John Tanner - A narrative of the captivity and adventures of John Tanner

In the evening after this affair, the chiefs walked through the village and addressed all the people. The amount of what they said was to direct, that instead of remaining longer to quarrel with and destroy each other, we should all move on the following morning towards the Sioux country. Accordingly, the camp was broken up, about half the number returning towards home, the remainder continuing on. It was now late in the fall, and we had travelled only two days from Turtle Mountain, when there came on a cold and violent storm of rain and snow. Two horses perished, and many men were near sharing the same fate, but most or all of the Ojibbeways, carrying each man on his back a puk-kwi of birch bark, large enough to afford a partial covering for three men, and all being disposed to extend to the destitute all possible assistance and relief, many of them were sheltered.

It was immediately after this storm that some one told me Ba-gis-kun-nung was coming to see me about the horse I had taken away from him. “Very well,” said I, “I believe Ba-gis-kun-nung has one or two more horses, and if he gives me any trouble about the one I have taken, I will take another.” At noon he came, but Wa-ge-tote, Ke-me-wun-nis-kung, and other men of my friends, had prepared themselves to resist any violence he might attempt to practise on me. He walked up to me as I was roasting some meat, and stood a very long time, I should say two hours, regarding me sternly, without saying a single word, and then walked off. Two days afterwards, two hundred of the Assinneboins turned back. They were reviled and insulted at parting by those who still continued on, but this seemed not in the least to shake their determination. Desertions in small bodies were now very numerous, and the remaining chiefs, with the hope of checking it, appointed fifty of the best of the young men to act as sentinels over the others, but this measure was productive of no benefit. When at last we arrived within two days’ march of the village it was our intention to attack, four hundred men were all that remained, and the next day very few of these were found willing to follow Match-a-go-ge-wub. He started at the usual time, and walked on by himself, but when at the distance of about a mile he saw that none followed him, he sat down in the prairie. From time to time, one or two men would start forward to join him, but for one who went forward, twenty or more would commonly start to go back. With my young brother-in-law I stood at the camp to see what would be the result, and when, at last, I saw that of the four hundred, only about twenty were willing to follow the chief farther, we determined to join them. We had proceeded but a little distance, when one of the Assinneboins who had turned back, purposely set fire to the prairie, and we now all turned back except the chief and one or two men. He went on to the Sioux village, and was lurking about it for one or two days, when, finding himself discovered, he fled without attempting any thing. The Sioux pursued on our trail, and came in sight of us, but offered no molestation, and, in due time, we all arrived at home in safety. Thus ended this war excursion for which such extensive preparations had been made, and from which so much had been expected. On the way home, Ke-me-wun-nis-kung took away the horse of the Assinneboin who had set the prairie on fire, and beat him, he daring to make no resistance.

When we returned to Pembinah, there was, as is usual on a return from a war-party, a drunken frolic in which I joined, though not to very great excess. After I had drank a little, I heard some one speak sneeringly about my gun which Wa-me-gon-a-biew had broken. I had lent my knife to some one to cut tobacco, but there was lying by the fire a pointed stick, on which meat had been roasted. This I seized, ran out, and finding his horse standing by the door of his own lodge, I stabbed him with it, using, at the same time, in a loud voice, the same words I had been told he had spoken when he broke my gun. The horse fell immediately, but did not die until next morning.

There were six of us to return together to the Lake of the Woods, and our principal man, She-gwaw-koo-sink, being alarmed, took a little canoe and set off in the night. I would not start then, nor even early in the morning, lest Wa-me-gon-a-biew should think I was afraid of him. I remained near his lodge until I had seen him and Net-no-kwa, and shaken hands with all my friends, and at about noon I was ready to follow She-gwaw-koo-sink, whom I found waiting for me in the woods. Wa-me-gon-a-biew made no complaints of my having killed his horse. Probably he was perfectly satisfied that I had done so, as an Indian always expects any outrage he commits shall be retaliated, according to their customs, and a man who omits to take proper revenge is but lightly esteemed among them.

Heavy snow and severe cold came upon us at the Muskeeg carrying place; the trees cracked with the cold, but the water in the swamp was not yet frozen hard enough to bear. Our canoes, however, could not be pushed through. The utmost exertion of our strength would no longer avail to move them. We were hungry and much fatigued, and sat deliberating what was best to be done when we discovered our women coming from the Lake of the Woods, and dragging their light canoes through water, ice, and snow above their knees. When they came up, we found they were my wife, the wives of She-gwaw-koo-sink and Ba-po-wash, and my mother-in-law. Three of our party, whose women had not come, had to continue on to Lake of the Woods. Our wives laughed at us, telling us it was more like old women than like warriors returning to their village, to sit shivering in a canoe which could move neither way, through fear of a little water and ice. They had brought us a supply of corn, sturgeon, and other food, and with them we returned to our last encampment where we rested a few days, then went down to Red River with the intention of spending the winter there.

There was now no snow on the ground at Red River, though the weather was very cold, and the ground so hard frozen that it was nearly impossible to kill any game. I hunted day after day without the least success, and we were reduced to extreme hunger, when one day I found a moose, and after I had, with the greatest difficulty, crept near, I was about to shoot him, when my best dog, which I had confined at home, came running past me, and scared the moose away. I returned home, and calling my dog to me outside the lodge, I told him that it was his fault that there was now no food for my children. I then killed and gave him to my family to eat.

Other families beside my own being in distress for the want of food, the Indians called on me to make a medicine hunt. I accordingly told Me-zhick-ko-naum to go for my drum, and as preparatory to the commencement of my prayers and songs, I directed all my family to take such positions as they could keep for at least half the night, as, after I began, no one must move until I had finished. I have always been conscious of my entire dependence on a superior and invisible Power, but I have felt this conviction most powerfully in times of distress and danger. I now prayed earnestly, and with the consciousness that I addressed myself to a Being willing to hear and able to assist, and I called upon him to see and to pity the sufferings of my family. The next day I killed a moose, and soon after, a heavy snow having fallen, we were relieved from the apprehension of immediate starvation.

But though we were temporarily relieved, plenty did not return to us. I was about this time hunting one day, and fell on the track of a bear. My dogs followed for three days, and most of the time I kept nearly even pace with them, but at the end of that time they had not overtaken him. My moccasins and leggings were worn out, and I was almost in a state of starvation. I was compelled to return home, having killed nothing but eight pheasants. Me-zhick-ko-naum, Ba-po-wash, and the other Indians, now left me by myself, and I was soon able to kill enough to supply the wants of my family. I spent the winter here, and in the spring my friends rejoined me, and we returned together to our village at the Lake of the Woods.