Читать книгу A Narrative of the Captivity and Adventures of John Tanner. U.S. Interpreter at the Saut de Ste. Marie онлайн

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We descended the Little Saskawjawun for several days. On this river we found a village of Assinneboins, with whom we stopped a short time. None of us could understand them except Waus-so, who had somewhere learned to speak their language. When we came from the Little Saskawjawun into the Assinneboin river, we came to the rapids, where was a village of one hundred and fifty lodges of Assinneboins, and some Crees. We now began to feel the want of fresh provisions, and determined to stop a day or two to kill sturgeons at this place, where we found a plenty of them. We went and stood near the Assinneboins, and saw an old man, when a sturgeon had just been drawn out of the water, cut off the pendant part of his mouth, and eat it without cooking, or any kind of condiment. These people generally appeared to us filthy and brutal. Something of our dislike may perhaps be attributed to the habitually unfriendly feeling which exists among the Ojibbeways for the Abbwoi-nug.[12] In two days from these rapids we came to Monk River, where both the Northwest and the Hudson’s Bay Company have trading-houses. Here Pe-shau-ba and his friends began to drink, and in a short time expended all the peltries they had made in their long and successful hunt. We sold one hundred beaver skins in one day for liquor. The price was then six beaver skins for a quarter of rum, but they put a great deal of water with it. After drinking here for some time, we began to make birch canoes, still intending to continue on our journey. But at this time the Assinneboins,[13] and Crees, and all the Indians of this part of the country, with whom the Mandans had made peace, were invited by the Mandans to come to their country, and join in a war against the people called by the Ojibbeways A-gutch-a-ninne,[14] who live two days distant from the Mandans. Waus-so, hearing of this, determined to join the war-party, then assembling at Mouse River. “I will not,” said he, “return to my country before I get scarred once more. I will see the people who have killed my brothers.” Pe-shau-ba and Net-no-kwa endeavoured to dissuade him, but he would not listen, and Pe-shau-ba himself presently began to show evidence of excitement at witnessing the enthusiasm of his companion. After deliberating a day or two, he said to the old woman, “I cannot consent to return to the country of the Ottawwaws without Waus-so. Sa-ning-wub and Sag-git-to also wish to go with him to visit the neighbors of the Mandans. I will go also, and I wish you to wait for me at Lake Winnipeg, where I shall be in the fall, and you will not fail to have a keg of rum in readiness, as I shall be very thirsty when I return.” They left the canoes unfinished, and all went off together with the war-party. Wa-me-gon-a-biew also accompanied them, leaving me only with the three women and three children. But this expedition, for which the Mandans had called assistance from such remote regions, failed for the want of concert and agreement between the different bands. Some of these being the hereditary enemies of the rest, quarrels were sure to arise, and the project was thus disconcerted, the A-gutch-a-ninne being left at peace in their own village.