Other things conspired against the Kaw. Without fencing, they couldn’t protect what crops they did put in from squatters’ livestock. Then there was flooding and drought: between 1855 and 1868—the years when the epithet “Drouthy Kansas” was born—there were six droughts. In other years, floods washed away crops. And, during one winter in the 1850s, smallpox killed four hundred Kansa.
Every year, they fell deeper into debt to Council Grove merchants, who, at times, would help the Indians, since they were necessary to get hold of annuities. Many times, when a Kaw finally managed to receive a plow or ox—assuming he’d been taught to use it—he’d have to sell it right off to avoid starvation. Given the hopelessness they were driven into, alcoholism was rampant. The laws against selling liquor to Indians were so widely ignored it’s hard not to see the flouting as part of a conspiracy to destroy what remained of Kansa culture.
The interest on their debt was about equal to their annuity—the merchants kept the two balanced in order not to lose anything themselves—so that most Kaw money ended up in Council Grove. It was something like the postbellum sharecropper in the South. As conditions got worse and the demands for the last of the Kaws’ land increased, the governmental solution was to “persuade” them to move to Indian Territory, once again, of course, using the sale of their land to pay for it.
I was getting depressed by this history, and it got worse when three people wearing Plus Sizes fresh from some Blue Light Special drove up to pose for a snapshot in front of the Custer Elm, nearly obscuring its broad girth. I said to Joe that the general’s troops seemed almost benign compared to squatters, speculators, merchants, missionaries, congressmen, and a town founded on criminal conduct.
He said, American leadership here was nothing more than a grasping for individual gain—sometimes even among the Kaw themselves.
I told him about the sign I’d seen near Wonsevu: NO TRESPASSING WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION. It could be the title for the story he’d been telling. I said that it almost made me wish the Kansa had countered with the other sign I saw: KEEP OUT OR U WILL B SHOT.
Joe said, The story of Indian America after Columbus is one of trespass. Did I mention that one of the early Grove merchants was Christopher Columbia and that the secretary of the interior who came out here personally to order the Kansa off their land was Columbus Delano? More apt names there never were.
Before we left, Joe asked whether I wanted a snapshot of myself standing by the Custer Elm, and I said that although I liked the symbolism of a rotting stump as a memorial to the Seventh Cavalry, the only way I’d pose next to it would probably get me arrested for committing a public nuisance. Not one of George’s fans? he asked, and I said I thought we remembered Custer for the wrong thing: had whites shown some of the perceptiveness of red people that his books do, the Kansa might have had a chance.
In the dusk we drove past the silhouette of the Unknown Indian monument and the dark ruins of the agency and the ghostly little wooden house. I said that had the people around here preserved these buildings, it might have called attention to their ancestors’ land-jobbing. Joe doubted that many of the heirs had any idea how they came to gain title to the land. Probably so, I said—that’s how you turn a faceless Indian into a loyal fighter for the Union and give him a cavalryman’s funeral. That’s also how, from an innocence born of ignorance, Council Grove businesspeople can concoct a “powwow” and call it Wah-shun-gah Days to hustle falsified history to tourists. (On the other hand, since Wahshunga, the so-called Last Chief of the Kansa, had no hereditary claim to the title and was a disheartened alcoholic whom whites used to sign land-transfer agreements, perhaps a street carnival with a mud-volleyball tournament and an ugly-truck contest and a couple of Indian dances performed mostly by mixed-bloods indeed was fitting.) Destroy a culture with economic weapons and then turn around and peddle bits of it to the descendants of those who reviled the Kansa but didn’t mind naming the state after them.
Joe said, I mentioned my dream of last spring when I was reading those reels of microfilm. I buried myself every afternoon from one to five in the agency records—four hours of greed, starvation, presumptions of cultural supremacy. Before I tell this, I’ve got to say that I’m an anthropologist—I’m not a believer in mysticism or the paranormal.
I said I like stories that open with disclaimers.
One night, about two in the morning, Mary heard weird noises coming from me, sounds she’d never known me to make before in the night. I was dreaming I was sleeping and that I suddenly woke up and saw three human silhouettes against the sheer curtain of the big window in our bedroom. I was in stark terror, but I tried to shout for them to go away. They just stood there. I dreamed I got out of bed to see what they wanted—I knew who they were—and I pulled the curtain. Looking in at me were three Kaws in dirty, ragged blankets. Nothing but bags of bones. Then I woke up—I mean I actually woke up.
We bumped along in the dark, and I waited for him to finish. Finally he said, I’m not sure what to make of it, but I think a dream can set you on another path.
Toward a Kaw Hornbook
Hi-e-ye-ye! Summon them, those who knew the people in time gone, and call them to speak the story, to give testimony.
Perrin du Lac, French traveler (1802):
The Kanses are tall, handsome, vigorous, and brave. They are active and good hunters, and trade is carried on with them by the whites without danger.
George Sibley, government surveyor (1811):
The Konsee town is seated immediately on the north bank of the Konsee River, about one hundred miles by its course above its junction with the Missouri, in a beautiful prairie of moderate extent, which is nearly encircled by the river. . . . [The settlement] is overhung by a chain of high prairie hills which give a very pleasing effect to the whole scene. The town contains 128 houses or lodges generally about sixty feet long and twenty-five wide, constructed of stout poles or saplings, arranged in the form of an arbour, and covered with skins, bark, and mats; they are commodious and quite comfortable. . . . The town is built without much regard to order; there are no regular streets or avenues; the lodges are erected pretty compactly together in crooked rows, allowing barely space sufficient to pass between them. The avenues between the rows are kept in tolerable decent order, and the village is on the whole rather neat and cleanly than otherwise.
Thomas Say, Major Long’s expedition scientist {1819):
The ground area of each [Konza] lodge is circular, and is excavated to the depth of from one to three feet, and the general form of the exterior may be denominated hemispheric.
The lodge, in which we reside, is larger than any other in the town, and being that of the grand chief, it serves as a council house for the nation. The roof is supported by two series of pillars, or rough vertical posts, forked at the top for the reception of the transverse connecting pieces of each series. . . . Across [rafter poles] are laid long and slender sticks or twigs, attached parallel to each other by means of bark cord; these are covered by mats made of long grass, or reeds, or with the bark of trees; the whole is then covered completely over with earth, which, near the ground, is banked up to the eaves. A hole is permitted to remain in the middle of the roof to give exit to the smoke. Around the walls of the interior, a continuous series of mats are suspended; these are of neat workmanship, composed of soft reed, united by bark cord in straight or undulated lmes, between which, lines of black paint sometimes occur. The bedsteads are elevated to the height of a common seat from the ground, and are about six feet wide; they extend in an uninterrupted line around three-fourths of the circumference of the apartment, and are formed in the simplest manner of numerous sticks, or slender pieces of wood resting at their ends on cross pieces, which are supported by short, notched or forked posts driven into the ground; bison skins supply them with a comfortable bedding. Several medicine or mystic bags are carefully attached to the mats of the wall; these are cylindrical and neatly bound up; several reeds are usually placed upon the
m, and a human scalp serves for their fringe and tassels. Of their contents we know nothing.
The fireplace is a simple shallow cavity, in the centre of the apartment, with an upright and a projecting arm for the support of the culinary apparatus. The latter is very simple in kind, and limited in quantity, consisting of a brass kettle, an iron pot, and wooden bowls and spoons; each person, male as well as female, carries a large knife in the girdle of the breech cloth behind, which is used at their meals, and sometimes for self-defence. During our stay with these Indians, they ate four or five times each day, invariably supplying us with the best pieces, or choice parts, before they attempted to taste the food themselves.
They commonly placed before us a sort of soup, composed of maize of the present season, of that description which, having undergone a certain preparation, is appropriately named sweet corn, boiled in water, and enriched with a few slices of bison meat, grease, and some beans, and to suit it to our palates, it was generally seasoned with rock salt, which is procured near the Arkansa river.
This mixture constituted an agreeable food; it was served up to us in large wooden bowls, which were placed on bison robes or mats, onthe ground; as many of us as could conveniently eat from one bowl sat round it, each in as easy a position as he could contrive, and in common we partook of its contents by means of large spoons made of bison horn. We were sometimes supplied with uncooked dried meat of the bison, also a very agreeable food, and to our taste and reminiscence, far preferable to the flesh of the domestic ox. Another very acceptable dish was called leyed [lyed] corn; this is maize of the preceding season shelled from the cob, and first boiled for a short time in a ley of wood ashes until the hard skin, which invests the grains, is separated from them; the whole is then poured into a basket, which is repeatedly dipped into clean water until the ley and skins are removed; the remainder is then boiled in water until so soft as to be edible. They also make much use of maize roasted on the cob, of boiled pumpkins, of muskmelons, and watermelons, but the latter are generally pulled from the vine before they are completely ripe.
After the death of the husband the widow scarifies herself, rubs her person with clay, and becomes negligent of her dress until the expiration of a year, when the eldest brother of the deceased takes her to wife without any ceremony, considers her children as his own, and takes her and them to his house; if the deceased left no brother, she marries whom she pleases. They have, in some instances, four or five wives, but these are mostly sisters; if they marry into two families, the wives do not harmonize well together, and give the husband much inquietude; there is, however, no restriction in this respect, except in the prudence of the husband. The grandfather and grandmother are very fond of their grandchildren, but these have very little respect for them. The female children respect and obey their parents; but the males are very disobedient, and the more obstinate they are and the less readily they comply with the commands of their parents, the more the latter seem to be pleased, saying, “He will be a brave man, a great warrior: he will not be controlled.”
They bear sickness and pain with great fortitude, seldom uttering complaint; bystanders sympathize with them, and try every means to relieve them. Insanity is unknown; the blind are taken care of by their friends and the nation generally, and are well dressed and fed. Drunkenness is rare, and is much ridiculed; a drunken man is said to be bereft of his reason, and is much avoided. As to the origin of the nation, their belief is, that the Master of life formed a man, and placed him on the earth; he was solitary and cried to the Master of life for a companion, who sent him down a woman; from the union of these two proceeded a son and daughter, who were married, and built themselves a lodge distinct from that of their parents; all the nations proceeded from them, excepting the whites, whose origin they pretend not to know.
Thinking the deceased has far to travel, they bury with his body, mockasins, some articles of food, etc. to support him on the journey. Many persons, they believe, have become reanimated, who had been during their apparent death, in strange villages; but as the inhabitants used them ill they returned. They say they have never seen the Master of life, and therefore cannot pretend to personify him; but they have often heard him speak in the thunder; they wear often a shell which is in honor, or in representation of him, but they do not pretend that it resembles him, or has anything in common with his form, organization, or dimensions.
They are large and symmetrically well formed, with the usual high cheek bones, the nose more or less aquiline, colour reddish coppery, the hair black and straight. Their women are small and homely, with broad faces. We saw but a single squaw in the village who had any pretensions to beauty; she was recently married to an enterprizing warrior, who invited us to a feast, apparently in order to exhibit his prize to us.
The females, like those of other aborigines, cultivate the maize, beans, pumpkins, and watermelons, gather and prepare the two former, when ripe, and pack them away in skins, or in mats, for keeping; prepare the flesh of the bison by drying for preservation; attend to all the cooking; bring wood and water; and in other respects manage the domestic concerns, and appear to have over them absolute sway. These duties, as far as we could observe, they not only willingly performed as a mere matter of duty, but they exhibited in their deportment a degree of pride and ambition to acquit themselves well; in this respect resembling a good housewife amongst the civilized fair. Many of them are tattooed.
Both sexes, of all ages, bathe frequently, and enter the water indiscriminately. The infant is washed in cold water soon after its birth, and the ablution is frequently repeated; the mother also bathes with the same fluid soon after delivery. The infant is tied down to a board, after the manner of many of the Indian tribes.
The chastity of the young females is guarded by the mother with the most scrupulous watchfulness, and a violation of it is a rare occurrence, as it renders the individual unfit for the wife of a chief, a brave warrior, or good hunter. To wed her daughter to one of these, each mother is solicitous; as these qualifications offer the same attractions to the Indian mother as family and fortune exhibit to the civilized parent. In the nation, however, are several courtezans; and during our evening walks we were sure to meet with respectable Indians who thought pimping no disgrace Sodomy is a crime not uncommonly committed; many of the subjects of it are publicly known, and do not appear to be despised, or to excite disgust; one of them was pointed out to us; he had submitted himself to it, in consequence of a vow he had made to his mystic medicine, which obliged him to change his dress for that of a squaw, to do their work, and to permit his hair to grow.
The men carefully pluck from their chins, axilla of the arms, eyebrows, and pubis, every hair of beard that presents itself: this is done with a spiral wire, which, when used, is placed with the side upon the part, and the ends are pressed towards each other so as to close the spires upon the hairs, which can then be readily drawn out.
Edwin James, Major Long’s expedition secretary (1819):
The Konza warriors, like those of some others of the Missouri tribes, on their departure on a war excursion, sometimes make vows, binding themselves never to return until they have peformed some feat which they mention, such as killing an enemy, striking an enemy’s dead body, or stealing a horse. An instance lately occurred, of a warrior who had been long absent under a vow of this sort, and finding it impossible to meet an enemy, and being in a starving condition, he returned to his own village by night, with the determination of accomplishing his vow, by killing and scalping the first person he should meet. This person happened to be the warrior’s own mother, but the darkness of the night prevented the discovery until he had accomplished his bloody purpose.
Paul Wilhelm, Duke of Württemberg, German traveler (1823):
Among the whites Wa-kan-ze-re [American Chief] is markedly esteemed because he was one of the first of his tribe to induce the Kansa, formerly hostile aborigines and cruel towards the settlers and fur traders, to adopt a friendly attitude and enter
into trade with the Europeans. Since the beginning of this century this influence of that chief and some other respected Indians has been very noticeable. A man of more than forty, with a large, somewhat corpulent figure and a serious, commanding expression on his face, he conveys the poise and the calmness of bearing which show so advantageously in the character of the American aborigines.
Like most of the chiefs who have visited the eastern states to negotiate with the officials at the seat of the Congress, he shows in his behavior that he fully recognizes the advantages of European customs. Nevertheless, he is aware that the laws of the Europeans are unsuited to the nations close to the state of nature and that sudden acceptance of such laws would bring harm to them.
Since the weather became stormy, I had to embark in my unstable canoe sooner than I had desired, so as to achieve the opposite bank. The skill of my boatman luckily overcame the high waves on the [Kansas] river, which toyed with our hollowed-out log canoe. Since it is mandatory to maintain the equilibrium in such a canoe, persons whom one does not trust in this capacity are made to lie down flat in the bottom of the canoe, as in a coffin, and are not allowed to stir. Even so, Indian canoes upset frequently. Since the Indians can all swim like fish, this does not bother them much, and usually they are able to save their few belongings. Only rarely does an Indian or a Missouri hunter let a companion drown, but they always take the precaution to let a companion swallow enough water to make him incapable of hindering the rescuer by untimely movements.
PrairyErth Page 62
