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Show 36 THE CITY OF THE SAINTS. CHAP. I. page appear, it is simply impossible. It has terrible obstacles in the westward1 gravitation of the white race, which, after sweeping away the aborigines-as the gray rat in Europe expelled the black rat-from the east of the Mississippi in two centuries and a half, threatens, before a quarter of that time shall have elapsed, to drive in its advance toward the Pacific the few survivors of now populous tribes, either into the inhospitable regions north of the 49th parallel, or into the anarchical countries south of the 32d. And where, I may ask, in the history of the world do we read of a people learning civilization from strangers instead of working it out for themselves, through its several degrees of barbarism, feudalism, monarchy, republicanism, despotism ? Still it is a noble project; mankind would not willingly see it die. The Pawnees were called by the French and Canadian traders Les Loups, that animal being their totem, and the sign of the tribe being an imitation of the wolfs ears, the two fore fingers of the right hand being stuck Up on the side of the head. They were in the last generation a large nation, containing many clans-Minnikajus, the Sans Arc, the Loup Fork, and others. Their territory embraced both sides of the Platte Biver, especially the northern lands; and they rendered these grounds terrible to the trapper, trader, and traveler. They were always well mounted. Old Mexico was then, and partially is still, their stable, and a small band has driven off horses by hundreds. Of late years they have become powerless. The influenza acts as a plague among them, killing off 400 or 500 in a single season, and the nation now numbers little more than 300 braves, or rather warriors, the latter, in correct parlance, being inferior to the former, as the former are subservient to the chief. A treaty concluded between them and the United States in the winter of 1857 sent them to a reserve on the Loup Fork, where their villages were destroyed by the Sioux. They are Ishmaelites, whose hand is against every man: They have attempted, after the fashion of declining tribes, to strengthen themselves by alliances with their neighbors, but have always failed in consequence of their propensity to plunder developing itself even before the powwow was concluded. They and the northern Dakotahs can never be trusted. Most Indian races, like the Bedouin Arabs, will show hospitality to the stranger who rides into their villages, though no point of honor deters them from robbing him after he has left the lodge-shade. The Pawnees, Africanlike, will cut the throat of a sleeping guest. They are easily distinguished from their neighbors by the scalp-lock protruding from a shaven head. After killing white men, they have insulted the corpse in a manner familiar to those who served in the Affghan war. They have given up the practice of torturing prisoners, saying that the "Great Spirit,"or rather, as the expression should be translated, the " Great Father" no longer wills it. The tradition is, that a few years ago a squaw of a hostile tribe was snatch- |
