a narrow frith from the confines of
Asia, and that their traditions, it is said, go far to prove it.

For instance, the Sioux tell us that they were, many moons ago, set
upon by a race larger in number than they, and were driven from the
north in great fear, till they came to the banks of the North Platte, and
finding the river swollen up to its banks, they were stopped there, with
all their women, children, and horses. The enemy was pursuing, and
their hearts grew white with fear. They made an offering to the Great
Spirit, and he blew a wind into the water, so as to open a path on the
bed of the river, and they all went over in safety, and the waters,
closing up, left their enemies on the other side. This, probably, is
derived from a tradition of their forefathers, coming down to them from
the passing of the children of Israel through the Red Sea.
Elias Boudinot, many years ago, and a minister in Vermont also,
published books to show that the American Indians were a portion of
the lost tribes, from resemblances between their religious customs and
those of the Israelites. Later still, a converted Jew named Simon,
undertook to identify the ancient South American races, Mexicans,
Peruvians, etc., as descendants of ancient Israel, from similarity of
language and of civil and religious customs. These authors have taken
as their starting-point the resolution which, Esdras informs us (in the
Apocrypha), the ten tribes took after being first placed in the cities of
the Medes, viz., that they would leave the multitude of the heathen and
go into a land wherein never mankind dwelt, that they might there keep
their laws, which God gave them; and they suppose that, in pursuance
of this resolution, the tribes continued in a northeasterly direction until
they came to Behring Straits, which they crossed, and set foot on this
continent, spreading over it from north to south, until, at the discovery
of it by Columbus, they had peopled every part. It must be admitted
that this theory is very plausible, and that if our Indians are not the
descendants of the lost tribes of Israel, they show by their traditions and
customs a knowledge of the ancient religion, such as calling the Great
Spirit Yo-he-wah, the Jehovah of the Scriptures, and in many festivals
corresponding to the Mosaic law.[1] The country to which the ten tribes,
in a journey of a year and a half, would arrive, from the river Euphrates,
east, would be somewhere adjoining Tartary, and intercourse between
the two races would easily lead to the adoption of the religious ideas
and customs of the one by the other.

[1] Labagh.
The gypsy tribes came from Tartary, and in my intercourse with these
wandering people, I found they had a custom somewhat like our
Indians' practice, in removing from place to place. For instance, the
gypsies, when they leave a part of their company to follow them, fix
leaves in such wise as to direct their friends to follow in their course.
This is called "patteran" in Romany or gypsy language. And the Indian
cuts a notch in a