Post 5 Pg. 2 Continuing Truman Blancetts wild west stories

Truman Blancett's historical journal: Interesting read:)

"In our family at that time there were three boys---Mose, the oldest, John and myself. There was but a year's difference in John's and my age. We became very much attached. Father had to be away from home a great deal, so Mose had the care of the family, but John and I refused to take orders from Mose. We soon learned to roam over the country with the Indian boys. We were inquisitive and never missed a chance of learning their habits. While they had no language, they used a few grunts and a few signs with their fingers and hands. We soon learned to understand them. Their lingo was short; never carried on conversation; never uttered a sound unless he wanted something, so it can be seen we had every opportunity of learning the Indian's ways. When I left that country at 14 years of age, I was an expert with bow and arrow. For 20 years after leaving that country we were associated with Indians, either in a friendly way or hostile, always in a friendly way when possible.

We sympathized with the Indian and we had learned that in their family relation of breeding, they set a noble example for the white race. Before I finish this bit of history, I will deal on that subject at some length.

When I refer to the wild Indian I mean the Indian as I saw him before the white man had interfered with his natural habits. Was the Indian related to the animals? I will cite a few things that come under our notice and leave the reader to form his own conclusion. I will attempt to show that in mating and breeding they were much the same. The wild Indian woman chaste and remained true to her man and the man to his wife. As soon as the wife becomes in a delicate condition, they cease to live together. They occupied separate tepees. When it is time for her to seek seclusion, she goes into her tepee, unattended. Her lord stands attention on the outside or goes to sleep, as the notion takes him. In less than one hour the child has delivered itself. The woman goes directly to the creek which is near. She washes the child in cold water and wraps it in a fur pelt. She washes her person and goes into the tepee. The following day she can be seen following the trail with a young redskin strapped to her back. 

The chance I got for making this observation came rather by accident. About 1868 we had quit the plains and located on the trail that follows the base of the eastern slope of the mountains.  So we were still among the Indians though not in constant danger.  We knew this woman's husband. He had eaten at our table. There were about 100 of them passing our cabin. We noticed he had stopped near the creek and hurriedly set up a tepee.

We suspicioned something was going to happen. The woman went into the tepee and the man came to our cabin saying his squaw gets a papoose. I saw the chance I had watched for, for some time, so I asked mother to give him some food that would detain him in our cabin. I slipped out and secreted myself in some willows just back of the tepee and had to wait but a few minutes until I saw with my own eyes the things we had always had some doubts about.

I will mention one other case that came under our notice. We were hunting and stopped under a tree to rest only a short distance from the trail. We were watching some Indians passing. There was a spring close to the trail. In a thick cluster of willows we saw an Indian and his wife and we supposed they were following a short distance behind the others. As they reached the spring, the woman climbed down from the pony and went into the thick willows. The man moved along some distance, got off his horse and lay on the ground, perhaps to sleep waiting for his wife. We watched for some half hour when the woman came from the willows carrying a little bundle in her arms.

Did the wild Indian have a large family? In our many years among them I can't recall seeing more than three and most times only one or two. This condition was not caused by immoral acts, such as self- abuse. Such acts were unknown to the wild Indian as well as wild animals. They adhered to the laws of nature as close as wild animals do. Out of all the thousands of children that came under our notice, we never saw a deformed Indian child. They always came true to their type, the same as deer and antelope and other wild animals. We never saw one that was ruptured that is so common with white men.

No white woman has given birth to a child from a full blooded American Indian; the cross has always come from the white man and the Indian woman. It was very noticeable that the Indian family was small, two or three, but when the white man takes an Indian woman for wife, it was different. Nothing uncommon to see seven or eight in a family. When I last saw Moccasin Bill, the French scout he told me he and his Navajo wife had nine in the family. The Indians never whip their children as the white people do. We never saw them strike a child. Their young child never cries as ours do. He only makes a sniffling noise like a young dog or kitten. They were allowed to grow and follow their inclinations as animal do. In all observations of the wild Indian, we never saw one weep or shed tears under any circumstance. It seems there was not love or grief---there is no animal that inhabits the earth that is more selfish than the Indian. He would eat the meat and pass the bone to his starving wife and children."