University of Virginia Library

WEENOKHENCHAH WANDEETEEKAH.

Shortly after the coureurs des bois began to
carry packs and drive dog sledges in the lands on
the upper waters of the Mississippi, there lived at
the Kahpozhah village, three leagues below the
mouth of the river St Peters, an Indian who was
the cynosure of the eyes of all the maidens in his
band. This was because of his rare personal
beauty; not of form, for that is common to all Indians;
but of countenance. His skill as a hunter,
and his bravery as a warrior, were qualities more
likely to recommend him to their parents; but
strange to say, the swarthy daughters of the forest
judged by the eye, as some authors have falsely
asserted their sex is in the habit of doing. The
object of their admiration had feminine features,

and a skin lighter by five shades than the national
complexion of the Dahcotahs, and his hair, beside
being light, was also fine and glossy. He prided
himself upon it, and suffered it to grow long; thereby
grievously scandalizing the male population of
the village. His toilet was usually adjusted with
scrupulous accuracy; he changed the fashion of
his paint five times per diem, and his activity in
the chase enabled him to wear so much scarlet
cloth, and so many beads and silver broaches, as
made him the envy of those of his own age and
sex. Those who imagine that the aborigines are
all stoics and heroes, and those who think them
solely addicted to rapine and bloodshed, and are
therefore disposed to dispute the truth of this sketch
of Indian character, are informed that there are fops
in the forest as well as in Broadway; their intrinsic
value pretty much the same in both places.
The beau of the Northwest arranges his locks, and
stains his face with mud, by a looking-glass three
inches square. He of the city submits his equally
empty head to the hand of a friseur, and powders
his visage before a mirror in a gilt frame, in which
he can behold his estimable person at full length.
The former arrays his person with scarlet, and covers
his feet with deer skin and porcupine quills; and the
other gets a coat from Cox, whose needle, it is
said, has pierced more hearts than the shaft of
Cupid; and his feet prove the merits of Day and
Martin. The only difference we see between the
two is, that the savage kills deer and buffaloes, and
helps to support his family, while the white man is
often a useless member of society. Yet the elegance
of the features of Toskatnay, (the Woodpecker)
for so was our Dahcotah dandy called,
and his taste in dress, were not his only merits.
The war eagle's plume which completed his array,
was an honorable evidence that he had acquired
a right to call himself a man. In fact, beneath an
almost feminine appearance, and much frivolity of
manner, he concealed the real strength of his character.
To the maidens who listened with glistening
eyes to his discourse, and blushed when he addressed
them, his motto seemed to be, `let them
look and die.' Exquisite as he was, his soul was
full of higher matters than love or gallantry. He
aspired to sway the councils of his people, and to
lead them in battle, and if he condescended to
please the eyes, and tickle the ears of the women,
it was only because he knew that it was the surest
way to exert an influence over the men. He was
not so much of a savage as not to know so much
of human nature. Yet he had no idea of marrying,
but as it might further his views; and to the
admiration of the young squaws he shut his eyes,
while against their complaints that `no one cared
for them,' he hardened his heart.

With all his schemes, he had not calculated upon
the power of the blind god, as indeed, how should
he, having never heard of such a personage? The
passion of which that deity is a type, he scarcely
believed to exist, certainly never expected to feel.
But his time was to come, and the connexion
he was destined to form, was to have a powerful
influence on his future fortunes. We are thus
particular in detailing his conduct and feelings, in

order that our own countrymen may take warning,
and profit by his example. There is a use to be
found for everything, however mean, and he who
flirts with the brunettes and blondes that congregate
at Ballston or Saratoga, need not shame to
take a lesson from a Dahcotah heathen.

In the same village with our hero dwelt a damsel,
whose name, as it has not come down to us,
being lost in the exploit of which this true history
treats, we cannot tell, and shall therefore speak of
her as Weenokhenchah Wandeeteekah (the Brave
Woman) the appellation which her tribe give her,
in relating the story. This girl never praised Toskatnay's
attire, nor listened to his compliments,
nor sought to attract his attention. On the contrary,
she avoided his notice. Why she did thus,
we do not pretend to explain. We pretend not
to expound the freaks of passion, any more than
the profundities of philosophy, nor can we tell why
love should choose to show himself in such a capricious
manner. Let it suffice that she was
thought to hate our hero until an event occurred
that contradicted the supposition.

One hot day in July, a rabid wolf, [59] such as
are sometimes seen in the prairies, came to pay
the village a visit. The cornfields lay in his way,
and as animals in his predicament never turn aside,
he entered it. It so chanced that Weenokhenchah
Wandeeteekah was at that time using her hoe
therein, in company with other girls, while Toskatnay
stood near them, cheering their labor and
edifying their minds, pretty much in the style of
Ranger in the Jealous Husband. The wolf made

directly at him, and the girls seeing by the slaver
of his jaws, what ailed him, shrieked and fled.
Toskatnay, being no Yankee, could not guess the
cause of their terror, and was looking about for it,
when the animal was within five paces of him.
Weenokhenchah Wandeeteekah alone stood firm,
and seeing that he must inevitably be bitten, she
advanced and clove the beast's skull with her hoe,
contrary to the law in such cases made and provided
by novel writers, which ordains that the gentleman
shall rescue the lady from danger, and not
the lady the gentleman. Having thus done, the
color forsook her cheeks, and she swooned and
fell.

Toskatnay, though an Indian fine gentleman, did
not catch her in his arms, nor kneel by her. But
he did what was as much to the purpose. He
ran to the village, which was but a few rods distant,
and sent the women to her assistance. With
some difficulty they brought her to her senses.

From that hour his attentions, which had before
been considered by the girls as common property,
were confined to her. Love and gratitude prevailed,
and for a while his dreams of ambition were
forgotten. He wore leggins of different colors, and
sat all day upon a log, playing on a flute with three
holes, and singing songs in her praise. When she
was gone to cut wood, he was not to be found in
the village. He gave her beads and vermilion,
and in short played the Indian lover in all points.

Indian courtships never last long, and ere the
leaves began to fall, Weenokhenchah Wandeeteekah

was the wedded wife of Toskatnay. For a
time, he forgot his nature and his former prepossessions,
and he even saw three war parties leave
the village without testifying much concern. But
these halcyon days did not last long. A mind like
his could not be content with ignoble triumphs
over the brute tenants of the woods and prairies.
His excursions grew longer in duration, and more
frequent in occurrence, and at last the poor bride saw
herself totally neglected. Another cause concurred
in this result. She belonged to a family that could
boast no hero, no chief, nor any wise man among
its members, and her husband saw with regret that
he had formed an alliance that could never enhance
his importance in his tribe. The devoted
affection, and unwearied attention with which she
endeavored to recall his heart, only filled him with
disgust. Within the year she made him a father,
but the new relation in which he stood, did not
reclaim him. In the eyes of his people, he pursued
a more honorable course: he joined every warlike
excursion, obtained the praise of all by his
valor; and once by his conduct and presence of
mind, when the camp in which his lodge was pitched
was surprised, he saved it, and turned the tables
on the assailants. In consequence, he was thought
worthy to be a leader of men, and became the
head partizan in two successful inroads on the
enemies' country.

He was envied as well as admired. Many
there were, older than himself, who aspired to the
objects of his ambition, and one in especial, without

a tithe of his merits, outstripped him in his
course by means of extended connections, and
thwarted him in every particular. This was a
man named Chahpah, (the Beaver) about forty
years of age. He had nine wives, whom he supported
in the usual style, and their relations were
at his beck. Jealous of the growing influence of
Toskatnay, he opposed his opinions, and turned the
weak parts of his character into ridicule. The
young warrior felt this deeply, and revolved in his
own mind the means of making the number of his
adherents equal to that of his rival. There were two
ways presented themselves to his acceptance; the
one to take to his lodge more wives; and the other,
to continue to exert himself in the field. By the
latter means, in the course of time, if he was not
untimely cut off, he would attain the desired distinction.
By the former his object would be effected
more speedily.

An opportunity soon occurred to measure his
strength with his fellow aspirant. The Beaver,
not content with the limits of his harem, demanded
in marriage the daughter of the Heron, a noted
warrior. The father asked time to consider the
proposal. While the matter was in abeyance,
Toskatnay heard of it, and resolved not to lose so
good a chance to further his own projects and
mortify the man he hated. He went that very
night to the Heron's lodge, lighted a match at his
fire, and presented it to the eyes of the maiden.
She blew it out, and after some conversation with
her, carried on in whispers, he retired. In the
morning he smoked with the Heron, and in plain

terms asked his daughter to wife. The old man
liked Toskatnay, and moreover, was not entirely
satisfied that his offspring should be the tenth
bride of any man. He accepted the offer without
hesitation, and the nuptials were solemnized forthwith,
to the great displeasure of the Beaver.

It is unnecessary to say that he was not the only
person displeased. Weenokhenchah Wandeeteeka
thought this second marriage a poor requital
of the service she had rendered her husband, and
expostulated with him. But ambition swallows
all other passions, as the rod of Moses swallowed
the other rods, and Toskatnay had become intensely
selfish. He desired her to mind her own
affairs, and as polygamy is reckoned creditable by
the Dahcotahs, she had no pretence to quarrel,
and was obliged to submit. With an aching heart,
she saw another woman take the place in Toskatnay's
regard that she considered her own, and
often did she retire to the woods to weep over her
infant, and tell her sorrows to the rocks and trees.
Quarrels will happen in the best of families, and
so was seen of Toskatnay's. The two wives did
not agree, as might have been expected, and the
husband always took the part of the new comer.
Moreover, when he joined the hunting camps, the
Heron's daughter accompanied him, while Weenokhenchah
Wandeeteeka was left at home; he
alleging, that having a child to take care of, she
could not so well be the partner of his wanderings.
It was in vain that she protested against this reasoning.
An Indian husband is, if he pleases, absolute,
and she was obliged to acquiesce. It was

not, in truth, that he preferred his new spouse, but
he wished to conciliate her family. The poor
malcontent had the mortification besides, to see
that he neglected his child, and this was the unkindest
cut of all.

At last, the second autumn after her marriage,
it so happened that the band attached to Toskatnay
was to move up the Mississippi, and hunt upon
its head waters. As the journey was to be
made by water, there was no objection to Weenokhenchah
Wandeeteeka being of the party, and
the two wives assisted each other in the necessary
preparations. In the afternoon they came to the
falls of St Anthony, and carried their canoes and
baggage round it. They encamped on the eastern
shore just above the rapids. Such a description
as we are able to give of this celebrated cataract,
from recollection, is at the reader's service.

There is nothing of the grandeur or sublimity
which the eye aches to behold at Niagara, about
the falls of St Anthony. But in wild and picturesque
beauty it is perhaps unequalled. Flowing
over a tract of country five hundred miles in extent,
the river, here more than half a mile wide,
breaks into sheets of foam and rushes to the pitch
over a strongly inclined plane. The fall itself is
not high, we believe only sixteen feet perpendicular,
but its face is broken and irregular. Huge
slabs of rock lie scattered below, in wild disorder.
Some stand on their edges, leaning against the
ledge from which they have been disunited. Some
lie piled upon each other in the water, in inimitable
confusion. A long, narrow island divides the

fall nearly in the middle. Its eastern side is not
perpendicular, but broken into three distinct leaps,
below which the twisting and twirling eddies
threaten destruction to any living thing that enters
them. On the western side, in the boiling rapids
below, a few rods from the fall, stands a little island,
of a few yards area; rising steep from the waters,
and covered with forest trees. At the time
of our story, its mightiest oak was the haunt of a
solitary bald eagle, that had built his eyrie on the
topmost branches, beyond the reach of man. It
was occupied by his posterity till the year eighteen
hundred and twentythree, when the time honored
crest of the vegetable monarch bowed and gave
way before the wing of the northern tempest. The
little islet was believed inaccessible, till two daring
privates of the fifth regiment, at very low water,
waded out in the river above, and ascending the
fall by means of the blocks of stone before mentioned,
forded the intervening space, and were the
first of their species that ever set foot upon it.

Large trunks of trees frequently drift over, and
diving into the chasms of the rocks, never appear
again. The loon, or great northern diver, is also,
at moulting time, when he is unable to rise from
the water, often caught in the rapids. When he
finds himself drawn in, he struggles with fate for a
while, but finding escape impossible, he faces
downwards and goes over, screaming horribly.
These birds sometimes make the descent unhurt.
Below, the rapids foam and roar and tumble for
half a mile, and then subside into the clear, gentle
current that continues unbroken to the Rock River

Rapids; and at high water to the Gulf of
Mexico. Here too, the high bluffs which enclose
the Mississippi commence. Such was the scene
at the time of this authentic history, but now it is
mended or marred, according to the taste of the
spectator, by the works of the sons of Adam. It
can shew its buildings, its saw mill, its grist mill,
its cattle, and its cultivated fields. Nor is it unadorned
with traditional honors. A Siou can tell
you how the enemy in the darkness of midnight,
deceived by the false beacons lighted by his ancestors,
paddled his canoe into the rapids, from
which he never issued alive. He can give a good
guess too, what ghosts haunt the spot, and what
spirits abide there.

To return to our story: Toskatnay and his
band passed the falls and raised their lodges a
few rods above the rapids. It so happened that
evening, that a violent quarrel arose between
the two wives, which the presence of some of the
elders only, prevented from ending in cuffing and
scratching. When the master of the lodge returned,
he rebuked them both, but the weight of
his anger fell on Weenokhenchah Wandeeteekah,
though in fact, the dispute had been fastened on
her by the other. She replied nothing to his reproaches,
but his words sunk deep into her bosom,
for he had spoken scornfully of her, saying
that no Siou had so pitiful a wife as himself. She
sobbed herself to sleep, and when the word was
given in the morning to rise and strike the tents,
she was the first to rise and set about it.

While the business of embarkation was going

on, it so chanced that the child of the poor woman
crawled in the way of her rival, and received a
severe kick from her. This was too much for
the mother. Vociferating such terms as are current
only at Billingsgate and in Indian camps,
for squaws are not remarkable for delicacy of expression,
she fastened upon the Heron's daughter
tooth and nail, who was not slow to return the
compliment. Luckily their knives were wrested
from them by the by-standers, or one or both
would have been killed on the spot. This done,
the men laughed and the women screamed, but
none offered to part them, till Toskatnay, who was
busy at the other end of the camp, patching a birch
canoe, heard the noise, and came and separated
them by main force. He was highly indignant
at an occurrence that must bring ridicule upon
him. The Heron's daughter he reproved, but
Weenokhenchah Wandeeteekah he struck with
his paddle repeatedly, and threatened to put her
away. This filled the cup of her misery to over-flowing:
she looked at him indignantly and said,
`You shall never reproach me again.' She took
up her child and moved away, but he, thinking it
no more than an ordinary fit of sullenness, paid no
attention to her motions.

His unkindness at this time had the effect of
confirming a project that she had long revolved in
her mind, and she hastened to put it in execution.
She embarked in a canoe with her child, and
pushing from the shore, entered the rapids before
she was perceived. When she was seen, both
men and women, among whom her husband was

the most earnest, followed her on the shore, entreating
her to land ere it was too late. The river
was high, so that it was impossible to intercept
her, yet Toskatnay, finding his entreaties of no
avail, would have thrown himself into the water
to reach the canoe, had he not been withheld by
his followers. Had this demonstration of interest
occurred the day before, it is possible that her
purpose would have been forgotten. As it was,
she shook her open hand at him in scorn, and
held up his child for him to gaze at. She then
began to sing, and her song ran thus.

`A cloud has come over me. My joys are
turned to grief. Life has become a burden too
heavy to bear, and it only remains to die.

`The Great Spirit calls, I hear his voice in the
roaring waters. Soon, soon, shall they close over
my head, and my song shall be heard no more.

`Turn thine eyes hither, proud chief. Thou
art brave in battle, and all are silent when thou
speakest in council. Thou hast met death, and
hast not been afraid.

`Thou hast braved the knife, and the axe; and
the shaft of the enemy has passed harmless by
thee.

`Thou hast seen the warrior fall. Thou hast
heard him speak bitter words with his last breath.

`But hast thou ever seen him dare more than
a woman is about to do?

`Many speak of thy deeds. Old and young
echo thy praises. Thou art the star the young
men look upon, and thy name shall be long heard
in the land.

`But when men tell of thy exploits, they shall
say, “He slew his wife also!” Shame shall attend
thy memory.

`I slew the ravenous beast that was about to
destroy thee. I planted thy corn, and made thee
garments and moccasins.

`When thou wast an hungred, I gave thee to
eat, and when thou wast athirst, I brought thee
cold water. I brought thee a son also, and I
never disobeyed thy commands.

`And this is my reward! Thou hast laughed
at me. Thou hast given me bitter words, and
struck me heavy blows.

`Thou hast preferred another before me, and
thou hast driven me to wish for the approach of
death, as for the coming winter[60]

`My child, my child! Life is a scene of sorrow.
I had not the love of a mother, did I not
snatch thee from the woes thou must endure.

`Adorn thy wife with ornaments of white metal,
Toskatnay. Hang beads about her neck.
Be kind to her, and see if she will ever be to thee
as I.'

So saying, or rather singing, she went over the
fall with her child, and they were seen no more.

One year precisely from this time, Toskatnay
followed the track of a bear which he had wounded,
to the brink of the falls. He halted opposite
the spot where Weenokhenchah Wandeeteekah
had disappeared, and gazed on the foaming rapid.
What was passing in his mind it is impossible to
say. He had reached the summit of his ambition.

He was acknowledged a chief, and he had
triumphed over the Beaver and the Chippeways.
But her for whose sake he had spurned the sweetest
flowers of life, true love and fond fidelity, had
proved faithless to him, and fled to the Missouri
with another man. He had nothing farther to
look for, no higher eminence to attain, and his reflections
were like those of him who wept
because he had no more worlds to conquer. A
strange occurrence roused him from his reverie.
A snow white doe, followed by a fawn of the
same color, came suddenly within the sphere of
his vision; so suddenly, that they seemed to him
to come out of the water. Such a sight had
never before been seen by any of his tribe.
He stood rooted to the ground. He who had
never feared the face of man, trembled like
an aspen with superstitious terror. The animals,
regardless of his presence, advanced slowly
towards him, and passed so near that he might
have touched them with his gun. They ascended
the bank and he lost sight of them. When
they were fairly out of sight, he recovered from
the shock, and stretching out his arms after them,
conjured them to return. Finding his adjurations
vain, he rushed up the bank, but could see nothing
of them, which was the more remarkable
that the prairie had just been burned over, and
for a mile there was no wood or inequality in the
ground, that could have concealed a much smaller
animal than a deer.

He returned to his lodge, made a solemn feast,
at which his relatives were assembled, and sung
his death song. He told his wondering auditors

that he had received a warning to prepare for his
final change. He had seen the spirits of his wife
and child. No one presumed to contradict his
opinion. Whether founded in reason or not, it
proved true in point of fact. Three weeks after,
the camp was attacked by the Chippeways. They
were repulsed, but Toskatnay, and he only, was
killed.

No stone tells where he lies, nor can any of the
Dahcotahs shew the spot. His deeds are forgotten,
or at best, faintly remembered; thus showing
`on what foundation stands the warrior's
pride;' but his wife still lives in the memory of
her people, who speak of her by the name of
Weenokhenchah Wandeeteekah, or the Brave
Woman.