"White Man Too Much Lie"

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_ It is otherwise with a class of Indian tales of which Schoolcraft's are samples, and a few more of which may here be referred to. With the unquestioning trust of a child the learned Waitz accepts as a specimen of genuine romantic love a story[253] of an Indian maiden who, when an arrow was aimed at her lover's heart, sprang before him and received the barbed shaft in her own heart; and another of a Creek Indian who jumped into a cataract with the girl he loved, meeting death with her when he found he could not escape the tomahawk of the pursuers. The solid facts of the first story will be hinted at presently in speaking of Pocahontas; and as for the second story it is, reduced to Indian realism, simply an incident of an elopement and pursuit such as may have easily happened, though the motive of the elopement was nothing more than the usual desire to avoid paying for the girl. Such sentences as "she loved him with an intensity of passion that only the noblest souls know," and "they vowed eternal love; they vowed to live and die with each other," ought to have opened Waitz's eyes to the fact that he was not reading an actual Indian story, but a story sentimentalized and embellished in the cheapest modern dime-novel style. The only thing such stories tell us is that "white man too much lie."

[FOOTNOTE 253: Related in G. White's _Historical Collection of Georgia_, 571.]

White woman, too, is not always above suspicion. Mrs. Eastman assures us that she got her Sioux legends from the Indians themselves. One of these stories is entitled "The Track Maker". During an interval of peace between the Chippewas and Dakotas, she relates, a party of Chippewas visited a camp of the Dakotas. A young Dakota warrior fell in love with a girl included in the Chippewa party. "_Though he would have died to save her from sorrow_, yet he knew that she could never be his wife," for the tribes were ever at war. Here Mrs. Eastman, with the recklessness of a newspaper reporter, puts into an Indian's head a sentiment which no Indian ever dreamt of. All the facts cited in this chapter prove this, and, moreover, the sequel of her own story proves it. After exchanging vows of love (!) with the Dakotan brave, the girl departed with her Chippewa friends. Shortly afterward two Dakotas were murdered. The Chippewas were suspected, and a party of warriors at once broke up in pursuit of the innocent and unsuspecting party. The girl, whose name was Flying Shadow, saw her lover among the pursuers, who had already commenced to slaughter and scalp the other women, though the maidens clasped their hands in a "vain appeal to the merciless wretches, who see neither beauty nor grace when rage and revenge are in their hearts." Throwing herself in his arms she cried, "Save me! save me! Do not let them slay me before your eyes; make me your prisoner! You said that you loved me, spare my life!" He did spare her life; he simply touched her with his spear, then passed on, and a moment later the girl was slain and scalped by his companions. And why did the gallant and self-sacrificing lover touch her with his spear before he left her to be murdered? Because touching an enemy--male or female--with his spear entitles the noble red man to wear a feather of honor as if he had taken a scalp! Yet he "would have died to save her from sorrow"!

An Indian's capacity for self-sacrifice is also revealed in a favorite Blackfoot tale recorded by Grinnell. A squaw was picking berries in a place rendered dangerous by the proximity of the enemy. Suddenly her husband, who was on guard, saw a war party approaching. Signalling to the squaw, they mounted their horses and took to flight. The wife's horse, not being a good one, soon tired out and the husband had to take her on his. But this was too much of a load even for his powerful animal. The enemy gained on them constantly. Presently he said to his wife: "Get off. The enemy will not kill you. You are too young and pretty. Some one of them will take you, and I will get a big party of our people and rescue you." But the woman cried "No, no, I will die here with you." "Crazy person," cried the man, and with a quick jerk he threw the woman off and escaped. Having reached the lodge safely, he painted himself black and "walked all through the camp crying." Poor fellow! How he loved his wife! The Indian, as Catlin truly remarked, "is not in the least behind us in conjugal affection." The only difference--a trifling one to be sure--is that a white man, under such circumstances, would have spilt his last drop of blood in defence of his wife's life and her honor. _

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